When the Tigers roar, only Ernie Harwell's smooth southern voice can be heard above the din. After 42 years as the Voice of the Detroit Tigers, Harwell will retire once the 2002 season ends. The only play-by-play broadcaster to cover games in seven decades, Harwell has seen (and has a story about) everyone from Babe Ruth to Ichiro Suzuki.

A comprehensive introduction to the workings of the business, Sportscasters/Sportscasting: Principles and Practices explains all of the information essential to anyone looking to begin a career in sports media, and includes numerous appendices containing acronyms and biographic information about over 200 sportscasters, and a complete Instructor’s Manual.

Baseball is set apart from other sports by many things, but few are more distinctive than the intricate systems of coded language that govern action on the field and give baseball its unique appeal. During a nine-inning game, more than 1,000 silent instructions are given-from catcher to pitcher, coach to batter, fielder to fielder, umpire to umpire-and without this speechless communication the game would simply not be the same. Baseball historian Paul Dickson examines for the first time the rich legacy of baseball's hidden language, offering fans everywhere a smorgasbord of history and anecdote. Whether detailing the origins of the hit-and-run, the true story behind the home run that gave "Home Run" Baker his nickname, Bob Feller's sign-stealing telescope, Casey Stengel's improbable method of signaling his bullpen, the impact of sign stealing on the Giants' miraculous comeback in 1951, or the pitches Andy Pettitte tipped off that altered the momentum of the 2001 World Series, Dickson's research is as thorough as his stories are entertaining. A roster of baseball's greatest names and games, past and present, echoes throughout, making The Hidden Language of Baseball a unique window on the history of our national pastime.

This browsers delight is brimming with thousands of quotations for use in business speeches, reports, articles, or simply to spice conversation over lunch. 500 topics are arranged alphabetically, with everything from witticisms to epigrams to sage adages.

With personal interviews of players and owners and with over two decades of research in newspapers and archives, Bill Marshall tells of the players, the pennant races, and the officials who shaped one of the most memorable eras in sports and American history. At the end of World War II, soldiers returning from overseas hungered to resume their love affair with baseball. Spectators still identified with players, whose salaries and off-season employment as postmen, plumbers, farmers, and insurance salesmen resembled their own. It was a time when kids played baseball on sandlots and in pastures, fans followed the game on the radio, and tickets were affordable. The outstanding play of Joe DiMaggio, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, Bob Feller, Don Newcombe, Warren Spahn, and many others dominated the field. But perhaps no performance was more important than that of Jackie Robinson, whose entrance into the game broke the color barrier, won him the respect of millions of Americans, and helped set the stage for the civil rights movement. Baseball's Pivotal Era, 1945-1951 also records the attempt to organize the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Mexican League's success in luring players south of the border that led to a series of lawsuits that almost undermined baseball's reserve clause and antitrust exemption. The result was spring training pay, uniform contracts, minimum salary levels, player representation, and a pension plan—the very issues that would divide players and owners almost fifty years later. During these years, the game was led by A.B. "Happy" Chandler, a hand-shaking, speech-making, singing Kentucky politician. Most owners thought he would be easily manipulated, unlike baseball's first commissioner, the autocratic Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis. Instead, Chandler's style led one owner to complain that he was the "player's commissioner, the fan's commissioner, the press and radio commissioner, everybody's commissioner but the men who pay him."

Here is the baseball history of three brothers. George was the eldest of the trio and the local hero. He played, managed and scouted in professional baseball for 50 years. Rick was the cerebral baseball brother. He devoted 60 years to the game in such capacities as college player, eight-time major league all-star, coach, scout and major league executive. Wes was the natural. He was as talented as anyone who ever set foot on a baseball diamond and as good as any pitcher who ever threw a ball. This work chronicles the Ferrell family history with a major emphasis on George, Rick, and Wes; all the baseball doings; and includes numerous photographs. An appendix offers a year-by-year statistical look at the baseball careers of all seven Ferrell brothers including date of birth, height, weight, league, team, position, and averages, among other data.

"When I see a great short-order cook with grace and great economy of gesture", Gloria Steinem says in these pages, "I think that's taking a human endeavor to its peak". Others interviewed here offer less encompassing parameters to define the boundaries of creativity. CREATIVITY: Conversations with 28 Who Excel, however, does not resolve philosophical questions such as "What is creativity?" or "Who is an artist and how did they get that way?" Instead, acclaimed achievers from a remarkable spectrum of disciplines offer invaluable glimpses into private creative cauldrons. Their lessons and insights allow the reader to synthesize his or her own answers to the big questions. Or better yet, simply to enjoy. Here, for example, is screenwriter Frank Pierson explaining why he almost killed the classic line "What we have here is a failure to communicate" from his Cool Hand Luke script: "I looked at it and said, 'Oh shit, that's good.' But then my next thought was, 'This redneck can't say that.'" Or actor E. G. Marshall explaining how he disagreed with Woody Allen's direction in one Interiors scene: "But I did it his way because it was his idea. Ironically, it turned out that Ingmar Bergman praised that scene and praised me for doing it that way. That's why I always say I shouldn't put myself into the part. I should put the part into myself". Other masters from fields traditionally labeled as creative - literature, visual arts, music - give the reader similar views inside their professional lives. No businessmen or doctors are on the roster, but a renowned attorney reveals why preparing for the courtroom is like writing a play. A master chef illustrates how the astute gourmet's aesthetic judgmentis clouded by childhood experiences at the dinner table. And a Hall of Fame baseball announcer suggests that a Southern tradition of storytelling helped him become a painter of vivid word pictures for millions of radio listeners. CREATIVITY is a learning experience but it is not a textbook. It is an anthology of conversations we all would like to have if we were scheduling a thoughtful chat this afternoon with, say, Grant Tinker or Ntozake Shange or Dutch Leonard or Philip Glass or Morgan Freeman. Bring a picnic basket and get comfortable. You'll want to linger and listen.

The journal of sport literature.