The first full biography of the most controversial baseball figure of our times, Billy Martin, by the highly acclaimed author of The Short Season and Nine Sides of the Diamond. Falkner uncovers the real Billy Martin as he was known to those who loved, hated, hired, and fired him and those who made him a larger-than-life figure. Photographs.

From an award-winning New York Times sports columnist, the definitive biography of one of baseball's most celebrated, mercurial, and misunderstood figures--legendary manager and baseball genius, Billy Martin

Baseball is explored with skill, humor, and devotion by a literary great in this compendium which includes a moving eulogy for Curt Flood and no-holds-barred portraits of Ted Williams, Pete Rose, and Billy Martin. 90 photos.

Set in a New England state mental hospital in the early 1990s when Prozac was routinely adminstered to treat depression, The Last Yankee sees Miller exploring aspects of the American Dream through the lives of four characters who question and grapple with definitions of success, health and fulfillment. Described by Miller as 'a comedy about a tragedy' the one act play highlights conflicts between men and women, between the working class and the capitalist businessman and between interior and exterior realities.

In this spellbinding book, Richard Bradley tells the story of what was surely the greatest major league game of our lifetime and perhaps in the history of professional baseball. That game, played at Fenway Park on the afternoon of October 4, 1978, was the culmination of one of the most tense, emotionally wrought seasons ever, between baseball's two most bitter rivals, the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees. Both teams finished this tumultuous season with identical 99-64 records, forcing a one-game playoff. With a one-run lead and two outs, with the tying run in scoring position in the bottom of the ninth, the entire season came down to one at-bat and to one swing of the bat. It came down, as both men eerily predicted to themselves the night before, to the aging Red Sox legend, Carl Yastrzemski, and the Yankees' free-agent power reliever, Rich "Goose" Gossage. Anyone who calls himself a baseball fan knows the outcome of that confrontation. And yet such are the literary powers of the author that we are pulled back in time to that late-afternoon moment and become filled anew with all the taut sense of drama that sports has to offer, as if we don't know what happened. As if the thoughts swirling around in the heads of pitcher and hitter are still fresh, both still hopeful of controlling events. That climactic game occurred thirty seasons ago and yet it still captures our imagination. In this delightful work of sports literature, we watch the game unfold pitch by pitch, inning by inning, but Bradley is up to something more ambitious than just recounting this wonderful game. He also tells us the stories of the participants -- how they got to that moment in their lives and careers, what was at stake for them personally -- including the rivalries within the rivalry, such as catcher Carlton Fisk versus catcher Thurman Munson,and Billy Martin versus everyone. Using a narrative that alternates points of view between the teams, Bradley reacquaints us with a rich roster of characters -- Freddy Lynn, Ron Guidry, Catfish Hunter, Mike Torrez, Jerry Remy, Lou Piniella, George Scott, and Reggie Jackson. And, of course, Bucky Dent, who craved just such a moment in the sun -- a validation he had vainly sought from the father he barely knew. Not a book intended to celebrate a triumph or lament a loss, The Greatest Game will be embraced in both Boston and New York, with fans of both teams recalling again the talented young men they once gave their hearts to. And fans everywhere will be reminded how utterly gripping a single baseball game can be and that the rewards of being a fan lie not in victory but in caring beyond reason, even decades after the fact.

Mickey Mantle, the hayseed kid from Spavinaw, Oklahoma, was in his sixth year with the Yankees. He was already America's homerun king. He was about to become a national hero. 1956 would be a record-breaking season: the golden summer fans would remember forever. Now Mickey Mantle brings it all back just the way it happened--spectacular playing on field, crazy hijinks with Whitey Ford and Billy Martin off. There never was a time like it before in baseball. There never will be again. It was magic.

A passionate and dramatic account of a year in the life of a city, when baseball and crime reigned supreme, and when several remarkable figures emerged to steer New York clear of one of its most harrowing periods. By early 1977, the metropolis was in the grip of hysteria caused by a murderer dubbed "Son of Sam." And on a sweltering night in July, a citywide power outage touched off an orgy of looting and arson that led to the largest mass arrest in New York's history. As the turbulent year wore on, the city became absorbed in two epic battles: the fight between Yankee slugger Reggie Jackson and team manager Billy Martin, and the battle between Ed Koch and Mario Cuomo for the city's mayoralty. Buried beneath these parallel conflicts—one for the soul of baseball, the other for the soul of the city—was the subtext of race. The brash and confident Jackson took every black myth and threw it back in white America's face. Meanwhile, Koch and Cuomo ran bitterly negative campaigns that played upon urbanites' fears of soaring crime and falling municipal budgets. These braided stories tell the history of a year that saw the opening of Studio 54, the evolution of punk rock, and the dawning of modern SoHo. As the pragmatist Koch defeated the visionary Cuomo and as Reggie Jackson finally rescued a team racked with dissension,1977 became a year of survival but also of hope. Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning is a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and the basis of the 2007 ESPN miniseries, starring John Turturro as Billy Martin, Oliver Platt as George Steinbrenner, and Daniel Sunjata as Reggie Jackson.

Interest and attendance were dropping, and football was ascending. Stuck in a rut, baseball was dying. Then Steinbrenner bought the Yankees, a second-division club with wife-swapping pitchers, leaving the House That Ruth Built not with a slam but a simper. He vowed not to interfere—before soon changing his mind. Across town, Tom Seaver led the Mets’ stellar pitching line-up, and iconic outfielder Willie Mays was preparing to say goodbye. For months, the Mets, under Yogi Berra, couldn’t get it right. Meanwhile, the A’s were breaking a ban on facial hair while maverick owner Charlie Finley was fighting to keep them underpaid. But beneath the muttonchops and mayhem, lay another world. Elvis commanded a larger audience than the Apollo landings. A Dodge Dart cost $2,800, gas was a quarter per gallon. A fiscal crisis loomed; Vietnam had ended, the vice president resigned, and Watergate had taken over. It was one of the most exciting years in the game’s history, the first with the designated hitter and the last before arbitration and free agency. The two World Series opponents went head-to-head above the baby steps of a dynasty that soon dwarfed both league champions. It was a turbulent time for the country and the game, neither of which would ever be the same again.

A soul-baring, brutally candid, and highly colorful memoir of the two years--1977 and 1978--when Reggie Jackson went from being an outcast to a Yankee legend. In the spring of 1977 Reggie Jackson should have been on top of the world. The best player on the Oakland A's dynasty teams, he was the first big-money free agent wooed by George Steinbrenner into coming to the New York Yankees. But, as Reggie writes in this vivid and surprising memoir, until his initial experience with the Yankees, "I didn't know what alone meant." Persevering against an alcoholic manager, ostracism from teammates, and negative stereotypes in the New York City press, Jackson fought against the odds to become "Mr. October." Filled with revealing anecdotes about the notorious "Bronx Zoo" Yankees of the late 1970s, bluntly honest portrayals of his teammates and competitors, and especially of manager Billy Martin, Becoming Mr. October is a revelatory self-portrait of a baseball icon at the height of his public fame and private anguish.

The fairly large sample of current basic statistics books I gave thought to recently may, in my view, be characterized as number pushers with a large number of illustrations intended to convey a sense of the importance of statistics to the study of real-world problems. What’s wrong with that? Nothing, provided that what I submit to be the necessities of statistics education are given the attention they warrant, are not smothered by glitz, overwhelming attention to number pushing, do not receive shortshrift, or are not mentioned at all. Am I being too critical? I invite you to give thought to fifteen, issues/questions that are the core of the aforenoted chasm and render your verdict. Food-for-thought in support of the issues/questions raised along with answers/discussion are included. Many students and those who apply statistics to their fields of interest subscribe to the view that to apply statistics to a problem/situation all you need do is throw your data into a computer and let it do its thing. The further they travel along this road of thought the more we can expect misunderstanding of statistics and, when it comes to publication, statistical junk. I believe that the only way to change the direction of this road of thought is to incorporate into our teaching of basic statistics what is feasible of the necessities of statistics education. For further discussion of the necessities of basic statistics education I recommend the book I coauthored with my colleagues Irwin Kabus and Mitchell Preiss: Statistics: Basic Principles and Applications, 2nd ed, (Kendall/Hunt Publishing Co., 2000) or the revised 2nd ed., W. J. Adams (Xlibris, 2009).