Mobile Baseball Connection is the History of Baseball in Lower AlabamaMobile, Alabama is losing its Southern League AA baseball team after the 2019 season. The Bay Bears are moving to Madison County, Alabama near Huntsville. The Biloxi Shuckers became the same team which was once the Huntsville Stars until the 2015 season. The Stars were members of the Southern League from 1985 to 2014. Hank Aaron was ONE of the GREATEST baseball players in the world...and he represents Mobile, Alabama. He is just one of the biggest reasons Mobile has such a storied history in baseball. In my opinion, Mobile can lay claim to arguably and debatable...the greatest hitter in Hank Aaron; the greatest pitcher in Satchel Paige and the greatest fielder in Ozzie Smith.MOBILE BASEBALL CONNECTION and PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL in LOWER ALABAMA are available on Create Space and Amazon.com. I have self-published three book versions about the wonderful history of BASEBALL related to Mobile, Alabama. Completing these BOOKS project is like finishing a marathon that I never thought was possible. I was rejected by hundreds of publishers although I never once let anything discourage my focus. Patience has given me courage and strength to conclude my compilation of what has been so very special to me for numerous years.MOBILE BASEBALL CONNECTION is a very unique TRIBUTE to thousands of baseball players...young and old. Thousands of the topics represent Mobilians and Hundreds of the characters written about might not be from Mobile although they are many of the greatest men and boys to ever play the game. One must purchase the book to find all the GREAT baseball news that is written and recognized between the covers. From the HALL of FAME in Cooperstown to the Major Leagues and along the minor league trail are stories, statistics and memories. The Colleges and Universities in Mobile are highlighted along with best high school players and coaches. Don't ever think for a moment standouts on the Youth level would be left out from Babe Ruth and Dixie Boys all the way to the Little League World Series.MOBILE BASEBALL CONNECTION goes in to detail about thousands of facts, figures, stats, records, memories, births, deaths, milestones, and tidbits. It is a book that the real baseball fan will cherish. MBC is a reference book a lot like an almanac. The biographies, stories and reports about the great players connected and attached to Mobile, Alabama will educate the smartest baseball experts in the world. This book is definitely a collector's item that deserves a place on shelves in libraries and museums, on coffee tables and in book bags of our youth, but most importantly between the hands of baseball readers throughout our amazing country.I have held on to this idea and ambition to write about all this outstanding baseball for more than 20 years while the great players just keep coming around. I am humble with a spiritual thankfulness to GOD for allowing me to finish this project. Putting a cap on it is an everlasting feeling.There was only one way to put it all together and I did the very best I could. It is not about profit or gratitude. The 565 pages and 44 chapters of MOBILE BASEBALL CONNECTION are about the greatest baseball players that played in and around Mobile, Alabama. It brings me true joy to know that I have been a witness to such great baseball in my lifetime.Mobile Baseball Connection displays to the entire world how much baseball players and people have contributed to the City of Mobile through the wonderful sport of baseball.Mobile is best known for Mardi Gras, the Senior Bowl College football all-star game and good ole' Deep South outdoors on the Gulf Coast in Lower Alabama. The baseball players that were born, grew up, spent time and even died in the Port City are revealed and recognized.

MOBILE BASEBALL CONNECTION is a very unique TRIBUTE to thousands of baseball players...young and old. Thousands of Topics are MOBILIANS and Hundreds of the characters written about may not be from Mobile although they are many of the greatest men to ever play the game. One must purchase the book to find all the GREAT baseball news that is written and recognized.From the HALL of FAME in Cooperstown to the Major Leagues and along the minor league trail are stories and numbers and memories. The Colleges and Universities in Mobile are highlighted along with the best high school players and coaches. Don't ever think for a moment I would leave out the standouts on the Youth level from Babe Ruth and Dixie Boys all the way to the Little League World Series.MOBILE BASEBALL CONNECTION goes in to detail about so many facts, figures, stats, records, memories, births, deaths, milestones, and tidbits. It is a book that the real baseball fan will cherish and it can't be read in a day. MBC is a reference book in a somewhat Almanac form. The biographies, stories and reports about the great players connected and attached to Mobile, Alabama will educate the smartest baseball experts in the world. This book is definitely a collectors item that deserves a place on shelves in libraries and museums, on coffee tables and in book bags of our youth, but most importantly between the hands of baseball readers throughout our amazing country.The 550 pages and 44 chapters of the MOBILE BASEBALL CONNECTION is about the greatest baseball players that played in and around Mobile, Alabama. Mobile Baseball Connection displays to the entire world how much baseball players and people have contributed to the City of Mobile through the wonderful sport of baseball.Mobile is best known for Mardi Gras, the Senior Bowl College football all-star game and good ole' Deep South outdoors on the Gulf Coast in Lower Alabama. The chapters represent history of old Mobile baseball including the Negro Leagues. It contains content from the Southern League, Southern Association, Sally League and minor league teams from Mobile dating back to 1886. There are recaps of the Championship teams from the 1922 and 1947 Mobile Bears as well as Charlie Finley's 1966 Mobile A's. There are reports on the Mobile White Sox of 1970; Mobile Bay Sharks from 1994 and 1995 and Mobile Bay Bears, which completed its 20th season in 2016. Countless baseball professionals represent what I define as MOBILE BASEBALL CONNECTION. The best are Hank Aaron, Willie McCovey, Billy Williams, Satchel Paige, Ozzie Smith, Amos Otis, Tommie Agee, Cleon Jones, Frank, Milt and Jack Bolling, Bernie Carbo, Eddie Stanky, Jim Crawford, Turner Ward, Ricky Patterson, Mark Calvi, Jake Peavy, Josh Donaldson, Dan Jennings, Bob Henley, Stan Galle, Jim Hendry, Frank Sims, Bill Menton, Terry Adams, Dave Stapleton, Glenn Borgmann, Mike O' Berry, Pat Putnam, Mark Johnston, Alex Pastore, Leon Druckenmiller, Mike Jacobs, Steve Kittrell, Ronnie Powell, Lance Johnson, Luis Gonzalez, Jon Lieber, Juan Pierre, Mike Mordecai, Marlon Anderson, Pete Coachman, Mike Maksudian, David Freese, Adam Lind, P. J. Walters, Tim Becker, John Duffy, David Francia, Jordan Patterson, Chris Kitsos, "Double Duty" Radcliffe, Emmet Mulvey, Tommie Aaron, Stan Wasiak, Chuck Connors, "Shotgun" Shuba, Norm and Wayne Larker, "Bama" Rowell, "Baby Doll" Jacobson, , Milton Stock, Red Rollings, Bill Adair, Dolly White, Pete Milne, Stan James, Jimmy Sexton, Jim Mason, Wade Boyett, Randy McGilberry, Blake Stein, Mark Higgins, Eric Yelding, Mike Goff, Dana Williams, Price Thomas, Danny Thomas, Destin Hood, Sap Randall, Joe Espada, J. C. Romero, Mike Szymanski, Lloyd Skoda, Andy Robbins, Billy Howard, Larry Andrews, Bill Shanahan, Pete Tolbert and Lee Shirvanian.

A city wrapped by the Gulf of Mexico's beaches, Mobile has a history as rich as the azalea-saturated soil on which it rests. Recipient of the All-American City distinction, Mobile is home to the original Mardi Gras celebration, the Junior Miss Scholarship Program, the Battleship U.S.S. Alabama, and Hammerin' Hank Aaron. The city's passion for baseball has endured through its tumultuous past, marked by yellow fever, World War II prominence, and the Civil Rights Movement. Spanning from the late 1800s to the present day, Baseball in Mobile recounts the introduction of baseball to the Port City, chronicles the vast talent of Mobile natives who have influenced the sport, and introduces the players and teams of modern Mobile, many of whom are sure to become tomorrow's legends. Historic photographs of the changing baseball landscape are captured in Baseball in Mobile, showcasing the fact that while the fields, uniforms, and teams have changed, the game remains ingrained in Mobile, as constant as the bay that surrounds it.

The untold story of baseball’s nineteenth-century origins: “a delightful look at a young nation creating a pastime that was love from the first crack of the bat” (Paul Dickson, The Wall Street Journal). You may have heard that Abner Doubleday or Alexander Cartwright invented baseball. Neither did. You may have been told that a club called the Knickerbockers played the first baseball game in 1846. They didn’t. Perhaps you’ve read that baseball’s color line was first crossed by Jackie Robinson in 1947. Nope. Baseball’s true founders don’t have plaques in Cooperstown. They were hundreds of uncredited, ordinary people who played without gloves, facemasks, or performance incentives. Unlike today’s pro athletes, they lived full lives outside of sports. They worked, built businesses, and fought against the South in the Civil War. In this myth-busting history, Thomas W. Gilbert reveals the true beginnings of baseball. Through newspaper accounts, diaries, and other accounts, he explains how it evolved through the mid-nineteenth century into a modern sport of championships, media coverage, and famous stars—all before the first professional league was formed in 1871. Winner of the Casey Award: Best Baseball Book of the Year

The president of New York University offers a love letter to America’s most beloved sport and a tribute to its underlying spirituality. For more than a decade, John Sexton has taught a wildly popular New York University course about two seemingly very different things: religion and baseball. Yet Sexton argues that one is actually a pathway to the other. Baseball as a Road to God is about touching that something that lies beyond logical understanding. Sexton illuminates the surprisingly large number of mutual concepts shared between baseball and religion: faith, doubt, conversion, miracles, and even sacredness among many others. Structured like a game and filled with riveting accounts of baseball’s most historic moments, Baseball as Road to God will enthrall baseball fans whatever their religious beliefs may be. In thought-provoking, beautifully rendered prose, Sexton elegantly demonstrates that baseball is more than a game, or even a national pastime: It can be a road to enlightenment.

Methods for new mobile experiences, from concept creation to prototyping to commercialization. The mobile device is changing the ways we interact with each other and with the world. The mobile experience is distinct from the desktop or laptop experience; mobile apps require a significantly different design philosophy as well as design methods that reflect the unique experience of computing in the world. This book presents an approach to designing mobile media that takes advantage of the Internet-connected, context-aware, and media-sharing capabilities of mobile devices. It introduces tools that can be used at every stage of building a mobile application, from concept creation to commercialization, as well as real-world examples from industry and academia. The methods outlined apply user-centered design processes to mobile devices in a way that makes these methods relevant to the mobile experience—which involves the use of systems in the complex spatial and social world rather than at a desk. The book shows how each project begins with generative research into the practices and desires of a diverse set of potential users, which grounds research and design in the real world. It then describes methods for rapid prototyping, usability evaluation, field testing, and scaling up solutions in order to bring a product to market. Building Mobile Experiences grew out of an MIT course in communicating with mobile technology; it is appropriate for classroom use and as a reference for mobile app designers.

Examine the big-league benefits of minor league baseball! The Minor League Baseball: Community Building Through Hometown Sports examines the role played by minor league baseball in hundreds of cities and towns across the United States. Written from the unique perspective of a sociologist who also happens to be an avid baseball fan, the book looks at the contributions minor league teams make to the quality of life in their communities, creating focal points for spirit and cohesiveness while providing opportunities for interaction and entertainment. The book links theory and experience to present a “sociology of baseball” that explains the symbiotic relationship which brings people together for a common purpose—to root, root, root for the home team. From the author: Minor league baseball is played across the country in more than 100 very different communities. These communities seem to share a special bond with their teams. As with all sports teams, there is a symbiotic relationship between the team and the city or town that it represents. In the case of major league professional sports, the relationship is often fueled by economic outcomes. On the minor league level, the relationship appears to go beyond mere money and prestige. Minor league teams occupy a special place in our hearts. We are more forgiving when they lose, and extremely proud of them when they win. Minor League Baseball: Community Building Through Hometown Sports is a detailed look at the connection between town and team, including: economic benefits (development strategies, community growth) intangible benefits (ballpark camaraderie, hometown pride) fan attachment and attendance (demographic variables, stadium accessibility, “home court advantage”) case studies of two Maryland minor-league franchises--the Class AA Bowie Baysox and the Class A Hagerstown Suns Minor League Baseball: Community Building Through Hometown Sports also includes an introduction to the organizational structure of the minor leagues, a history of each current league, and charts and tables on attendance figures and franchise relocations. This book is essential reading for sociologists, sport sociologists/historians, academics and/or practitioners in the fields of community sociology and psychology, and of course, baseball fans.

During the second half of the twentieth century, Major League Baseball and its affiliated minor leagues evolved from local and regional entities governing the play of America's favorite pastime to national business organizations. The relocation of teams, league expansion, the advent of free agency and an influx of international players has made baseball big business, on an increasingly global scale. Focusing on the last fifty years, this work examines the past and present commercial elements of organized baseball, emphasizing the dual roles--competitive sport and profitable business--which the sport must now fulfill. Twenty-five essays cover five areas integral to the economic side of baseball: business and finance, human resources, international relations, management and leadership and sports marketing. Detailed discussions of the redistribution of revenues, the history of player unionization, aggressive global marketing, strategies of franchise owners and an evaluation of fan costs, among other topics introduce the reader to the important issues and specific challenges professional baseball faces in an increasingly crowded--yet geographically expansive--sports marketplace. The work is also indexed.

An enthusiastic, irreverent, but exhaustive guidebook to all the stadiums of Minor League Baseball, following up on the success of the first Ultimate Baseball Road Trip book, which was dedicated to Major League stadiums.

A picture book biography of African-American baseball player Hank Aaron.