The 1948 World Series gave fans an unusual showdown--neither of the contestants had seen the Fall Classic for a generation. The Cleveland Indians had last won the American League pennant in 1920. The Boston Braves had not been atop the National League since 1914. Both teams featured excellent pitching. Boston's aces were Warren Spahn and Johnny Sain. Cleveland had stalwarts of the mound Bob Feller and Bob Lemon, and surprise knuckleball phenom Gene Bearden. Despite being prohibitive favorites, Cleveland battled through six hard-fought games for the championship. This book recounts every at-bat of the 1948 Series, along with key moments of the regular season, including the antics of colorful Indians' owner Bill Veeck and a near fatality on the diamond.

The riveting story of four men—Larry Doby, Bill Veeck, Bob Feller, and Satchel Paige—whose improbable union on the Cleveland Indians in the late 1940s would shape the immediate postwar era of Major League Baseball and beyond. In July 1947, not even three months after Jackie Robinson debuted on the Brooklyn Dodgers, snapping the color line that had segregated Major League Baseball, Larry Doby would follow in his footsteps on the Cleveland Indians. Though Doby, as the second Black player in the majors, would struggle during his first summer in Cleveland, his subsequent turnaround in 1948 from benchwarmer to superstar sparked one of the wildest and most meaningful seasons in baseball history. In intimate, absorbing detail, Luke Epplin's Our Team traces the story of the integration of the Cleveland Indians and their quest for a World Series title through four key participants: Bill Veeck, an eccentric and visionary owner adept at exploding fireworks on and off the field; Larry Doby, a soft-spoken, hard-hitting pioneer whose major-league breakthrough shattered stereotypes that so much of white America held about Black ballplayers; Bob Feller, a pitching prodigy from the Iowa cornfields who set the template for the athlete as businessman; and Satchel Paige, a legendary pitcher from the Negro Leagues whose belated entry into the majors whipped baseball fans across the country into a frenzy. Together, as the backbone of a team that epitomized the postwar American spirit in all its hopes and contradictions, these four men would captivate the nation by storming to the World Series--all the while rewriting the rules of what was possible in sports.

The New York Times Bestseller With inside access and reporting, Sports Illustrated senior baseball writer and FOX Sports analyst Tom Verducci reveals how Theo Epstein and Joe Maddon built, led, and inspired the Chicago Cubs team that broke the longest championship drought in sports, chronicling their epic journey to become World Series champions. It took 108 years, but it really happened. The Chicago Cubs are once again World Series champions. How did a team composed of unknown, young players and supposedly washed-up veterans come together to break the Curse of the Billy Goat? Tom Verducci, twice named National Sportswriter of the Year and co-writer of The Yankee Years with Joe Torre, will have full access to team president Theo Epstein, manager Joe Maddon, and the players to tell the story of the Cubs' transformation from perennial underachievers to the best team in baseball. Beginning with Epstein's first year with the team in 2011, Verducci will show how Epstein went beyond "Moneyball" thinking to turn around the franchise. Leading the organization with a manual called "The Cubs Way," he focused on the mental side of the game as much as the physical, emphasizing chemistry as well as statistics. To accomplish his goal, Epstein needed manager Joe Maddon, an eccentric innovator, as his counterweight on the Cubs' bench. A man who encourages themed road trips and late-arrival game days to loosen up his team, Maddon mixed New Age thinking with Old School leadership to help his players find their edge. The Cubs Way takes readers behind the scenes, chronicling how key players like Rizzo, Russell, Lester, and Arrieta were deftly brought into the organization by Epstein and coached by Maddon to outperform expectations. Together, Epstein and Maddon proved that clubhouse culture is as important as on-base-percentage, and that intangible components like personality, vibe, and positive energy are necessary for a team to perform to their fullest potential. Verducci chronicles the playoff run that culminated in an instant classic Game Seven. He takes a broader look at the history of baseball in Chicago and the almost supernatural element to the team's repeated loses that kept fans suffering, but also served to strengthen their loyalty. The Cubs Way is a celebration of an iconic team and its journey to a World Championship that fans and readers will cherish for years to come.

One hundred years ago, in September 1918, three things came to Boston: war, plague, and the World Series. This is the unimaginable story of that late summer month, in which a division of Massachusetts militia volunteers led the first unified American fighting force into battle in France, turning the tide of World War I. Meanwhile the world’s deadliest pandemic—the Spanish Flu—erupted in Boston and its suburbs, bringing death on a terrifying scale first to military facilities and then to the civilian population. At precisely the same time, in a baseball season cut short on the homefront and amidst the surrounding ravages of death, a young pitcher named Babe Ruth rallied the sport’s most dominant team, the Boston Red Sox, to a World Series victory—the last World Series victory the Sox would see for 86 years. In September 1918: War, Plague and the World Series, the riveting, intertwined stories of this remarkable month introduce readers to a richly diverse cast of characters: David Putnam, a Boston teenager and America’s World War I Flying Ace; a transcendent Babe Ruth and his teammates, battling greedy owners and a hostile public; entire families from all social strata, devastated by sudden and horrifying influenza death; unknown political functionary Calvin Coolidge, thrust into managing the country’s first great public health crisis by an absentee governor; and New England’s soldiers, enduring trench warfare and poisonous gas to drive back German forces. At the same time, other stories were also unfolding: Cambridge high school football star Charlie Crowley, a college freshman teamed up with stars Curly Lambeau and George Gipp under a first-time coach named Knute Rockne; Boston suffrage leader Maud Wood Park was fighting for women’s right to vote, even as they flexed their developing political muscle; poet E.E. Cummings, an Army private found himself stationed at the center of a biological storm; and Massachusetts Senator Henry Cabot Lodge maneuvered as the constant rival of a sitting wartime president. In the tradition of Erick Larsen's bestselling Devil in the White City, September 1918 is a haunting three-dimensional recreation of a moment in history almost too cinematic to be real.

A new account of one of the most famous scandals in sports history shows how the 1919 fixing of the World Series forever changed the way America's pastime was both managed and perceived.

"The most thorough investigation of the Black Sox scandal on record . . . A vividly, excitingly written book."--Chicago Tribune

"In a year in which no team ever led the league by as many as four games, these three teams, [the Cleveland Indians, the Boston Red Sox, and the New York Yankees], eventually found themselves in a tie with just nine days to go, and the season had to be extended to decide the race."--Cover.

The story of Willie Mays's rookie year with the Negro American League's Birmingham Black Barons, the Last Negro World Series, and the making of a baseball legend Baseball Hall of Famer Willie Mays is one of baseball's endearing greats, a tremendously talented and charismatic center fielder who hit 660 career homeruns, collected 3,283 hits, knocked in 1,903 runs, won 12 Gold Glove Awards and appeared in 24 All-Star games. But before Mays was the "Say Hey Kid", he was just a boy. Willie's Boys is the story of his remarkable 1948 rookie season with the Negro American League's Birmingham Black Barons, who took a risk on a raw but gifted 16-year-old and gave him the experience, confidence, and connections to escape Birmingham's segregation, navigate baseball's institutional racism, and sign with the New York Giants. Willie's Boys offers a character-rich narrative of the apprenticeship Mays had at the hands of a diverse group of savvy veterans who taught him the ways of the game and the world. Sheds new light on the virtually unknown beginnings of a baseball great, not available in other books Captures the first incredible steps of a baseball superstar in his first season with the Negro League's Birmingham Black Barons Introduces the veteran group of Negro League players, including Piper Davis, who gave Mays an incredible apprenticeship season Illuminates the Negro League's last days, drawing on in-depth research and interviews with remaining players Explores the heated rivalry between Mays's Black Barons and Buck O'Neil's Kansas City Monarchs , culminating in the last Negro League World Series Breaks new historical ground on what led the New York Giants to acquire Mays, and why he didn't sign with the Brooklyn Dodgers, New York Yankees, or Boston Red Sox Packed with stories and insights, Willie's Boys takes you inside an important part of baseball history and the development of one of the all-time greats ever to play the game.

Audisee® eBooks with Audio combine professional narration and sentence highlighting to engage reluctant readers! Baseball has long been dubbed America's national pastime. When the top teams face off in the World Series each season, team legacies and fans' hearts are on the line. Author Matt Doeden covers the century-long history of the World Series, from its humble beginnings to becoming a worldwide sensation. Discover the drama behind the statistics and record books that keeps the crowd enthralled!