If God Invented Baseball

by E. Ethelbert Miller
If God Invented Baseball
Author: E. Ethelbert Miller
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 74
Release: 2018-02-13
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 1947951017
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Here are poems that celebrate and interpret the game by one of America's finest poets. They are for everyone who has experienced the magic released when three holy things come together: bat, ball and glove. "Ethelbert Miller is one of the most significant and influential poets of our time." --Gwendolyn Brooks If God Invented Baseball is a complete game of baseball poems, a full nine innings pitched by a “master twirler,” whose complete arsenal includes fastballs, curves and change-ups, and the occasional knuckler, to keep readers swinging for the fences, his full artistry on display. Ethelbert Miller's work captures the enjoyment of the game from childhood to old age. Baseball fans will place this book next to their scorecards, peanuts and beer. Poetry readers will equally be delighted. If God Invented Baseball is a book for the ballpark and the home. “Ethelbert's replay of baseball joys and sorrows is a must read. He brings us THE GAME with skill and grace. It is an inside the park home run” -- Clifford Alexander

When Your Wife Has Tommy John Surgery and Other Baseball Stories

by E. Ethelbert Miller
When Your Wife Has Tommy John Surgery and Other Baseball Stories
Author: E. Ethelbert Miller
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 69
Release: 2021-09-07
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 1947951378
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Much-honored Washington, D.C. poet activist E. Ethelbert Miller delights and surprises us with his deft imaginings and portraits. Ethelbert’s poems play out in baseball rhythm and express the joy of living, despite the bitter challenges in today’s world. These poems define our time and allow us to see ourselves as human through the lens of baseball, family and music. When Your Wife Has Tommy John Surgery and Other Baseball Stories is Miller's second book of baseball poems. Here he touches new bases. There are poems about Marcel Duchamp and Ornette Coleman as well as Whitey Ford and Don Larsen. Miller's poems move the outdoor game indoors where there are moments of disappointment and despair. Baseball can be a blues game. Tommy John surgery is a way of holding onto hope. Many of these poems were written during the Covid pandemic. They beckon fans back to the ballpark. They remind us to enjoy a game that is precious and maybe even essential to our wellness. Coming after If God Invented Baseball, Miller seems to emerge from a literary dugout after a brief rain delay, ready to celebrate the American pastime again.

On the Eighth Day, God Made Baseball

by Mark Littell
On the Eighth Day, God Made Baseball
Author: Mark Littell
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2016-11-11
Genre:
ISBN: 9780989867269
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Major League Baseball has had its share of characters. Mark Littell is a one-of-a-kind, mold-breaking country boy from the Bootheel of Missouri. In this book, Mark takes you through his wild and wooly career as a baseball player, from his very first at-bat when he was six years old, through his career in the Major Leagues. This collection of unbelievable tales will have you on the floor laughing, as Mark's Southern twang and quick wit show you a side of baseball you've never seen before. Read on to discover what the most common baseball term is, how a country boy from Missouri made it from the farm to the major league pitching mound, and why the city of Cleveland won't let Mark back. "Having Country as a teammate was a pleasure. I never realized he had the writing skills or humor to write such an insightful book. A must-read story." - Dave Nelson Former MLB player, and current broadcaster for the Milwaukee Brewers "A candid and humorous book about big league baseball. Mark brings to life the ups and downs of professional baseball. This book definitely finds the strike zone." - Denny Matthews Sportscaster and Kansas City Royals Hall of Fame Member-2007 recipient of Ford C. Frick award "This book is the real deal. Mark did a great job of sharing his own stories playing the greatest game in the world. Every baseball fan should read this and laugh their ass off like I did." - Jim Wohlford Former MLB player "Mark is one-of-a-kind, and his uproarious personality comes out in the pages of this book. On the Eighth Day... is a phenomenal collection of stories that will have everyone, baseball fan or not, rolling on the floor with laughter." R. Craig Coppola Author of The Fantastic Life

If God Invented Baseball

by E. Ethelbert Miller
If God Invented Baseball
Author: E. Ethelbert Miller
Publisher: City Point Press
Total Pages: 72
Release: 2018-02-13
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 9781947951006
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Here are poems that celebrate and interpret the game by one of America's finest poets. They are for everyone who has experienced the magic released when three holy things come together: bat, ball and glove. "Ethelbert Miller is one of the most significant and influential poets of our time." --Gwendolyn Brooks If God Invented Baseball is a complete game of baseball poems, a full nine innings pitched by a “master twirler,” whose complete arsenal includes fastballs, curves and change-ups, and the occasional knuckler, to keep readers swinging for the fences, his full artistry on display. Ethelbert Miller's work captures the enjoyment of the game from childhood to old age. Baseball fans will place this book next to their scorecards, peanuts and beer. Poetry readers will equally be delighted. If God Invented Baseball is a book for the ballpark and the home. “Ethelbert's replay of baseball joys and sorrows is a must read. He brings us THE GAME with skill and grace. It is an inside the park home run” -- Clifford Alexander

Starting and Closing

by John Smoltz
Starting and Closing
Author: John Smoltz
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2012-05-08
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 0062120557
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John Smoltz was one of the greatest Major League pitchers of the late twentieth / early twenty-first century—one of only two in baseball history ever to achieve twenty wins and fifty saves in single seasons—and now he shares the candid, no-holds-barred story of his life, his career, and the game he loves in Starting and Closing. A Cy Young Award-winner, future Baseball Hall of Famer, and currently a broadcaster for his former team, the Atlanta Braves, Smoltz delivers a powerful memoir with the kind of fascinating insight into game that made Moneyball a runaway bestseller, plus a heartfelt and truly inspiring faith and religious conviction, similar to what illuminates each page of Tim Tebow’s smash hit memoir, Through My Eyes.

Hank Greenberg

by Mark Kurlansky
Hank Greenberg
Author: Mark Kurlansky
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 203
Release: 2011-03-29
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 0300175140
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Profiles the Jewish-American baseball player who, in 1934, risked his chance to beat Babe Ruth's home run record by sitting out a game on Yom Kippur, and describes his impact on Jewish-American history.

Nobody's Perfect

by Armando Galarraga
Nobody's Perfect
Author: Armando Galarraga
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2011-06-02
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 0802195598
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The Detroit Tigers, an umpire, a pitcher, and a mistake—one of the “classic, human, baseball stories” (Ken Burns, creator of the PBS mini-series Baseball). The perfect game is one of the rarest accomplishments in sports. In nearly four hundred thousand contests in over 130 years, it has happened only twenty times. On June 2, 2010, Armando Galarraga threw baseball’s twenty-first. Except that’s not how it entered the record books. That’s because Jim Joyce, voted the best umpire in the game in 2010 and 2011, missed the call on the final out. But rather than throwing a tantrum, Galarraga simply turned and smiled, went back to the mound, and finished the game. “Nobody’s perfect,” he said later in the locker room. “You might think everything that could have been said, replayed, and revealed about that night has already been uttered, logged, and exposed. You would, however, be as wrong as the unfortunate Mr. Joyce” (The Detroit News). In Nobody’s Perfect, Galarraga and Joyce come together to tell the personal story of a remarkable game that will live forever in baseball lore, and to trace their fascinating lives in sports. The result is “a masterpiece”, an absorbing insider’s look at two careers in baseball, a tremendous achievement, and an enduring moment of pure grace and sportsmanship (The Huffington Post).