Town Ball

Town Ball
Author: Armand Peterson
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
Total Pages: 436
Release: 2006
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 9780816646753

An in-depth study of the magical era of amateur baseball in Minnesota, from 1945 to 1960, looks at the social and economic factors that contributed to the sport's success, profiles some of the teams and their players, and includes a collection of anecdotes, vintage photographs, and statistics.

Town Ball Parks of Minnesota

Town Ball Parks of Minnesota
Author: Todd Mueller
Publisher: Blustone Group
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2016-06-10
Genre: Baseball fields
ISBN: 9780692707142

Minnesota has over three hundred town ball teams, more organized amateur baseball teams than in any other state in the country.* Town Ball, Parks of Minnesota takes the reader on a tour of the state's most revered ballparks, ranging from a multi-million dollar complex in the Twin Cities to a rural field at the end of a dirt road ? arguably the most remote ballpark in the state.Over the course of several years and thousands of miles, the author traveled the state to visit these ballparks, then selected twenty-seven unique, historic and most beloved ballparks. The result is a book on town ball unlike any other publication. The book features five hundred baseball photographs selected from over 20,000 images, together with entertaining stories about the teams, the ballparks and the towns. For those readers who grew up with town ball, this book will highlight the sport they know and have loved for generations. For those unfamiliar with town ball, the book will afford you a glimpse into why these ballparks are considered some of the state's greatest sports treasures.Ready to come along on the tour? This is a trip worth taking.*According to the Minnesota Baseball Association

The Giant Ball of String

The Giant Ball of String
Author: Arthur Geisert
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 44
Release: 2002
Genre: Cooperativeness
ISBN: 061813221X

Rumpus Ridge, Wisconsin, is proud to have the biggest ball of string in the world, so when they lose their treasure to a nearby town they devise a clever plan to get it back.

How Baseball Happened

How Baseball Happened
Author: Thomas W. Gilbert
Publisher: Godine+ORM
Total Pages: 332
Release: 2020-09-15
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 1567926886

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

Maggie's Ball

Maggie's Ball
Author: Lindsay Barrett George
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 34
Release: 2010-05-18
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 0061721662

This is Maggie's ball. Now all Maggie needs is a friend to play with. Will you help her find one?

But Didn't We Have Fun?

But Didn't We Have Fun?
Author: Peter Morris
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2010-03-16
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 1566638496

The story of baseball in America begins not with the fabled Abner Doubleday but with a generation of mid-nineteenth-century Americans who moved from the countryside to the cities and brought a cherished but delightfully informal game with them. But Didn't We Have Fun? will make you rethink everything you thought you knew about baseball's origins. Peter Morris, author of the prizewinning A Game of Inches, takes a fresh look at the early amateur years of the game. Mr. Morris retrieves a lost eraand a lost way of life. Offering a challenging new perspective on baseball's earliest years, and conveying the sense of delight that once pervaded the game and its players, Mr. Morris supplants old myths with a story just as marvelous-but one that reallyhappened. With 25 rare photographs and drawings.

You'll Never Blue Ball in This Town Again

You'll Never Blue Ball in This Town Again
Author: Heather McDonald
Publisher: Atria Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2010-06-08
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781439176283

New York Times bestselling author, comedian, and Chelsea Lately writer Heather McDonald’s hilarious true story of finding herself in the predicament of being an unwilling virgin at the age of twenty-seven. Can’t a girl dress like a hooker, dance like a stripper, and kiss like a porn star and still be a nineteen-year-old virgin? You’ll Never Blue Ball in This Town Again is the laugh-out-loud story of an attractive Los Angeles woman who found herself in the predicament of being an unwilling virgin. As an actress, writer, and stand-up comedienne, Heather McDonald passed up ample opportunities to have her V-card revoked by handsome, rich, and sometimes even fabulously famous men, but she could not bring herself to do “it” until well after her friends had been deflowered. As Chelsea Handler so lovingly puts it, “Thank God Heather waited twenty-seven years to lose her virginity or she wouldn’t have any material for this book.” Whether in a backseat, a community pool, or a sports stadium, with a frat boy, a doctor, or an A-list celebrity, Heather McDonald knew how to turn those boys blue. Unlike “putting out,” blue balling might not have paid her rent or landed her free trips to Hawaii, but it did provide her with hilarious stories and adventures in her search for true love—and, ultimately, her very own happy ending. Now, Heather McDonald will never blue ball in this town again.

A Legend for the Legendary

A Legend for the Legendary
Author: James A. Vlasich
Publisher: Popular Press
Total Pages: 286
Release: 1990
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780879724948

The origins of baseball are controversial. James A. Vlasich discusses the debates between two men intimately involved in nineteenth-century baseball, Henry Chadwick and Albert G. Spalding. Abner Graves of the Mills Commission claimed that Abner Doubleday had invented the game and he had done it in Cooperstown, New York. This claim was scrutinized at the time but the myth became etched into baseball history. Through the years, however, some critics have questioned the Mills Commission report. The problem is that the Baseball Hall of Fame is built on this shaky foundation. The lack of diligence on the part of Spalding's self-appointed committee has led to a credibility gap for the baseball shrine that continues a half century after its dedication. Indeed, the story of the building of the Baseball Hall of Fame is filled with intrigue worthy of a political thriller.

Cinderella Ball

Cinderella Ball
Author: Bob Kuska
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 327
Release: 2008
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 080322043X

For most of the twentieth century, West Virginia was a college basketball hotbed. Its major programs were a success, but perhaps even more successful was the West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, composed of fifteen schools that rarely earned headlines but set many records and became an identifiable part of small town culture and a source of state pride. This ethos exists today in small town Kentucky and Indiana but struggles to survive in West Virginia. Part of the reason is the state's population decline since the 1950s. That, author Bob Kuska argues, along with the rise of cabl.

Baseball in Minnesota

Baseball in Minnesota
Author: Stew Thornley
Publisher: Minnesota Historical Society
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2006
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780873515511

From the early days of town ball to the latest seasons of the Twins and Saints, Stew Thornley offers the ultimate history of the Great American Pastime in the North Star State.