At the Plate with...Sammy Sosa

At the Plate with...Sammy Sosa
Author: Matt Christopher
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Total Pages: 71
Release: 2009-12-19
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 0316093726

Throughout the 1998 baseball season, two names made the headlines more than any others: Mark McGwire, the eventual home run king, and Sammy Sosa, the runner-up in a race that won the hearts of baseball fans worldwide. Yet at the end of the day, it was Sosa who walked away with the National League's MVP award, not McGwire. Why? Because Sosa had dug the dismal 1997 Chicago Cubs out of the cellar not just with his home runs, but also with his spectacular all-around play. Yet Sosa's contributions off the field, both in the States and in his native land, the Dominican Republic, are even more impressive. In this powerful biography of one of the most admired sluggers in baseball, Matt Christopher, the number one sports series for kids, traces Sosa's life from his poverty-stricken childhood-when shining shoes put food on the table-to his professional career. For more information on the Matt Christopher Sports Bio Bookshelf, please see the last pages of this book.

Summer of '98

Summer of '98
Author: Mike Lupica
Publisher: Putnam Adult
Total Pages: 232
Release: 1999
Genre: American League of Professional Baseball Clubs
ISBN:

The tale of the season of competition between McGwire and Sosa to break the hitting record.

The Hitting Edge

The Hitting Edge
Author: Tom Robson
Publisher: Human Kinetics
Total Pages: 196
Release: 2003
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 9780736033367

"Hitting can be tough enough without trying to follow confusing technical advice and pet philosophies. Keep it simple, and keep making contact. Take the knowledge available in this book with you to every at-bat, and you'll have The Hitting Edge."--BOOK JACKET.

Castro's Curveball

Castro's Curveball
Author: Tim Wendel
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2006-07-25
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780803259577

When an old scrapbook stirs memories, Billy Bryan looks back to the year 1947 when he was playing winter ball in Cuba, enjoying Havana's decadent nightlife, and dreaming of a major-league career.

Three Nights in August

Three Nights in August
Author: Buzz Bissinger
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2005
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 9780618405442

Showing that human nature--not statistics--dictates the outcome of ballgames, the authors watch from the dugout as a spectacular series unfolds between theCardinals and their archrivals, the Cubs.

Mr. Wrigley's Ball Club

Mr. Wrigley's Ball Club
Author: Roberts Ehrgott
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 511
Release: 2013-04-01
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 080326478X

Chicago in the Roaring Twenties was a city of immigrants, mobsters, and flappers with one shared passion: the Chicago Cubs. It all began when the chewing-gum tycoon William Wrigley decided to build the world’s greatest ball club in the nation’s Second City. In this Jazz Age center, the maverick Wrigley exploited the revolutionary technology of broadcasting to attract eager throngs of women to his renovated ballpark. Mr. Wrigley’s Ball Club transports us to this heady era of baseball history and introduces the team at its crazy heart—an amalgam of rakes, pranksters, schemers, and choirboys who take center stage in memorable successes, equally memorable disasters, and shadowy intrigue. Readers take front-row seats to meet Grover Cleveland Alexander, Rogers Hornsby, Joe McCarthy, Lewis “Hack” Wilson, Gabby Hartnett. The cast of characters also includes their colorful if less-extolled teammates and the Cubs’ nemesis, Babe Ruth, who terminates the ambitions of Mr. Wrigley’s ball club with one emphatic swing.

I Love the Red Sox/I Hate the Yankees

I Love the Red Sox/I Hate the Yankees
Author: Jon Chattman
Publisher: Triumph Books
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2012-03
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 1617496308

Presented in a unique reversible-book format, I Love the Red Sox/I Hate the Yankees is the ultimate Red Sox fan guide to baseball s most celebrated and storied rivalry. Full of interesting trivia, hilarious history, and inside scoops, the book relates the fantastic stories of legendary Red Sox managers and star players, including Ted Williams, Jim Rice, and David Ortiz, as well as the numerous villains who have donned the pinstripes over the years. Like two books in one, this completely biased account of the rivalry proclaims the irrefutable reasons to cheer the Red Sox and boo the Yankees and shows that there really is no fine line between love and hate."

Juiced

Juiced
Author: Jose Canseco
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2005-02-21
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780060746407

When Jose Canseco burst into the Major Leagues in the 1980s, he changed the sport -- in more ways than one. No player before him possessed his mixture of speed and power, which allowed him to become the first man in history to belt more than forty home runs and swipe more than forty bases in the same season. He won Rookie of the Year, Most Valuable Player, and a World Series ring. Canseco shattered the mold of the out-of-shape baseball player and ushered in a new era of superathletes who looked like bodybuilders, made outrageous salaries, and enjoyed rock-star lifestyles. And the ticket for this ride? Steroids. Behind the gaudy stats and the glamour of his public life, Canseco cultivated a secret just about everyone in MLB knew about, one that would alter the game of baseball and the way we view our heroes forever. Canseco made himself a guinea pig of the performance-enhancing drugs that were only just beginning to infiltrate the American underground. Anabolic steroids, human growth hormones -- Canseco mixed, matched, and experimented to such a degree that he became known throughout the league as "The Chemist." He passed his knowledge on to trainers and fellow players, and before long, performance-enhancing drugs were running rampant throughout Major League Baseball. Sluggers scooping up pitches at their ankles and blasting them out of the park, pitchers cranking fastballs inning after inning -- Canseco showed the players how to customize their doses to sculpt the bodies they wanted, and baseball as we know it was the result. Today, this issue has crept out of the closet and burst into the headlines as players balloon to herculean proportions and hundred-year-old records are not only broken, but also demolished. In this shocking memoir, Canseco sheds light on a life of dizzying highs and debilitating lows, provides the answers to questions about steroids that millions of fans are only now beginning to ask -- and suggests that, far from being a passing trend, the steroid revolution is only a taste of things to come. Who's juiced? According to Canseco's authoritative account, more than you think. And baseball will never be the same.

Cubs Nation

Cubs Nation
Author: Gene Wojciechowski
Publisher: Doubleday Books
Total Pages: 417
Release: 2005
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 9780385513005

From Ernie Banks, the legendary "Mr. Cub," to Sammy Sosa, today's record-setting sensation, "Cubs Nation" traces the history of a team that often had everything going for it and yet was so hampered by losses that it came to define the term "lovable losers."

Ryno!

Ryno!
Author: Ryne Sandberg
Publisher: McGraw-Hill/Contemporary
Total Pages: 79
Release: 1985-01-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780809251476

The National League's Most Valuable Player for 1984 recalls growing up in Spokane, Washington and describes his life as a professional baseball player.