Rio Rancho's first residents arrived in the mid-1960s seeking what was advertised as 360 sunny days a year and affordable housing. Incorporated in 1981, Rio Rancho is the third-largest city in New Mexico and its fastest growing. It often pops up on those "Best Places to Live" stories and for good reason. The top-notch schools, safe neighborhoods, great climate, and being noted as an inexpensive place to start a family have turned Rio Rancho into a desirable place to live.

Albuquerque, New Mexico, is more than a refueling place for motorists on I-40. Professional baseball has been played here for more than 70 years, and fans have had the opportunity to see future Dodgers stars like Don Sutton, Ron Cey, Steve Garvey, Orel Hershiser, Eric Karros, and Mike Piazza hone their skills. Hall of Fame members Tom Lasorda and Duke Snider managed here; Darryl Strawberry, Eddie Murray, and Manny Ramirez have spent short stints �rehabbing� here; and big-league preseason g...

An unprecedented behind-the-scenes look at what is considered by many to be the greatest baseball game ever played, from a bestselling author.Boston, Tuesday, October 21, 1975. The Red Sox and the Cincinnati Reds have endured an excruciating three-day rain delay. Tonight, at last, they will play Game Six of the World Series. Leading three games to two, Cincinnati hopes to win it all; Boston is desperate to stay alive. But for all the anticipation, nobody could have...

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, vo...

Not since 1957 has one major league team's pitching staff boasted three pitchers (Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, and Roy Oswalt) in the Top Ten in career winning-percentage. Plus, the Philadelphia Phillies' 2011 rotation also happens to include Cole Hamels -- the 2008 NLCS and World Series MVP -- and an alternating fifth starter.This awe-inducing rotation has been the talk of baseball since coming together in December 2010. They were featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated's ...

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Season Inside presents a thoroughly entertaining and deeply reflective examination of America’s greatest sport: baseball.What makes baseball what it is—the good as well as the bad? Who are the game’s heroes, and who its villains? What roles do managers play, and umpires and announcers and mascots and the media? What is the game’s future?To answer these questions, renowned sports journalist John...

Examines the personal life and football career of the quarterback for the Denver Broncos.

Essential for armchair umpires and scorekeepers, this guide challenges aficionados on every significant part of the Official Baseball Rules.Few sports lovers are as obsessed with rules and statistics as baseball fans. In So You Think You Know Baseball?, lifelong baseball enthusiast Peter E. Meltzer catalogues every noteworthy baseball rule from the Major League rulebook and illustrates its application with actual plays, from the historical to the contemporary.You c...

Who were the best ballplayers of all time? It's an endless question, but here's something much more fun: Who was the worst of all time? Who was the lousiest pitcher? The biggest goat? The most despicable owner? The most over-paid bum?Finally, Filip Bondy answers these questions, wielding his own brand of formidable research, advanced sabermetrics and considerable wit to provide this indispensable guide to the less glorious side of our national pastime. Each chapter is filled with ri...

Tracing the careers of four instrumental players who turned around the Yankees ball club, this book shares behind-the-scenes stories from their early days together in the minors through the 2013 season, and follows them on their majestic ride to the top of the baseball world. At a time when the New York Yankees were in free fall, having failed to win a World Series in 17 years and had not played in one in 14 years—the Bronx Bombers' longest drought since before the days of Babe Ruth—along ...

These are the tales of one-season wonders. The history of baseball is filled with forgotten names—players who are good enough to reach the top of the sport but who, for any number of reasons, land at the edges of the game. Some spend a week or two in the major leagues and then disappear back into the minors. Many leave the sport for good. Still, for an afternoon, a week, or a couple of months, these men stood on the field alongside the best players in The Show. Here are gripping stories of...

In modern baseball history, only one team not named the New York Yankees has ever won three consecutive World Series. That team was the Oakland Athletics, who captured major league baseball's crown each year from 1972 through 1974.Led by such superstars as future Hall of Famers Reggie Jackson, Catfish Hunter and Rollie Fingers, in the final years before free agency and the movement of players from one team to another forever changed the game, the Athletics were a largely homegrown ...