A Ball Player's Career by Adrian C. Anson chronicles the life and career of one of baseball’s most iconic figures. Anson offers readers an insider’s perspective on the early days of professional baseball, along with his personal experiences and accomplishments.

Step into the batter's box with baseball legend Adrian "Cap" Anson himself. A Ball Player's Career is your exclusive look back at a remarkable 27-season journey. Anson, one of the sport's early greats, takes you inside the formative years of baseball. Hear him crack the bat against wooden fences, strategize with teammates, and face down rowdy crowds. This captivating audiobook is more than just a memoir; it's a portal to a bygone era of baseball, filled with the grit, camaraderie, and pure...

MY BIRTHPLACE AND ANCESTRY. The town of Marshalltown, the county seat of Marshall County, in the great State of Iowa, is now a handsome and flourishing place of some thirteen or fourteen thousand inhabitants. I have not had time recently to take the census myself, and so I cannot be expected to certify exactly as to how many men, women and children are contained within the corporate limits. At the time that I first appeared upon the scene, however, the town was in a decidedly embryonic sta...

"A Ball Player's Career" by Adrian C. Anson is a captivating memoir that chronicles the life and experiences of one of baseball's early legends. Anson, a pioneering figure in the sport, shares his journey from humble beginnings to becoming a celebrated player and manager. The book offers a unique glimpse into the evolution of baseball during its formative years, highlighting the challenges and triumphs faced by athletes in a rapidly changing society. Anson's passion for the game and his de...

“Football is force and fanatics, basketball is beauty and bounce. Baseball is everything: action, grace, the seasons of our lives. George Vecsey’s book proves it, without wasting a word.”—Lee Eisenberg, author of The NumberIn Baseball, one of the great bards of America’s Grand Old Game gives a rousing account of the sport, from its pre-Republic roots to the present day. George Vecsey casts a fresh eye on the game, illuminates its foibles a...

Eddie Shore was the Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb of hockey, a brilliant player with an unmatched temper. Emerging from the Canadian prairie to become a member of the Boston Bruins in 1926, the man from Saskatchewan invaded every circuit in the NHL like a runaway locomotive on a downgrade. Hostile fans turned out in droves with a wish to see him killed, but in Boston he could do no wrong.During his twenty-year professional career, the controversial Shore personified "that old time hockey" ...

A.J. Liebling's classic New Yorker pieces on the "sweet science of bruising" bring vividly to life the boxing world as it once was.The Sweet Science depicts the great events of boxing's American heyday: Sugar Ray Robinson's dramatic comeback, Rocky Marciano's rise to prominence, Joe Louis's unfortunate decline. Liebling never fails to find the human story behind the fight, and he evokes the atmosphere in the arena as distinctly as he does the goin...

Think you know how the game of baseball began? Think again.Forget Abner Doubleday and Cooperstown. Forget Alexander Joy Cartwright and the New York Knickerbockers. Instead, meet Daniel Lucius Adams, William Rufus Wheaton, and Louis Fenn Wadsworth, each of whom has a stronger claim to baseball paternity than Doubleday or Cartwright.But did baseball even have a father—or did it just evolve from other bat-and-ball games? John Thorn, baseball’s preeminent historian, examines th...

Fifty-nine in '84 is award–winning journalist Edward Achorn's riveting history of late nineteenth century baseball and the era's most legendary pitcher.In 1884, Providence Grays pitcher Charles "Old Hoss" Radbourn won an astounding fifty-nine games—more than anyone in major-league history ever had before, or has since. He then went on to win all three games of baseball's first World Series.Fifty-nine in '84 tells the dramatic story not only ...

In this vivid biography Geoffrey C. Ward brings back to life the most celebrated — and the most reviled — African American of his age.Jack Johnson battled his way out of obscurity and poverty in the Jim Crow South to win the title of heavyweight champion of the world. At a time when whites ran everything in America, he took orders from no one and resolved to live as if color did not exist. While most blacks struggled simply to exist, he reveled in his riches and his fame, sleeping ...

Chris von der Ahe knew next to nothing about baseball when he risked his life's savings to found the franchise that would become the St. Louis Cardinals. Yet the German-born beer garden proprietor would become one of the most important -- and funniest -- figures in the game's history.Von der Ahe picked up the team for one reason -- to sell more beer. Then he helped gather a group of ragtag professional clubs together to create a maverick new league that would fight the haughty Nati...

From the perspective of 2007, the unintentional irony of Chance's boast is manifest—these days, the question is when will the Cubs ever win a game they have to have. In October 1908, though, no one would have laughed: The Cubs were, without doubt, baseball's greatest team—the first dynasty of the 20th century.Crazy '08 recounts the 1908 season—the year when Peerless Leader Frank Chance's men went toe to toe to toe with John McGraw and Christy Mathewson's New York Giants an...