Bill Nowlin - Böcker

In 1911, decades before coast-to-coast travel became a fact of life in major league baseball, the Boston Red Sox embarked on the most ambitious spring training trip ever taken. After a full slate of games throughout California, the team decamped from Redondo Beach and made its way east, stopping in 10 states and the Arizona Territory, and playing in places such as Pueblo, Yuma, Wichita, and Lincoln--traveling exclusively by railroad. By the time the team finished up its preseason schedule, beating Harvard on their first day back in Boston, the Red Sox had played a staggering 63 games.

By 1964 the storied St. Louis Cardinals had gone seventeen years without so much as a pennant. Things began to turn around in 1953, when August A. Busch Jr. bought the team and famously asked where all the black players were. Under the leadership of men like Bing Devine and Johnny Keane, the Cardinals began signing talented players regardless of color, and slowly their star started to rise again.Drama and Pride in the Gateway City commemorates the team that Bing Devine built, the 1964 team that prevailed in one of the tightest three-way pennant races of all time and then went on to win the World Series, beating the New York Yankees in the full seven games. All the men come alive in these pages-pitchers Ray Sadecki and Bob Gibson, players Lou Brock, Curt Flood, and Bobby Shantz, manager Johnny Keane, his coaches, the Cardinals’ broadcasters, and Bill White, who would one day run the entire National League-along with the dramatic events that made the 1964 Cardinals such a memorable club in a memorable year.

The 1954 Cleveland Indians were one of the most remarkable baseball teams of all time. Their record for most wins (111) fell only when the baseball schedule expanded, and their winning percentage, an astounding .721, is still unsurpassed in the American League. Though the season ended with a heartbreaking loss to the New York Giants in the World Series, the 1954 team remains a favorite among Cleveland fans and beyond.Pitching to the Pennant commemorates the '54 Indians with a biographical sketch of the entire team, from the "Big Three" pitching staff (Mike Garcia and future Hall of Famers Bob Lemon and Early Wynn), through notable players such as Bobby Avila, Bob Feller, Larry Doby, and Al Rosen, to manager Al Lopez, his coaches, and the Indians' broadcast team. There are also stories about Cleveland Stadium and the 1954 All-Star Game (which the team hosted), as well as a season timeline and a firsthand account of Game One of the World Series at the Polo Grounds. Pitching to the Pennant features the superb writing and research of members of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), making this book a must for all Indians fans and baseball aficionados.

In the 111-year-history of the Boston Red Sox, fans have been treated to countless firsts— the first manager of the franchise (Jimmy Collins), the first American League MVP to play for the Sox (Tris Speaker), the first 20-game winner (Bill Dineen), the first to hit 500 home runs (Ted Williams), and the first Red Sox pitcher to win the Cy Young Award (Roger Clemens). The list goes on.In Boston Red Sox Firsts, veteran Red Sox historian Bill Nowlin presents the stories behind the firsts in Red Sox history in question-and-answer format. More than a mere trivia book, Nowlin’s collection includes substantive answers to the question of “who was the first…?” on a variety of topics, many of which will surprise even seasoned fans of the Sox.

As SABR celebrates fifty years this collection gathers the organization’s most notable research and baseball history for the serious baseball reader.SABR 50 at 50 celebrates and highlights the Society for American Baseball Research’s wide-ranging contributions to baseball history. Established in 1971 in Cooperstown, New York, SABR has sought to foster and disseminate the research of baseball-with groundbreaking work from statisticians, historians, and independent researchers-and has published dozens of articles with far-reaching and long-lasting impact on the game. Among its current membership are many Major and Minor League Baseball officials, broadcasters, and writers as well as numerous former players.The diversity of SABR members’ interests is reflected in this fiftieth-anniversary volume-from baseball and the arts to statistical analysis to the Deadball Era to women in baseball. SABR 50 at 50 includes the most important and influential research published by members across a multitude of topics, including the sabermetric work of Dick Cramer, Pete Palmer, and Bill James, along with Jerry Malloy on the Negro Leagues, Keith Olbermann on why the shortstop position is number 6, John Thorn and Jules Tygiel on the untold story behind Jackie Robinson’s signing with the Dodgers, and Gai Berlage on the Colorado Silver Bullets women’s team in the 1990s. To provide history and context, each notable research article is accompanied by a short introduction.

On April 20, 1912, The Boston Red Sox played their first official game at Fenway Park. 27,000 fans were on hand to witness the Red Sox defeat the rival New York Highlanders—later known as the Yankees—7–6 in 11 innings. It was an event that may have made front page news in Boston had it not been for the sinking of the Titanic five days earlier.Since that day, the oddly-shaped stadium at 4 Yawkey Way has played host to nearly 8,000 Red Sox games, including fifty-five in the postseason, launching the legends of Tris Speaker, Jimmie Foxx, Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski, Jim Rice, Wade Boggs, and Pedro Martinez, and making the ballpark a worldwide destination for legions of baseball fans in the process.From the Green Monster to Pesky’s Pole, The Triangle to the lone red seat marking the longest home run ever hit in the stadium (a 502-foot blast off the bat of Ted Williams in 1946), Fenway Park’s unique charms have captivated generations of sports fans.100 Years of Fenway Park tells through vivid, full-color photographs and illuminating prose, the story of the most cherished American stadium, creating an endearing portrait of a building whose rich history resonates in the hearts and minds of the Red Sox vast fanbase. With a special foreword by Red Sox legend Carl Yastrzemski, this is a book that no Red Sox fan should be without.

With the “Curse” a distant memory, the Boston Red Sox are the first team this century to win three World Series titles. Before 2004, an obnoxious Yankees fan might have smirked: The Red Sox in the World Series? The world’s shortest book!” In actual fact, the Red Sox have played in twelve World Series and won eight. Even during their stories 86-year drought, the Sox took four Series to Game Seven before losing.Lavishly illustrated, From the Babe to the Beards is the result of another collaboration by Bill Nowlin and Jim Prime—each with more than a dozen Sox books to their credit. The book includes full game accounts of every one of the 74 Series games played (to date) and profiles a significant player from each game. Supplemented with dozens of photos and line scores from every game, the book will provide a solid and eminently readable companion as the team prepares for additional Series in the years to come.Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Sports Publishing imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in sports—books about baseball, pro football, college football, pro and college basketball, hockey, or soccer, we have a book about your sport or your team.Whether you are a New York Yankees fan or hail from Red Sox nation; whether you are a die-hard Green Bay Packers or Dallas Cowboys fan; whether you root for the Kentucky Wildcats, Louisville Cardinals, UCLA Bruins, or Kansas Jayhawks; whether you route for the Boston Bruins, Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens, or Los Angeles Kings; we have a book for you. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to publishing books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked by other publishers and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Relive all the thrills of Red Sox baseball and Fenway Park—Babe Ruth and Ted Williams to Carlton Fisk and Jim Rice to Jason Varitek and Big Papi!Calling all BoSox fans! In this one-of-a-kind compendium of anecdotes from players, managers, and beat writers, Jim Prime and Bill Nowlin capture all the magic and passion of Boston Red Sox baseball. Amazing Tales from the Boston Red Sox Dugout is a colorful journey through the history of the franchise. Included are the best memories and stories in the players’ and managers’ own words, as found in Prime and Nowlin’s Tales from the Boston Red Sox Dugout and More Tales from the Boston Red Sox Dugout.Within these pages, fans will chafe at the rivalries, cheer the wins, and challenge the losses both on the road and at home. From the earliest days of a promising young pitcher named Babe Ruth, through the glory years of Foxx, Williams, and Yastrzemiski, to the championship era of superstars such as Martinez and Ortiz, the Red Sox epitomize all that is grand about the grand old game.Featured players and managers include Wade Boggs, Joe Cronin, Bobby Doerr, Carlton Fisk, Dustin Pedrioa, Jim Rice, Jason Varitek, and many other Red Sox legends. This massive collection captures the story and glory of Red Sox baseball both on the field and off. Without a doubt, this tantalizing offering from Prime and Nowlin will provide hours of entertainment for Red Sox and baseball fans alike.

The Red Sox are World Champions again. Their outfield of Andrew Benintendi, Jackie Bradley Jr., and Mookie Betts, was one of the most productive in baseball history. Celebrate the superb outfielders who are known collectively as the "Killer B's," with this history of their 2018 season!Andrew Benintendi, Jackie Bradley Jr., and Mookie Betts made up the Red Sox World Series-winning outfield in 2018, a season in which Betts was voted the American League MVP and received a Gold Glove, Bradley earned ALCS MVP accolades and also a Gold Glove, and Benintendi featured one of the smoothest swings seen in Boston since Ted Williams.In The Boston Red Sox Killer B's, veteran authors Jim Prime and Bill Nowlin team up to cover the young careers of all three players, with special emphasis on the 2018 season. Along the way, Prime and Nowlin incorporate on- and off-field stories and interviews with teammates to offer fans a better understanding of how this trio has transformed into New England folk heroes and how they have developed a chemistry unmatched by any other outfield around the league.This book serves as the perfect gift for any Red Sox fan!

Vinyl Ventures: My Fifty Years at Rounder Records is less a standard history and more an idiosyncratic memoir written by one of the three Rounder founders.Rounder Records was born in 1970, a “hobby that got out of control,” a fledgling record company more or less conceived when vinyl still reigned, while the Sixties were still in flower, and which began publishing on a shoestring budget of just over $1,000. Founded by three friends just out of college, the Boston-area company produced over 3,000 record albums, the most active company of the last half-century, specializing in roots music and its contemporary offshoots. Rounder won fifty-six Grammy Awards and documented a swath of music that in many cases might otherwise never have been presented to a broader public. It’s arguably a quintessentially American success story.This book focuses on the early years up to and just through when Rounder evolved to a second stage, with a generational change that has kept the label healthy and flourishing when so many other cultural enterprises from the era have folded or gone dark. It includes original photographs taken by the author or drawn from the Rounder Records archives. It’s the story of three people with no background in business who took an idea and, through hard work and passion, built something of lasting cultural significance.