Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

With incredible skill, passion, and insight, Pulitzer Prize–winning author David Halberstam returns us to a glorious time when the dreams of a now almost forgotten America rested on the crack of a bat. The year was 1949, and a war-weary nation turned from the battlefields to the ball fields in search of new heroes. It was a summer that marked the beginning of a sports rivalry unequaled in the annals of... (more)

Free Baseball

by Sue Corbett

Felix knows his dad was a famous baseball player in Cuba—and that his father risked everything to send Felix to America. But his mom won’t reveal anything else. When a baseball team with Cuban players comes to town, Felix wonders if they knew his dad and sneaks into their locker room to ask. That’s when the players mistake him for their new batboy. Determined to uncover the truth about his mysterious father, Felix... (more)

Baseball Card Adventures: Book 1

Honus & Me

by Dan Gutman

Joe Stoshack lives for baseball. He knows everything there is to know about the game -- except how to play well. His specialty is striking out. Stosh feels like a real loser, and when he takes a low-paying job cleaning a bunch of junk out of his neighbor's attic, he feels even worse -- until he comes across a little piece of cardboard that takes his breath away. His heart is racing. His brain is racing. He can... (more)

The Boy Who Saved Baseball

by John H. Ritter

Tom Gallagher is in a tight spot. The fate of the Dillontown team rests on the outcome of one baseball game, winner take all. If Tom's team loses, they lose their field too. But how can they possibly win? Just when everything seems hopeless, a mysterious boy named Cruz de la Cruz rides into town and claims to know the secret of hitting. Not to mention the secrets of Dante Del Gato, Dillontown's greatest... (more)

A Painted House

by John Grisham

The hill people and the Mexicans arrived on the same day. It was a Wednesday, early in September 1952. The Cardinals were five games behind the Dodgers with two weeks to go, and the season looked hopeless. The cotton, however, was waist high to my father, almost over my head, and he and my grandfather could be heard before supper whispering words that were seldom heard. It could be a "good crop." Thus begins the... (more)

Baseball Card Adventures: Book 3

Babe & Me

by Dan Gutman

On October 1, 1932, during Game Three of the Chicago Cubs -- New York Yankees World Series, Babe Ruth belted a long home run to straightaway centerfield. According to legend, just before he hit, Babe pointed to the bleachers and boldly predicted he would slam the next pitch there. Did he call the shot or didn't he? Witnesses never agreed. Like other baseball fans, Joe Stoshack wants to know the truth. But unlike... (more)

The Aurora County All-Stars

by Deborah Wiles

Twelve-year-old House Jackson--star pitcher and team captain of the Aurora County All-Stars--has been sidelined for a whole sorry year with a broken elbow. He's finally ready to play, but wouldn't you know that the team's only game of the year has been scheduled for the exact same time as the town's 200th-anniversary pageant. Now House must face the pageant's director, full-of-herself Frances Shotz (his nemesis... (more)

The Yankee Years

by Joe Torre

Twelve straight playoff appearances. Six American League pennants. Four World Series titles. This is the definitive story of a dynasty: the Yankee years When Joe Torre took over as manager of the New York Yankees in 1996, the most storied franchise in sports had not won a World Series title in eighteen years. The famously tough and mercurial owner, George Steinbrenner, had fired seventeen managers during that... (more)

Beyond Belief: Finding the Strength to Come Back

Beyond Belief: Finding the Strength to Come Back

by Josh Hamilton

Josh Hamilton was the first player chosen in the first round of the 1999 baseball draft. He was destined to be one of those rare "high-character " superstars. But in 2001, working his way from the minors to the majors, all of the plans for Josh went off the rails in a moment of weakness. What followed was a 4-year nightmare of drugs and alcohol, estrangement from friends and family, and his eventual suspension... (more)

The Brooklyn Nine

by Alan Gratz

1845: Felix Schneider, an immigrant from Germany, cheers the New York Knickerbockers as they play Three-Out, All-Out. 1908: Walter Snider, batboy for the Brooklyn Superbas, arranges a team tryout for a black pitcher by pretending he is Cuban. 1945: Kat Snider of Brooklyn plays for the Grand Rapids Chicks in the All-American Girls Baseball League. 1981: Michael Flint fi nds himself pitching a perfect game during... (more)

Edward's Eyes

by Patricia MacLachlan

Jake is a part of an extraordinary family. He has a life filled with art, music, and long summer nights on the Cape. He has hours and days and months of baseball. But, more than anything in this world, Jake knows he has Edward. From the moment he was born, Jake knew Edward was destined for something. Edward could make anyone laugh and everyone think. During one special year, he became the only one in the... (more)

Baseball Card Adventures: Book 2

Jackie & Me

by Dan Gutman

Like every other kid in his class, Joe Stoscack has to write a report on an African American who's made an important contribution to society. Unlike every other kid in his class, Joe has a special talent: with the help of old baseball cards, he can travel through time. So for his report, Joe decides to go back to meet one of the greatest baseball players ever, Jackie Robinson, to find out what it was like to be... (more)

The Natural

by Bernard Malamud

The classical novel (and basis for the acclaimed film) now in a new edition Introduction by Kevin Baker The Natural , Bernard Malamud’s first novel, published in 1952, is also the first—and some would say still the best—novel ever written about baseball. In it Malamud, usually appreciated for his unerring portrayals of postwar Jewish life, took on very different material—the story of a superbly gifted... (more)

The Teammates: A Portrait of a Friendship

The Teammates: A Portrait of a Friendship

by David Halberstam

Now in paperback, the New York Times bestselling The Teammates -- David Halberstam's stirring tribute to the golden age of baseball and to friendship. The Teammates is the profoundly moving story of four great baseball players who have made the passage from sports icons -- when they were young and seemingly indestructible -- to men dealing with the vulnerabilities of growing older. At the core of the... (more)

October 1964

by David Halberstam

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER THE BEST SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR "October 1964 should be a hit with old-time baseball fans, who'll relish the opportunity to relive that year's to-die-for World Series, when the dynastic but aging New York Yankees squared off against the upstart St. Louis Cardinals. It should be a hit with younger students of the game, who'll eat up the vivid portrayals of legends like Mickey Mantle... (more)

Abduction!

by Peg Kehret

When Matt leaves his kindergarten class for a quick trip to the bathroom, he never imagines what will happen next. He suddenly finds himself in a stranger’s car traveling to an unfamiliar place. But who is this man, and is he really a "stranger"? When the school bell rings and Matt is nowhere to be found, his sister, Bonnie, is frantic. She quickly realizes that her little brother is not lost, but missing!... (more)

Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal that Rocked Professional Sports

Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal that Rocked Professional Sports

by Mark Fainaru-Wada, Lance Williams

This audiobook is the window into the underground world of cheating at the highest levels, which set off a frenzy of activity and hand-wringing in the offices of Major League Baseball and Congress. Through the authors' pursuit of sources and documents, they were able to open for public view a world in which elite athletes trade money and risk their health for the edge that will allow them to run faster, hit... (more)

Three Nights in August: Strategy, Heartbreak, and Joy Inside the Mind of a Manager

Three Nights in August: Strategy, Heartbreak, and Joy Inside the Mind of a Manager

by Buzz Bissinger

Three Nights in August captures the strategic and emotional complexities of baseball's quintessential form, the three-game series. As the St. Louis Cardinals battle their archrival Chicago Cubs, we watch from the dugout through the eyes of legendary manager Tony La Russa, considered by many to be the shrewdest mind in the game today. In his twenty-seven years of managing, La Russa has been named Manager of the... (more)

The Wednesday Wars

by Gary D. Schmidt

Gary D. Schmidt offers an unforgettable antihero in THE WEDNESDAY WARS—a wonderfully witty and compelling novel about a teenage boy's mishaps and adventures over the course of the 1967–68 school year. Meet Holling Hoodhood, a seventh-grader at Camillo Junior High, who must spend Wednesday afternoons with his teacher, Mrs. Baker, while the rest of the class has religious instruction. Mrs. Baker doesn't like... (more)

Baseball Card Adventures: Book 7

Satch & Me

by Dan Gutman

"You wanna know who threw the fastest pitch ever ?" Many baseball players claim that Satchel Paige was the fastest pitcher in the history of the game. Stosh and his coach, Flip Valentini, are on a mission to find out. With radar gun in tow, they travel back to 1942 and watch Satch pitch to power hitter Josh Gibson in the Negro League World Series. They soon learn that everything about Satch is fast -- whether... (more)

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Top Books

by David Halberstam

by Sue Corbett

by Dan Gutman

by John H. Ritter

by John Grisham

by Dan Gutman

by Deborah Wiles

by Joe Torre

by Josh Hamilton

by Alan Gratz

by Patricia MacLachlan

by Dan Gutman

by Bernard Malamud

by David Halberstam

by David Halberstam

by Peg Kehret

by Mark Fainaru-Wada, Lance Williams

by Buzz Bissinger

by Gary D. Schmidt

by Dan Gutman