Baseball Audiobooks | Sports & Recreation

Baseball has been celebrated as "America's National Pastime" for more than one hundred and fifty years, and recalls what, at least in retrospect, seems to be an earlier, more innocent age- long summer afternoons and sandlot ball, fresh rural air or brownstone stoops. In part, this is because most of those who love the game played as children and followed their favorite bigleague teams as children. It is not a game one grows out of, and once smitten, most baseball lovers remain true, passing on their love of the game to their children. And the game itself is ever young, the succession of baseball heroes unbroken: Honus Wagner to Ty Cobb to Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, to Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams, to Henry Aaron, Mickey Mantle, and Willie Mays, to Mike Schmidt, and Cal Ripken, and Tony Gwynn, to the stars of the present. Cy Young, Christy Mathewson, Walter Johnson, Lefty Grove, Bob Feller, Sandy Koufax, Juan Marichal, and Bob Gibson, each generation has its heroes and cherishes the memory of those gone before as an ongoing counterpart to daily life-through the War and the Depression, through the fifties and sixties, and so on to the present day. This course is a celebration of baseball's rich past-and of a game stronger than ever. **Contact Customer Service for Additional Material**

Professor Timothy B. Shutt, Timothy B. Shutt (Author), Professor Timothy B. Shutt, Timothy B. Shutt (Narrator)

Audiobook

Swing Kings: The Inside Story of Baseball's Home Run Revolution

'This is the best baseball book I’ve read in years. Swing Kings is a love letter to small people with big ideas.' — Sam Walker, author of The Captain Class From the Wall Street Journal’s national baseball writer, the captivating story of the home run boom, following a group of players who rose from obscurity to stardom and the rogue swing coaches who helped them usher the game into a new age. We are in a historic era for the home run. The 2019 season saw the most homers ever, obliterating a record set just two years before. It is a shift that has transformed the way the game is played, contributing to more strikeouts, longer games, and what feels like the logical conclusion of the analytics era. In Swing Kings, Wall Street Journal national baseball writer Jared Diamond reveals that the secret behind this unprecedented shift isn’t steroids or the stitching of the baseballs, it’s the most elemental explanation of all: the swing. In this lively narrative romp, he tracks a group of baseball’s biggest stars—including Aaron Judge, J.D. Martinez, and Justin Turner—who remade their swings under the tutelage of a band of renegade coaches, and remade the game in the process. These coaches, many of them baseball washouts who have reinvented themselves as swing gurus, for years were one of the game’s best-kept secrets. Among their ranks are a swimming pool contractor, the owner of a billiards hall, and an ex-hippie whose swing insights draw from surfing and the technique of Japanese samurai. Now, as Diamond artfully charts, this motley cast has moved from the baseball margins to its center of power. They are changing the way hitting is taught to players of all ages, and major league clubs are scrambling for their services, hiring them in record numbers as coaches and consultants. And Diamond himself, whose baseball career ended in high school, enlists the tutelage of each swing coach he profiles, with an aim toward starring in the annual Boston-New York media game at Yankee Stadium. Swing Kings is both a rollicking history of baseball’s recent past and a deeply reported, character-driven account of a battle between opponents as old as time: old and new, change and stasis, the establishment and those who break from it. Jared Diamond has written a masterful chronicle of America’s pastime at the crossroads.

Jared Diamond (Author), Joe Farinacci (Narrator)

Audiobook

Stolen Dreams: The 1955 Cannon Street All-Stars and Little League Baseball's Civil War

When the eleven- and twelve-year-olds on the Cannon Street YMCA All-Star team registered for a baseball tournament in Charleston, South Carolina, in June 1955, it put the team and the forces of integration on a collision course with segregation, bigotry, and the southern way of life. When all the white teams withdrew in protest, the Cannon Street team won the state tournament. If the team had won the regional tournament in Rome, Georgia, it would have advanced to the Little League World Series. But Little League officials ruled the team ineligible to play in the tournament because it had advanced by winning on forfeit and not on the field, denying the boys their dream of playing in the Little League World Series. Little League Baseball invited the Cannon Street All-Stars to be the organization's guests at the World Series, where they heard spectators yell, 'Let them play! Let them play!' when the ballplayers were introduced. Stolen Dreams is the story of the Cannon Street YMCA All-Stars and of the early civil rights movement. It's also the story of centuries of bigotry in Charleston, South Carolina-where millions of enslaved people were brought to this country and where the Civil War began, where segregation remained for a century after the war ended and anyone who challenged it did so at their own risk.

Chris Lamb (Author), Midnite Michael (Narrator)

Audiobook

Stealing Home: A Father, a Son, and the Road to the Perfect Game

'Tenderly poignant, wise and affecting.' Kirkus In an epic road trip with his Little League son, a divorced dad's eight-ballpark journey tries to rescue his fatherhood--and learn how his dad's suicide might not doom him to repeat a father's mistakes. The rarest outcome in sports is baseball's perfect game. One team does everything right, forcing the other to accomplish nothing. In 150 years of baseball, there have only been 23. Perfect is nearly impossible. As a divorced dad, Ron was trying to redeem his fatherhood with a road trip with his son. Their odyssey of crossing eight states in a rented convertible was supposed to salvage Ron's life as an unsure father. Custody fatherhood demoted him to the second team -- he was certain of that. One sign of salvation came unbidden in an unscheduled tenth ballgame. The adventures and revelations of the road lead to a deeper reckoning of how a father could fail enough at fatherhood to take his own life. Thousands of miles and dozens of innings deliver a discovery: a drive toward perfect fatherhood has a destination that cannot be found on any map. 'Authentic, emotional, and brave, this is a timeless journey of the universal struggle to rise above the past. Stealing Home is a beautiful testament to the power of a father's love.' - Claire Ashby, New York Times best-selling author of When You Make It Home 'Part baseball, part fatherhood, and all boyhood, Stealing Home plays out the mystery of love and family. The magic lies in the storytelling that travels the road to something perfect.' - Donna Johnson, author of Holy Ghost Girl: A Memoir

Ron Seybold (Author), Ron Seybold (Narrator)

Audiobook

State of Play: The Old School Guide to New School Baseball

America's favorite pastime is undergoing an operations-to-field transformation. In recent years, the sabermetrics and analytics craze has infiltrated Major League Baseball-from its front offices to dugouts to clubhouses to media covering both, inciting a baseball culture war. New phrases like 'launch angle,' 'spin rate,' and 'pitch framing' have entered the vocabulary, often with little real meaning when it comes to how the game is actually played on the field. No more. In State of Play, twelve-year Major League veteran, Emmy Award-winning MLB Network analyst, and bestselling author Bill Ripken breaks down these modern statistical methods to explain which ones make sense in the game's historical context, bringing them together with proven old-school strategies. He simplifies those sabermetric terms hastily added to the baseball lexicon without being fully realized, taking new-school confusion out of old-school baseball's tried-and-true common sense. In the end, he unites the teachings of each school to show fans of both how to listen to and understand the game as it's played today and how it should be played moving forward. From a true baseball lifer, State of Play offers a fascinating insider's look at how to reconcile years of historical tradition with the rules and trends of the new millennium.

Bill Ripken (Author), Danny Campbell (Narrator)

Audiobook

Stan Musial

When baseball fans voted on the top twenty-five players of the twentieth century in 1999, Stan Musial didn't make the cut. This glaring omission'later rectified by a panel of experts'raised an important question: How could a first-ballot Hall of Famer, widely considered one of the greatest hitters in baseball history, still rank as the most underrated athlete of all time? In Stan Musial, veteran sports journalist George Vecsey finally gives this twenty-time All-Star and St. Louis Cardinals icon the kind of prestigious biographical treatment previously afforded to his more celebrated contemporaries Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio. More than just a chronological recounting of the events of Musial's life, this is the definitive portrait of one of the game's best-loved but most unappreciated legends, told through the remembrances of those who played beside, worked with, and covered 'Stan the Man' over the course of his nearly seventy years in the national spotlight. Stan Musial never married a starlet. He didn't die young, live too hard, or squander his talent. There were no legendary displays of temper or moodiness. He was merely the most consistent superstar of his era, a scarily gifted batsman who compiled 3,630 career hits (1,815 at home and 1,815 on the road), won three World Series titles, and retired in 1963 in possession of seventeen major-league records. Away from the diamond, he proved a savvy businessman and a model of humility and graciousness toward his many fans in St. Louis and around the world. From Keith Hernandez's boyhood memories of Musial leaving tickets for him when the Cardinals were in San Francisco to the little-known story of Musial's friendship with novelist James Michener'and their mutual association with Pope John Paul II'Vecsey weaves an intimate oral history around one of the great gentlemen of baseball's Greatest Generation. There may never be another Stan the Man, a fact that future Hall of Famer Albert Pujols'reluctantly nicknamed 'El Hombre' in Musial's honor'is quick to acknowledge. But thanks to this long-overdue reappraisal, even those who took his greatness for granted will learn to appreciate him all over again.

George Vecsey (Author), Scott Brick (Narrator)

Audiobook

Sports Byline: Gilbert Black

One of the last living Negro American League players, Gilbert Black of the Indianapolis Clowns talks about growing up in NYC and sneaking into the Polo Grounds to watch baseball games as a child. Black recalls the segregation and discrimination he and other black baseball players faced in the major leagues, including being made to sleep outside on a porch at training camp with the Atlanta Braves.

Ron Barr (Author), Gilbert Black, Ron Barr (Narrator)

Audiobook

Sports Byline: Dave Kaval

Dave Kaval, president of the Oakland A's and founder of the independent Golden Baseball League, talks about his mission to get a new stadium built in Oakland, as well as how he took inspiration from Steve Jobs to start the Golden Baseball League. Kaval gives insight on the Cleveland sports fan mentality, growing up in Cleveland and going to Municipal Stadium and the intimacy of being a Cleveland sports fan in the 80s.

Ron Barr (Author), Dave Kaval, Ron Barr (Narrator)

Audiobook

Sports Byline: Cam Perron

In this Sports Byline interview, Ron Barr talks to Cam Perron, who developed an interest in the Negro League baseball players when he was just 12 years old. Perron has since been chronicling his research on the players and the league, and was featured on HBO's Real Sports. Perron shares stories from the Negro League players he's become close with in his research and gives insight into this overlooked part of baseball history.

Ron Barr (Author), Cam Perron, Ron Barr (Narrator)

Audiobook

Sports Byline: Ben Braun

Ben Braun, 37 year college basketball coach of the University of California, Rice, and Eastern Michigan, talks in depth about the recent outbreaks of college basketball scandals being investigated by the FBI involving corruption and bribery. Braun talks about how the corruption has shifted from point shaving and gambling to bribery and taking advantage of players and their families.

Ron Barr (Author), Ben Braun, Ron Barr (Narrator)

Audiobook

Sons of Baseball: Growing Up with a Major League Dad

A rare glimpse of professional ballplayers, not as pitchers, hitters, managers, and coaches, but as dads and grandads. Sons of major league baseball players grow up in a unique environment, not only because they are raised in part by professional athletes, but also because they are raised by the game itself. They come of age immersed in the distinct sounds and aromas of baseball. The locker rooms, the cinderblock-lined corridors beneath the stands, the dugouts, and the fields are the playgrounds of their youth. In Sons of Baseball, Mark Braff interviews 18 men who share their exclusive stories, ballpark memories, and the challenges and rewards of having fathers whose talents enabled them to reach the pinnacle of their profession. Each chapter is devoted to one son talking about his experiences, from the poignancy of one son’s disclosure that his dad has not been able to acknowledge his son’s sexuality as a gay man, to the humor of another son absconding with the groundskeepers’ cart in Cleveland. With a foreword by Hall of Famer Cal Ripken Jr. and interviews with the sons of beloved players such as Yogi Berra, Mariano Rivera, Roger Maris, Gil Hodges, and Larry Doby, Sons of Baseball provides a unique, well-rounded perspective on the lives of professional ballplayers and their families.

Mark Braff (Author), Tim H. Dixon (Narrator)

Audiobook

Son of Havana: A Baseball Journey from Cuba to the Big Leagues and Back

Luis Tiant is one of the most charismatic and accomplished players in Boston Red Sox history-a cigar-chomping maestro who was the heart and soul of Boston's teams in the 1970s. In his white polyester uniform, with a paunch in his belly and a Fu Manchu mustache on his face, Tiant looked like a guy rolling out of bed for a Sunday-morning beer league. But nobody was a tougher competitor on the diamond, and few were as successful. There may be no more qualified pitcher not yet enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame. His big-league dreams came at a steep price-racism in the Deep South and the Boston suburbs, fifteen years separated from a family held captive in Castro's Cuba. But baseball also delivered World Series stardom and a heroic return to his island home after a half-century of forced exile. The man whose name-'El Tiante'-became a Fenway Park battle cry has never fully shared his tale in his own words, until now. In Son of Havana, Tiant puts his huge heart on his sleeve and describes his road from fields strewn with rocks and rubbish in Havana to the pristine lawns of Major League ballparks. Ballplayers, family, and media also weigh-in-including a foreword by fellow 1975 hero Carl Yastrzemski and the first in-depth interview ever with Hall of Fame catcher Carlton Fisk on the magic behind the Boston batterymates.

Luis Tiant (Author), Leon Nixon (Narrator)

Audiobook

Baseball Audiobooks in Sports & Recreation