The term “outlaw league” described a league that wasn’t recognized by Organized Baseball, the entity that controlled the major and minor leagues. But for Roy Counts, “outlaw league” had a slightly different meaning… […]
Author: Gary Joseph Cieradkowski
Ralph Branca: Because he was strong enough.
No other moment in sports history comes close to that single game in October, 1951. Countless non-fiction books have been written about the ’51 pennant race, the game, what happened to the home run ball, and the players after the cheering died down. Thomson’s home run has been employed as a plot device for shelves of fiction novels and TV shows, and hardly an autobiography of a person alive in 1951 could escape mentioning where they were on that day. […]
Coming Soon: A New Book!
I wanted to come out with a book that could show all of what I try to do with my work: combine illustration with entertaining storytelling and good research. Here’s a sneak peak at what some of the spreads look like. […]
Mickey Mantle: Got Those Kansas City Blues
Along with the weight of being Joe DiMaggio’s successor, Mickey Mantle also had to endure being labeled a draft dodger, steering clear of shyster businessmen, avoiding exploding fireworks, and most of all, keeping from being sent back to the minors. […]
Pat Scott: Act like a lady, throw like a man
Ever since she was a little girl, Pat Scott wanted to be a baseball player. Local semi-pro players taught her to play hardball and throw overhand, and with her mother as catcher, Pat developed a good heater delivered with pin-point accuracy that made her a star of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. […]
Vada Corbus: Almost a Great Catch
While most women ballplayers appeared with “all-girl” teams on the fringes of outsider baseball, Vada Corbus is a bit different; in 1931 she tried out for and apparently made a minor league ball club. […]
Sid Gautreaux: Guest Author Gary Bedingfield
I’m very pleased to have Gary Bedingfield, World War II baseball expert and author of the new book “Baseball in World War II Hawaii,” as a Guest Author to introduce one of the ballplayers who made service baseball in 1940s Hawaii possible… […]
Blogs and Sites of Note
One of the things I miss about the early days of blogging is the exchange of links between like-minded authors. I looked forward to these posts because it would introduce me to new writers and blogs I hadn’t heard of before. So, in the spirit of the old days of blogging, here’s a little look at the baseball history authors and websites that I visit regularly. […]
Linh’us’r: Too small for the uniform, too big for the box score
When the Tigers went on strike in 1912, nine amatuers took their place. The man who filled Ty Cobb’s spot remained unknown for many years thanks to a baffling mess of misspellings and abbreviations of his name in the box scores. […]
Big Fred Toney: Baseball’s Real “Iron Man”
Since the 1990s, Cal Ripken Jr. has been called baseball’s “Iron Man.” But, decades before Cal, another ballplayer earned that moniker for several feats of endurance that will never be equaled as long as the game is played. […]