Castro's Curveball

Castro's Curveball PDF

Author: Tim Wendel

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2006-07-25

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 9780803259577

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When an old scrapbook stirs memories, Billy Bryan looks back to the year 1947 when he was playing winter ball in Cuba, enjoying Havana's decadent nightlife, and dreaming of a major-league career.

Escape from Castro's Cuba

Escape from Castro's Cuba PDF

Author: Tim Wendel

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2021-03

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 149622292X

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Named a 2021 Top Thriller by Alta Journal ​2022 Next Generation Indie Book Award Finalist in Action/Adventure Fiction 2021 Professional Achievement Award, Johns Hopkins University faculty Finalist for the 2021 CASEY Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year In this visionary sequel to Castro’s Curveball, the former Washington Senators Minor League catcher has returned to Havana with a small role in a movie being filmed on location. Billy Bryan soon realizes that this place and his past remain as star-crossed as when he played winter ball in the Cuban capital decades before. Against his better judgment, Billy becomes entangled in a scheme to spirit a top baseball prospect off the island. This pits him against his old friend Fidel Castro. Despite being in his final days, the dictator remains a dangerous adversary, as does the Cuban sports machine and the Mexican crime syndicates that now direct baseball talent toward the U.S. Major Leagues. In Escape from Castro’s Cuba, Billy must once again navigate the crosscurrents of the so-called City of Columns: a place where the sunsets from the Hotel Nacional along the Malecón breakwater are as beautiful as ever, but where the alleyways in Old Havana still fan out, crooked and broken, like an old catcher’s fingers.

Fidel Castro and Baseball

Fidel Castro and Baseball PDF

Author: Peter C. Bjarkman

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2018-12-07

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 1538110318

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Few political figures of the modern age have been so vilified as Fidel Castro, and both the vilification and worship generated by the Cuban leader have combined to distort the true image of Castro. The baseball myths attached to Fidel have loomed every bit as large as the skewed political notions that surround him. Castro was never a major league pitching prospect, nor did he destroy the Cuban national pastime in 1962. In Fidel Castro and Baseball: The Untold Story, Peter C. Bjarkman dispels numerous myths about the Cuban leader and his association with baseball. In this groundbreaking study, Bjarkman establishes how Fidel constructed, rather than dismantled, Cuba’s true baseball Golden Age—one that followed rather than preceded the 1959 revolution. Bjarkman also demonstrates that Fidel was not at all unique in “politicizing” baseball as often maintained, since the island sport traces its roots to the 19th-century revolution. Fidel’s avowed devotion to a non-materialist society would ultimately sow the seeds of collapse for the baseball empire he built over more than a half-century, just as the same obsession would finally dismantle the larger social revolution he had painstakingly authored. A fascinating look at a controversial figure and his impact on a major sport, this volume reveals many intriguing insights about Castro and how his love of the game was tied to Cuba’s identity. Fidel Castro and Baseball will appeal to fans of the sport as well as to those interested in Cuba’s enduring association with baseball.

Understanding Baseball

Understanding Baseball PDF

Author: Trey Strecker

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2015-02-24

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 0786476311

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The study of baseball history and culture shows the national pastime to be a forum of debate where issues of sport, labor, race, character and the ethics of work and play are decided. An understanding of baseball calls for consideration of different perspectives. This very readable textbook offers insights into baseball history as a subject worthy of scholarly attention. Each chapter introduces a specific disciplinary approach--history, economics, media, law and fiction--and poses representative questions scholars from these fields would consider. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

Baseball Beyond Our Borders

Baseball Beyond Our Borders PDF

Author: George Gmelch

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2017-03-01

Total Pages: 488

ISBN-13: 1496201035

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Baseball Beyond Our Borders celebrates the globalization of the game while highlighting the different histories and cultures of the nations in which the sport is played. This collection of essays tells the story of America's national pastime as it has spread across the world and undergone instructive, entertaining, and sometimes quirky changes in the process. Covering nineteen countries and a U.S. territory, the contributors show how each country imported baseball, how baseball took hold and developed, how it is organized, played, and followed, and what local and regional traits tell us about the sport's place in each culture. But what lies in store as baseball's passport fills up with far-flung stamps? Will the international migration of players homogenize baseball? What role will the World Baseball Classic play? These are just a few of the questions the authors pose.

Baseball Without Borders

Baseball Without Borders PDF

Author: George Gmelch

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2006-11-01

Total Pages: 350

ISBN-13: 0803271255

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A collection of original essays about baseball in other cultures, notably Asia, Europe, the Americas and the Pacific, which explores a wide range of issues for each region.

Summer of '68

Summer of '68 PDF

Author: Tim Wendel

Publisher: Da Capo Press, Incorporated

Published: 2012-03-13

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 0306820188

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In a year shaped by national tragedy, baseball was shaped by amazing pitching--culminating in a victory by a Detroit Tigers team that faced off against Bob Gibson's St. Louis Cardinals, the 1967 World Series defending champions.

Far from Home

Far from Home PDF

Author: Tim Wendel

Publisher: National Geographic Books

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 164

ISBN-13: 9781426202162

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Photographer Villegas and sportswriter Wendel dramatically reveal the energy, talent, and hard-driving ambition of baseball players from Venezuela to the Dominican Republic, both the few who make it and the many who don't.

Cuban Star

Cuban Star PDF

Author: Adrian Burgos

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2011-04-26

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 0809094797

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Shares the story of Negro League team owner Alex Pompez's founding of a notorious Harlem numbers racket as part of his efforts to finance the New York Cubans, describing his role in retaining the team throughout integration, transitioning players to the majors, and achieving a Negro League World Series Championship.

Cancer Crossings

Cancer Crossings PDF

Author: Tim Wendel

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2018-04-15

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 1501711059

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When Eric Wendel was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in 1966, the survival rate was 10 percent. Today, it is 90 percent. Even as politicians call for a "Cancer Moonshot," this accomplishment remains a pinnacle in cancer research. The author’s daughter, then a medical student at Georgetown Medical School, told her father about this amazing success story. Tim Wendel soon discovered that many of the doctors at the forefront of this effort cared for his brother at Roswell Park in Buffalo, New York. Wendel went in search of this extraordinary group, interviewing Lucius Sinks, James Holland, Donald Pinkel, and others in the field. If there were a Mount Rushmore for cancer research, they would be on it. Despite being ostracized by their medical peers, these doctors developed modern-day chemotherapy practices and invented the blood centrifuge machine, helping thousands of children live longer lives. Part family memoir and part medical narrative, Cancer Crossings explores how the Wendel family found the courage to move ahead with their lives. They learned to sail on Lake Ontario, cruising across miles of open water together, even as the campaign against cancer changed their lives forever.