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Author: George Toma
Publisher: Sports Publishing LLC
Published: 2004
Total Pages: 224
ISBN-13: 9781582616469
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This is the story of George Toma, who climbed from his roots in a poor coal-mining town in Depression-era Pennsylvania to the top of his profession as a groundskeeper. Toma has become the authority in his profession, preparing the field for every Super Bowl that has ever been played. Toma was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame in 2001.
Author: George Toma
Publisher:
Published: 2024-05
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9781962796057
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The Sodfather chronicles the 80-year career of George Toma, who many consider the greatest groundskeeper of all time. George rose from hardscrabble beginnings in the anthracite coal region of northeastern Pennsylvania to manicure sports fields in stadiums and ballparks all over the world. While doing so, he brought attention, respect and honor to a profession. In many ways George Toma became an artist. Green grasses and artificial turfs were his canvases and Super Bowls his masterpieces. "Nobody alive can carry George's shovel," former Kansas City Chiefs general manager Jim Schaaf said. George has two creeds. The first is a work ethic where one gives his best effort - "and then some." The other is that the best insurance for an athlete is a safe playing field. George's insistence on safe fields created a conflict at times with the NFL and he gives his views as only he can - to the point with no punches pulled. If you treasure people who dedicate their lives to a craft, this book is for you!
Author: Mark Zeligman
Publisher: Sports Publishing LLC
Published: 1999-06-01
Total Pages: 204
ISBN-13: 9781582610344
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →George Brett: A Royal Hero is the most complete volume ever compiled about the 1999 Baseball Hall of Fame inductee. His legendary career is reviewed in precise detail through articles that appeared in The Kansas City Star from the early 1970s through 1999. No one followed George Brett with greater interest nor wrote of his exploits with greater insight than the sportswriters of the Royals' hometown daily newspaper.
Author: Josh Ostergaard
Publisher: Coffee House Press
Published: 2014-03-24
Total Pages: 282
ISBN-13: 1566893461
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The Devil's Snake Curve offers an alternative American history, in which colonialism, jingoism, capitalism, and faith are represented by baseball. Personal and political, it twines Japanese internment camps with the Yankees; Walmart with the Kansas City Royals; and facial hair patterns with militarism, Guantanamo, and the modern security state. An essay, a miscellany, and a passionate unsettling of Josh Ostergaard's relationship with our national pastime, it allows for both the clover of a childhood outfield and the persistence of the game's service to those in power. America and baseball are both hard to love or leave in this, by turns coruscating and heartfelt, debut. Josh Ostergaard holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Minnesota and an MA in cultural anthropology. He has been an urban anthropologist at the Field Museum and now works at Graywolf Press.
Author: Rafi Kohan
Publisher: Liveright Publishing
Published: 2017-08-08
Total Pages: 416
ISBN-13: 1631491288
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Finalist • PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing “An inventive, fast-paced look at what have become our modern shrines in a sports-obsessed society.” —Tom Verducci In this “addictive” (Publishers Weekly) romp, intrepid sportswriter Rafi Kohan finagles access to our most beloved fields to find out just what makes them tick: from old-timer Wrigley, creakily adjusting to the twenty-first century, to the oversized monstrosity of Jerry’s World in Dallas. Investigating harrowing logistics and deeply ingrained traditions, Kohan employs his infectious “wit and style” (Christian Science Monitor) to expose the realities of building and maintaining these commercial cathedrals of sports worship. “Highly compelling” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), The Arena is a must-read for superfans, shameless bandwagoners, athletes, groundskeepers, culture junkies, and anyone who’s ever headed off eagerly to the ballpark to catch a game.
Author: Sabah Toma
Publisher: WestBow Press
Published: 2017-07-26
Total Pages: 346
ISBN-13: 1512793256
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Opinions regarding immigration have been a vital part of the American conversation throughout our entire history. Perhaps never more so than now. Our country has reached a crossroads in this conversation, a time in which discussion ends and action begins. From the Puritans over three hundred years ago until this very day, America, more than any other nation in the world, has been defined by its immigrants. It can be fairly said America is not only a land of immigrants, America is her immigrants. Sabah Toma would become one of those countless millions searching for what Americans call a better life but what immigrants call life itself. Mr. Toma would discover America is not as he imagined: the warm, nurturing woman standing in the harbor, holding her lantern aloft for the world. He would learn she is a harsheven brutaltask mistress demanding everything he could possibly give, and more. Finally, he would learn he could never give her enough because she, in turn, would give him everything. Her Name Is America distills the vast complexity of our current social and political discourse into one single human face. In the face of Sabah Toma, we find hope, pain, loss, joy, and ultimately, perseverance. This is one immigrants storythe story of Sabah Toma.
Author: Nancy Finley
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2016-03-29
Total Pages: 212
ISBN-13: 162157542X
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This is the story of a losing baseball team that became a 1970s dynasty, thanks to the unorthodox strategies and stunts of two very colorful men. When Charlie Finley bought the A's in 1960, he was an outsider to the game—a insurance businessman with a larger-than-life personality. He brought his cousin Carl on as his right-hand man, moved the team from Kansas City to Oakland, and pioneered a new way to put together a winning team. With legendary players like Reggie Jackson, Catfish Hunter, and Vida Blue, the Finleys' Oakland A's won three straight World Series and riveted the nation. Now Carl Finley's daughter Nancy reveals the whole story behind her family's winning legacy—how her father and uncle developed their scouting strategy, why they employed odd gimmicks like orange baseballs and "mustache bonuses," and how the success of the '70s Oakland A's changed the game of baseball.
Author: Patrick Gallivan
Publisher: McFarland
Published: 2020-06-08
Total Pages: 250
ISBN-13: 1476678316
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The 1960s were a tumultuous period in U.S. history and the sporting world was not immune to the decade's upturn of tradition. As war in Southeast Asia, civil unrest at home and political assassinations rocked the nation, professional football struggled to attract fans. While some players fought for civil rights and others fought overseas, the ideological divides behind the protests and riots in the streets spilled into the locker rooms, and athletes increasingly brought their political beliefs into the sports world. This history describes how a decade of social upheaval affected life on the gridiron, and the personalities and events that shaped the game. The debut of the Super Bowl, soon to become a fixture of American culture, marked a professional sport on the rise. Increasingly lucrative television contracts and innovations in the filming and broadcasting of games expanded pro football's audiences. An authoritarian old guard, best represented by the revered Vince Lombardi, began to give way as star players like Joe Namath commanded new levels of pay and power. And at last, all teams fielded African American players, belatedly beginning the correction of the sport's greatest wrong.
Author: Matt Fulks
Publisher: Triumph Books
Published: 2017-05-15
Total Pages: 256
ISBN-13: 1633197883
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →With their 2015 World Series championship, the Kansas City Royals claimed their spot among baseball's top current franchises. Through the words of the players, via multiple interviews conducted with current and past Royals, readers will meet the players, coaches, and management and share in their moments of greatness and defeat. Montgomery recounts moments with George Brett, Willie Wilson, and Mike Sweeney as well as the current squad under Ned Yost, including Eric Hosmer and Alex Gordon. Kansas City fans will not want to be without this book.
Author: Jonathan Fraser Light
Publisher: McFarland
Published: 2016-03-25
Total Pages: 1112
ISBN-13: 1476617449
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →More than any other sport, baseball has developed its own niche in America’s culture and psyche. Some researchers spend years on detailed statistical analyses of minute parts of the game, while others wax poetic about its players and plays. Many trace the beginnings of the civil rights movement in part to the Major Leagues’ decision to integrate, and the words and phrases of the game (for example, pinch-hitter and out in left field) have become common in our everyday language. From AARON, HENRY onward, this book covers all of what might be called the cultural aspects of baseball (as opposed to the number-rich statistical information so widely available elsewhere). Biographical sketches of all Hall of Fame players, owners, executives and umpires, as well as many of the sportswriters and broadcasters who have won the Spink and Frick awards, join entries for teams, owners, commissioners and league presidents. Advertising, agents, drafts, illegal substances, minor leagues, oldest players, perfect games, retired uniform numbers, superstitions, tripleheaders, and youngest players are among the thousands of entries herein. Most entries open with a topical quote and conclude with a brief bibliography of sources for further research. The whole work is exhaustively indexed and includes 119 photographs.
