Players Books

This is a unique look at golf instruction from an athletic baseball perspective. I've always been told how different the baseball swing and golf swing are however Mr. Pranio points out many similarites. I've been able to apply lessons in the book to my golf game with immediate positive results and less thinking. Mr. Pranio's golf lessons are natural and did not mess up my golf game for a while. If you have ever swung a baseball bat I highly suggest this book as common sense golf instruction.

After playing baseball for over 10 years as a kid and then trying to make that "adult" jump to golf, i found that all my mechanics we're wrong and i didn't have the time or money to correct them to the point of being a decent golfer. This book allowed me to actually use my baseball instincts that usually cause bad golf mechanics and turn them into a positive for my game. It's a quick read, full of pictures and gives you precise but simple information that can be utilized immediately after you read just a couple of pages. Bottom line is that i took more strokes off my game by reading this book than i did after six lessons(with much less frustration).

This book is for you. I bought it because I played ball back in the day and figured that my golf game couldn't get any worse. I was expecting the same old back-patting tome of antecdotes, past wins and a little bit of instruction. What I got was a book full of lessons, taking me from the grip to the full swing, fully illustrated using a regular guy as the model. It was great! If my golf pro had explained the swing the way this guy does, I would have broken a hundred years ago! In fact, after reading this book, I broke a hundred on Tuesday. I think everybody who played ball should buy this book. The golf swing makes so much more sense to me now.

If you are serious about Baseball and are willing to spend a little time to become familiar with Mr. Burnson's work, his research will really pay off. And if you need these graph's updated on a twice a week basis for fantasy leagues then you need Heater magazine at [...]. Follow the graphs during the year and you will see who's getting it done, who should be getting it done and finally who will soon be getting it done. His research , to me, is on par with Baseball Forecaster and then some. Fabulous.

Really enjoyed this book. Excellent help for preparation for upcoming fantasy baseball season.

No, there's no dollar values for the players in this book. Since it's published in December, one could argue that values would not be accurate anyway. There's no predictions for 2007 performance data either. However, if you want a data analysis that gives you valuable insight into player performance, Burnson is one of the best.

The graphs are a little crowded, but they are the key to the value of this book. Spend a few minutes actually reading the preface and a whole new world of statistical analysis will be opened up.

This is the first year that this book has ventured beyond pitchers and into position players. The pitcher analyses alone justify buying this book, which is a good thing because the player analysis does not quite live up to the unique insight of the pitchers section.

I am only about 1/2 way through the book right now and it is going to make coaching tee ball much easier for me. I wish I could afford to get a copy for my how team of helpers.

I'm going to be managing a Little League team this year, and I haven't done it before. I've found many helpful books but "The Baffled Parent's Guide to Great Baseball Drills" is exactly what I've been needing. This book helps show how to format a practice so that it keeps moving, maximizing your time, while keeping things fun and simple. I have bookmarks and yellow highlighter all over the thing! I'm really glad that I found it. ...God bless to all you coaches out there.

The Great Baseball Drills book is a unique view on teaching kids the skill of baseball. The drills are fun ways to involve lots of kids and keep them active. Too often one player is pitching, one catching, and one at the plate, while everyone else is waiting to get involved. Not with this approach.

The Greek-American community owe Dabilis and Tsiotis a great debt of gratitude for the service they have provided by publishing the stories of Agganis and Kyriakides.

Arguably New England's finest all-around athlete, Harry Agganis' life represents the ultimate greek tragedy. Blessed with unprecedented athletic talent, Agganis was struck down in the prime of his life. His love of sports was equalled only by his love of family. Nick Tsiotos and Andy Dabilis capture the true essence of Agganis. This is must read for all sports fans.

A great look at the life of an exceptional young man who's legacy should be passed on.

I purchased this book for a young boy age 13 and I also have one myself. This book and DVD is an excellent, fun history lesson for a child or pre-teen to reference at his or her leasure. It's an easy read and a great reference for people of all ages who want to know more about the Negro Baseball Leagues! A must have!

If you have any interest in baseball, you'll definitely want to have this book! Created by very talented men, this is a book to keep.

This book preserves an important aspect in the history of baseball and in African American history, and it does so in a riveting way. A sincere and fascinating tribute -- and a handsome one, to boot.

I would recommend this book to all hockey coaches beginning and experienced. This book identifies the 4 critical roles that all hockey players must know and understand to excel at today's game. The 4 roles include play with the puck, supporting the puck, checking the puck carrier and defending away from the puck carrier.

This book presents a modern hybrid of European and North American hockey coaching concepts. Ideas are presented using games and problem solving to develop thinking hockey players that can transition quickly between the 4 roles. A quick mind is even more critical than quick legs for success in the new game.

The most valuable part of the book is the systems provided by Juhani Wahlsten and Tom Malloy for offensive attack and defensive zone coverage. The numbering system they outline, and variations are used by most NHL and interantional teams.

My Bantam team was able to pick up the basic concepts in just one chalk talk. Our defensive zone coverage was noticably improved in our first outing using this system. The offensive system makes it easy for defensemen to contribute to the attack and for forwards to support them in return.

I introduced this system to my coaching partner and he immediately fell in love with it. It's agreat way to simplifiy the game for players at all levels. Should be on every hockey coaches bookshelf, or even better in their hockey bag.

This book is simply a requirement for coaches at every level. It is a great combo of how to coach, how to play, along with a framework of drills that will give new meaning to the term 'dust jackets' for the rest of your hockey books.

It is an easy to read book, yet highly informative. You will learn something new each time you pick it up. Get this book and you will be a better coach and your kids will be looking forward to every practice.

I believe this book is published in several languages and its also notable that it is used as the national development model for Austria's hockey program.

This is the second book by Juhani Wahlsten and Tom Molloy and it completes their first book which was for beginner coaches and players.

In the book they show coaches for all levels how to organize players on the ice, what to look for when you coach and outline how to use their natural way of learning.

There is an extensive chapter on Team Play where they outline how to play every imaginable situation including power plays and penalty killing.

The last section is an entire hockey development program that can be used for beginners right up to pro's.

It is the most comprehensive hockey coaching book I have seen since Lloyd Percival's book.

This book is an outstanding history of the sport of hockey. I saw the Canadian multi-part TV program of the same name several years ago and always wanted to get this companion book. I'm glad I finally did. This is a beautifully done book, with many color and black and white photos from throughout the history of hockey. It's really a coffee table style book, oversized and with many photos. It's true the book is a little oriented more towards the Canadian perspective, but not overly so.

I highly recommend this book to hockey fans everywhere...and if you ever get a chance to watch the TV show, do it. One of the best I've seen about the sport.

Having been a Hockey buff for just over 50 years, I found this volume to be the most comprehensive and complete treatment of the subject that I have read over the years, having read several. It reveals some information not generally known to those not in the "industry". I found this book to be a fascinating, don't want to put it down read. My congratulations to Michael Mckinley.

If you're a hockey fan with an appreciation for the history of the game, *this* is the book you need to read... Hockey: A People's History by Michael McKinley. This both entertained and educated me, and brought the history of hockey alive in a way I've never seen it before.

Contents: Prologue; The Temple and the Chalice; Gold After Silver; Blood and Champagne; The Dustbowl Dream; A Cool Medium; Us and Them; The Soul of a Nation; Hope and Betrayal; The Winter of Our Discontent; Reclaiming the Game; Acknowledgements; Index

This is a coffee-table companion book to a CBC series of the same name. Not living in Canada, I can't say I've seen the series. But if it's anything like the book, it must be outstanding. McKinley goes back to the beginning of the game we know as hockey, back to 1875 when the first game was played in Montreal. Many other variations of the game existed before then, but generally speaking, this is when the game started in its modern form. Lavishly illustrated, he works his way up through time, from the birth of the Stanley Cup to the lockout season of 2004-2005. In between, you learn about the great names of the sport who often are just names attached to trophies unless you know the history... Hobie Baker, Frank Calder, Conn Smythe, and many others. The stories of teams put together to challenge for the Stanley Cup, back in the day when it was up for grabs to just about anyone. There's even coverage of the Portland Rosebuds, who challenged the Montreal Canadiens in 1916. Junior and women's hockey also figure prominently in the story, so whatever your particular interest niche is for the game, you'll find it in here.

I remember a few years back when my kids attended a hockey camp in Penticton, British Columbia. The final day included a game played in the city arena that was home to the Penticton Vees. It's an old-time barn, with plenty of memorabilia from years gone by. But until I read this book, I didn't realize just how big a deal that team was. That team went over to Germany in 1955 and beat the Russian team for the World Championships, and was the toast of Canada in the midst of the Cold War tension of the time. Walking through the arena, you could almost feel the ghosts of history, the thousands of games that had been played there. It's hard to explain, but hockey in Canada is more than just a sport, it's a national identity and obsession.

I don't know that I've spent as much time lingering and savoring a book than I did this one. It's a pleasure to read, and will add immensely to your understanding and respect of the game.

This is the best book I ever read! Marcos Breton is an amazing writer and historian. Usually, all you ever hear about is Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle, but now we get to hear about Roberto Clemente, Fernando Valenzuela, and Jorge Posada too! Viva Baseball! This book is a valuable addition to any library.

In Home Is Everything, Marcos Breton presents story vignettes of Latinos involved in American Baseball, told in both English and Spanish, and enhanced with full-color photographs by Jose Luis Villegas. Slices of daily life training and competing in this great sport, as well as the names and brief profiles of remarkable and dedicated people, comprise this celebration of baseball which is enthusiastically recommended for the fans of Latino players.

This book is very well photographed and written. The photos are stunning and colorful as well as informative and narrative. Not your stanard picture book, this is much better and will have a longer shelf life as the players are legendary. A must have book for the photographer, the sports fan and the Latino communities around America.

Honus Wagner On His Life And Baseball deftly edited by William R. Cobb is an intriguing tale of Honus Wagner's remarkable career in baseball where he was known as "The Flying Dutchman". Following Honus from the beginning of his career in 1897, Honus Wagner On His Life And Baseball informatively carries readers through an epic true life tale of how he became one of the greatest baseball players of his day, playing seventeen consecutive seasons, and retaining a .300 batting average the whole time. Honus Wagner On His Life And Baseball is very highly recommended for all baseball enthusiasts and those intrigued by the accomplished life of baseball legend Honus Wagner.

Honus Wagner On His Life And Baseball deftly edited by William R. Cobb is an intriguing tale of Honus Wagner's remarkable career in baseball where he was known as "The Flying Dutchman". Following Honus from the beginning of his career in 1897, Honus Wagner On His Life And Baseball informatively carries readers through an epic true life tale of how he became one of the greatest baseball players of his day, playing seventeen consecutive seasons, and retaining a .300 batting average the whole time. Honus Wagner On His Life And Baseball is very highly recommended for all baseball enthusiasts and those intrigued by the accomplished life of baseball legend Honus Wagner.

A member of the board of the Ty Cobb Museum in Royston, Georgia, and a "distant Georgia cousin" of the other early 20th Century player widely thought of at the time as being the game's greatest player, William R. "Ron" Cobb has just edited an invaluable work on the teller of tall tales and possessor of a career 150 OPS+... Honus Wagner. "Honus Wagner On His Life & Baseball" is the Flying Dutchman in his own words... as originally published as a newspaper serial in the Los Angeles Times from December 13, 1923 to January 23, 1924. In effect an oral history originally written and published less than seven years after Wagner retired, it gives us a first-person insight into the great Pirate star, an insight that has generally been missing from history, due to Wagner's own reticence while he was playing, and his tendency to gild the lily in his later years. This then, is Wagner on Wagner, at a time when he was most likely to give us a straight story.

Although the 1920s were the heyday of the ghostwritten column, Cobb states strongly his opinion that the serial's words are Wagner's own. "I based this [opinion] on the overall tone and use of folksy and `down to earth' words and phrases," he explains. "The tone and flow sounds much like the spoken word, which indicates to me that a professional writer likely did not write this - at least not on his own. At the worst, I feel that Wagner might have dictated this and let an editor transcribe in into printable text. Even in this case, the text would be Wagner's story in `his own words.'"

And what a story it is. An historical bonanza, not just about the National League's greatest player, and some of his contemporaries, but also about the game as it was played during the first 50 or so years of his life. In 40 installments Wagner tells of everything from his early, minor league years in baseball, to his extensive thoughts on the skills and strategies of the early 20th Century game, to his admiration for Barney Dreyfuss, to the "good old days," to his thoughts on some of the greats he played with and against. And, of course, like practically every other old timer, he picks his All-Star teams. As with every oral history, Wagner's story is colored by his prejudices, especially when he talks about how the game had changed from when he broke in until 1924, but that hardly makes him unique among baseball storytellers. Indeed, much of Wagner's copy reads like it could well have come out of "The Glory of Their Times," except this is a total of 185 pages (with some marvelous photos) all from one exceptional player.

To cherry pick just a few of Honus' more interesting stories... Fred Lieb told the sad tale of the Philadelphia National League club sending a sore-armed pitcher named Con Lucid to scout the Paterson, New Jersey club in 1897, specifically to scout shortstop Honus Wagner. According to Lieb, Lucid thought the big Honus was too clumsy, and recommended they sign Kid Elberfeld instead, thus blowing the Phillies' chance to have a Wagner/Lajoie double play combination. A good story, but, according to Wagner, not exactly true. Honus' version is even better... no less a figure than Phillies' manager George Stallings was scouting him, and it was Stallings who was unimpressed. Seems as if Wagner was playing the outfield that day, and threw a couple of balls into the stands behind the plate. "I wouldn't give that big bum his carfare from here to Philadelphia," is how Honus quotes Stallings' reply to Patterson's Ed Barrow asking what the Phillies would give for Wagner.

Wagner's contract was sold later in 1897 to Louisville, enabling Honus to be present when the one and only Rube Waddell broke into the majors. In an installment entitled "The Bug Enters Baseball - at 2 a.m.," Wagner tells how Waddell insisted on meeting his new manager, Fred Clarke, when he arrived at the Colonels' hotel in Washington at 2 a.m. He pestered the night man enough to find out Clarke's room number, and proceeded to wake up the manager, who then suggested that Waddell needed to meet the rest of the team. The Rube went around to everyone else's room, pounding on doors and waking the entire team, with one exception. Waddell came back to Clarke's room at 4 a.m., not because the rest of the team wanted to lynch him (a possibility) but because the guy in room 128 wouldn't get up, and the Rube thought something was wrong. What was wrong was that William Hoy was in 128, and since he was deaf, he couldn't hear Waddell pounding on the door. (Actually, Waddell expert Dan O'Brien says that this story IS fiction.)

Although there is a tendency to think that Wagner could hit any pitcher who ever lived, he tells of one hurler, Jack Taylor, who gave him more trouble than any other. So much trouble, that Wagner once turned around and batted left-handed against the right-handed Taylor. Although Wagner says he "swung like a woman" he also punched the ball over the first base bag for a double. Other anecdotes include the time Jack Murray of the Giants made a game-saving catch by a flash of lightning, a bit on the game (and the box score) that clinched the 1901 pennant, Bill Klem tossing Clarke from a game for saying he was "a model umpire," and much more.

Wagner's anecdotes, both about himself and other players, are enlightening and amusing. No, he doesn't tell all, like exactly what he was up to in his 1908 holdout, but this is still a find that also includes a vast amount of what was called in those days "inside baseball." That is, how to play the game. Seems as if Honus coached baseball at Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie Mellon University) after he retired, and he still had all of his old class notes around. Presenting a much different side than his standard, somewhat shallow though pleasant public persona, Wagner shares considerable insight, as he had done with his players, on everything from how to play shortstop to defensive signals to nine very specific points on the hit and run. This was no dumb jock and storyteller, but a deep thinker about the intricacies of the game.

While Wagner's story is rightfully deserving of kudos, so is Cobb's work to bring it forth. A SABR member, a Deadball Era expert, and a graduate of Georgia Tech (he really should be called "Dr. Cobb," since he has a doctorate in Engineering), Cobb is no rookie at enlightening the reading public on stars of that era. He has previously published two autobiographical works on The Georgia Peach, "Busting `Em" and "Memoirs of Twenty Years in Baseball." When asked about the nature of his relation to old Tyrus, he says, "I was raised in Atlanta with the family story that we were related to the `great one.' But, no one ever told me exactly how. Some in my family believe we descend from the half brother of Ty Cobb's great grandfather in North Carolina."

When Ron changed his historical focus from Tyrus to Honus, he undertook a big project, having to re-type the manuscript from 80 year-old printed microfilm images of the Los Angeles Times. As anyone who has ever done microfilm research knows, 80 year-old images are not the easiest medium to work with. The image that comes from this is of Cobb hunched over a microfilm reader, trying to decipher smudged and almost illegible newsprint from the Roaring Twenties - a feat that only an historian of Cobb's knowledge could accomplish with success. As hard to read as the old Times were, Cobb had to use his own, independent understanding on the context to make sense out of some of the more obtuse parts.

Ron Cobb's hard work should not go unrewarded. In a very real sense, "Honus Wagner On His Life & Baseball" is as valuable and entertaining to the baseball historian, and the average baseball fan, as "The Glory of Their Times."

This book tells the hardships of living in a poor inner city apartment, hoping that one day you will make it to the NBA. It tells two true storys that actually happened.How that playground kids put in the effort to get a scholarship for basketball from Isah Thomas's former highschool.It tells what life after basketball is, and how living with not much can still mean living.This book captures what reading is all about, learning things about places that you may of never been before.This book is one of the beest biographies ever, anybody who knows and understands basketball should read, and love this book.The book is better than the movie.

The book was well organized and well written. I was able to understand how two young yeenagers experince life in thier low budget enviroment. And to them they see that basketball is their only way out of the inner city. Overall I feel that this book can help out many teenagers that think that playing in the NBA is the only way out of proverty

Hoop Dreams gives the world an opportunity to learn about Arthur Agee, William Gates and their families. More importantly, this book is an opportunity for the reader to improve the quality of their own life by taking an intorspective look at family values, choices, and career dreams.