CONTACT DINNER WITH DIMAGGIO: THE PRESIDENTS AND THE Concord Free Public Library MEMORIES OF AN AMERICAN PASTIME: THE HISTORY OF Baseball Springs Eternal HERO BASEBALL AND THE WHITE Main Library By Rock Positanto and John HOUSE 129 Main Street Concord, MA Positano By Curt Smith BIOG 796.357092 DeMaggio/ 973.099 Smith (2018) For more information, contact the Reference Positano (2017) Baseball cemented its reputation as Department 978.318.3347 As told by Dr. Rock Positano, America's pastime in the nineteenth Website www.concordlibrary.org DiMaggio's closest confidante in New York during century, such presidents as Lincoln and Johnson the final years of his life, Dinner with DiMaggio is an playing town ball or giving employees time off to intimate portrait of one of America's most enduring watch. Smith, having interviewed a majority of heroes. This memoir of a decade-long friendship presidents since Richard Nixon, shares personal reveals the very private DiMaggio as he really was-- stories on each. From Taft as the first president to sometimes demanding, sometimes big-hearted, throw the "first pitch" on Opening Day in 1910 to always impeccable, loyal, and a true stand-up guy. Obama's "Go Sox!" scrawled in the guest register In 1990, Dr. Positano, the thirty-two-year-old foot at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2014, our and ankle specialist, was introduced to DiMaggio, presidents have deemed it the quintessentially HOURS the pair brought together by a career-ending heel American sport, enriching both their office and the nation. spur injury. An unlikely friendship developed after the doctor successfully treated the baseball Monday—Thursday champ's heel. THE FENS 9am—9pm By Pamela Wechsler Friday BLOOMER GIRLS: WOMEN MYSTERY Weschsler (2018) BASEBALL PIONEERS 9am—6pm Boston's chief homicide prosecutor By Debra A. Shattuck Abby Endicott hasn't had the easiest Saturday 796.3570922 Shattuck (2017) adjustment to normal life. Her Though baseball began as a gender- wealthy family cut her off because 9am—5pm neutral sport, girls and women of the they don't agree with her dangerous Sunday nineteenth century faced many career choice, her new apartment and her obstacles on their way to the diamond. musician boyfriend. Abby's personal life is about to September to June 1pm—5pm Yet all-female nines took the field everywhere. July and August CLOSED be put on hold when the star catcher for the Red Shattuck pulls from newspaper accounts and hard- Sox goes missing on opening day. Abby quickly to-find club archives to reconstruct a forgotten era realizes this is more than a case of one missing in baseball history. This social history tracks women celebrity. Soon, another player turns up dead and players who organized baseball clubs for their own the frantic search escalates. When Abby discovers enjoyment and found roster spots on men's teams. greased baseballs and mysterious sums of cash, Entrepreneurs, packaging women's teams as she knows that a lot more than the Red Sox's entertainment, organized leagues and barnstorming season is in danger. tours. DY 4/19 Concord Free Public Library #WhereIdeasDevelop MAKING MY PITCH: A GEHRIG AND THE BABE: THE INSIGHT PITCH: MY LIFE AS A PAPI: MY STORY WOMAN’S BASEBALL FRIENDSHIP AND THE FEUD MAJOR LEAGUE CLOSER By David Ortiz with Michael ODYSSEY By Tony Castro By Skip Lockwood Holley By Ila Jane Borders 796.3570922 Castro (2018) BIOG 796.357641 Lockwood BIOG 796.357092 Ortiz/Holley 796.357092 Borders (2018) Much has been written about the two (2018) (2017) Making My Pitch tells the story of Ila men as teammates, but Ruth and Retired Major League Baseball David "Big Papi" Ortiz is a baseball Jane Borders, who despite Gehrig's relationship away from the pitcher Skip Lockwood tells icon and one of the most popular formidable obstacles became a Little field is rarely, if ever, explored. Tony anecdotes from throughout his career figures ever to play the game. As a League prodigy, MVP of her otherwise all-male Castro portrays Ruth and Gehrig for what they as a ballplayer, starting with his days as a Little key part of the Boston Red Sox for 14 years, David middle school and high school teams, the first were: American icons who were remarkably Leaguer through his professional tenure with the helped the team win 3 World Series, bringing back woman awarded a baseball scholarship, and the different men. Theirs’s was a friendship driven Kansas City Athletics, Seattle Pilots, Milwaukee a storied franchise from "never wins" to "always first to pitch and win a complete men's collegiate apart, an enduring feud which wove its way in and Brewers, California Angels, New York Mets, and wins." And capturing the imagination of millions of game. After Mike Veeck signed Borders in May out of their Yankees glory years and chilled their Boston Red Sox, before his retirement in 1980. fans along the way. He made Boston and the Red 1997 to pitch for his St. Paul Saints of the interactions until July 4, 1939--Lou Gehrig Day at Along the way, he details both the on- and off-the- Sox his home, his place of work, and his legacy. independent Northern League, she accomplished Yankee Stadium--when Gehrig's famous farewell field shenanigans as well as the enormous Now, looking back at the end of his legendary what no woman had done since the Negro address thawed out their stone silence. psychological process that he underwent each and career, Ortiz opens up fully for the first time about Leagues era: play men's professional baseball. every time he took the mound. his last two decades in the game, former team Borders played four professional seasons and in mates, opponents, coaches and the problems he 1998 became the first woman in the modern era to sees in Major League Baseball. win a professional ball game. THE BIG FELLA: BABE RUTH AND THE WORLD HE POWER BALL: ANATOMY OF A CREATED SMART BASEBALL THE SHIFT: THE NEXT MODERN BASEBALL GAME By Jane Leavy By Rob Neyer By Keith Law EVOLUTION IN BASEBALL BIOG 796.357092 Ruth/Leavy 796.357 Law (2017) THINKING 796.35764 Neyer (2018) (2018) Neyer, a former ESPN columnist, ESPN veteran writer and statistical By Russell A Carleton Ruth drafted the blueprint for recreates an action-packed 2017 analyst Keith Law looks at the 795.357 Carleton (2018) modern athletic stardom. His was a game between the Oakland A's and numbers game of baseball. For With its three-hour-long contests, 162 life of journeys and itineraries, from eventual World Series Champion decades, statistics such as batting -game seasons, and countless uncouth to couth, spartan to spendthrift, Houston Astros to reveal the myriad ways in which average, saves recorded, and pitching measurable variables, baseball is a abandoned to abandon; from Baltimore to Boston Major League Baseball has changed over the last won-lost records have been used to measure sport which lends itself to self-reflection and to New York, and back to Boston at the end of his few decades. Over the past twenty years, power individual players' and teams' potential and obsessive analysis. It's a thinking game. It's also a career for a finale with the only team that would and analytics have taken over the game, driving success. In the past fifteen years, sabermetrics shifting game. Nowhere is this more evident than in have him. There were road trips and hunting trips; carefully calibrated teams like the Astros to victory. has been embraced by front offices in Major the statistical revolution which has swept through grand tours of foreign capitals and post-season Seemingly every pitcher now throws mid-90s heat League Baseball and among fantasy baseball the pastime in recent years, bringing metrics like promotional tours. Drawing from more than 250 and studiously compares their mechanics against enthusiasts. While sabermetrics is recognized as WAR, OPS, and BABIP into front offices and living interviews, a trove of previously untapped the ideal. Every batter can crack homers and being smarter and more accurate, many rooms alike. documents, and Ruth family records, Leavy breaks knows their launch angles. Neyer considers the traditionalists believe that the "old" way is still the through the mythology that has obscured the players and managers, the front office best. legend and delivers the man. machinations, the role of sabermetrics, and the current thinking about what it takes to build a great team. .