Showing results by publisher "Beacon Audiobooks" in Sports & Outdoors

In 1942, Pete Reiser was on the road to baseball superstardom. Then he crashed into a wall—an unpadded concrete outfield wall as he tried to make a game-saving catch. And for Pete, nothing was ever the same. A year earlier, at age 22, he had won a batting title, a rookie of the year award, and a pennant with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Sportswriters could not stop marveling at his skill set, highlighted by a keen batting eye, a rifle throwing arm, and speed that whisked him from home to first in three-point-six seconds. 

With a tankful of gas and a passion for baseball history, Jason Love hits the road to discover some of the most and least famous baseball sites in America. On the way, he shares some stories of American baseball, along with the romantic connection between the sport and our everyday lives. As much as it’s an ode to baseball history in America, it’s also a tip of the cap to the simple joys in life, like eating hash browns at a Waffle House and exploring new places with family and friends.

Sportsmanship with youth carries a spirit that we all can restore with focus and effort. SCORE is a 5-part series exploring our individual roles in instilling healthy sportsmanship and a working plan to do so. We are looking to develop a spirit in sport where victory is not measured so much on the scoreboard, as it is in the stands and on the benches; where children, teens and adults can celebrate victory or defeat with style, grace, and sportsmanship; developing character for success in life.

Starting with Jack Ham in the summer of 1994 and finally ending with Loren Toews in June of 2017, this book is the story of the 23-year search to find the 22 players, and head coach Chuck Noll, who were members of all four of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Super Bowl Championship teams in the 1970s, and honor their amazing accomplishments by having each of them sign a Pittsburgh Steelers football helmet. This book also includes biographies of each of the players’ athletic careers in high school, college, and the NFL.

In First Crossing, we follow the two Royal Air Force officers from their separate upbringings in Manchester, England through terrifying Great War aerial combat. Both would be shot down and become prisoners of war. While incarcerated, both independently dreamed and schemed of a way to win Lord Northcliffe’s £10,000 prize for the first non-stop Trans-Atlantic crossing.

High expectations come with being labeled “the next Mickey Mantle.” But once the media or an organization utters that phrase, it becomes an albatross. The expectation is that the player will become one of the greatest players of all time—not a good player, not even a star—a superstar of the brightest magnitude.

In a season marked by personal and team tragedy—the death of his wife and his teammate Ray Chapman, who is the only player to die as a result of being hit by a pitch—Covey pitched three complete-game victories in the Cleveland Indians’ 1920 World Series championship.