ELDON L. HAM
All the Babe's Men: Baseball's Greatest Home Run Seasons and How They Changed America
Winner, Third Place Medal, National IPPY Book Awards, Sports Category, 2014
Baseball, and particularly the long-ball itself, evolved via accident, necessity, and occasional subterfuge. During the dead-ball era, pitching ruled the game, and home run totals hovered in the single digits. Then, a ban on the spitball and the compression of stadium dimensions set the stage for new sluggers to emerge, culminating in Ruth's historic sixty-homer season in 1927. The players, owners, and fans became hooked on the homer, but our addiction took us to excess. As the home run became the ultimate goal for hitters, players went to new lengths to increase their power and ability to swing for the fences. By the time Barry Bonds set a new single-season record in 2001, Americans had to face the fact that their national pastime had become tainted from within.
All the Babe's Men features the game's special long ball seasons from Ruth to Bonds and divulges how baseball became king, America evolved into a home run society, and the contemporary game found itself trapped in a legal nightmare.
Broadcasting Baseball: A History of the National Pastime on Radio and Television
Finalist, ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Awards, 2012
There is a long-standing relationship between broadcasting and sports, and nowhere is this more evident than in the marriage of baseball and radio: a slow sport perfectly suited to the word-painting of broadcasters. This work covers the development of the baseball broadcasting industry from the first telegraph reports of games in progress, the influence of early pioneers at Pittsburgh's KDKA and Chicago's WGN, including the first World Series broadcast, the launch of the Telstar Satellite, the Carlton Fisk homerun in the 1975 World Series, which changed how baseball is broadcast, through the latest computer graphics, HD television, and the Internet.
Larceny and Old Leather: The Mischievious Legacy of Major League Baseball
...is baseball at its best and worst—a unique, informative, and often humorous glimpse into some of the secret and not-so-secret dirty tricks, thefts, vaudeville pranks, and just plain cheating that dot the long, colorful history of America's most beloved game.
The Playmasters: From Sellouts to Lockouts—An Unauthorized History of the NBA
The dominance of the NBA in popularity and profit over other professional sports leagues was largely achieved through the blood, sweat, and tears of Michael Jordan. Now that Michael is gone and the fans have the bitter taste of the lockout in their mouths, the question is, can the NBA maintain its high public visibility and avoid financial chaos?
The Playmasters details how NBA insiders—such as David Stern, Rod Thorn, Jerry Reinsdorf, and Ted Turner—subtly collaborated with Jordan, his agent David Falk, Nike, and television media to engineer the greatest entertainment-marketing partnership in the history of professional sports. Unfortunately, with this boom has come $100 million-plus contracts, outrageous incidents on and off the court, rising ticket prices keeping fans at home, and a general distaste for players' attitudes. This book takes an unabashed look at the NBA that no fan will want to miss.
The 100 Greatest Sports Blunders of All Time
This revealing book exposes some of the most ill-advised moves in the history of American sports. Funny, compelling, and often controversial, it explores and ranks these dubious miscues from bottom to top, revealing scores of inside tales about the biggest names in sports history.