The item shows wear from consistent use, but it remains in good condition and

The item shows wear from consistent use, but it remains in good condition and works perfectly. All pages and cover are intact (including the dust cover, if applicable). Spine may show signs of wear. Pages may include limited notes and highlighting. May NOT include discs, access code or other supplemental materials.

Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include

Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!

Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include

Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!

xxii, 310, [2] pages. Illustrations. Footnotes. A Listing of Armed Men.

xxii, 310, [2] pages. Illustrations. Footnotes. A Listing of Armed Men. Bibliography. DJ front flap creased. Roger Kahn (October 31, 1927-February 6, 2020) was an American author, best known for his 1972 baseball book The Boys of Summer. Kahn began his newspaper career in 1948, when he took a job as copy boy for the New York Herald Tribune. A keen Brooklyn Dodgers fan, he reported on their games over the 1952 and 1953 seasons. He became sports editor for Newsweek in 1956, and editor-at-large of the Saturday Evening Post in 1963. His best-known book is The Boys of Summer (1972), which examines his relationship with his father as seen through the prism of their shared affection for the Brooklyn Dodgers. In 2002, a Sports Illustrated panel placed The Boys of Summer second on a list of "The Top 100 Sports Books of All Time". In addition to The Boys of Summer, Kahn wrote books such as Good Enough to Dream, a chronicle of his year as the owner of a minor league baseball franchise; The Era 1947-57, an examination of the decade during which the three New York clubs-the Dodgers, Yankees and Giants-dominated Major League Baseball; and Memories of Summer, a look back at his youth and early career, plus extended pieces on New York baseball legends Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle. Kahn's 2006 book Into My Own is a memoir describing his friendships with Robert Frost, Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, Eugene McCarthy, and, in its last chapter titled Rescuing Roger, focuses on his son who predeceased him, Roger Laurence Kahn. Beyond the techniques and training, baseball is essentially a pitcher and a batter and the psychological battle between them-the head game. Here for the first time is the story of that battle and the people who changed the course of baseball by throwing one. Roger Kahn investigates not only grips, speeds, and tactics, but also knowledge, maturity, and competitive fire. With the help of some of baseball's greatest pitchers and pitching minds-from Christy Mathewson, Don Drysdale, Bob Gibson, and Bruce Sutter to today's reigning pitching coach, Leo Mazzone-as well as his own deep knowledge of the game, Roger Kahn speaks with authority, and with the authorities, bringing new light to baseball's most pivotal contest. His acute sense of how people make history makes The Head Game a delightful and enlightening tour of baseball through the pitcher's eyes. Derived from a Kirkus review: Kahn's 1972 masterpiece The Boys of Summer is the finest baseball book ever written. This one [is] warm and comforting as a twilight doubleheader crackling out of the car radio on a long summer road trip. Kahn drifts through the history of pitching, from the 19th-century star "Ol' Hoss" Radbourn to today's Atlanta Braves-but unlike most baseball schmoozers, he has actually known most of the players of whom he speaks. The subject being baseball, much of the fun is in noting the inclusions and exclusions. One quickly realizes that the sketched biographies that structure the book are mostly of National Leaguers: Radbourn, Christy Mathewson, Warren Spahn, Johnny Sain, Don Drysdale, Bruce Sutter, Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, and Leo Mazzone get reverential treatment, while Cy Young, Walter Johnson, and the great Yankee, Indian, and Oriole staffs of the past 60 years get little more than a tip of the hat. Woven in with the mini-portraits is a pitch-by-pitch account of the trade, and the stories of the curve, the slider, the spitter, the brush-back, and the splitter drop into the narrative as gracefully as a big Dwight Gooden bender. The book transcends its genre, though, and when it does it's in familiar territory: there's unquestionably an extra bit of hop to Kahn's fastball when he goes back to the Dodgers and Giants of the 1950s and '60s, and when the topic turns to Sal Maglie or Jackie Robinson or Sandy Koufax his prose gleams like the grass at Ebbets Field in October. Opinionated, rambling, occasionally arbitrary, and always...