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Why We Love Baseball
Joe Posnanski
A love letter to baseball, and the follow-up to last year’s runaway bestseller The Baseball 100
The Baseball 100 was a must-have look at 100 memorable baseball players. Joe Posnanski's new book, Why We Love Baseball, is equally essential reading, now about the game's top 50 moments.
Willie Mays’s catch. Babe Ruth’s called shot. Kirk Gibson’s limping home run.
Moments like these have been described again and again, and in Why We Love Baseball, they are looked at anew, told from unique perspectives. These are moments from the big and famous to the small and private; experienced by players, teammates, and fans; all of them fundamental to the connection fans have with the game they love.
These are fresh tales of legendary moments so powerful they almost feel like myth—takes that go to the heart of why we love the game we do.
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A Message from Joe
Thanks so much for coming. It has been 16 years since my first book, The Soul of Baseball came out. I'll never write a book that means more to me, obviously; It's about my friend, the extraordinary Buck O'Neil. But I say this with all my heart: I feel exactly the same excitement for Why We Love Baseball coming out as I did for Soul. I simply cannot wait for you to read it.
Writing this one was pure joy, from beginning to end. I've loved the experience of writing every one of my books, but this one was different. Why We Love Baseball is, on the surface, a countdown of the 50 most magical moments in baseball history (though as you will see, there are many, many, many more than 50). But, really, it's the story of my love affair — our American love affair — with the game.
Every day of writing this book — every single day — I came across something new, something wild, something wonderful I didn't know about baseball. There are incredibly famous moment in here and there are virtually unknown moments. All of them have something I didn't know before.
The familiar names are in here, of course. Just seeing a few of those names, I suspect, will serve as a time machine and take you to a moment. Jackie Robinson! Willie Mays! Kirk Gibson! Carlton Fisk! Henry Aaron! Babe Ruth! Cal Ripken! Don Larsen! Bobby Thomson! Shohei Ohtani!
And then there are some names that you might not know but will be so happy to meet. Joe Bauman! Ron Necciai! Jackie Mitchell! David Hulse! Yutaka Entatsu!
I don't want to give too much away; my hope is that Why We Love Baseball will surprise and delight you as much as it surprised and delighted me writing it. Oh, and Buck O'Neil's in here too, both his words and, I hope, his spirit. I've never known anyone who loved the game as much as Buck. I could hear his voice guiding me every step of the way.
