A History Lover's Guide to Mobile and the Alabama Gulf Coast
9781467152709
Regular price $23.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%Located almost dead center along the Gulf Coast, Mobile has seen a thing or two in its long history. The Port City has survived the ravages of hurricanes and yellow fever epidemics. It has been handed down from one nation to another not once but several times. The last major battle of the Civil War roared only miles away across its namesake bay, a few short years after the last slave ship, the Clotilda, arrived with its human contraband. But this city has had much to celebrate, as well. Mobile gave our nation its greatest party—Mardi Gras. It was also the birthplace of five Major League Baseball Hall-of-Famers. Author Joe Cuhaj serves as docent to the twists and turns of Mobile and the Alabama Gulf’s fascinating past.
Guntersville
9781467105644
Regular price $24.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%
Baseball in Huntsville
9781467152693
Regular price $23.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%The Rocket City Trash Pandas, who made their Class AA South debut last summer, rekindled the interest in professional baseball in this area. As a journalist, it rekindled my interest in looking at the team with some historical context, to the first baseball team in the area (in 1903, with Ty Cobb as a visiting player) to the arrival of the first affiliated team (in 1985) and its ultimate demise. I discovered interesting characters of the early days (the first “graduate” from Huntsville to the majors once placed a dead rat in a sportswriter’s bed, perhaps a precursor to the horse’s head in The Godfather). The Huntsville Stars era was populated with some legendary players, like Jose Canseco, who was the league MVP in the first year of the franchise, Mark McGwire, Tim Hudson, Ryan Braun and Nelson Cruz. The Huntsville area also produced some fascinating players like Gabby Street, famous for catching a ball dropped from the top of the Washington Monument, Jimmy Key, Craig Kimbrel and our “Mr. Baseball,” Don Mincher, who homered in his first World Series at-bat, enjoyed a 14-year career in the majors, became a team general manager, owner and, ultimately, president of the Southern League. Even as people embrace the freshness of the Trash Pandas, so often the conversation will turn to “I remember when…” moments from the Stars’ era.