When it came to football in the 1930s, the college sport was king. But in 1933, former boxer and minor league baseball player Art Rooney, who had quarterbacked the squad at Duquesne University, purchased a team for Pittsburgh for $2,500. Thus began the legacy we know as “Steeler Nation.”

At the time, no one could have imagined that the Pirates, as they were originally named, would become a treasured possession for Pittsburghers. For the first 40 years, the franchise was a national joke. With only one playoff performance—a 21–0 defeat at the hands of the Philadelphia Eagles for the eastern division title in 1947—highlights were minimal for a team that regularly found itself at the bottom of the standings.

Many Americans associate the House of David with its bearded barnstorming baseball teams of the 1920s and ’30s. Others may recall the sex scandal associated with the group, a scandal that gave newspapers during the first years after World War I some added spice. Still, others may know it as a religious communal society founded in 1903, which has a few adherents today.

The Toledo Mud Hens—a farm team for the Detroit Tigers—once had a budding pitcher named Ed Crankshaft. At least that’s how partners in cartooning, writer Tom Batiuk and artist Chuck Ayers, scripted the main character in Crankshaft. This enjoyable volume collects all of Crankshaft’s baseball-themed exploits. Fans will enjoy revisiting Crankshaft’s reminisces about his minor league pitching career and his comic attempts to recapture his youthful successes on the diamond.

This beautiful coffee-table book features forty twentieth-century Indians legends, beginning with the era when they were the Cleveland Blues. Schneider has divided the Indians’ history into quartercentury periods, selecting ten players from each as stars of this historic franchise. Illustrator Tom Denny, known for his dynamic and creative images in oil, watercolor, and mixed media, has created portraits and action scenes for each of the forty iconic players. Napoleon Lajoie, Tris Speaker, and Jim Bagby Sr. from 1901–1925; Mel Harder, Bob Feller, and Lou Boudreau from 1926–1950; Larry Doby, Rocky Colavito, and Bob Lemon from 1951–1975; and Omar Vizquel, Jim Thome, and Kenny Lofton from 1976–2000 are some of the forty outstanding players selected. Also included are highlights of each player’s career, biographical information, and career statistics.

The team has played nearly one thousand games over the past eight decades, and The Browns Bible tells the tale of each one. Through individual game stories and box scores, it encapsulates every victory, every defeat, every touchdown from 1946 to the present. The most comprehensive account of the Cleveland Browns ever written, The Browns Bible narrates the legend of this cherished franchise season by season and week by week as it gradually wove itself into the fabric of the city’s culture—starting with its dominance of the All-America Football Conference and continuing through the glory years of the 1950s, the Kardiac Kids and Dog Pound eras, and the franchise’s rebirth in the twenty-first century.

Until the surprising 2012 campaign, a generation of Steel City baseball fans had hungered for the Pirates to be involved in an actual pennant race, a goal that even the most diehard could not have imagined. There was a time that it wasn’t a far-off dream, but instead an annual right. From 1970 through 1979, Pittsburgh won six eastern division crowns and two national championships. While impressive, the 1970s were only the second-best decade in franchise history. Classic Bucs looks back to the beginning of the twentieth century, the indisputable best decade of the Pittsburgh Pirates, when a young and brash team captured four senior circuit titles and their initial World Series in 1909.

Speak English! The Rise of Latinos in Baseball chronicles how much— and how little—has changed since the first Latino played in the big leagues in the nineteenth century. By the middle of the next century, the Alous, Vic Power, and Rico Carty worked to earn their place in the game amid taunts and ridicule. Today, even established players and stars may be told to speak English in clubhouses—eliciting cringes or shrugs from individuals who are seemingly still hurting.

Connie Mack: Grand Old Man of Baseball is filled with intimate glimpses of Mack and of the players he managed over the years. Mack and his teams always gave Athletics fans a great show—and readers can relive the excitement in this facsimile reprint of Frederick G. Lieb’s classic biography.

Author Rudy Dicks recreates the Steelers’ 1963 season game by game and profiles the ragtag squad of rejects, misfits, and scalawags that coach Buddy Parker jury-rigged into a contender. He shows how a group of unsung players banded together to overcome tough breaks, injuries, and a losing tradition, challenging the more glamorous Cleveland Browns and New York Giants for a conference title and a berth in the NFL Championship Game.

There are countless volumes celebrating the best teams in professional baseball. Unfortunately, winning represents only one side of the game. For every champion’s record-setting season, there has been an equally memorable story of defeat. These teams and their shameful contributions to America’s national pastime have been a neglected topic in the annals of baseball history. Until now.