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Expatriate Games: My Season of Misadventures in Czech Semi-Pro Basketball
A young American learns invaluable life lessons through basketball When Dave Fromm graduated from college with good grades and high LSAT scores, he planned to apply to law school. But he actually wasn't that sure he wanted to go, at least not right away. A few years earlier, he'd been to Prague for a vacation and played a game of pickup basketball there. He was a decent basketball player, though not good enough to make the team at Boston College either time he'd tried out. So he did the kind of thing we'd all do if we had the guts (and a foolhardy sense of determination)—he moved to Prague to play basketball, even though he didn't speak Czech, or know anyone in Prague, or if the Czechs had basketball leagues there, much less professional leagues, still less if they let foreigners play. Expatriate Games is Dave Fromm's touching and amusing memoir of the year (1994) he spent playing basketball for TJ Sokol Královské Vinohrady, a Czech semi-pro team. Throughout, Fromm, a self-proclaimed "gym-rat," struggles with his teammates, the European style of play, and the language barrier. But miraculously, Fromm describes how, despite the struggles, the team came together, a girl appeared, and he was introduced to a side of Prague most foreigners can't see—a Prague full of ghosts and back alleys and a people simultaneously embracing and reeling from transition..
Price: $16.47
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Just Kick It: Tales of an Underdog, Over-Age, Out-of-Place Semi-Pro Football Player
Nearing 40, standing five feet eight, weighing in at 160 pounds, Mark St. Amant was most definitely not a football player. He had never played a single down of real football in his life and even in the sports he did play, his greatest skill seemed to be choking when the game was on the line. So why on earth did he suddenly become, of all things, a semi-pro football kicker? Fantasy football writer and self-described poster child for suburban-raised white boy Mark St. Amant tells the unlikely story of how he ditched his television and laptop to join an inner-city football squad the mostly African-American Boston Panthers, one of more than 600 semi-pro teams around the country. With warmth, insight, and his trademark offbeat, self-deprecating humor, Mark recounts the strides he made on and off the field and reveals the powerful bonds that developed among teammates young and not-so-young, struggling and successful, black, white, and Hispanic, all clinging tightly to their dreams and playing the game they love. From couch potato to field goal kicker, Mark lived out a real-life football fantasy, discovering true teamwork, staring his lifelong fear of athletic failure in the face, witnessing testosterone-fueled hilarity both on and off the field, and achieving gridiron glory in ways he d never imagined..
Price: $9.66
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Dream Season: A Professor Joins America's Oldest Semi-Pro Football Team
At age thirty, Bob Cowser, Jr., is a happy husband, father, and English professor in upstate New York. But he senses that something is missing from the good life. He finds himself craving the exhilaration he felt as a young man growing up in sports-crazy Tennessee when he took the field for high school football games. In what is every Monday morning quarterback’s fantasy, Bob Cowser, Jr., revisits his glory days by joining the Watertown Red & Black, the country’s oldest semi-professional football team. Cowser drives the lonely sixty miles to try out for the team in Watertown, a former mill town of soldiers, corrections officers, and blue-collar workers that is a far cry from his leafy campus. As a rookie and an outsider, Cowser must work hard to earn the respect of these hard-edged men, some of them local celebrities. He must also find a way to balance the rigors of practice and game play with the demands of fatherhood, as his wife struggles to cope with a one-year-old son, a career, and a husband on the road. Can Cowser find a way to make the fulfillment of his childhood dream fit into real life as an adult? .
Price: $1.00
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Take Two and Hit to Right: Golden Days on the Semi-Pro Diamond
Not so long ago every town in the United States that had an ounce of pride had a baseball team. The cities had their big leagues, and the bigger towns had their minor league clubs. The whistle stops and crossroad market towns had their teams too, and they were treasured institutions. This was the golden age of local baseball, and it was remarkable while it lasted. Hobe Hays has written a careful, warm, and evocative account of his days as a serious player on serious teams in middle America. His sketches bring alive a vanishing era. .
Price: $3.95
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Carroll County Maryland Baseball: Men's Amateur and Semi-Pro Baseball, 1850-1999
These pages preserve a unique aspect of Carroll County, Maryland, history and serve as a reminder of why baseball has remained America's national pastime. Readers will find a sense of community here, along with a sense of time and place. "As the years fly by, you'll ride with the town teams to games, bounce in the rumble seats of model T's, and click along the rails of the Western Maryland Railroad. You'll visit the little villages where baseball was a catalyst, the weekly escape for the local farmers and citizenry. And, you'll meet the players, live the history, experience game-play from Harney and Sam's Creek to Tannery and Taylorsville." The towns/teams covered in these detailed accounts include: Berrett, Blue Ridge College, Company H (Maryland National Guard), Congoleum, Dennings, Detour, Dorsey's Crossroad, Eldersburg, Frizzellburg, Gamber, Hampstead, Harney, Leppo Bluesox, Linwood, Manchester, Middleburg, Mount Airy, New Windsor, Patapsco, Reese, Sam's Creek, Sandymount, Silver Run, Snydersburg, Springfield, Sykesville, Taneytown, Tannery, Taylorsville, Union Bridge, Union Bridge Blacksox, Uniontown, Unionville, Wakefield, Western Maryland College, Westminster, and Woodbine. Umpires and the Carroll County Old Timers Baseball Association are also covered. First-person recollections that allow readers to hear the voices of the players, an abundance of vintage photographs, excerpts from newspaper articles, and an every name index enhance the text..
Price: $50.00
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