Hank Hammer

Hank Hammer and the tool team are ready to build a birdhouse.

Hank Hammer and the Tool Team build a doghouse for his new puppy.

Hank Hammer and the tool team are ready to build a birdhouse.

The Classic New York Times Bestseller The man who shattered Babe Ruth's lifetime home run record, Henry "Hammering Hank" Aaron left his indelible mark on professional baseball and the world. But the world also left its mark on him. I Had a Hammer is much more than the intimate autobiography of one of the greatest names in pro sports—it is a fascinating social history of twentieth-century America. With courage and candor, Aaron recalls his struggles and triumphs in an atmosphere of virulent racism. He relives the breathtaking moment when, in the heat of hatred and controversy, he hit his 715th home run to break Ruth's cherished record—an accomplishment for which Aaron received more than 900,000 letters, many of them vicious and racially charged. And his story continues through the remainder of his milestone-setting, barrier-smashing career as a player and, later, Atlanta Braves executive—offering an eye-opening and unforgettable portrait of an incomparable athlete, his sport, his epoch, and his world.

“Filled with deep emotion and intense spark, Marcella Bell brings grit, spark and brilliance to western romance! Marcella Bell is one to watch!”—Maisey Yates, New York Times bestselling author The world watches on as reality TV meets rodeo in this competition like no other. In front of the cameras, Lil and AJ are each other’s biggest rivals. Off-screen, it’s about to get a whole lot more complicated… At thirty-six, undefeated rodeo champion AJ Garza is supposed to be retiring, not chasing after an all-new closed-circuit rodeo tour with a million-dollar prize. But with the Houston rodeo program that saved him as a wayward teen on the brink of bankruptcy, he’ll compete. And he’ll win. Enter Lilian Sorrow Island. Raised by her grandparents on the family ranch in Muskogee, Oklahoma, Lil is more a cowboy than city boy AJ will ever be. It shows. She’s not about to let him steal the prize that’ll save her ranch, even if he is breathtakingly magnificent, in pretty much every way going… This summer, in this bold, uplifting novel, Marcella Bell reminds us that even when it comes to rodeo, romance is the wildest ride of all! A Closed Circuit Novel

It is 1986 in Connecticut and the great renaissance of minor league baseball is in full swing. Shakespeare (Shake) Louis Glover is managing the New Britain Kingsmen, a Double-A team in the Eastern League. Shake, who is named after the Bard and Lou Gehrig, embodies the harmony that is Shakespeare and baseball. As a new season begins, Shake knows there is no other place in the world hed rather be. As the crack of the bat echoes throughout the ballpark, great characters and themes of Shakespeare begin to emerge from the shadows. Rex Lyon, the volatile owner of the Kingsmen, disowns his daughters in Lear-like fashion only to find reconciliation at his tragic end. Second baseman Dane Hamilton, who is seemingly Hamlet reincarnated, broods while learning a secret about his father that changes his life. Hank Prince is a player with great potential who would rather hang out with his Falstaff-buddy than assume the greatness bestowed upon him. Even though the Kingsmen are an excellent team with top prospects, now only time will tell if they have what it takes to be champions. A Midsummer Madness follows a Double-A baseball team as the themes and poetry of Shakespeare blend with the dirt and grass of baseball to create a tragic-comic tale.

"As a contemporary photographer protesting the existing order, Hank Willis Thomas has emerged as the voice of his generation. Using razor sharp insight and complex considerations, his work reinscribes the deep structure and the continued importance of identity politics.--[book cover].

Hank Hammer has a new puppy named Happy. Hank enlists the Tool Team to help make a doghouse for Happy.

In 1965, when Sandy Tolan was nine, his hero left town. Unlike other Milwaukee Braves fans, Sandy continued to follow Hank Aaron and his teammates, even though they were now seven hundred miles south in Atlanta. In 1973, as Aaron closed in on Babe Ruth's career home run mark, the black slugger received racist hate mail by the ton. Shocked, Sandy wrote his hero a letter of support. A few weeks later, Aaron responded. Dear Sandy, Aaron wrote. Your letter of support and encouragement meant much more to me than I can adequately express in words. Twenty-five years later, Tolan embarked on a journey to meet his oldhero and to understand, through family, teammates, and civil rights leaders, a legacy of courage and dignity that resonates far beyond the playing field. Me and Hank explores the landscape between a hero's aspirations and the reality of his struggle; between a young fan's wishes and their delivery, a generation later, to a middle-aged man; and between the starkly different ways blacks and whites experience and remember the same events.