Most books that study professional sports concentrate on teams and leagues. In contrast, Home Team studies the connections between professional team sports in North America and the places where teams play. It examines the relationships between the four major professional team sports--baseball, basketball, football, and hockey--and the cities that attach their names, their hearts, and their increasing amount of tax dollars to big league teams. From the names on their uniforms to the loyalties of their fans, teams are tied to the places in which they play. Nonetheless, teams, like other urban businesses, are affected by changes in their environments--like the flight of their customers to suburbs and changes in local political climates. In Home Team, professional sports are scrutinized in the larger context of the metropolitan areas that surround and support them. Michael Danielson is particularly interested in the political aspects of the connections between professional sports teams and cities. He points out that local and state governments are now major players in the competition for franchises, providing increasingly lavish publicly funded facilities for what are, in fact, private business ventures. As a result, professional sports enterprises, which have insisted that private leagues rather than public laws be the proper means of regulating games, have become powerful political players, seeking additional benefits from government, often playing off one city against another. The wide variety of governmental responses reflects the enormous diversity of urban and state politics in the United States and in the Canadian cities and provinces that host professional teams. Home Team collects a vast amount of data, much of it difficult to find elsewhere, including information on the relocation of franchises, expansion teams, new leagues, stadium development, and the political influence of the rich cast of characters involved in the ongoing contests over where teams will play and who will pay. Everyone who is interested in the present condition and future prospects of professional sports will be captivated by this informative and provocative new book.

The New York Times bestseller that's "heaven in hardcover" (New Orleans Times-Picayune) for Saints fans. In the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, no symbol of disaster was more potent than New Orleans' Superdome: it became a horrific shelter of last resort where the utterly desperate rode out the storm. Four years later, in that very stadium, the New Orleans Saints won the NFC championship and earned their first-ever trip to the Super Bowl, where they defeated the favored Indianapolis Colts 31-17. This is the inspirational true story of a city recovering from disaster and a team with a history of heartbreak, as seen through the eyes of the coach who would help elevate them both to long- forgotten greatness.

In 1957 Horace Stoneham took his Giants of New York baseball team and headed west, starting a gold rush with bats and balls rather than pans and mines. But San Francisco already had a team, the Seals of the Pacific Coast League, and West Coast fans had to learn to embrace the newcomers. Starting with the franchise’s earliest days and following the team up to recent World Series glory, Home Team chronicles the story of the Giants and their often topsy-turvy relationship with the city of San Francisco. Robert F. Garratt shines light on those who worked behind the scenes in the story of West Coast baseball: the politicians, businessmen, and owners who were instrumental in the club’s history. Home Team presents Stoneham, often left in the shadow of Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley, as a true baseball pioneer in his willingness to sign black and Latino players and his recruitment of the first Japanese player in the Major Leagues, making the Giants one of the most integrated teams in baseball in the early 1960s. Garratt also records the turbulent times, poor results, declining attendance, two near-moves away from California, and the role of post-Stoneham owners Bob Lurie and Peter Magowan in the Giants’ eventual reemergence as a baseball powerhouse. Garratt’s superb history of this great ball club makes the Giants’ story one of the most compelling of all Major League franchises.

After a successful mission for the Home Team, the government is ready to create a Home Team 2 to help thwart human and drug trafficking from the infamous Lee family in China. But finding recruits who can handle the assignment is not so easy. And the measures that the Lees will take to protect their investments puts everyone on the team at risk. When Washington State Patrol Trooper Ellen “Ell” Evander is reassigned to spend time with the Home Team, motivation to find her kidnapped niece clouds her judgment and spurs her on a mission that may end her career. Determined to move on after the assignment is over, will Ell continue on her own or finally find her place on the team? Army Ranger Alex Anthem soon finds himself side by side with the attractive state patrol trooper. Alex has his own personal reasons for joining in the fight against the human traffickers, but is he willing to risk everything to see the mission completed? As the pressure mounts, Ell and Alex both have decisions to make that could change the courses of their lives forever.

Using illustrations and analogies from the world of sports, The Home Team by Clint Archer presents the Christian family as a team. He highlights the one-flesh union of husband and wife as the fundamental team for God’s design of society, the family, and marriage. Facing challenges together this cohesive team must not allow division to weaken their union. As children are added, Mom and Dad play their unique and essential roles to strengthen the expanding team. The family must close ranks on opponents to God’s design, tackle obstacles, and fortify the bonds in their huddle. In the unity and synergy of teamwork each player is uniquely positioned to advance the team’s objective. The goal is to give God glory, and enjoy the blessings and joy that come with obedience.

Rooting for the Home Team examines how various American communities create and maintain a sense of collective identity through sports. Looking at large cities such as Chicago, Baltimore, and Los Angeles as well as small rural towns, suburbs, and college towns, the contributors consider the idea that rooting for local athletes and home teams often symbolizes a community's preferred understanding of itself, and that doing so is an expression of connectedness, public pride and pleasure, and personal identity. Some of the wide-ranging essays point out that financial interests also play a significant role in encouraging fan bases, and modern media have made every seasonal sport into yearlong obsessions. Celebrities show up for big games, politicians throw out first pitches, and taxpayers pay plenty for new stadiums and arenas. The essays in Rooting for the Home Team cover a range of professional and amateur athletics, including teams in basketball, football, baseball, and even the phenomenon of no-glove softball. Contributors are Amy Bass, Susan Cahn, Mark Dyreson, Michael Ezra, Elliott J. Gorn, Christopher Lamberti, Allison Lauterbach, Catherine M. Lewis, Shelley Lucas, Daniel A. Nathan, Michael Oriard, Carlo Rotella, Jaime Schultz, Mike Tanier, David K. Wiggins, and David W. Zang.

The Pawtucket Red Sox were one of the country's premier AAA baseball teams, and for forty-five years they called Rhode Island home. In February 2015, a group of investors purchased the team from the widow of beloved owner Ben Mondor and longtime executives Mike Tamburro and Lou Schwechheimer. The group tried to keep the team in Rhode Island and move them to a new ballpark, first in Providence and then in Pawtucket. But building sports stadiums requires vision, political will and leadership. Through a series of political and financial missteps, the various plans collapsed, resulting in the announcement in August 2018 that the team would be moving to Worcester, Massachusetts. Join author James Ricci as he reveals how Rhode Island lost its revered team.

One of the greatest changes in the sports world in the past 20 years has been the use of mathematical methods to analyze performances, recognize trends and patterns, and predict results. Analytic Methods in Sports: Using Mathematics and Statistics to Understand Data from Baseball, Football, Basketball, and Other Sports, Second Edition provides a concise yet thorough introduction to the analytic and statistical methods that are useful in studying sports. The book gives you all the tools necessary to answer key questions in sports analysis. It explains how to apply the methods to sports data and interpret the results, demonstrating that the analysis of sports data is often different from standard statistical analyses. The book integrates a large number of motivating sports examples throughout and offers guidance on computation and suggestions for further reading in each chapter. Features Covers numerous statistical procedures for analyzing data based on sports results Presents fundamental methods for describing and summarizing data Describes aspects of probability theory and basic statistical concepts that are necessary to understand and deal with the randomness inherent in sports data Explains the statistical reasoning underlying the methods Illustrates the methods using real data drawn from a wide variety of sports Offers many of the datasets on the author’s website, enabling you to replicate the analyses or conduct related analyses New to the Second Edition R code included for all calculations A new chapter discussing several more advanced methods, such as binary response models, random effects, multilevel models, spline methods, and principal components analysis, and more Exercises added to the end of each chapter, to enable use for courses and self-study Full solutions manual available to course instructors.

This four-volume-set (CCIS 208, 209, 210, 211) constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Symposium on Applied Economics, Business and Development, ISAEBD 2011, held in Dalian, China, in August 2011. The papers address issues related to Applied Economics, Business and Development and cover various research areas including Economics, Management, Education and its Applications.

This book provides a comprehensive and critical analysis of research outcomes on the equity home bias puzzle – that people overinvest in domestic stocks relative to the theoretically optimal investment portfolio. It introduces place attachment – the bonding that occurs between individuals and their meaningful environments – as a new explanation for equity home bias, and presents a philosophically multi-paradigmatic view of place attachment. For the first time, a comprehensive and up-to-date review of the extant literature is provided, demonstrating that place attachment is a contributing factor to 22 different topics in which variations of home bias are present. The author also analyses the social-psychological underpinnings of place attachment, and considers the effect of multi-culturalism on the future of equity home bias. The book’s unique approach discusses the issues in conceptual terms rather than through data and statistical methods. This multi- and inter-disciplinary book is an invaluable resource for graduate students and researchers interested in economics, finance, philosophy, and/or methodology, introducing them to a new line of research.