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One Season in Rocket City

Author : Dale Tafoya

Publisher : U of Nebraska Press

Page : 225 pages

File Size : 37,45 MB

Release : 2023-04

Category : Sports & Recreation

ISBN : 149623569X

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Book Description

It’s 1984. Minor League Baseball mogul Larry Schmittou needs a new home for his Southern League Nashville Sounds franchise. Walt Jocketty, an Oakland A’s executive, searches for a new town for his Double-A club. Fate brings them together in Huntsville, Alabama, a city in need of an outlet to unite its residents. Thus the Huntsville Stars are born. One Season in Rocket City brings to life the baseball renaissance that shook up Huntsville, a city many doubted would support professional baseball. Named after Huntsville’s celebrated space industry, the Stars electrified the town with baseball fever to become one of the biggest attractions in Minor League Baseball that first season. Composed of Oakland’s top prospects, who later fueled the A’s championship run in the late 1980s, the Stars were the hottest ticket in town. Visiting teams called Huntsville the “Minor League show,” and the Stars were the toast of the Southern League. Wearing patriotic red, white, and blue team colors, the team won the Southern League championship in their first year, led by future Major Leaguers Darrel Akerfelds, Tim Belcher, Greg Cadaret, José Canseco, Brian Dorsett, Stan Javier, Eric Plunk, Luis Polonia, and Terry Steinbach. But besides the lineup of touted prospects on the club, it was the gutsy role players who never reached the Major Leagues that willed them to a championship. Through interviews with former players, managers, executives, coaches, and beat writers who witnessed the Stars take the Southern League by storm, Dale Tafoya depicts the city’s romance with the club, success on the field, and push for a championship. Beginning with a glimpse into Huntsville’s rich history, One Season in Rocket City takes readers on a journey through the team’s dramatic founding, Huntsville politics, tape-measure home runs, and the club’s resilience to win the championship despite losing top players to promotions in midseason. The Stars were just what Huntsville needed.



Rocket City

Author : Cathryn Alpert

Publisher : Unbridled Books

Page : 380 pages

File Size : 50,37 MB

Release : 2012-08-07

Category : Fiction

ISBN : 1609530780

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Book Description

Marilee journeys from Los Angeles to New Mexico to surprise her fiancé, Larry, who has taken a job on the Alamogordo Air Force Base to gain, in one of his antithetical Zen experiments, an understanding of peace. Sympathy for Enoch, a hitchhiking dwarf, disrupts her orderly plans. In a separate voyage, Figman, an insurance claims adjuster on the run, relocates to New Mexico after surviving a lethal car crash that results in an unfair lawsuit against him. Now prone to migraines and the conviction that he is dying, Figman embarks on new adventures. Late in the novel, these two distinct love stories converge on a highway in near collision.



Rocket City Rock & Soul

Author : Jane DeNeefe

Publisher : Arcadia Publishing

Page : 146 pages

File Size : 20,59 MB

Release : 2011-10-25

Category : History

ISBN : 1625841353

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Book Description

In a state widely considered ground zero for civil rights struggles, Huntsville became an unlikely venue for racial reconciliation. Huntsvilles recently formed NASA station drew new residents from throughout the country, and across the world, to the Rocket City. This influx of fresh perspectives informed the citys youth. Soon, dozens of vibrant rock bands and soul groups, characteristic of the era but unique in Alabama, were formed. Set against the bitter backdrop of segregation, Huntsville musiciansblack and whitefound common ground in rock and soul music. Whether playing to desegregated audiences, in desegregated bands or both, Huntsville musicians were boldly moving forward, ushering in a new era. Through interviews with these musicians, local author Jane DeNeefe recounts this unique and important chapter in Huntsvilles history.



A New American Space Plan

Author : Travis S. Taylor

Publisher : Baen Publishing Enterprises

Page : 287 pages

File Size : 37,53 MB

Release : 2012-11-15

Category : Science

ISBN : 1618249614

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Book Description

Meet the Rocket City Rednecks. They're five "backwoods" guys from the rocket city: Huntsville, Alabama, home to NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and the birthplace of the U.S. space program. Sure, they love to shoot stuff and drink beer, and one of 'em lives in a trailer, but with a family tree full of NASA rocket scientists (not to mention their own PhDs and advanced degrees), they aim a little higher¾like using homemade moonshine to fuel a rocket! Now, in typical laidback style, Dr. Travis S. Taylor, leader of the crew, delivers the goods on how America can return to space exploration and manned space flight. What's needed is a good old "try anything" attitude, a bit of gumption, and the spectacularly entertaining backyard science that's the Rocket City Redneck specialty. At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).



Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe

Author : Heather Webber

Publisher : Forge Books

Page : 305 pages

File Size : 13,5 MB

Release : 2019-07-16

Category : Fiction

ISBN : 1250198607

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Book Description

THE USA TODAY BESTSELLER Heather Webber's Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe is a captivating blend of magical realism, heartwarming romance, and small-town Southern charm. Nestled in the mountain shadows of Alabama lies the little town of Wicklow. It is here that Anna Kate has returned to bury her beloved Granny Zee, owner of the Blackbird Café. It was supposed to be a quick trip to close the café and settle her grandmother’s estate, but despite her best intentions to avoid forming ties or even getting to know her father’s side of the family, Anna Kate finds herself inexplicably drawn to the quirky Southern town her mother ran away from so many years ago, and the mysterious blackbird pie everybody can’t stop talking about. As the truth about her past slowly becomes clear, Anna Kate will need to decide if this lone blackbird will finally be able to take her broken wings and fly. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.



Never a Bad Game

Author : Mark McCarter

Publisher :

Page : 288 pages

File Size : 18,49 MB

Release : 2020-09-15

Category :

ISBN : 9781938532535

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Book Description

Fans of the Southern League have seen it all since the circuit was founded over 50 years ago: colorful characters, charming ballparks, and some of the best baseball players showing their potential. From Chipper Jones and Cal Ripken, Jr. to Michael Jordan and Jose Canseco, Mark McCarter has seen them all-and tells their stories with grace, humor, and style in Never a Bad Game: Fifty-Plus Years of the Southern League.The updated edition from McCarter, a four-time Alabama Sportswriter of the Year and four times the Southern League Writer of the Year, features his tales of the Southern League. From can't-miss prospects like Cal Ripken, Jr. and Jose Canseco to some of the most colorful players in the minors, like Joe Charboneau, Bo Jackson, Chipper Jones, and Derrek Lee, Never a Bad Game: Fifty-Plus Years of the Southern League is a fascinating account of the people who make baseball what it is. In Never a Bad Game: Fifty-Plus Years of the Southern League, you'll find entertaining tales about the likes of Jose Canseco, Charlie O. Finley, Jim Bouton, Michael Jordan, Cal Ripken, Jr., and the legendary Joe Charboneau. Mark McCarter is a former sports reporter and columnist who began covering the Southern League in 1976 for the Chattanooga News-Free Press. He is the author of Pandamonium: Engineering Pro Baseball's Return to the Rocket City, the story of the Rocket City Trash Pandas' arrival in north Alabama, to be published in the fall of 2020 by August Publications. A four-time Alabama Sportswriter of the Year and four times the Southern League Writer of the Year, he lives in Huntsville with his wife Patricia. He has been inducted into the Huntsville-Madison County Athletic Hall of Fame and the Greater Chattanooga Sports Hall of Fame, a bittersweet honor when he learned it was for his writing-not for having led the Brainerd Dixie Youth League in home runs in 1966.



Rock and Roll in the Rocket City

Author : Sergei I. Zhuk

Publisher : Johns Hopkins University Press

Page : 464 pages

File Size : 25,69 MB

Release : 2017-02-01

Category : History

ISBN : 9781421423142

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Book Description

In so doing, he demonstrates the influence of Western cultural consumption on the formation of a post-Soviet national identity.



Dead Children's Playground

Author : Dawn C Crouch

Publisher : Independently Published

Page : 160 pages

File Size : 33,45 MB

Release : 2021-12-04

Category :

ISBN :

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Book Description

Based on an Urban Legend. Rocket City, Alabama 1963. Arik Ensminger, a second-generation German, grew up in the southern town eating Zwischenmahlzeit, Kaffee, and Kuchen while playing cowboys and Indians in the woods of Monte Sano. An avid spelunker, Arik dreams of becoming a photographer but instead follows his family's expectations and prepares for a medical career. He is a dutiful son until... He defies his father to join in a search for a missing child. Arik partners with Willa, a childhood friend, and scientific Wunderkind, to explore the caverns under the mysterious mountain. Caught in a disorienting slip where the passage of time becomes fluid and spontaneous, they lose their way. But an unlikely guide, the Little Ghost Girl, leads them to Ensminger family secrets that were never meant to be discovered, then onto Drost Park, where Arik and Willa find the body of the murdered child. Arik has one shot to end his family's ruthless legacy but, if he's not careful, he will become their final test subject, and Willa will die. Dead Children's Playground is based on Huntsville, Alabama's eerie urban legend of child abductions in the early sixties, where children's bodies were allegedly found in the Park. When time is spent, Eternity begins... Some believe paranormal evidence that the spirits of the children remain.



In the Shadows of Birmingham

Author : Brandon Curnel

Publisher : Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Page : 176 pages

File Size : 26,75 MB

Release : 2016-05-04

Category :

ISBN : 9781532889318

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Book Description

This historical study examines the Huntsville Civil Rights Movement and what made the movement both unique and an overwhelming success. The work analyzes the impact Project Paperclip, the relocation of Nazi scientists, had on the Huntsville area and the movement toward civil rights and social justice for African Americans living in the "Rocket City". The book details why Huntsville was a prime location for a groundbreaking movement leading to Huntsville being the first desegregated city in the state of Alabama and home to the first integrated public school system in the "Heart of Dixie". This examination of events involving Huntsville and Madison County concludes that because of the influx of Nazi scientists coupled with the development of NASA and the businesses that followed, Huntsville was more apt to accept a civil rights movement, ultimately leading to the achievement of integration compared other cities in the Deep South.



The Cradle of American Space Exploration

Author : Kenny Mitchell

Publisher : Apogee Books

Page : 0 pages

File Size : 13,12 MB

Release : 2019-01-15

Category : Science

ISBN : 9781989044049

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Book Description

At the end of World War II, the U.S. government transferred Dr. Wernher von Braun and his team of scientists from Germany to America. No one could have imagined that the greatest engineering feat in human history would result. Working together, the Germans and their American counterparts became the Apollo team capable of responding to a presidential challenge issued in 1962 to take mankind to the Moon before the decade's end. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center was the platform and team think thank that produced one of the most awe-inspiring machines ever built, the Saturn V rocket. In 1969, the Apollo/Saturn V team and their miracle of engineering landed two men on the Moon and provided the means of returning the three-man crew safely to Earth. Like the fire and billowing smoke of the mighty Saturn V, the fusion of German, American and Apollo cultures became evidenced in the surrounding economic, academic and social environments. One of the most advanced engineering and scientific communities in the world emerged: Huntsville, Alabama, Rocket City USA. Kenny Mitchell, a retired NASA engineer and consultant, began his career in Huntsville in 1959 as a co-op student at the Army Ballistic Missile Agency located at Redstone Arsenal. He worked his way up the ladder and managed many NASA projects, including establishing the first NASA office in Moscow, Russia as a U.S. diplomat. Mitchell lived the Apollo era first-hand, meticulously documenting his experience while also conducting exhaustive research into the contributions made by the men and women of Marshall Space Flight Center. Complete with untold stories of historical accounts, this book is a valuable resource for the next generation of space explorers whose contributions will continue the legacy. It gives special insight into the origins of the unique character of the city known as "the Cradle of American Space Exploration."