Center Field Shot 

 2008 Sporting News-SABR Research Award Winner

      Center Field Shot:  A History of Baseball on Television by James R. Walker and Robert V. Bellamy, Jr. is the first history of Major League Baseball’s stormy relationship with the television industry.

      Center Field Shot was written for both students of sports television and the thoughtful baseball fan.  The book includes 36 photographs and illustrations.

     Please click on a chapter to read an excerpt:  Introduction, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, Epilogue. 

         Walker and Bellamy provide perhaps the definitive history of the evolution of baseball on television without ever getting too scholarly or slipping into fanciful nostalgia.      

                                      Josh Marks, Variety

        As someone who has produced and directed Major League Baseball on both national and local/regional television for the past 32 years, I wanted to pass along how much I enjoyed your book Center Field Shot.  Thanks for writing such an entertaining and informative book on a subject near and dear.

                                        Mark Wolfson,

         Oakland A's Television Producer

     Center Field Shot is a winner. It's smart, crisply written, and packed with eye-opening research and analysis. I learned something new on every page. Turn off the TV and start reading. I guarantee you'll be glad you did.

Jonathan Eig,
best-selling author of 
Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig &
Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season

 Click Here to Order Today

 Read our reviews in Variety,  NINE,

The Hardball Times & Jump Cut

and more about us in USA Today,

the Palm Beach Post, and MarketWatch. 

Watch Jim Walker on WGN.