Lights, Camera, Fastball

The Hollywood Stars were the most inventive team in baseball history, known for their celebrity ownership and movie star following during the Golden Age of Hollywood.
In Lights, Camera, Fastball: How the Hollywood Stars Changed Baseball, Dan Taylor delivers a fascinating look at the Hollywood Stars and their glorious twenty-year run in the Pacific Coast League. Led by Bob Cobb, owner of the heralded Brown Derby restaurant and known more famously as the creator of the Cobb salad, the Hollywood Stars took professional baseball to a new and innovative level. The team played in short pants, instigated rule changes, employed cheerleaders and movie-star beauty queens, pioneered baseball on television, eschewed trains for planes, and offered fans palatable delicacies not before served at ballparks. On any given night, Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart, Barbara Stanwyck, Humphrey Bogart, and dozens more cheered on their favorite team from the boxes and grandstands of Gilmore Field.
During the Hollywood Stars' history, its celebrity owners pushed boundaries, challenged existing baseball norms, infuriated rivals, and produced an imaginative product, the likes of which the game had never before seen. Featuring interviews with former players, Lights, Camera, Fastball is an inside look at a team that was far ahead its time, whose innovations are still seen in professional baseball today.

Dan Taylor is a former award-winning television sportscaster. He is the author of Rise of the Bulldogs, A Scout's Report: My 70 Years in Baseball, and Fate's Take-Out Slide in collaboration with George Genovese. Taylor is a member of the Society for American Baseball Research and the Pacific Coast League Historical Society. He resides in Fresno, California.

Contents Foreword Acknowledgments Chapter 1: You Can Sell it Out of A Hat. Chapter 2: Not Without Me. Chapter 3: Wholly Owned by Hollywood People. Chapter 4: Go In and Get a Uniform. Chapter 5: Play Ball. Chapter 6: A Few Steps Ahead of Them. Chapter 7: Clean Up That Mousetrap. Chapter 8: We're Both Irish. Chapter 9: The Coast League Has Been Fast Asleep. Chapter 10: A Day that Will Live in Infamy. Chapter 11: A Sweet Prospect. Chapter 12: The Terrible Twinks. Chapter 13: We Fellows Will Win This Fight. Chapter 14: Don't Worry about Him. Chapter 15: Didn't we Make a Fortune? Chapter 16: The Boy Wonder. Chapter 17: The Business is not for Sale. Chapter 18: Give 'im My Regards When You See Him. Chapter 19: Let Me have it for Three Years. Chapter 20: Hooray For Haney! Chapter 21: It's Funny About Kids. Chapter 22: Aren't They Sexy? Chapter 23: They'll See a Lot More Movie Stars There. Chapter 24: This is Major Class. Chapter 25: A Frankenstein Which May Eat its Own. Chapter 26: Run Your Guts Out. Chapter 27: A Natural. Chapter 28: That's the Wrong Sanchez. Chapter 29: It Was a Good Clean Riot. Chapter 30: You're Looking at Something Special. Chapter 31: Homeruns Are My Business Chapter 32: I'll See You at Chavez Ravine. Chapter 33: We are at a loss. Chapter 34: Those Were the Halcyon Days. Notes Bibliography Index About the Author