Together We Were Eleven Foot Nine; The Twenty-Year Friendship of Hall of Fame Pitcher Jim Palmer and Orioles Manager Earl Weaver

Kansas City: Andrews and McMeel, 1996. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. xii, [2], 169, [9] pages. Illustrations. DJ is price clipped. James Alvin Palmer (born October 15, 1945) is an American former professional baseball pitcher who played 19 years in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Baltimore Orioles (1965-1967, 1969-1984). Palmer was the winningest MLB pitcher in the 1970s, totaling 186 wins. He also won at least 20 games in eight different seasons and won three Cy Young Awards and four Gold Gloves during the decade. His 268 career victories are currently an Orioles record. A six-time American League (AL) All-Star, he was also one of the rare pitchers who never allowed a grand slam in any major league contest. Palmer appeared in the postseason eight times and was a vital member of three World Series Champions, six AL pennant winners and seven Eastern Division titleholders. He is the only pitcher in history to earn a win in a World Series game in three different decades. He is also the youngest to pitch a complete-game shutout in a World Series, doing so nine days before his 21st birthday in 1966, in which he defeated Sandy Koufax in Koufax's last appearance. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1990. Earl Sidney Weaver (August 14, 1930 - January 19, 2013) was an American professional baseball manager, author, and television broadcaster. He managed in MLB for 17 years with the Baltimore Orioles (1968-1982; 1985-86). Weaver's style of managing was summed up in the quote: "pitching, defense, and the three-run homer." He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1996. The story of the prickly friendship between Baltimore Orioles pitcher Jim Palmer and team manager Earl Weaver recalls their frequent bouts of shouting, threats, pouting, and more that marked their record-making professional relationship. Derived from a Publishers Weekly article: Palmer and Weaver met in 1967, when the pitcher, who had put in two years with Baltimore and developed a sore arm, was sent to the Rochester farm club, where Weaver was managing. In 1969, Palmer was back with the Orioles and Weaver was named their manager. They remained together until 1982, when Weaver retired for the first time (he un-retired in 1985, but by then Palmer had gone). Superficially, they were vastly different: Palmer was cerebral, tall and handsome; Weaver was emotional, short and not so handsome. Yet they had their similarities: stubbornness and single-minded devotion to winning. They fought in the clubhouse, on the field, in the press, but their mutual will to win helped the Orioles be the most successful major-league team of the '70s. This is a fast-moving and witty account of those years.