MLB Agrees to License Team Spirit Series
Groundbreaking Children’s Baseball Books Move to Retail Shelves
December 29, 2007

The critically acclaimed Team Spirit baseball book series will soon be available to retailers in paperback. The series includes 30 titles—each covering a major league team—and has been licensed by Major League Baseball for 2008. The series publisher, Norwood House Press, boasts a stellar reputation in the school and library market. With MLB as a partner, Norwood House now focuses its attention on sporting goods stores, mass-market retailers, stadium concessionaires, and corporate premium sales.

“Each book in the Team Spirit series covers one of the Major League Baseball clubs,” says publisher Patti Hall. “They are packed with rare photos and memorabilia that bring the history of a team to life—from ‘way back when’ to the present day—and really capture the spirit of the players and fans in words and pictures.”

The series author, Mark Stewart, is a sports historian who has written dozens of baseball books. He worked on the Team Spirit series with James L. Gates Jr., Library Director of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown. The Team Spirit paperbacks retail for $9.95 and will begin shipping this spring.

“The pedigree of these books is unmatched,” says Hall, who also enlisted the aid of hometown fans during the editing process. “They are ideal for young fans who want to understand the culture of a baseball team, and adult fans will find stories and images in these books they may not have encountered before.”

Although sports books are not a mainstream impulse item in sporting goods stores, these books are different, according to Hall. When baseball fans pick up a Team Spirit title, they literally can’t put it down, she says—there’s something special on every page.

“These are really intelligent books that happen to make irresistible impulse purchases,” Hall says. “You pick one up and you just have to buy it for yourself or someone you know. When Major League Baseball first saw the idea, there was no hesitation—this was the kind of product they wanted to be associated with.”

Norwood House Press, which also publishes library editions of the Matt Christopher sports fiction books, will be exhibiting this January at the Sports Licensing & Entertainment Marketplace in Las Vegas.