Early in the history of America's favorite pastime, trading baseball players was almost as easy as trading baseball cards. This was before the end of the reserve clause and the advent of arbitration, free agency, gargantuan salaries, and no-trade contracts. Fran Zimniuch takes an in-depth look at trading throughout the years, profiling many of infamous players who teams regrettably traded and getting insiders' perspectives from the general managers and the players themselves. With a foreword by former general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers Fred Claire, Going, Going, Gone is a must-read for baseball fans....

As long as people have played games, there has been a temptation to win (or intentionally lose) by cheating. Infamous cases throughout the history of sport abound, from the "thrown" 1919 World Series to the recent doping confessions of track star Marion Jones. In this entertaining and informative book, sports historian Fran Zimniuch recalls the notorious scandals that have tainted our most popular sports, concluding that such incidents are often a reflection of the times. Benefiting from personal interviews with many figures either involved in or on the periphery of recent scandals, including BALCO's Victor Conte, Crooked presents a pageant of infamy as rich as the history of modern sports....