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On Par: The Everyday Golfer's Survival Guide
Par Bill Pennington. 2012
Bill Pennington, author of the beloved and widely read &“On Par&” golf column for the New York Times, knows how…
to interpret the experts and pros for the rest of us. For years, he has traveled the globe in search of golf&’s essentials—those basic principles, those elusive truths (and who are we kidding, any trick or quick fix he can pick up along the way) that will improve anyone&’s game. He has consulted the world&’s leading golf instructors as well as countless caddies, groundskeepers, parking lot attendants, and bartenders. He has played rounds with Tiger Woods, Annika Sorenstam, and Justin Timberlake. He has sought the advice of psychiatrists, physicists, economists, zen masters. And on a particularly bad golf outing, he has even discussed the fickleness of golf with a quite helpful raccoon.On Par captures it all: From equipment and instruction, to the rules and language of golf, to camaraderie and psychology, to the short game/long game debate, Pennington informs and entertains as he gets to the essence of this mercurial game, including golf&’s holy grail, the hole in one. Part instruction, part education, part therapy, and shot through with Pennington&’s trademark wit, this is a book for everyone who has ever felt the game&’s distinct pull—and slice.Award-winning sports columnist Joe Posnanski hits a grand slam with The Machine—a thrilling account of the magical 1975 season of…
the Cincinnati Reds, baseball’s legendary “Big Red Machine,” from spring training through the final game of the ’75 World Series. Featuring a Hall of Fame lineup of baseball superstars—including Johnny Bench, George Foster, Joe Morgan, Cesar Geronimo, and “Charlie Hustle” Pete Rose himself—The Machine is a wild ride with one of the greatest baseball teams in the history of the American Pastime.Dixieland Delight: A Football Season on the Road in the Southeastern Conference
Par Clay Travis. 2007
There is no college ball more passionate and competitive than football in the Southeastern Conference, where seven of the twelve…
schools boast stadiums bigger than any in the NFL and 6.5 million fans hit the road every year to hoot and holler their teams to victory.In September 2006, popular sports columnist and lifelong University of Tennessee fan Clay Travis set out on his "Dixieland Delight Tour." Without a single map, hotel reservation, or game ticket, he began an 8,000-mile journey through the beating heart of the Southland. As Travis toured the SEC, he immersed himself in the bizarre game-day rituals of the common fan, brazenly dancing with the chancellor's wife at a Vanderbilt frat party, hanging with University of Florida demigod quarterback Tim Tebow, and abandoning himself totally to the ribald intensity and religious fervor of SEC football. Dixieland Delight is Travis's hilarious, loving, irreverent, and endlessly entertaining chronicle of a season of ironic excess in a world that goes a little crazy on football Saturdays.The Rise of the Bulldogs: The Untold Story of One of the Greatest Upsets of All Time
Par Dan Taylor. 2009
The The Rise of the Bulldogs tells the extraordinary story of the unranked 2008 Fresno State Bulldogs and their remarkable…
journey from a seemingly lost season to NCAA National Champions.Baseball fans across America were held spellbound by Fresno State's nail-biting and improbable adventure through the NCAA playoffs. A record viewing audience of almost 2 million households tuned in to ESPN's live coverage as Fresno State grabbed their crown. Now in this gripping on-the-field account, readers can experience what Baseball America magazine columnist John Manuel described as "the biggest upset winners in College World Series history, perhaps all of college sports." Only a handful of people close to the team know the inside truth about the turmoil—the injuries, the conflicts, and the betrayals that took place during the Bulldogs' momentous season. Television sportscaster Dan Taylor is one of those insiders, and he reveals the real story in these pages.Taylor shows how late-season tumult forced a reevaluation of the commitment, direction, and relationships among the players themselves; how the team bonded as a unit and developed leadership from within; and how these changes led to a positive and carefree brand of baseball. Ultimately, the group found the belief they needed in one another in the midst of the most unlikely crowning of a national champion in the history of collegiate sports. This is the ultimate underdog story, with a long shot coming out on top against overwhelming odds.The Heisman: Great American Stories of the Men Who Won
Par Bill Pennington. 1984
Close your eyes and picture the Heisman Trophy. The form is easyto conjure, a graceful, fluid posethat is football past…
and football present in one dignified figure ...The story of the Heisman Trophyis an american epic.-- from the PrefaceNo sport in America can match the pageantry, raw emotion, and thrilling tradition of college football. It is a world in which a twenty-year-old kid can become a national sensation overnight, in which coaches are deified and rivalries burn white-hot.And in this world, there is no individual award so revered as the Heisman Trophy. Every yearsince 1935, one player has run, thrown, or kicked his way into the pantheon of American sport. From Nile "The Cornbelt Comet" Kinnick in the '30s, West Point's legendary backfield of Doc Blanchard and Glenn Davis in the '40s, and Paul Hornung in the '50s to Ernie Davis, the Jackie Robinson of college football, miracle worker Doug Flutie, and modern-day Sunday warrior Eddie George, the history of the Heisman gives us insight into the heart of America through the lives of the heroes that entranced an entire nation for one brilliant season. Extraordinary in ways that transcend athletic ability, Heisman winners have gone on to become war heroes, Fortune 500 CEOs, and high-level politicians.As John Heisman himself once said, the Heisman Trophy "is meant to exemplify the grandeur of a thousand men." Here within these pages are intimate portraits of some of the winners who also exemplify the grit and glory of America's beloved game and of the coaching giants such as Bear Bryant, Woody Hayes, and Red Blaik, who inspired the winners to achieve.Told in the evocative words of Pulitzer Prize–nominated journalist Bill Pennington, their heart-stopping experiences on the field and off will have Americans enthralled until the final page is turned.Across the River: Life, Death, and Football in an American City
Par Kent Babb. 1958
On the west bank of the Mississippi lies the New Orleans neighborhood of Algiers. Short on hope but big on…
dreams, its mostly poor and marginalized residents find joy on Friday nights when the Cougars of Edna Karr High School take the field. For years, this football program has brought glory to Algiers, winning three consecutive state championships and sending dozens of young men to college on football scholarships. Although he is preparing for a fourth title, head coach Brice Brown is focused on something else: keeping his players alive. An epidemic of gun violence plagues New Orleans and its surrounding communities and has claimed many innocent lives, including Brown’s former star quarterback, Tollette “Tonka” George, shot near a local gas station. In Across the River, award-winning sports journalist Kent Babb follows the Karr football team through its 2019 season as Brown and his team—perhaps the scrappiest and most rebellious group in the program’s history—vie to again succeed on and off the field. What is sure to be a classic work of sports journalism, Across the River is a necessary investigation into the serious realities of young athletes in struggling neighborhoods: gentrification, eviction, mental health issues, the drug trade, and gun violence. It offers a rich and unflinching portrait of a coach, his players, and the West Bank, a community where it’s difficult—but not impossible—to rise above the chaos, discover purpose, and find a way out.Curt Flood in the Media: Baseball, Race, and the Demise of the Activist-Athlete (Race, Rhetoric, and Media Series)
Par Professor Abraham Iqbal Khan. 2012
Curt Flood in the Media examines the public discourse surrounding Curt Flood (1938–1997), the star centerfielder for the St. Louis…
Cardinals throughout the sixties. In 1969, Flood was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies. At the time, all Major League Baseball players were subject to the reserve clause, which essentially bound a player to work in perpetuity for his original team, unless traded for another player or sold for cash, in which case he worked under the same reserve conditions for the next team. Flood refused the trade on a matter of principle, arguing that Major League Baseball had violated both US antitrust laws and the 13th Amendment's prohibition of involuntary servitude. In a defiant letter to Commissioner Bowie Kuhn asking for his contractual release, Flood infamously wrote, “after twelve years in the major leagues, I do not feel that I am a piece of property to be bought and sold irrespective of my wishes.” Most significantly, Flood appeared on national television with Howard Cosell and described himself as a “well-paid slave.” Explosive controversy ensued. Khan examines the ways in which the media constructed the case and Flood's persona. By examining the mainstream press, the Black press, and primary sources, including Flood's autobiography, Khan exposes the complexities of what it means to be a prominent Black American athlete—in 1969 and today.Smart Ball: Marketing the Myth and Managing the Reality of Major League Baseball
Par Robert F. Lewis II. 2010
Smart Ball follows Major League Baseball's history as a sport, a domestic monopoly, a neocolonial power, and an international business.…
MLB's challenge has been to market its popular mythology as the national pastime with pastoral, populist roots while addressing the management challenges of competing with other sports and diversions in a burgeoning global economy.Baseball researcher Robert F. Lewis II argues that MLB for years abused its legal insulation and monopoly status through arrogant treatment of its fans and players and static management of its business. As its privileged position eroded eroded in the face of increased competition from other sports and union resistance, it awakened to its perilous predicament and began aggressively courting athletes and fans at home and abroad.Using a detailed marketing analysis and applying the principles of a "smart power" model, the author assesses MLB's progression as a global business brand that continues to appeal to a consumer's sense of an idyllic past in the midst of a fast-paced, and often violent, present.Black Baseball, Black Business: Race Enterprise and the Fate of the Segregated Dollar
Par Roberta J. Newman, Joel Nathan Rosen. 2014
Winner of the 2014 Robert W. Peterson Award for Excellence in Negro League Research from the Jerry Malloy Negro League…
Conference, sponsored by Negro Leagues Committee of the Society for American Baseball Research Roberta J. Newman and Joel Nathan Rosen have written an authoritative social history of the Negro Leagues. This book examines how the relationship between black baseball and black businesses functioned, particularly in urban areas with significant African American populations—Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Newark, New York, Philadelphia, and more. Inextricably bound together by circumstance, these sports and business alliances faced destruction and upheaval. Once Jackie Robinson and a select handful of black baseball’s elite gained acceptance in Major League Baseball and financial stability in the mainstream economy, shock waves traveled throughout the black business world. Though the economic impact on Negro League baseball is perhaps obvious due to its demise, the impact on other black-owned businesses and on segregated neighborhoods is often undervalued if not outright ignored in current accounts. There have been many books written on great individual players who played in the Negro Leagues and/or integrated the Major Leagues. But Newman and Rosen move beyond hagiography to analyze what happens when a community has its economic footing undermined while simultaneously being called upon to celebrate a larger social progress. In this regard, Black Baseball, Black Business moves beyond the diamond to explore baseball’s desegregation narrative in a critical and wide-ranging fashion.Invisible Ball of Dreams: Literary Representations of Baseball behind the Color Line
Par Emily Ruth Rutter. 2018
Winner of the 2018 John Coates Next Generation Award from the Negro Leagues Research Committee of the Society for American…
Baseball Research Although many Americans think of Jackie Robinson when considering the story of segregation in baseball, a long history of tragedies and triumphs precede Robinson’s momentous debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers. From the pioneering Cuban Giants (1885-1915) to the Negro Leagues (1920-1960), Black baseball was a long-standing staple of African American communities. While many of its artifacts and statistics are lost, Black baseball figured vibrantly in films, novels, plays, and poems. In Invisible Ball of Dreams: Literary Representations of Baseball behind the Color Line, author Emily Ruth Rutter examines wide-ranging representations of this history by William Brashler, Jerome Charyn, August Wilson, Gloria Naylor, Harmony Holiday, Kevin King, Kadir Nelson, and Denzel Washington, among others. Reading representations across the literary color line, Rutter opens a propitious space for exploring Black cultural pride and residual frustrations with racial hypocrisies on the one hand and the benefits and limitations of white empathy on the other. Exploring these topics is necessary to the project of enriching the archives of segregated baseball in particular and African American cultural history more generally.Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend
Par James S. Hirsch. 2010
The “enormously entertaining and wide-ranging” (Seattle Times) authorized, definitive, New York Times bestselling biography of Willie Mays, the most complete…
baseball player of all time.Willie Mays is arguably the greatest player in baseball history, still revered for the passion he brought to the game. He began as a teenager in the Negro Leagues, became a cult hero in New York, and was the headliner in Major League Baseball’s bold expansion to California. He was a blend of power, speed, and stylistic bravado that enraptured fans for more than two decades. Now James Hirsch reveals the man behind the player. Mays was a transcendent figure who received standing ovations in enemy stadiums and who, during the turbulent civil rights era, urged understanding and reconciliation. More than his records, his legacy is defined by the pure joy that he brought to fans and the loving memories that have been passed to future generations so they might know the magic and beauty of the game. With meticulous research and drawing on interviews with Mays himself as well as with close friends, family, and teammates, Hirsch presents a brilliant portrait of one of America’s most significant cultural icons.The New York Game: Baseball and the Rise of a New City
Par Kevin Baker. 2024
A hugely entertaining history of baseball and New York City, bursting with larger-than-life figures and fascinating stories from the game&’s…
beginnings to the end of World War II.Baseball is &“the New York game&” because New York is where the diamond was first laid out, where the bunt and the curveball were invented, and where the home run was hit. It&’s where the game&’s first stars were born, and where everyone came to play or watch the game. With nuance and depth, historian Kevin Baker brings this all vividly back to life: the still-controversial, indelible moments—Did the Babe call his shot? Was Merkle out? Did they fix the 1919 World Series? Here are all the legendary players, managers, and owners, in all their vivid, complicated humanity, on and off the field. In Baker&’s hands the city and the game emerge from the murk of nineteenth-century American life—driven by visionaries and fixers, heroes and gangsters. He details how New York and its favorite sport came to mirror one another, expanding, bumbling through catastrophe and corruption, and rising out of these trials stronger than ever. From the first innings played in vacant lots and tavern yards in the 1820s; to the canny innovations that created the very first sports league; to the superb Hispanic and Black players who invented their own version of the game when white baseball sought to exclude them. And all amidst New York&’s own, incredible evolution from a raw, riotous town to a new world city. The New York Game is a riveting, rollicking, brilliant ode to America&’s beloved pastime and to its indomitable city of origin.Overtime: Jim Harbaugh and the Michigan Wolverines at the Crossroads of College Football
Par John U. Bacon. 2019
NATIONAL BESTSELLERFrom the “poet laureate of Michigan football," a riveting inside chronicle of the Jim Harbaugh era, and "an unprecedented look at the…
inner workings" (Sporting News) of a big-time college football programJohn U. Bacon received rare access to Head Coach Jim Harbaugh’s University of Michigan football team: coaches, players, and staffers, in closed-door meetings, locker rooms, meals, and classes. Overtime captures this storied program at the crossroads, as the sport’s winningest team battles to reclaim its former glory. But what if the price of success today comes at the cost of your soul? Do you pay it, or compete without compromising?In the spirit of HBO’s Hardknocks, Overtime delivers a deeply reported human portrait that follows the Wolverine coaches, players, and staffers. Above all, thisis a human story. In Overtime we not only discover what these public figures are like behind the scenes, we learn what the experience means to them as they go through it – the trials, the triumphs, and the unexpected answers to a central question: Is it worth it?From the “poet laureate of Michigan football” (according to New York Times’s Joe Drape), and one of the keenest observers of college football, Overtime offers a window into a legendary program and the sport itself that only John U. Bacon could deliver.Baseball America 2024 Prospect Handbook Digital Edition
Par The Editors at Baseball America. 2023
The 2024 Prospect Handbook is your guide to the next wave of MLB stars The 2024 Prospect Handbook is your guide…
to the next wave of MLB stars. With complete scouting reports on more than 900 prospects, the Prospect Handbook is a must-have for superfans as well as fantasy players. Dominate your dynasty league and be the first to know about the stars of the 2020s and early 2030s.The Tao of the Backup Catcher: Playing Baseball for the Love of the Game
Par Tim Brown. 2023
"This isn&’t just a story about baseball. It&’s about life and the beauty of knowing and accepting who you are.&” —Jeff…
Passan, ESPN baseball columnistThis fascinating book chronicles the unsung men of baseball who serve the job, the hardships they face, and their love for a game that would not always love them back―told partly through the experiences of an MLB veteran. In baseball there are superstars and stars and everyday players and then there are the rest. Within the rest are role players and specialists and journeymen and then there are the backup catchers. The Tao of the Backup Catcher is about them, the backup catchers, who exist near the bottom of the roster and the end of the bench and between the numbers in a sport–and a society–increasingly driven by cold, hard analytics.The Tao of the Backup Catcher is a story of grown men who once dreamed of stardom and generational wealth. Instead, they were handed a broom and a deeper understanding of who wins and why, who stands tall and who folds, and who will invest their own lives in catching bullpens and the back ends of doubleheaders. Backup catchers survive in part because every team needs one. They are necessary, once or twice a week. They prosper because the game, like the world around the game, still needs good souls, honest efforts, open eyes and ears, closed mouths, compassion for the sad parts, a laugh for the silly parts, and a heart that knows the difference. Backup catchers are sports&’ big brothers, psychologists, priests, witch doctors, player coaches, father figures and drinking buddies, all wrapped in a suit of today&’s polycarbonate armor and yesterday&’s dirt. They come with a singular goal–to win baseball games. They play for the greater good. After that, they play for themselves. A reverie on loving the grind and the little things baseball can teach us, The Tao of the Backup Catcher profiles Erik Kratz, Josh Paul, AJ Ellis, Bobby Wilson, Drew Butera, Matt Treanor, and John Flaherty to name a few. &“This isn&’t just a story about baseball. It&’s about life and the beauty of knowing and accepting who you are.&” ―Jeff PassanThe Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers: An Historical Compendium of Pitching, Pitchers, and Pitches
Par Bill James, Rob Neyer. 2004
Preeminent baseball analyst Bill James and ESPN.com baseball columnist Rob Neyer compile information on pitches and their origins, nearly two…
thousand pitchers, and more in this comprehensive guide.Pitchers, the pitches they throw, and how they throw them—they&’re the stuff of constant scrutiny, but there's never been anything like a comprehensive source for such information…until now. Bill James and Rob Neyer spent over a decade compiling the centerpiece of this book, the Pitcher Census, which lists specific information for nearly two thousand pitchers, ranging throughout the history of professional baseball. Their guide also includes a dictionary describing virtually every known pitch, biographies of great pitchers who have been overlooked, and top ten lists for fastballs, spitballs, and everything in between. James and Neyer also weigh in on the debate over pitcher abuse and durability, offer a formula for predicting the Cy Young Award winner, and reveal James&’s Pitcher Codes. Learn about the origins and development of baseball&’s most important pitches and more knuckleballers and submariners than you ever thought existed! Baseball&’s action always starts with the pitchers. Begin to understand them and join in on entertaining debates while having a great deal of fun with the history of the game that captivates so many with this one-of-a-kind guide.The Sweet Science
Par A. J. Liebling. 2004
A.J. Liebling's classic New Yorker pieces on the "sweet science of bruising" bring vividly to life the boxing world as…
it once was. The Sweet Science depicts the great events of boxing's American heyday: Sugar Ray Robinson's dramatic comeback, Rocky Marciano's rise to prominence, Joe Louis's unfortunate decline. Liebling never fails to find the human story behind the fight, and he evokes the atmosphere in the arena as distinctly as he does the goings-on in the ring--a combination that prompted Sports Illustrated to name The Sweet Science the best American sports book of all time.The never-before-told story of the momentous season torn in half by the bitter players strike. Sourcing incredible and extensive interviews…
with almost all of the major participants in the strike, Split Season: 1981 returns us to the on- and off-field drama of an unforgettable baseball year. 1981 was a watershed moment in American sports, when players turned an oligarchy of owners into a game where they had a real voice. Midway through the season, a game-changing strike ripped baseball apart, the first time a season had ever been stopped in the middle because of a strike. Marvin Miller and the MLB Players Association squared off against Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn and the owners in a fight to protect players rights to free agency and defend America's pastime.Though a time bomb was ticking as the 1981 season began, the game rose to impressive---and now legendary---heights. Pete Rose chased Stan Musial's National League hit record and rookie Fernando Valenzuela was creating a sensation as the best pitcher in the majors when the stadiums went dark and the players went on strike.For the first time in modern history, there were first- and second-half champions; the two teams with the overall best records in the National League were not awarded play-off berths. When the season resumed after an absence of 712 games, Rose's resumption of his pursuit, the resurgence of Reggie Jackson, the rise of the Montreal Expos, and a Nolan Ryan no-hitter became notable events. The Dodgers bested their longtime rivals in a Yankees-Dodgers World Series, the last classic matchup of those storied opponents.Planet of the Umps: A Baseball Life from Behind the Plate
Par Ken Kaiser, David Fisher. 2003
For twenty-five years, Ken Kaiser was the most colorful umpire in the major leagues. Planet of the Umps is his…
sidesplitting tale of life behind the plate."Two things nobody wants to grow up to be are an umpire and broke. Thanks to my career in baseball, I got both."After calling balls, strikes, and outs for thirty-six baseball seasons and more than three thousand major-league games, umpire Ken Kaiser finally called it a career. From the first day he hit a minor-league catcher with a pool table to the fateful day baseball called him out on a strike, Kaiser was one of the game's most popular and colorful characters. And in this autobiography--written with the coauthor of Ron Luciano's classic bestseller The Umpire Strikes Back--Kaiser brings to life his wild adventures from the pro-wrestling arena to the baseball diamond.This is the hysterically true story of four decades of baseball as lived and loved on the playing field, from Ted Williams and Billy Martin to Derek Jeter and Mark McGwire, from one-eyed umpires to space-age technology. As he did throughout his long and sometimes controversial career, the larger-than-his-chest-protector Kaiser calls 'em as he saw 'em.Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series
Par Eliot Asinof. 1963
First published in 1963, Eliot Asinof's Eight Men Out has become a timeless classic of a scandalous world series.The headlines…
proclaimed the 1919 fix of the World Series and attempted cover-up as "the most gigantic sporting swindle in the history of America!" Eliot Asinof has reconstructed the entire scene-by-scene story of the fantastic scandal in which eight Chicago White Sox players arranged with the nation's leading gamblers to throw the Series in Cincinnati. Mr. Asinof vividly describes the tense meetings, the hitches in the conniving, the actual plays in which the Series was thrown, the Grand Jury indictment, and the famous 1921 trial. Moving behind the scenes, he perceptively examines the motives and backgrounds of the players and the conditions that made the improbable fix all too possible. Here, too, is a graphic picture of the American underworld that managed the fix, the deeply shocked newspapermen who uncovered the story, and the war-exhausted nation that turned with relief and pride to the Series, only to be rocked by the scandal. Far more than a superbly told baseball story, this is a compelling slice of American history in the aftermath of World War I and at the cusp of the Roaring Twenties.