Most biographies of Jim Thorpe (1888-1953) emphasize his Olympic glory and his remarkable abilities in track and football. Thorpe's 1912 gold medals in the decathalon and pentathalon and his talent on the gridiron rank him high among outstanding athletes of the twentieth century. That Thorpe also played brilliantly on the baseball diamond is an often overlooked facet of his career. This narrative of Thorpe's rise and fall in American sports pays particular attention to his time in the major and minor leagues, including his stormy relationship with New York Giants manager John McGraw and...

During the mid-1950s, an unlikely star stood alongside baseball standouts Mickey Mantle, Henry Aaron and Willie Mays--a slugger with a funny name and muscles so bulging that he had to cut the sleeves off his uniform to swing freely. Ted Kluszewski played little baseball in his youth, making a name for himself instead as a hard-hitting football player at Indiana University before showing potential on the diamond and being signed by the Cincinnati Reds. Between 1953 and 1956, no other player in major league baseball hit more home runs than Kluszewski. If not for a back injury, he may have gone...

The essays that compose Decade of Deceit: 2002-2012 consider current events in the mid-East from a moral perspective that transcends the immediate moment and forces reflection on concerns that exalt or deny human rights, personal dignity and respect. These are polemical essays, not news stories. Events considered from this perspective have roots that transcend time, roots imbedded in human nature, roots that grow deep in the earth that gave birth to them for it is from ashes we grow and to ashes we return. (Introduction) Cook undertook a major task. His new book is an invaluable...

Cincinnati Reds leadoff hitter Johnny Temple batted over .300 three times between 1954 and 1959. A tobacco chewing and tough-talking hustler, he had a fiery disposition on the field, which led many sportswriters, teammates and opposing players to refer to him as a throwback to baseball's early days--an Eddie Stanky or Enos Slaughter type who would challenge anyone to a fight. He and Milwaukee Braves shortstop Johnny Logan engaged in one of the Major League's longest-running feuds. Temple was an expert glove man, forming one of the premier double play combinations of the 1950s with...

A collection of voices from around the world that establishes in both theoretical and graphic terms the slow, methodical genocide taking place in Palestine beginning in the 1940s. Voices decrying in startling, vivid, and forceful language the calculated atrocities taking place.