Kategoria BISAC: Biography & Autobiography >> Sports

Pete Rose is baseball's Hit King, the Major Leagues' all-time leader in career hits. But some fans consider his off-the-field actions a black mark on the sport. Major League Baseball's investigations into Rose's gambling led to his lifetime banishment from the game--which, in turn, has barred him from otherwise--certain induction into the Hall of Fame. Rose brought to the sport an unparalleled drive to succeed. Now, people from every part of society debate the nature of his legacy. Baseball author David Jordan presents an even-handed look at Rose's life, career, and post-baseball life, and...

Shoeless Joe Jackson's rise from the cotton mills of the American South to the big cities of the North is a classic American tale of rags to riches. Born of sharecropping parents in South Carolina, Jackson's perfect swing and legendary fielding ability would make him a star in the Major Leagues. Unfortunately, Jackson's legend was interrupted by his alleged involvement in baseball's darkest chapter, the Black Sox Scandal of 1919, which ultimately banished him to participation in outlaw baseball leagues. Kelly Boyer Sagert recounts all phases in this legendary hitter's life--from mill...

At the time of Hank Aaron's birth in 1934, Babe Ruth reigned as baseball's home run king, and the Negro Leagues were an African American's only hope of playing professional baseball. Latent hopes for a different future thrived on Carver Park in Alabama, however, where a young Hank Aaron was soon to be seen perfecting the powerful stroke that would later make him one of the greatest hitters and most revered players in the history of the game. The owner of over 3,000 career base hits, the winner of two batting titles and one world championship, and the all time RBI leader and home run king,...

Born in the segregated South in 1943, Ashe overcame racial prejudices and segregation to break into the world of tennis, which had traditionally been dominated by whites. He rose to the top of the sport, winning three Grand Slam trophies and playing on the Davis Cup team. His tennis career came to an abrupt end when he suffered a heart attack while in his thirties. Ashe began a post-tennis career that included speaking out on social issues that mattered most to him, including educational excellence for African American athletes, the injustice of the apartheid system in South Africa, and...

Willie Mays' career bridged eras in baseball history, from the Negro Leagues to expansion to free agency. Through it all, his all-around ability and his love of the game set him apart. His career accomplishments include 660 home runs, 2 MVPs, Rookie of the Year, and the first 30-30 season. No other player is cited by so many of his peers as the best they have ever seen.

From his childhood growing up in segregated Birmingham, Alabama to becoming the first black team captain in baseball, Mays' life is described in detail. Readers will learn of his early life, his career with the Giants...

This brief but readable biography tells the story of the most recognized figure in baseball--Babe Ruth. Besides vividly describing the highlights of Ruth's career, author Wayne Stewart examines the unprecedented impact Ruth had on the nature and future of the game. Ruth's ability to hit the long ball and the flamboyance of his off-field persona infused the game with a new excitement that rescued baseball from the negative effects of the 1919 Black Sox scandal. Making extensive use of interviews conducted by the author with members of Ruth's family and with players who knew Ruth, this...

When Stan The Man Musial retired after 22 years with the Cardinals (disrupted only by a year of service with the U.S. Navy during World War II), he held 17 Major League records, 29 National League records, and 9 All Star game records. His unwavering consistency with the bat still has no peer: he hit over .300 17 times in his career, and left the game 2nd all-time in total bases, 4th in hits, 5th in RBIs, and 6th in number of games played. Despite his extreme production at the plate-achieved, in fact, only after a shoulder injury forced him to drop his duties as a pitcher-he never achieved...

When Jackie Robinson became the first African American player in major league baseball in 1947, elbowing aside the league's policies of segregation that had been inviolate for 60 years, he became a symbol of opportunity and acceptance for African American players everywhere. Robinson withstood discrimination to establish himself as a Hall of Fame player, and to lead future generations of black players into the previously all-white world of Major League Baseball. Written for students and general readers alike, this biographical encyclopedia chronicles the history of African American...

Born in the rural South, the son of a sharecropper, Robinson was reared in southern California. We see him blossom there as a student-athlete as he struggled against poverty and...

When Tom Brady entered the 2005 NFL season as lead quarterback for the New England Patriots, the defending Super Bowl champions, he was hailed as the best to ever play the position. And with good reason: he was the youngest quarterback to ever win a Super Bowl; the only quarterback in NFL history to win three Super Bowls before turning twenty-eight; the fourth player in history to win multiple Super Bowl MVP awards. He started the season with a 57-14 record, the best of any NFL quarterback since 1966.

Award-winning sports journalist Charles P. Pierce's Moving the Chains...

On the night in 1964 that Muhammad Ali (then known as Cassius Clay) stepped into the ring with Sonny Liston, he was widely regarded as an irritating freak who danced and talked way too much. Six rounds later Ali was not only the new world heavyweight boxing champion: He was "a new kind of black man" who would shortly transform America's racial politics, its popular culture, and its notions of heroism.

No one has captured Ali--and the era that he exhilarated and sometimes infuriated--with greater vibrancy, drama, and astuteness than David...