Sport

Before Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, Julius Erving, or Michael Jordan--before Magic Johnson and Showtime--the Harlem Globetrotters revolutionized basketball and spread the game around the world. In Spinning the Globe, author Ben Green tells the story of this extraordinary franchise and iconic American institution. We follow the Globetrotters' rise from backwoods obscurity during the harsh years of the Great Depression to become the best basketball team in the country and, by the early 1950s, the most popular sports franchise in the world. Green brings to life their struggles with racism...

The Autobiography of a Boy of Summer Who Became a Man for All Seasons

Before Barry Bonds, before Reggie Jackson, before Hank Aaron, baseball's stars had one undeniable trait in common: they were all white. In 1947, Jackie Robinson broke that barrier, striking a crucial blow for racial equality and changing the world of sports forever. I Never Had It Made is Robinson's own candid, hard-hitting account of what it took to become the first black man in history to play in the major leagues.

I Never Had It Made recalls Robinson's early years and influences: his...

Beautiful Jim Key -- the one-time ugly duckling of a scrub colt who became one of the most beloved heroes of the turn of the century -- was adored not for his beauty and speed but rather for his remarkable abilities to read, write, spell, do mathematics, even debate politics. Trained with patience and kindness by one of the most renowned horse whisperers of his day -- former slave, Civil War veteran, and self-taught veterinarian Dr. William Key -- Jim performed in expositions across the country to wildly receptive crowds for nine glorious years, smashing box office records, clearing...

When Jon Gruden asks his Tampa Bay Bucs, "Do you love football? " it's to remind them why they pull on their shoulder pads every Sunday morning. It's not about the money or the fame; it's about their passion for what they do.

And passion is something that has fueled Gruden's entire career. From his college playing days and his climb through the coaching ranks -- from college to assistant coaching jobs with the NFL's elite teams, to his first head coach job with the Oakland Raiders, and finally, with the Tampa Bay Bucs -- his meteoric rise is unparalleled. Underneath it all, though,...

Though not as tall as Everest, the "Savage Mountain" is far more dangerous. Located on the border of China and Pakistan, K2 has some of the harshest climbing conditions in the world. Ninety women have scaled Everest but of the six women who reached the summit of K2, three lost their lives on the way back down the mountain and two have since died on other climbs.

In Savage Summit, Jennifer Jordan shares the tragic, compelling, inspiring, and extraordinary true stories of a handful of courageous women -- mothers and daughters, wives and lovers, poets and engineers -- who...

In 1906 the baseball world saw something that had never been done. Two teams from the same city squared off against each other in a World Series that pitted the heavily favored Cubs of the National League against the hardscrabble American League champion White Sox. Now, more than a century later, noted historian Bernard A. Weisberger tells the tale of a unique time in baseball, a unique time in America, and a time when Chicago was at the center of it all.

When Chicago Ruled Baseball brings to life a dazzling epoch in a land of the self-made man--where A. G. Spalding helped...

Baseball has witnessed more than 125,000 home runs. Many have altered the outcome of games, and some have decided pennants and become legend. But no dinger has had greater impact than Hank Aaron's 715th home run. His historic blast on April 8, 1974, lifted him above Babe Ruth on the all-time list, an achievement that shook not only baseball but our nation itself. Aaron's magnificent feat provoked bigotry and shattered prejudice, inspired a generation, emboldened a flagging civil rights movement, and called forth the demons that haunted Aaron's every step and turned what should have been a...

Out of Bounds: Inside the NBA's Culture of Rape, Violence, and Crime is a searing indictment of professional basketball players who live in a world where criminal laws and social norms don't exist, a world where they are given license to act above the law.

On the court, they dazzle us with their spectacular physical feats. They generate millions of dollars of revenue for the NBA and their teams. They inspire adulation. But underneath all the glitz, the money, and alley-oops is a seamy underbelly, a rash of lawlessness that is gripping the NBA.

Based on a...

Joe Simpson and his climbing partner, Simon Yates, had just reached the top of a 21,000-foot peak in the Andes when disaster struck. Simpson plunged off the vertical face of an ice ledge, breaking his leg. In the hours that followed, darkness fell and a blizzard raged as Yates tried to lower his friend to safety. Finally, Yates was forced to cut the rope, moments before he would have been pulled to his own death.

The next three days were an impossibly grueling ordeal for both men. Yates, certain that Simpson was dead, returned to base camp consumed with grief and guilt over...

Professional blackjack player Kevin Blackwood shares his million-dollar winning strategies for mastering the odds and consistently beating the house at their own game.

Play Blackjack Like the Pros is the requisite introduction to the modern game of blackjack, including high and low stakes casino, shoe games (several decks shuffled together), online, and tournaments. Blackwood begins with the basic rules of play and then moves on to teach his proven card-counting method, broken-down into three levels: novice, recreational, and professional. He also covers camouflaging...

An in-depth and surprising look at the game, Sunday Morning Quarterback will dramatically change the way you watch football.

You've heard all the football cliches: "Their offense is too predictable," or "They've got to win the turnover battle," or "They didn't make any halftime adjustments." Perhaps you've heard them so often that you've come to see them as obvious truths. Phil Simms, after an illustrious career as a Super Bowl-winning quarterback and a broadcaster, is here to tell you that these -- and many other blanket statements taken as gospel -- are all myths, and...

Nobody knows baseball like Kevin Kennedy

Kevin Kennedy was a catcher and a Montreal, coach in the minors, a farm director for the Expos and a bench coach for Felipe Alou before moving on to manage the Texas Rangers and the Boston Red Sox. Now one of the sport's most respected analysts and commentators, he offers a fresh look at baseball from the viewpoint of a "lifer," capturing the intricacies of the professional game with a sharp analytical eye and unabashed candor, including:

• The lengths to which teams and players will go to gain the competitive edge -- from doctored...

What do Henry Kissinger, Jack Welch, Condoleezza Rice, and Jon Bon Jovi have in common? They have all reached the top of their respective professions, and they all credit sports for teaching them the lessons that were fundamental to their success. In his years spent interviewing and profiling celebrities, politicians, and top businesspeople, popular sportscaster and Fox & Friends cohost Brian Kilmeade has discovered that nearly everyone shares a love of sports and has a story about how a game, a coach, or a single moment of competition changed his or her life.

These...

Award-winning sportswriter Mike Freeman goes beyond day-to-day newspaper journalism and ESPN highlights to take us deep inside the game and reveal the NFL in ways that will surprise the most avid football fans. He travels to the sidelines and into the locker rooms to interview hundreds of players and coaches on their expertise. Breaking the game down to its essential elements -- coaching, offense, and defense -- Freeman profiles in depth three of today's football elite: Jon Gruden, head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers; Michael Strahan, defensive end for the New York Giants; and Emmitt...

A thoroughly obsessive, intermittently uplifting, and occasionally unbiased account of the Duke-North Carolina basketball rivalry

Bad Beats and Lucky Draws is your down-and-dirty guide to the world of high-stakes professional poker. Phil Hellmuth, nine-time World Series of Poker Champion and author of Play Poker Like the Pros, presents a blow-by-blow account of many of poker's "clash of the titans" hands from the World Series of Poker, the World Poker Tour, and the European Tour. Phil provides insights into what the players were thinking and includes his own take on what they (and in many cases what he) should have done differently. Highly entertaining and instructive, Bad Beats and Lucky Draws...

In 2004 the number of entrants -- and the winning pool -- at the World Series of Poker tripled, thanks in large part to Chris Moneymaker, an amateur player who came out of nowhere to win the 2003 Series, and prove to newcomers and poker pros alike that anything is possible with a chip and a chair.

Moneymaker was a young accountant from Tennessee who loved to gamble but only took up cards after college. Three years later he was playing a $40 game of online Texas Hold 'Em and won a coveted seat at the 2003 World Series of Poker. Borrowing money to get to Las Vegas, he entered his first...

This is a guy who ...

• Grew up among Hell's Angels, taking their Harleys for solo joyrides at age eleven ...
• Prepares for every outing by blasting Metallica, AC/DC, and Godsmack at eardrum-bursting levels in the Yankees' locker room ...
• Regularly tried to coerce attractive women in the stands into lifting up their shirts from the Toronto Blue Jays' bullpen ...
• Endured huge, cortisone-loaded hypodermic shots straight into the spine to avoid missing scheduled pitching starts ...
• Was the 1998 ALCS MVP and the 2002 ALDS goat ...
• Has become...

In more than a century of baseball history, there is only one player who has won the most championship rings -- Yogi Berra. He has ten of them, in fact. One for each and every finger.

In Ten Rings, Yogi, for the first time, tells the stories behind each of those remarkable championship seasons, spanning 1947 through 1962, baseball's golden years. It was a time when players played for the love of the game, a time when dynasties were born and baseball became the national pastime. And what a pastime it was.

With Yogi Berra at...