Sport

Somewhere beyond the circle of money, glitz, drugs, and controversy that characterizes professional sports in America, remnants of an ideal exist. In Iowa, that ideal survives in the form of high school wrestling.

Each a three-time state champion, Jay Borschel and Dan LeClere have a chance in their senior year to join the sport's most elite group: the "four-timers," wrestlers who win four consecutive state titles. For Jay, a ferocious competitor who feeds off criticism and doubt, a victory would mean vindication over the great mass of skeptics waiting for him to fail. For Dan, who...

Do you cringe when a linebacker flattens a quarterback? Hold your breath when a field goal sails toward the goalpost? Watch in amazement as a touchdown pass spirals down the field? Behind those big hits, long kicks, and sensational throws is a science that will give you a whole new perspective on the game of football.

A combination of Stephen Hawking and Mike Ditka, physicist and football fan Timothy Gay breaks down the fundamental laws of physics that govern America's most exciting spectator sport. To illustrate the science behind the game, he highlights some of...

When I die and people realize that I will not be resurrected in three days, they will forget me. That is the way it should be. For reasons known only to God, I was asked to write an autobiography. Most people who knew me growing up didn't think I would ever read a book, let alone write one.

--Lou Holtz

Few people in the history of college sports have been more influential or had a bigger impact than Lou Holtz. Winner of the three national Coach of the Year honors, the only coach ever to lead six different schools to season-ending bowl games, and the ninth-winningest coach in...

Micheal Clark virtually wrote the book that personal trainers all over the country use to gain their certification in the field. As creator of the Optimum Performance Training system, he took personal training to a whole new level by introducing a program that could be fully customized for any sport. In this book, Clark will enable readers through his "self-assessment and design fitness system" to effectively pinpoint the weaknesses in their basketball skills and tailor a workout program that will improve on all the flaws in their game. By taking advantage of skill-specific tests, readers...

Raucous, raw, and reliably remarkable, the century-old football riavlry between the state universities of Texas and Oklahoma stands as testimony that hate-based relationships are the most enduring. Texas and Oklahoma have been top-level programs for a long time, but in the last few years the rivalry has garnered ever more national attention. Mike Shropshire, an observer of this football war for more than 40 years, chronicles the long and colorful history of this fierce rivalry that has endured for more than a century.

The teams have been playing at the Texas State fair since...

When legendary Negro League player Buck O'Neil asked Joe Posnanski how he fell in love with baseball, the renowned sports columnist was inspired by the question. He decided to spend the 2005 baseball season touring the country with the ninety-four-year-old O'Neil in hopes of rediscovering the love that first drew them to the game.

The Soul of Baseball is as much the story of Buck O'Neil as it is the story of baseball. Driven by a relentless optimism and his two great passions--for America's pastime and for jazz, America's music--O'Neil played solely for love. In an era when...

Clearing the Bases is a much-needed call to arms by one of baseball's most respected players. Drawing on his experiences as a third baseman, a manager, and, most recently, a fan, Mike Schmidt takes on everything from skyrocketing payrolls, callous owners, and unapproachable players to inflated statistics, and, of course, ersatz home run kings.

But Schmidt's book goes beyond the Balco investigation and never-ending free-agent bonanzas that dominate the back pages. It also examines all that's right with our national pastime, including interleague play, expansion, and, most...

IN 1936, Adolf Hitler welcomed the world to Berlin to attend the Olympic Games. It promised to be not only a magnificent sporting event but also a grand showcase for the rebuilt Germany. No effort was spared to present the Third Reich as the newest global power. But beneath the glittering surface, the Games of the Eleventh Olympiad of the Modern Era came to act as a crucible for the dark political forces that were gathering, foreshadowing the bloody conflict to come.

The 1936 Olympics were nothing less than the most political sporting event of the last century--an epic clash between...

This is a book about young men who learned to play baseball during the 1930s and 1940s, and then went on to play for one of the most exciting major-league ball clubs ever fielded, the team that broke the color barrier with Jackie Robinson. It is a book by and about a sportswriter who grew up near Ebbets Field, and who had the good fortune in the 1950s to cover the Dodgers for the Herald Tribune. This is a book about what happened to Jackie, Carl Erskine, Pee Wee Reese, and the others when their glory days were behind them. In short, it is a book about America, about fathers and...

With incredible skill, passion, and insight, Pulitzer Prize-winningauthor David Halberstam returns us to a glorious time when the dreams of a now almost forgotten America rested on the crack of a bat.

The year was 1949, and a war-weary nation turned from the battlefields to the ball fields in search of new heroes. It was a summer that marked the beginning of a sports rivalry unequaled in the annals of athletic competition. The awesome New York Yankees and the indomitable Boston Red Sox were fighting for supremacy of baseball's American League, and an aging Joe DiMaggio and a brash,...

From the perspective of 2007, the unintentional irony of Chance's boast is manifest--these days, the question is when will the Cubs ever win a game they have to have. In October 1908, though, no one would have laughed: The Cubs were, without doubt, baseball's greatest team--the first dynasty of the 20th century.

Crazy '08 recounts the 1908 season--the year when Peerless Leader Frank Chance's men went toe to toe to toe with John McGraw and Christy Mathewson's New York Giants and Honus Wagner's Pittsburgh Pirates in the greatest pennant race the National League has ever seen....

In this book, I. A. Horowitz, Chess Editor of the New York Times and former U.S. Open Champion, applies some of the ideas and convictions acquired from thirty-five years of playing, teaching and analyzing the royal game. He emphasizes the tactical aspects of the game: how to recognize the big chance and hit hard when it occurs. He also stresses the ideas and methods in opening play, rather than the routine memorizing of variations that takes the joy out of chess for so many beginners.

When you have completed this book, you will be able to play chess with pleasure and some...

Clear, concise, and written in accessible language, Chess Self-Teacher reviews basic chess strategy in eight lessons, taking players from the basics to checkmates, pawn endings, minor tactics, mating combinations, and strategic objectives.

Praise for Pure Baseball:

"We have never seen the game scrutinised with such care and detail. Hernandez provides commentary on two ball games in the 1993 season: a Philles-Braves match-up and an extra innings battle between the Tigers and the Yankees. He] examines the overall strategies of the game and offers good analyses of fielding...

Now with a new afterword, The Girls of Summer, by the award- winning New York Times sportswriter Jere Longman, takes a serious, compelling look at the women who won the 1999 World Cup and brings to life the skills and victories of the American team. Longman explores the issues this unprecedented achievement has raised: the importance of the players as role models; the significance of race and class; the sexualization of the team members; and the differences between men and women's sports. Provocative and insightful, this book reminds us that the real struggles are off the...

An entertaining fusion of fact, legend, and lore, Notre Dame football has transcended the boundaries of the sport and the university to become a time-honored American tradition. For its legions of devoted fans and alumni, Talking Irish vividly captures it all: the exhilarating wins, the stunning defeats, the tumultuous coaching changes, and the celebrated mystique that surrounds this beloved football dynasty.

With never-before-told anecdotes, this candid and revealing oral history -- the first ever written on Fighting Irish football -- is told in the words of more than 150 Notre Dame...

When Muhammad Ali met Joe Frazier in Manila for their third fight, their rivalry had spun out of control. The Ali-Frazier matchup had become a madness, inflamed by the media and the politics of race. When the "Thrilla in Manila" was over, one man was left with a ruin of a life; the other was battered to his soul.

Mark Kram covered that fight for Sports Illustrated in an award-winning article. Now his riveting book reappraises the boxers -- who they are and who they were. And in a voice as powerful as a heavyweight punch, Kram explodes the myths surrounding each fighter,...

Once when I was a kid I was walking by John Henry Johnson, the 49ers' fullback, after a game. A woman ran up behind him and squealed,...