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Sports / Recreation
Billy Martin is a story of contrasts. He was the clutch second baseman for the dominant New York Yankees of the 1950s. He then spent sixteen seasons managing in the big leagues, and is considered by anyone who knows baseball to have been a true baseball genius, a field manager without peer. Yet he's remembered more for his habit of kicking dirt on umpires, for being hired and fired by George Steinbrenner five times, and for his rabble rousing and public brawls. He was combative, fiery, intimidating, and controversial, yet beloved by the everyday fan. He was hard on his players and even harder on himself. He knew how to turn around a losing team like no one else--and how to entertain us every step of the way.
Now, with his definitive biography Billy Martin, Pennington finally erases the caricature of Martin. Drawing on exhaustive interviews with friends, family, teammates, and countless adversaries, Pennington paints an indelible portrait of a man who never backed down for the game he loved. From his shantytown upbringing in a broken home; to his days playing for the Yankees when he almost always helped his team find a way to win; through sixteen years of managing, including his tenure in New York in the crosshairs of Steinbrenner and Reggie Jackson, Billy Martin made sure no one ever ignored him. And indeed no one could. He was the hero, the antihero, and the alter ego--or some combination of all three--for his short sixty-one years among us.
[P]erversely entertaining... In a truly intoxicating read that was hard to put down, Matt Higgins has managed to make real a world about as far removed from daily life as it gets. --"Daily Beast"
"Matt Higgins cracks open this astonishingly dangerous sport and captures the spectacular adrenaline surges it delivers.""--"The Wall Street Journal""
"[R]iveting... a must-read. A highflying, electrifying story of a treacherous sport in which every triumph is an eye blink away from becoming a disaster." --"Kirkus"(STARRED)
A heart-stopping narrative of risk and courage, "Bird Dream" tells the story of the remarkable men and women who pioneered the latest advances in aerial exploration from skydiving to BASE jumping to wingsuit flying and made history with their daring.
By the end of the twentieth century BASE jumping was the most dangerous of all the extreme sports, with thrill-seeking jumpers parachuting from bridges, mountains, radio towers, and even skyscrapers. Despite numerous fatalities and legal skirmishes, BASE jumpers like Jeb Corliss of California thought they had discovered the ultimate rush. But all this changed for Corliss in 1999, when, high in the mountains of northern Italy, he and other jumpers watched in wonder as a stranger wearing a cunning new jumpsuit featuring wings between the arms and legs leaped from a ledge and then actually flew from the vertiginous cliffs.
Drawing on intimate access to Corliss and other top pilots from around the globe, "Bird Dream "tracks the evolution of the wingsuit movement through the larger than life characters who, in an age of viral video, forced the sport onto the world stage. Their exploits which entranced millions of fans along the way defied imagination. They were flying; not like the Wright brothers, but the way we do in our dreams.
Some dared to dream of going further yet, to a day when a wingsuit pilot might fly, and land, all without a parachute. A growing number of wingsuit pilots began plotting ways in which a human being might leap from the sky and land. A half dozen groups around the world were dedicated to this quest for a wingsuit landing, conjuring the pursuit of nations that once inspired the race to first summit Everest.
Given his fame as a stuntman, the brash, publicity-hungry Corliss remained the popular favorite to claim the first landing. Yet "Bird Dream" also tracks the path of another man, Gary Connery a forty-two-year-old Englishman who was quietly plotting to beat Corliss at his own game. Accompanied by an international cast of wingsuit devotees including a Finnish magician, a parachute tester from Brazil, an Australian computer programmer, a gruff hang-gliding champion-turned-aeronautical engineer, a French skydiving champion, and a South African costume designer Corliss and Connery raced to leap into the unknown, a contest that would lead to triumph for one and nearly cost the other his life.
Based on five years of firsthand reporting and original interviews, "Bird Dream" is the work of journalist Matt Higgins, who traveled the world alongside these extraordinary men and women as they jumped and flew in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Offering a behind-the-scenes take on some of the most spectacular and disastrous events of the wingsuit movement, Higgins s "Bird Dream" is a riveting, adrenaline-fueled adventure at the very edge of human experience."
The first biography of the eccentric pitcher, rookie All-Star starter, 70s pop icon, and first athlete on the cover of Rolling Stone
For those who remember him, Mark Fidrych is still that player who brings a smile to your face, the irresistibly likable pitcher whose sudden rise brightened the star-spangled season of 1976 and reminded us of the pure joy of the game.
Lanky, mop-topped, and nicknamed for his resemblance to Big Bird on Sesame Street, Fidrych exploded onto the national stage during the Bicentennial summer as a rookie with the Detroit Tigers. He won over fans nationwide with his wildly endearing antics such as talking to the ball---and throwing back the ones that "had hits in them"; getting down on his knees to "manicure" the mound of any cleat marks; and shaking hands with just about everyone from teammates to groundskeepers to cops during and after games. Female fans tried to obtain locks of his hair from his barber and even named babies after him.
But The Bird was no mere sideshow. The non-roster invitee to spring training that year quickly emerged as one of the best pitchers in the game. Meanwhile, his boyish enthusiasm, his famously modest lifestyle, and his refusal to sign with an agent during the days of labor disputes and free agency made him such a breath of fresh air for fans that not only did attendance in Detroit increase---by tens of thousands---for games he pitched, opposing teams would specifically ask the Tigers to shuffle their rotation so Fidrych would pitch in their cities, too. A rare player who transcended pop culture, Fidrych was named starting pitcher in the All-Star Game as a rookie (the first of his two All-Star nods) and became the first athlete to appear on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.
Baseball researcher Doug Wilson delivers the first biography of this once-in-a-lifetime player. Through extensive interviews and meticulous research, the author recounts Fidrych's meteoric rise from Northborough, Massachusetts, to the big leagues, his heartbreaking fall after a torn knee ligament and then rotator cuff, his comeback attempts with the Tigers and in the Red Sox system, and one unforgettable night when The Bird pitched a swan song for the Pawtucket Red Sox against future star Dave Righetti in a game that remains part of local folklore. Finally, Wilson captures Fidrych's post-baseball life and his roles in the community, tragically culminating with his death in a freak accident in 2009.
The Bird gives readers a long-overdue look into the life of a player whom baseball had never seen before---and has never seen since.
Following the crushing defeat to Seattle in the 1995 playoffs, the Yankees replaced Buck Showalter with Joe Torre as manager and sparked a championship run that would produce four World Series titles in five years. Teeming with revelations and glorious memories, Birth of a Dynasty celebrates the unforgettable 1996 Yankees season: the season that began one of the most respected team dynasties in sports history. Veteran New York Post columnist Joel Sherman, who has spent more time with the Bronx Bombers in the past 15 years than any other writer, draws on hundreds of interviews and years of on-the-spot reporting to re-create one of the Yankees' greatest years.
Since 1980, Major League Baseball players have needed one day of service credit for health benefits and 43 days of service credit to be eligible for a retirement allowance, but those former ballplayers who played during the 1947-1979 seasons were not included retroactively in the amended vesting requirement, and so receive no pensions for the time they gave to our national pastime.
These men, the author suggests, have gulped bitter cups of coffee.
In his careful examination of this issue, which includes many interviews with former players and some poignant stories of their plight, Gladstone asks his readers to examine our national relationship to sports and its heroes, as well as our relationships with those who precede us in the game of life.
A lifelong baseball fan, DOUGLAS J. GLADSTONE is a journalist by training, whose published articles have appeared in the Chicago Sun Times, Baseball Digest and the San Diego Jewish World, among others. This is his first book.
DAVE MARASH (Foreword) has been a working journalist for more than 50 years. Best known for his 16 years as a correspondent for ABC News Nightline, Marash won Emmy Awards for his coverage of the wars in Nicaragua and Bosnia, the Oklahoma City bombing, and the explosion that downed TWA Flight 800. He anchored the opening season of Baseball Tonight on ESPN and did play-by-play coverage of the New York Knicks and Rangers.
When we first meet him, Michael Oher is one of thirteen children by a mother addicted to crack; he does not know his real name, his father, his birthday, or how to read or write. He takes up football, and school, after a rich, white, Evangelical family plucks him from the streets. Then two great forces alter Oher: the family's love and the evolution of professional football itself into a game where the quarterback must be protected at any cost. Our protagonist becomes the priceless package of size, speed, and agility necessary to guard the quarterback's greatest vulnerability, his blind side.
What changes? He takes up football, and school, after a rich, Evangelical, Republican family plucks him from the mean streets. Their love is the first great force that alters the world's perception of the boy, whom they adopt. The second force is the evolution of professional football itself into a game where the quarterback must be protected at any cost. Our protagonist turns out to be the priceless combination of size, speed, and agility necessary to guard the quarterback's greatest vulnerability: his blind side.
When we first meet him, Michael Oher is one of thirteen children by a mother addicted to crack; he does not know his real name, his father, his birthday, or how to read and write. He takes up football, and school, after a rich, white, Evangelical family plucks him from the streets. Then two great forces alter Oher: the family's love and the evolution of professional football into a game where the quarterback must be protected at any cost. Our protagonist becomes the priceless package of size, speed, and agility necessary to guard the quarterback's greatest vulnerability, his blind side.
Playing in the NFL during a time before violent helmet-to-helmet tackles weren't forbidden, Dent discusses the direction of the current game in this candid book.
Dent also discusses Hall of Fame teammates and his at-times turbulent relationship with Coach Mike Ditka. He also adds his opinions on "the bounty system" and NFL players struggle with concussion issues. A quarter of a century after the brash Bears filmed The Super Bowl Shuffle music video before winning the championship game, Dent is ready to tell his personal saga, as well as the rest of the intriguing story behind the 1985 Bears.
Bob Roll--former Tour de France racer, well-known scribe, and race announcer--is back to cause a ruckus! Bobke II (correctly pronounced "BOOB-kuh") revisits all of the original journals of Roll's wild rides and crazy tales about cycling's uncensored side.
When Bobke retired from competition, his pen continued the crazed poetic commentary, and Roll's newest additions cover both topics held reverent in cycling and also those that are hardly related to the sport. Bobke tips his cap to the classic riders and races, takes us on a grueling week of training with Lance Armstrong, tells the sport as he sees it, and entertains us with plenty of ditties and rants in between. It's a zany, often absurd, yet compelling commotion.
