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Sports / Recreation

Ball in the Air

Ball in the Air

$19.99
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After a lifetime of writing about the professional sport, Michael Bamberger, "the poet laureate of golf" (GOLF magazine), delivers an exhilarating love letter to the amateur game as it's played--and lived--by the rest of us.

Over Michael Bamberger's celebrated writing career, he has written a handful of books and hundreds of Sports Illustrated stories about professional golf and those who play it--that is, the .001 percent. Now, Bamberger trains his eye on the rest of us. In his most personal book yet, Bamberger takes the lid off a game that is both quasi-religious and a nonstop party, posing an age-old question that is answered over its pages: Why does the game cast such a spell on us?

Here is the story of modern golf that is not on TV. This is our story, we who pay to play, who can't wait to get another crack at the game, even when golf doesn't love us back. And just as every round is an adventure, every life in golf is, too. The golfers Michael Bamberger introduces will leave you inspired and moved. You'll meet Sam Reeves, a golf-loving US Army soldier who becomes captivated by a fellow soldier, Cliff Harrington, a gifted Black golfer who's cruelly robbed of the chance to show the world all he can do. You'll meet Ryan French, who plays on a college golf team out of Animal House. You'll get to know Pratima Sherpa, who grew up in a maintenance shed at the Royal Nepal Golf Club in Kathmandu and took up the game with a stick whittled by her father.

The Ball in the Air is reported with Bamberger's you-are-there intimacy and captures the sweep of time. Pratima finds her way from Nepal to a university golf team in Southern California. Ryan and his father caddie in minor-league events while sleeping in tents, a preamble to Ryan's becoming the godfather of the popular Monday Qualifier Twitter feed. Sam Reeves, born in rural Georgia during the Depression, becomes a cotton king, the oldest amateur to make the cut at the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, and the ultimate man for all seasons.

And there are Bamberger sightings, too, as he finds his own path in the game. You'll make joyful side trips with the author, who's spent more than forty years exploring golfers and golf, a way of life that captivates him down to his bones. You'll visit the golf course at Balmoral Castle in Scotland and compete with Bamberger and other purists at the National Hickory Championship in rural Pennsylvania. At St. Andrews, you'll get up close and personal with Lee Trevino, one of the few professionals in these pages, because Trevino, when you really get to the core of the man, is one of us. He can't get enough of it.

The Ball in the Air is Bamberger's valentine to golf. The modern world, obsessed with fame and fortune, has infiltrated professional golf--but it hasn't infiltrated golf. Bamberger is here to highlight the distinction and to celebrate the game and all who play it.

Ball in the Air

Ball in the Air

$30.00
More Info
After a lifetime of writing about the professional sport, Michael Bamberger, "the poet laureate of golf" (GOLF magazine), delivers an exhilarating love letter to the amateur game as it's played--and lived--by the rest of us.

Over Michael Bamberger's celebrated writing career, he has written a handful of books and hundreds of Sports Illustrated stories about professional golf and those who play it--that is, the .001 percent. Now, Bamberger trains his eye on the rest of us. In his most personal book yet, Bamberger takes the lid off a game that is both quasi-religious and a nonstop party, posing an age-old question that is answered over its pages: Why does the game cast such a spell on us?

Here is the story of modern golf that is not on TV. This is our story, we who pay to play, who can't wait to get another crack at the game, even when golf doesn't love us back. And just as every round is an adventure, every life in golf is, too. The golfers Michael Bamberger introduces will leave you inspired and moved. You'll meet Sam Reeves, a golf-loving US Army soldier who becomes captivated by a fellow soldier, Cliff Harrington, a gifted Black golfer who's cruelly robbed of the chance to show the world all he can do. You'll meet Ryan French, who plays on a college golf team out of Animal House. You'll get to know Pratima Sherpa, who grew up in a maintenance shed at the Royal Nepal Golf Club in Kathmandu and took up the game with a stick whittled by her father.

The Ball in the Air is reported with Bamberger's you-are-there intimacy and captures the sweep of time. Pratima finds her way from Nepal to a university golf team in Southern California. Ryan and his father caddie in minor-league events while sleeping in tents, a preamble to Ryan's becoming the godfather of the popular Monday Qualifier Twitter feed. Sam Reeves, born in rural Georgia during the Depression, becomes a cotton king, the oldest amateur to make the cut at the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, and the ultimate man for all seasons.

And there are Bamberger sightings, too, as he finds his own path in the game. You'll make joyful side trips with the author, who's spent more than forty years exploring golfers and golf, a way of life that captivates him down to his bones. You'll visit the golf course at Balmoral Castle in Scotland and compete with Bamberger and other purists at the National Hickory Championship in rural Pennsylvania. At St. Andrews, you'll get up close and personal with Lee Trevino, one of the few professionals in these pages, because Trevino, when you really get to the core of the man, is one of us. He can't get enough of it.

The Ball in the Air is Bamberger's valentine to golf. The modern world, obsessed with fame and fortune, has infiltrated professional golf--but it hasn't infiltrated golf. Bamberger is here to highlight the distinction and to celebrate the game and all who play it.

Ball is Round: A Global History of Soccer

Ball is Round: A Global History of Soccer

$25.00
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The definitive book about soccer, from the author of The Games: A Global History of the Olympics.

There may be no cultural practice more global than soccer. Rites of birth and marriage are infinitely diverse, but the rules of soccer are universal. No world religion can match its geographical scope. The single greatest simultaneous human collective experience is the World Cup final.

In this extraordinary tour de force, David Goldblatt tells the full story of soccer's rise from chaotic folk ritual to the world's most popular sport-now poised to fully establish itself in the USA. Already celebrated internationally, The Ball Is Round illuminates soccer's role in the political and social histories of modern societies, but never loses sight of the beauty, joy, and excitement of the game itself.

Ball Parks

Ball Parks

$29.99
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A lavishly illustrated production including two-page photo spreads of all of the 30 current major-league parks and the 3 new parks opening in 2004. Also contains photos and information on 16 old parks, many of which no longer exist. Complete histories and fascinating anecdotes about each park are also included. A perfect gift for any baseball lover, for any season!
Ballistic

Ballistic

$31.99
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The biggest victories of medical science--over polio, smallpox, heart attacks, and the like--are stories of prevention. Then there's sports, where we just run around until something breaks, leading to pain, frustration, and sometimes even expensive surgery. Injuries are a major cause of society's growing mobility crisis. What if we could predict and prevent them?

Blending cutting-edge science with gripping storytelling, award-winning data journalist and competitive amateur athlete Henry Abbott reveals that we are on the cusp of a new era in sports medicine, built around the science of ballistic movements--leaping and landing--and the unique fingerprint of your body's physics.

Abbott's inspiring narrative tells the story of sports scientist Dr. Marcus Elliott and the Peak Performance Project (P3), who use technology to study how athletes move and why they get hurt. Applying machine learning and lessons from biomechanics, medicine, and physiology, doctors at P3 can now detect elevated risk of an ACL tear or a pulled hamstring like an echocardiogram can see warning signs of a heart attack.

Their data-driven findings are full of surprises. Your body's most important defense against knee and ankle injuries are the little-known muscles in the lower leg and hip area, which typical workouts rarely target. Similarly, the glutes--not the core--do the most to prevent back pain. Transformative benefits flow from training underappreciated kinds of athleticism like rotation, deceleration, and relaxation. Most of all, science shows that the best athletes don't avoid ballistics--they master them.

Through riveting stories of elite athletes overcoming injuries and pushing themselves to the limit, Abbott presents an evidence-based case for intervening early to protect our bodies. And he suggests that we can all harness the science of ballistic movement not just to run fast or jump high but to move with joy and lead fulfilling athletic lives.

Ballpark

Ballpark

$37.50
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An exhilarating, splendidly illustrated, entirely new look at the history of baseball: told through the stories of the vibrant and ever-changing ballparks where the game was and is staged, by the Pulitzer Prize-winning architectural critic.

From the earliest corrals of the mid-1800s (Union Grounds in Brooklyn was a saloon in the open air), to the much mourned parks of the early 1900s (Detroit's Tiger Stadium, Cincinnati's Palace of the Fans), to the stadiums we fill today, Paul Goldberger makes clear the inextricable bond between the American city and America's favorite pastime. In the changing locations and architecture of our ballparks, Goldberger reveals the manifestations of a changing society: the earliest ballparks evoked the Victorian age in their accommodations--bleachers for the riffraff, grandstands for the middle-class; the concrete donuts of the 1950s and '60s made plain television's grip on the public's attention; and more recent ballparks, like Baltimore's Camden Yards, signal a new way forward for stadium design and for baseball's role in urban development. Throughout, Goldberger shows us the way in which baseball's history is concurrent with our cultural history: the rise of urban parks and public transportation; the development of new building materials and engineering and design skills. And how the site details and the requirements of the game--the diamond, the outfields, the walls, the grandstands--shaped our most beloved ballparks.

A fascinating, exuberant ode to the Edens at the heart of our cities--where dreams are as limitless as the outfields.

Ballparks Then and Now

Ballparks Then and Now

$22.50
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Ballparks Then and Now is a fascinating exploration of ballparks across America. Packed with archival and modern photography, this book documents the development of America's national pastime by looking at the fields of dreams on which it is played.

The ballpark experience has changed dramatically from baseball's early days on grassy lots with wooden grandstands and free admission. The Union Grounds in Brooklyn, New York, is considered by many to be the first ballpark ever built, when William Cammeyer converted the Union Skating Pond in 1862.

Ballparks Then and Now traces the evolution of stadiums used by all the MLB teams today. Organized alphabetically they range from Anaheim and Atlanta to Toronto and Washington. Ballparks grew in size and grandeur from wooden bleachers and stands that often perished in ferocious fires (Boston, Cincinnati) to the concrete cookie-cutter ballparks of the 1960s and 1970s (Philadelphia, Pittsburgh). These multi-sport stadiums have now been replaced by modern retro designs (Yankees, Mets) that give each park its own unique feel. Batting far into the 9th are the carefully updated historic ballparks (Redsox, Cubs) nested in the heart of their communities.

Ballparks Then and Now

Ballparks Then and Now

$19.95
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See how much America's favorite pastime has changed -- and how much it's stayed the same -- in Ballparks Then and Now. Crammed with history and facts, this unique city-by-city tour of America's hallowed playing fields pairs archival images with modern photos of baseball's beloved landmarks like Union Grounds, Wrigley Field, Fenway Park, and the Negro League's Greenlee Field. Witness the ballpark renaissance of the 1990s and the dawning of multimillion-dollar corporate naming rights. With comprehensive data about each park (opening date, capacity, great moments), Ballparks Then and Now is the perfect keepsake for fans to enjoy whether they're sitting in the bleachers or a luxury box.
Ballparks Then and Now

Ballparks Then and Now

$10.95
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Baseball has changed dramatically since its early days. Today, the average ticket costs upwards of $20 and fans can feast on sushi from their luxurious air-conditioned seats. See how much America's favorite pastime has changed, and how much it's stayed the same in Ballparks Then & Now.
  • Crammed with history and facts, this unique city-by-city tour of America's hallowed playing fields pairs archival images with modern photos of baseball's beloved landmarks like Union Grounds, Wrigley Field, Fenway Park, and the Negro League's Greenlee Field.
  • Includes all of the excitement of the 2006 season, including the winners of the 2006 World Series and all of the changes to ballparks around the U.S.
  • Celebrate glorious wooden palaces like Boston's Grand Pavilion and Sportsman's Park in St. Louis, constructed after baseball went professional in 1871.
  • Witness the ballpark renaissance of the 1990's and the dawning of multi-million dollar corporate naming rights.
  • With comprehensive data about each park (opening date, capacity, great moments), this new compact edition of best-selling Ballparks Then and Now is the perfect take-along size for fans to enjoy whether they're sitting in the bleachers or luxury box.
  • Ballparks: A Journey Through the Fields of the Past, Present, and Future

    Ballparks: A Journey Through the Fields of the Past, Present, and Future

    $26.99
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    If you love baseball and the venerable stadiums its played in, you need this definitive history and guide to Major League ballparks of the past, present, and future.

    With a tear-out checklist to mark ballparks you've visited and those on your bucket list, Ballparks takes you inside the intriguing histories of every park in the Major Leagues, with hundreds of photos, stories, and stats about:

  • Storied parks like Wrigley Field, Fenway Park, and Dodger Stadium
  • Fan favorites AT&T Park, Camden Yards, PNC Park, Safeco Field, and so much more
  • Forgotten treasures like Shibe Park in Philadelphia, Sportsman's Park in St. Louis, and all five parks of the Detroit Tigers
  • New stadiums like the Atlanta Braves' SunTrust Park, the Minneapolis Twins' Target Field, and New York's Yankee Stadium and Citifield
  • More than 40 other major league parks that tell the story of the national pastime through the lens of the fields the players call home

  • No baseball fan's collection is complete without this up-to-date tome.

    Barbaro: A Nation's Love Story

    Barbaro: A Nation's Love Story

    $19.95
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    This up-to-minute book follows the story of Barbaro, the Triple Crown contender whose unlikely fight back from almost certain death from a shattered leg and ensuing complications captured the hearts of a nation who responded with a stunning display of love.

    In 132 years of derby races, only 11 horses have won the Triple Crown, the last in 1978. Barbaro was a favorite to be the twelfth until May 20, 2006, at the Preakness Stakes, when his jockey, Edgar Prado pulled him up a couple of hundred yards from the starting gate. Subsequent examination revealed that he had virtually exploded bones in his right rear leg so badly that under normal conditions he would have been euthanized right on the track. But his owners, Roy and Gretchen Jackson, chose another path, one filled with anxiety and tears--but also courageous determination to save his life.

    This touching, soaring book--filled with insights from Barbaro's trainers, breeders, caretakers, and owners--follows Barbaro from foal to colt to champion to perfect patient. But In the end it is not just a story of a down-but-not-out champion, but of human beings at their very best.

    Barefoot Running Book

    Barefoot Running Book

    $15.00
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    For readers of Born to Run by Christopher McDougall, The Barefoot Running Book lends practical advice on the minimalist running phenomenon
    Ditch those cushiony running shoes they re holding you back and hurting your feet!
    You ve heard about barefoot running and how it can reduce injury and allow for better form. Maybe you ve even tried it and learned how shedding those heavy, overly- manufactured shoes can make running more enjoyable. Regardless of your expertise level, Jason Robillard a leading expert on barefoot running education and director of the Barefoot Running University synthesizes the latest research to ease you from barefoot walking to slow running to competitive and trail running vis-a-vis simple drills, training plans, and useful hints from fellow barefoot runners.
    Practical, easy-to-follow, and illustrated with black-and-white photographs throughout, The Barefoot Running Book shows how everyone can transition to barefoot and minimalist shoe running safely and optimally."
    Barefoot Walking

    Barefoot Walking

    $19.99
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    From the authors of Barefoot Running, the essential guide to the life-changing benefits of barefoot walking

    As the thousands of people who have fallen in love with barefoot running already know, shedding your shoes is good for the body and the soul. Barefoot Walking shows all readers, no matter their fitness level, how to take command of their physical and spiritual well-being through this simple and easy practice, even if they are daunted by sore feet, achy joints, injury, illness, or feeling out of shape. This book contains special material for children, pregnant women, and seniors, and shows anyone how this gentle, natural activity can literally transform one's life, restoring health, vitality, strength, and balance, and improving focus, mood, memory, and more. Full of tips and tools for going bare, this is the essential handbook for people who want to move their body, connect with the earth, and feel physically and psychologically more alive.
    Barkley

    Barkley

    $21.99
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    *A Good Morning America Buzz Book*
    *A LitHub Most Anticipated Book of 2022*

    The definitive biography of Charles Barkley, exploring his early childhood, his storied NBA career, and his enduring legacy as a provocative voice in American pop culture


    He's one of the most interesting American athletes in the past fifty years. Passionate, candid, iconoclastic, and gifted both on and off the court, Charles Barkley has made a lasting impact on not only the world of basketball but pop culture at large.

    Yet few people know the real Charles. Raised by his mother and grandmother in Leeds, Alabama, he struggled in his early years to fit in until he found a sense of community and purpose in basketball. In the NBA he went toe-to-toe with the biggest legends in the game, from Magic to Michael to Hakeem to Shaq. But in the years since, he has become a bold agitator for social change, unafraid to grapple, often brashly, with even the thorniest of cultural issues facing our nation today.

    Informed by over 370 original interviews and painstaking research, Timothy Bella's Barkley is the most comprehensive biography to date of one of the most talked-about icons in the world of sports.
    Barkley

    Barkley

    $29.99
    More Info
    *A Good Morning America Buzz Book*
    *A LitHub Most Anticipated Book of 2022*

    The definitive biography of Charles Barkley, exploring his early childhood, his storied NBA career, and his enduring legacy as a provocative voice in American pop culture

    He's one of the most interesting American athletes in the past fifty years. Passionate, candid, iconoclastic, and gifted both on and off the court, Charles Barkley has made a lasting impact on not only the world of basketball but pop culture at large.

    Yet few people know the real Charles. Raised by his mother and grandmother in Leeds, Alabama, he struggled in his early years to fit in until he found a sense of community and purpose in basketball. In the NBA he went toe-to-toe with the biggest legends in the game, from Magic to Michael to Hakeem to Shaq. But in the years since, he has become a bold agitator for social change, unafraid to grapple, often brashly, with even the thorniest of cultural issues facing our nation today.

    Informed by over 370 original interviews and painstaking research, Timothy Bella's Barkley is the most comprehensive biography to date of one of the most talked-about icons in the world of sports.
    Barn

    Barn

    $28.00
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    The behind-the-scenes story of horse racing's greatest trainer, Bob Baffert, the barn he founded, and the endless quest to train another Triple Crown winner.

    Sixteen million people watch the Kentucky Derby every year. Nearly as many watch the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes. Three fascinating weekends in a three-month span that add up to under seven minutes of racing.

    But what's really going on behind the scenes and inside the barns? It's a year-round labor of love in which scores of people--trainers, jockeys, stable hands--and hundreds of horses, work in harmony to create champions. It takes a total team effort to develop a competitive horse, never mind a Triple Crown winner like American Pharoah.

    And few trainers in the history of horse racing, in a century and a half of trying, have created more champions than the sport's most celebrated trainer, Bob Baffert. In the past ten years, Baffert has had three colts win the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, only to lose at the Belmont. In 2015, he had the first Triple Crown winner in thirty-seven years, American Pharoah. In 2016, his top Derby contender failed to place. Horse racing is notoriously unpredictable, which has always been part of the allure. But seeing how the potential champions are trained and groomed is surprising, illuminating, and even, at times, emotional and moving, as readers learn about the powerful bond between the horses and the stable employees who dedicate their lives to them.

    David Israel is a journalist turned television and film producer who made horse racing his successful third career and became the head of the California Horse Racing Board. Together, Israel, Baffert, and the horses themselves will tell the story of a whole season in Baffert's barn, as readers witness Baffert's yearly--and endless--quest to create another champion.

    Bart Starr

    Bart Starr

    $15.99
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    A powerful biography of one of the greatest football players of all time, in the spirit of Namath and Johnny U

    No quarterback in the history of the NFL can match Bart Starr's record of achievement. In an unprecedented seven-season run from 1961-67, Starr led the Green Bay Packers to five NFL championships and the first two Super Bowl titles, while revolutionizing the position and laying the foundation for the quarterbacks of today. Yet until now this quiet man's remarkable career has often been obscured by the Lombardi mystique.

    Acclaimed author Keith Dunnavant brings Starr's dramatic journey to life in vivid detail, sketching the definitive portrait of an iconic figure who defined the quarterback position during the 1960s, when professional football stormed out of the shadows to capture the nation's imagination. A remarkable blend of personal memory and historical narrative, Bart Starr is a compelling biography of an American hero and the perfect companion to the classic When Pride Still Mattered.

    A definitive biography of the best man ever to take a snap from center. --Allen Barra, Dallas Morning News

    One of the best sports history books you will read. --NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell


    An ode to stoicism, modesty and discipline--the virtues that made the Packers' dynasty. --Mark Kriegel, New York Times bestselling author of Namath

    Allowing no room for debate, Dunnavant shows that Starr was the indispensable man in the creation of the Green Bay Packers dynasty. -- Dave Kindred, author of Morning Madness

    An absolute masterpiece .... Hands down, the best sports book of the year. --Paul Finebaum, Radio Talk Show Host

    Baseball

    Baseball

    $7.95
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    Jam-packed with cool baseball trivia, history-making records, unforgettable moments, and wacky true tales of your favorite games, players and events. This book hits a grand slam right out of the park!

    A perfect gift for the die-hard fan of America's favorite pasttime. Baseball is rich in anecdotes about team superstitions (from the black cat that haunted the Cubs to the "Curse of the Babe"), the antics of the superstars, and other facts that come out of left field. Think today's umpires have a temper? Wait till you read about the 19th century New Jersey ump who pulled out a gun and shoved it in the face of a player who came at him with a bat. Or about the time three Brooklyn Dodger runners found themselves at third base--together. Fans will laugh, they'll learn--and they won't put this down!