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Sports / Recreation
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.
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."
*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.
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.
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 GoodellAn 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
Why do balls get stamped with invisible ink?
What's the best ticket to buy for catching a foul ball?
Which part of the ball once came from dog food companies?
How could a 10,000-year-old glacier help a pitcher grip the ball? In this enlightening, entertaining, and often wildly funny book, Zack Hample shares ballpark legends and lore, explores the history of the baseball souvenir craze, and also details the evolution of the ball, Finally, Hample--who has snagged more than 4,600 balls from 48 different major league stadiums--offers up his secret methods for snagging your own ball from major league games. Features a ballhawk glossary, profiles of legendary ballhawks, top 10 lists, and black-and-white photos throughout.
For more than a decade, New York University President John Sexton has used baseball to illustrate the elements of a spiritual life in a wildly popular course at NYU. Using some of the great works of baseball fiction as well as the actual game's fantastic moments, its legendary characters, and its routine rituals from the long-sought triumph of the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers, to the heroic achievements of players like the saintly Christy Mathewson and the sinful Ty Cobb, to the loving intimacy of a game of catch between a father and son Sexton teaches that through the game we can touch the spiritual dimension of life.
"Baseball as a Road to God "is about the elements of our lives that lie beyond what can be captured in words alone ineffable truths that we know by experience rather than by logic or analysis. Applying tothe secular activity of baseball a form of inquiry usually reserved for the study of religion, Sexton reveals a surprising amount of common ground between the game and what we all recognize as religion: sacred places and time, faith and doubt, blessings and curses, and more.
In thought-provoking, beautifully rendered prose, this book elegantly demonstrates that baseball is more than a game, or even a national pastime: It can be a road to a deeper and more meaningful life."