It was the golden age of baseball, and all over the country teams gathered on town fields in front of throngs of fans to compete for local glory. In Rawlins, Wyoming, residents lined up for tickets to see slugger Joseph Seng and the rest of the Wyoming Penitentiary Death Row All Stars as they took on all comers in baseball games with considerably more at stake. Teams came from Reno, Nevada; Klamath Falls, Oregon; Bodie, California; and throughout the west to take on the murderers who made up the line-up. This is a fun and wildly dramatic and suspenseful look at the game of baseball and at the thrilling events that unfolded at a prison in the wide-open Wyoming frontier in pursuit of wins on the diamond.

As one of the most recognizable and highest paid athletes in the world, Shaquille O'Neal, better known as "Shaq," is undeniably one of the greatest players in basketball history. Murry Nelson presents a fascinating look at the career of a man who has dominated basketball for over 10 years and invites readers to take a close look at the person behind the phenomenon. This insightful biography brings the achievements of Shaquille O'Neal to life, providing information on his early life and the influence of his parents, coaches, and fellow players. Chapters take the reader from Shaq's childhood in Newark and Germany through his college years at Louisiana State University, tracing his path to NBA superstardom with the Orlando Magic, the Los Angeles Lakers, and the Miami Heat. Basketball fans will appreciate the play-by-play account of the many championship runs in Shaq's legendary career. This biography also spotlights Shaq's celebrity life off the court as a rap recording artist, film star, and commercial pitchman for numerous multi-million dollar brands. A timeline highlighting key events in Shaq's life and career, a bibliography, and a statistical appendix enhance this biography.

Covering a 45-year period, "The Nebraska Way" chronicles both the historic rise and gradual fall of the Nebraska football dynasty, from the hiring of Bob Devaney and succession of Tom Osborne to the firing of Frank Solich and rapid separation from tradition. Along with the highs and lows of the Cornhuskers' achievements, "The Nebraska Way" also attempts to define Tom Osborne's philosophy as a coach and mentor as well as the relationship between the football program and the state it represents. Also discussed is the transition from a unique and special program to one assuming the characteristics of any other major college football program, and what it means for the future of the University of Nebraska football program.

This is an informative and thorough account of Tommy Docherty's spell at Manchester United. It also looks at the post-United careers of those who played in his sides and who came to love and loathe him.

In late 1913, the newly formed Federal League declared itself a major league in competition with the established National and American Leagues. Backed by some of America's wealthiest merchants and industrialists, the new organization posed a real challenge to baseball's prevailing structure. For the next two years the well-established leagues fought back furiously in the press, in the courts, and on the field. The story of this fascinating and complex historical battle centers on the machinations of both the owners and the players, as the Federals struggled for profits and status, and players organized baseball's first real union. Award-winning author Daniel R. Levitt gives the most authoritative account yet published of the short-lived Federal League, the last professional baseball league to challenge the National and American League monopoly. This paperback edition was first printed in hardcover as The Battle That Forged Modern Baseball. An eBook edition is also available under the original title.

They had two future Hall of Famers, the last pitcher to win thirty games, and a supporting cast of some of the most peculiar individuals ever to play in the majors. But more than that, the 1968 Detroit Tigers symbolize a lost era in baseball. It was a time before runaway salaries and designated hitters. Before divisional playoffs and drug suspensions. Before teams measured their well-being by the number of corporate boxes in their ballpark and the cable contract in their pocket. It was the last season of baseball's most colorful and nostalgic period. It was surely not a more innocent time. The 1968 Tigers were a team of hell-raisers, the second coming of the Gas House Gang. They brawled on the field and partied hard afterward. They bickered with each other and ignored their manager. They won game after game with improbable rallies on their last at-bat and grabbed the World Championship by coming back from a three games to one deficit to beat the most dominant pitcher in the World Series history in the deciding seventh game. Their ultimate hero, Mickey Lolich, was a man who threw left-handed, thought "upside down," and rode motorcycles to the ballpark. Their thirty-game winner, Denny McLain, played the organ in various night spots, placed bets over the clubhouse phone, and incidentally, overpowered the American League. Their prize pinch-hitter, Gates Brown, had done hard time in the Ohio Penitentiary. Their top slugger, Willie Horton, would have rather been boxing. Their centerfielder, Mickey Stanley, a top defensive outfielder, would unselfishly volunteer to play the biggest games of his life at shortstop, so that their great outfielder, Al Kaline, could get into the World Series lineup. The story of this team, their triumph, and what happened in their lives afterward, is one of the great dramas of baseball history. The Tigers of '68 is the uproarious, stirring tale of this team, the last to win a pure pennant (before each league was divided into two divisions and playoffs were added) and World Series. Award-winning journalist George Cantor, who covered the Tigers that year for the Detroit Free Press, revisits the main performers on the team and then weaves their memories and stories (warts and all) into an absorbing narrative that revives all of the delicious-and infamous-moments that made the season unforgettable. Tommy Matchick's magical ninth-inning home run, Jim Northrup's record-setting grand slams, Jon Warden's torrid April, Dick McAuliffe's charge to the mound, Denny McLain's gift to Mickey Mantle, the nearly unprecedented comeback in the World Series, and dozens more. The '68 Tigers occupy a special place in the history of the city of Detroit. They've joined their predecessors of 1935 as an almost mythic unit-more than a baseball team. The belief has passed into Detroit folklore. Many people swear, as Willie Horton says, that they were "put here by God to save the city." The Tigers of '68 will help you understand why.

The rivalry between the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox involves not just the teams, but the cities, owners, ballparks, fans, and the media. Its roots reach back to before even Babe Ruth and Harry Frazee, yet it is as contemporary as the next Red Sox-Yankees game. This book tells the story of the rivalry from the first game these epic teams played against each other in 1901 through the 2013 season in what former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani called 'the best rivalry in any sport.'

This book traces the entire story of black baseball, documenting the growth of the Negro Leagues at a time when segregation dictated that the major leagues were strictly white, and explaining how the drive to integrate the sport was a pivotal part of the American civil rights movement. Part of Greenwood's Landmarks of the American Mosaic series, this work is a one-stop introduction to the subject of Negro League baseball that spotlights the achievements and experiences of black ball players during the time of segregation-ones that must not be allowed to fade into obscurity. Telling far more than a story about sports that includes engaging tales of star athletes like "Satchel" Paige and "Cool Papa" Bell, Negro Leagues Baseball documents an essential chapter of American history rooted in the fight for civil rights and human dignity and the battle against racism and bigotry. The book comprises an introduction, chronology, and narrative chapters, as well as biographical profiles, primary documents, a glossary, a bibliography, and an index. The recounting of individual stories and historical events will fascinate general readers, while rarely used documentary material places the subject of Negro League baseball in relation to civil rights issues, making the book invaluable to students of American social history and culture. A historical timeline of events Biographical profiles of important figures in Negro Leagues baseball

When most people think about the Netherlands, images of tulips and peaceful pot smoking residents spring to mind. Bring up soccer, and most will think of Johan Cruyuff, the Dutch player thought to rival Pele in preternatural skill, and Ajax, one of the most influential soccer clubs in the world whose academy system for young athletes has been replicated around the globe (and most notably by Barcelona and the 2010 world champions, Spain).
But as international bestselling author Simon Kuper writes in "Ajax, The Dutch, The War: Soccer in Europe During the Second World War," the story of soccer in Holland cannot be understood without investigating what really occurred in this country during WWII. For decades, the Dutch have enjoyed the reputation of having a "good war." The myth is even resonant in Israel where Ajax is celebrated. The fact is, the Jews suffered shocking persecution at the hands of Dutch collaborators. Holland had the second largest Nazi movement in Europe outside Germany, and in no other country except Poland was so high a percentage of Jews deported.
Kuper challenges Holland's historical amnesia and uses soccer--particularly the experience of Ajax, a club long supported by Amsterdam's Jews--as a window on wartime Holland and Europe. Through interviews with Resistance fighters, survivors, wartime soccer players and more, Kuper uncovers this history that has been ignored, and also finds out why the Holocaust had a profound effect on soccer in the country.
Ajax produced Cruyuff but was also built by members of the Dutch resistance and Holocaust survivors. It became a surrogate family for many who survived the war and its method for producing unparalleled talent became the envy of clubs around the world. In this passionate, haunting and moving work of forensic reporting, Kuper tells the breathtaking story of how Dutch Jews survived the unspeakable and came to play a strong role in the rise of the most exciting and revolutionary style of soccer -- "Total Football" -- the world had ever seen.