At a time when the sporting world seems to be losing its perspective, author John Clendening provides another viewpoint. In "Love Letters to Sports," he celebrates sports at its best-its moments in time that capture our hearts and remind us of the role it can play as a touch point in our lives. In this memoir, Clendening narrates his special sports moments, such as his first-ever road trip with his eight-year-son and how his son's sports obsession at a young age reminds him of his own. He tells of going to a football game in Texas and falling in love all over again with a certain cheerleader, and how his favorite announcer brought him to tears on the night his youngest daughter was born. This collection of 19 personal essays pays tribute to our own moments in time and moments in life when sports play a supporting role in creating memories never to be forgotten. From football to tennis, from baseball to golf, from the fields of youth to the armchair of middle age, this is not a book about love, nor is it one about sports. It's about the many times and places the two have met in one man's life.

When the Detroit Red Wings were rebooting their franchise after more than two decades of relative futility, they knew the best place to find world-class players who could help turn things around more quickly were conscripted servants behind the Iron Curtain. All they had to do then was make history by drafting them, then figure out how to get them out. That's when the Wings turned to Keith Gave, the newsman whose clandestine mission to Helsinki, Finland, was the first phase of a of a years-long series of secret meetings from posh hotel rooms to remote forests around Europe to orchestrate their unlawful departures from the Soviet Union. One defection created an international incident and made global headlines. Another player faked cancer, thanks to the Wings' extravagant bribes to Russian doctors, including a big American car. Another player who wasn't quite ready to leave yet felt like he was being kidnapped by an unscrupulous agent. Two others were outcast when they stood up publicly against the Soviet regime, winning their freedom to play in the NHL only after years of struggle. They are the Russian Five: Sergei Fedorov, Viacheslav Fetisov, Vladimir Konstantinov, Vyacheslav Kozlov and Igor Larionov. Their individual stories read like pulse-pounding spy novels. The story that unfolded after they were brought together in Detroit by the masterful coach Scotty Bowman is unforgettable. This story includes details never before revealed, and by the man who was there every step of the way -- from the day Detroit drafted its first two Soviets in 1989 until they raised the Stanley Cup in 1997, then took it to Moscow for a victory lap around Red Square and the Kremlin. The Russian Five did more to bridge Russian and American relations than decades of diplomacy and detente between the White House and the Kremlin. This is their story.

A biography of America's greatest all-around athlete that "goes beyond the myth and into the guts of Thorpe's life, using extensive research, historical nuance, and bittersweet honesty" (Los Angeles Times), by the bestselling author of the classic biography When Pride Still Mattered. Jim Thorpe rose to world fame as a mythic talent who excelled at every sport. Most famously, he won gold medals in the decathlon and pentathlon at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. A member of the Sac and Fox Nation, he was an All-American football player at the Carlisle Indian School, the star of the first class of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and played major league baseball for John McGraw's New York Giants. Even in a golden age of sports celebrities, he was one of a kind. But despite his awesome talent, Thorpe's life was a struggle against the odds. At Carlisle, he faced the racist assimilationist philosophy "Kill the Indian, Save the Man." His gold medals were unfairly rescinded because he had played minor league baseball, and his supposed allies turned away from him when their own reputations were at risk. His later life was troubled by alcohol, broken marriages, and financial distress. He roamed from state to state and took bit parts in Hollywood, but even the film of his own life failed to improve his fortunes. But for all his travails, Thorpe survived, determined to shape his own destiny, his perseverance becoming another mark of his mythic stature. Path Lit by Lightning "[reveals] Thorpe as a man in full, whose life was characterized by both soaring triumph and grievous loss" (The Wall Street Journal).

The remarkable story of three Yorkshire cricketers from the Golden Age - George Hirst, Wilfred Rhodes and Schofield Haigh - who transformed their county's fortunes, inspired a generation of cricketers and left a unique legacy on the game. Between them, Hirst, Rhodes and Haigh scored over 77,000 runs and took almost 9000 wickets in a combined 2500 appearances, helping Yorkshire to seven County Championship triumphs. The records they set will never be beaten, yet the three men - known throughout England as The Triumvirate - were born in two small villages just outside Huddersfield, in Last of the Summer Wine country. Hirst pioneered and perfected the art of swing and seam bowling, Rhodes took more first-class wickets than anyone else in history, while the genial Haigh's achievements as a bowler at Yorkshire have been surpassed only by his two close friends; their influence would extend far beyond England, as they all went to India to coach, laying the foundations of cricket in the subcontinent. Pearson, whose biography of Learie Constantine, Connie, won the MCC Book of the Year Award, brings the characters and the age vividly to life, showing how these cricketing stars came to symbolise the essence of Yorkshire. This was a time when the gritty northern professionals from the White Rose county took on some of the most glittering amateurs of the age, including W.G.Grace, C.B.Fry, Prince Ranji and Gilbert Jessop, and when writers such as Neville Cardus and J.M.Kilburn were on hand to bring their achievements to a wider audience. The First of the Summer Wine is a celebration of a vanished age, but also reveals how the efforts of Hirst, Rhodes and Haigh helped create the modern era, too.

Aged fifty, on a whim, Marion Dunn joined a boxing gym. Training to improve fitness quickly became something of an addiction, and then a source of transformation. This is her myth-busting tale of four years of slogging in an amateur boxing gym in northern England. Marion's story is one of a developing love affair with the 'sweet science'. It's also about obsession, hard work, companionship and occasional bravery. But The Boxing Diaries is not just a story of hard graft. It's a revealing account of life in the amateur boxing gym: its idiosyncratic inhabitants, non-judgmental spirit, dedicated coaches and respect for all comers, irrespective of age or gender - provided their commitment to training is total. From the sweat and toil in draughty halls, Marion takes us through the years of preparation before she is finally ready to spar in the ring. Every micro-improvement, every emotion is laid bare, and along the way she considers the influences and events that might have ignited her passion for the sport in the first place. Warning: this is a knockout memoir that could make you want to start swinging punches, too.

Joe Tasker lies, struck down by illness, in a damp, bug-infested room in the Himalaya, wondering if he will be well enough to climb Dunagiri, his first venture to the 'big' mountains. One of Britain's foremost mountaineers and a pioneer of lightweight climbing, he is about to attempt one of the first true 'alpine-style' climbs in the Greater Ranges. The Dunagiri attempt forms part of Tasker's striking tale of adventure in the savage arena of the mountains. A superb writer, he vividly describes the first British winter ascent of the North Face of the Eiger, the first ascent of the West Wall of Changabang - considered a 'preposterous' plan by the climbing world - and his two unsuccessful attempts on K2, the second highest mountain on Earth. Savage Arena is both moving and exciting, an inspirational tale of the adventuring spirit which follows its own path, endlessly seeking new challenges, climbs and difficulties to overcome. It is not reaching the summit which counts, it is the journey to it. It is also a story of the stresses and strains of living for long periods in constant anxiety, often with only one other person, and of the close and vital human relationships which spring from those circumstances.

Bursting onto the scene as a 20-year-old rookie, Arky Vaughan quickly established himself as the next great Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop. In 1935 his .385 batting average eclipsed even that of the immortal Honus Wagner, who was a steadying influence for Vaughan during his 10 seasons with the Pirates. Vaughan never hit under .300 with Pittsburgh and his versatility later made him an asset to the Brooklyn Dodgers. One of the quietest men in baseball, the nine-time All-Star eschewed the limelight but received plenty of attention for his on-field performance, for his one-man mutiny against Brooklyn manager Leo Durocher, and for walking away from the game to take care of his family and his beloved ranch during World War II. Drawing on dozens of articles, personal writings, recorded interviews and his daughter's unpublished biography, this book covers the life and career of an often overlooked Hall of Famer who died in a tragic boating accident at age 40.

From Diego Maradona to Lionel Messi, Johan Cruyff to Zinedine Zidane, Soccer Legends Alphabet takes to the field with an unbeatable A to Z lineup of unforgettable legends. Educational, inspiring and boldly illustrated, this book is sure to kick a goal with any fan of 'The Beautiful Game.'

Also availabe as an eBook

Those who waved to us across fairways saw the idyllic tableau of father and son, side by side in shared golf passion. Beneath that façade, however, was a boy struggling to grow up and away-and a father searching for a way to help rather than hinder...
-From Playing Partners

If there's one thing as mysterious and powerful as the bond between a father and son, it's the bond between the game of golf and those who fall in love with it. In this beautifully told memoir, George Peper, coauthor of the runaway bestseller Cinderella Story, tells a story of fathers, sons, and golf-and how the three magically came together.

A young father and hardworking editor in chief of GOLF Magazine, George Peper desired nothing more than to hear his son someday say: "Want to go out and hit a few, Dad?" But when that day finally arrived, and Peper's young son Scott joined him on the links, Peper soon discovered that how he looked at and felt about golf would change forever.

The two became companions and competitors-a man and a boy finding out about themselves and each other on the deceptively tranquil stage of an eighteen-hole course. At the local golf club and on courses around the world, Scott progressed as a player, and Peper watched him learn how to hit shots, manage a course, and face the pressure and pain that comes to everyone serious about the game. When Scott's scores began to drop perilously close to his own, Peper saw himself reflected in his son's eyes. Once idol and mentor, he had turned into Scott's quarry-his son's first and foremost opponent.

As he chronicles their odyssey, Peper reflects on his relationship with his own father and all they left unsaid. He faces his expectations of his son and of himself. By the time Scott moves to the edge of manhood-and into the competitive ranks of amateur golf-Peper has grown older, and PLAYING PARTNERS becomes a bittersweet ode to mortality in all its richness and complexity. This marvelous, heartfelt story beautifully explores our capacity to care: about the joy in a boy's face, about the shot that lies ahead, and about what it means to win in life and in this unique and much loved game.

All Together Now is one of the great sports stories. It's about a group of football fans who were determined to right a wrong. The authorities said they shouldn't try. People in football said it couldn't be done. Robbed of their beloved club, Wimbledon FC, they started again. They had absolutely nothing - no experience of running a club, no players, no manager, nowhere to play. But within nine years they re-formed their team as AFC Wimbledon, rebuilt its community work, won six promotions and fought their way back into the top tiers of the game. En route, they broke records, changed the rules of football and were the subject of Prime Minister's Questions. And now they're back in their spiritual home, Wimbledon, in a brand new stadium. For most of this time Erik Samuelson was finance director and then CEO of the club. He tells the extraordinary inside story of how the most undervalued people in football - the fans - defied the odds to take their club back to the Football League and return home.

A life-affirming and important memoir about the changing shape of gender and society from a popular and beloved author

'A treatise on empathy and grace in extraordinary circumstances' Jojo Moyes'Today I sat on a bench facing the sea, the one where I waited for L to be born, and sobbed my heart out. I don't know if I'll ever recover.' This note was written on 9 November 2017. As the seagulls squawked overhead and the sun dipped into the sea, Alexandra Heminsley's world was turning inside out. She'd just been told her then-husband was going to transition. The revelation threatened to shatter their brand new, still fragile, family. But this vertiginous moment represented only the latest in a series of events that had left Alex feeling more and more dissociated from her own body, turning her into a seemingly unreliable narrator of her own reality. Some Body to Love is Alex's profoundly open-hearted memoir about losing her husband but gaining a best friend, and together bringing up a baby in a changing world. Its exploration of what it means to have a human body, to feel connected or severed from it, and how we might learn to accept our own, makes it a vital and inspiring contribution to some of the most complex and heated conversations of our times.

A riveting, revealing portrait of tennis champion and global icon Serena Williams that combines biography, cultural criticism, and sports writing to offer "a deep, satisfying meditation" (The New York Times) on the most consequential athlete of her time. There has never been an athlete like Serena Williams. She has dominated women's tennis for two decades, changed the way the game is played, and-by inspiring Naomi Osaka, Coco Gauff, and others-changed, too, the racial makeup of the pro game. But Williams's influence has not been confined to the tennis court. As a powerful Black woman who struggled to achieve and sustain success, she has emerged as a cultural icon, figuring in conversations about body image, working mothers, and more. Seeing Serena chronicles Williams's return to tennis after giving birth to her daughter-from her controversial 2018 US Open final against Naomi Osaka through a 2020 season that unfolded against a backdrop of a pandemic and protests over the killing of Black men and women by the police. Gerald Marzorati, who writes about tennis for The New Yorker, travels to Wimbledon and to Compton, California, where Serena and her sister Venus learned to play. He talks with former women's tennis greats, sports and cultural commentators-and Serena herself. He observes Williams from courtside, on the red carpet, in fashion magazines, on social media. He sees her and writes about her prismatically-reflecting on her many, many facets. The result is an "enlightening...keen analysis" (The Washington Post) and energetic narrative that illuminates Serena's singular status as the greatest women's tennis player of all time and a Black woman with a global presence like no other.

At the end of World War II, the top ten college football teams were largely the same as they are today-with one exception: Oklahoma. In 1947, Bud Wilkinson was named OU's head football coach and became the architect of Oklahoma's meteoric rise from mediocrity to its present status as a perennial powerhouse. Based on interviews with Wilkinson, former OU president George L. Cross, and numerous former players, author John Scott gives us the behind-the-scenes story of Wilkinson's years at the University of Oklahoma. Scott takes us through the teams Wilkinson directed from 1947 to 1963, revealing the philosophies and tactics Wilkinson used to turn OU into one of college football's elite programs. A close-up view of games-from strategy to execution-brings OU football and its cast of colorful characters to life. Scott details the Sooners' 47-game winning streak as well as thrilling games against Notre Dame, Army, USC, and others. He also provides details of Wilkinson's breaking of the color line in OU athletics and the infamous food-poisoning incident in Chicago in 1959. Before his death in 1994, Wilkinson reviewed the first draft of the book and wrote in a letter to the author, "The explanations of football strategies are concise and clear. They rank among the best I have ever read." Including vignettes of Wilkinson's closest coaching friends (Royal, Bryant, Leahy, Sanders, Blaik, Tatum), Bud Wilkinson and the Rise of Oklahoma Football captures all the drama of Oklahoma's ascendance and serves as an authoritative and entertaining history of the sport that will appeal to all college football fans.

'This obsession of mine has brought both joy and torment. The fixation with winning came from within, it roused me and veered on the dangerous.' This is Sean Cavanagh's account of his extraordinary, obsessive drive to dominate his sport. For the first time, we get up close and personal with the lowest ebbs and greatest highs of his career as one of Gaelic football's era-defining players, and with the truth of what it takes to become a three-time All-Ireland and five-time All Star winner. For 20 years, Sean Cavanagh's relentless routine of train-play-repeat fed an insatiable quest for perfection and made him a permanent fixture in the Tyrone team. His fearless, uncompromising style led him to glory, but his obsession also took its toll on body and mind, and on those around him. As well as the highs, there have been some shattering lows: the anguish and doubt of injury, hostility on and off the field of play, the despair at defeat in crucial games, and the nightmare of gossip hounding his family.

Cycling Book of the Year - Cross British Sports Book Awards When the 'Iron Curtain' descended across Europe, Dieter Wiedemann was a hero of East German sport. A podium finisher in The Peace Race, the Eastern Bloc equivalent of the Tour de France, he was a pin-up for the supremacy of socialism over the 'fascist' West. Unbeknownst to the authorities, however, he had fallen in love with Sylvia Hermann, a girl from the other side of the wall. Socialist doctrine had it that the two of them were 'class enemies', and as a famous athlete Dieter's every move was pored over by the Stasi. Only he abhorred their ideology, and in Sylvia saw his only chance of freedom. Now, playing a deadly game of cat and mouse, he plotted his escape. In 1964 he was delegated, once and once only, to West Germany. Here he was to ride a qualification race for the Tokyo Olympics, but instead committed the most treacherous of all the crimes against socialism. Dieter Wiedemann, sporting icon and Soviet pawn, defected to the other side. Whilst Wiedemann fulfilled his lifetime ambition of racing in the Tour de France, his defection caused a huge scandal. The Stasi sought to 'repatriate' him, with horrific consequences both for him and the family he left behind. Fifty years on, and twenty-five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Dieter Wiedemann decided it was time to tell his story. Through his testimony and that of others involved, and through the Stasi file, which has stalked him for half a century, Herbie Sykes uncovers an astonishing tale. It is one of love and betrayal, of the madness at the heart of the cold war, and of the greatest bike race in history.

Among the best pound-for-pound fighters of all time, Willie Pep (1922-2006) was a virtuoso of the squared circle. A two-time World Featherweight Champion, his International Boxing Hall of Fame professional record stands at 230 wins, 11 losses and one draw, with 65 knockouts and two winning streaks of more than 62 victories-each longer than most modern fighters' careers. During his 26 years in the ring, he appeared on cards with everyone from Fritzie Zivic to Joe Frazier. A scientific boxer with balletic defensive skills and a stiff jab, Pep-known as "Will o' the Wisp"-so masterfully evaded his opponents, one remarked it was like battling a man in a room full of mirrors. This book covers his remarkable career, with highlights of each bout.

Imagine Pep Guardiola quitting Manchester City to take over at Rochdale. Or Jose Mourinho walking out on United to join Southend. That sort of thing just wouldn't happen, would it? Except that in 1973, it did. At that time Brian Clough was managerial gold dust, having taken Derby County to the Football League title and to the semi-finals of the European Cup. After those feats, he and his sidekick Peter Taylor could have managed anywhere. And yet the most famous men in British football decided to take the reins at Brighton & Hove Albion, sixth bottom of the old Third Division, for what would prove a controversial and ultimately unsuccessful spell that would test their friendship to breaking point. The move to a sleepy backwater football club made little sense then and, forty years on, it remains a mystery. It seems especially odd considering Clough's aversion to the south and refusal to relocate his home from Derby. Featuring candid interviews with the men who played under Clough and Taylor at Brighton, Bloody Southerners attempts to make sense of the strangest managerial appointment in English post-war football. What shines through in page after page of never-before-heard stories is the profound complexity of both characters.

"Just finished Don Stradley's book on Edwin Valero, "Berserk." Outstanding. Predictably so because 1) Don is a super writer, and 2) the story is chilling and amazing.-Steve Farhood, Showtime boxing analyst, and International Boxing Hall of Fame member "There's no telling what went on during the next few hours, or where his paranoia took him, but in that room something terrible happened. At 5:30 a.m. Valero appeared in the lobby. As calmly as one might order something from room service, he told the staff that he had just killed his wife." Within the dark pages of Berserk: The Shocking Life and Death of Edwin Valero, author Don Stradley uncovers the gritty details of the undefeated (27-0, 27 KO), troubled, boxer Edwin Valero. Edwin Valero's life was like a rocket shot into a wall. With a perfect knockout record in twenty-seven fights, the demonic Venezuelan boxer, known as "El Inca" and "El Dinamita," seemed destined for a clash with all-time great Manny Pacquiao. But the Fates had other ideas. Fueled by cocaine and booze and paranoia, Valero blazed into a mania that derailed his career in the ring and resulted in the brutal death of his young wife Jennifer-and soon afterward, his own. In chilling detail, Don Stradley captures one of the darkest and most sensational boxing stories in recent memory, which, until now, has never been fully told. Filled with firsthand accounts from the men who trained Valero and the reporters who covered him, as well as insights from psychologists and forensic experts, Berserk is a hell-ride of a book. Berserk is the first in the Hamilcar Noir series, from Hamilcar Publications. Hamilcar Noir is "Hard-Hitting True Crime" that blends boxing and true crime, featuring riveting stories captured in high-quality prose, with cover art inspired by classic pulp novels. Perfect Gift For Boxing and True Crime Fans! Berserk, combined with other books in the Hamilcar Noir series, makes a great gift for fans of stories about the darker side of boxing. Books in the Hamilcar Noir series also make for a great gift idea for true crime fans-whether they are a die-hard boxing fan or not, they will devour these quick reads and ask for more!

In early 1969, New York City and all it represented was in disarray: politically, criminally, and athletically. But while Simon and Garfunkel lamented the absence of a sports icon like Joe DiMaggio, a modern Lancelot rode forth to lead the New York Mets to heights above and beyond all sports glory. This book tells the complete, unvarnished story of the great Tom Seaver, that rarest of all American heroes, the New York Sports Icon. In a city that produces not mere mortals but sports gods, Seaver represented the last of a breed. His deeds, his times, his town-it was part of a vanishing era, an era of innocence. In 1969, six years after John F. Kennedy's assassination, Seaver and the Mets were the last gasp of idealism before free agency, Watergate, and cynicism. Here is the story of "Tom Terrific" of the "Amazin' Mets," a man worthy of a place alongside DiMaggio, Ruth, Mantle, and Namath in the pantheon of New York idols.

A story about running away, crashing through and hitting my stride

When the whole world seems set against you, how you keep the negative voice out of your head?

Candice Warner knows all about the damaging consequences of living life in front of the cameras and has learned a lot about how to insulate from the worst of public life - for herself, as a wife and partner, and as a mother. Growing up with, competing in and living among some of the most abrasive environments, Candice has had her integrity attacked, her worth questioned, and her decisions, body and mind judged. But she has never been stronger or more determined to forge the space she and her family need to be safe, and to live a life filled with love, purpose, ambition and optimism.

Candid, raw and uplifting, Candice tells it straight - about the ugly, bruising pivotal moments that almost broke her, to the extraordinary turning points that buoyed her ... and the saving grace of the transformative, regenerative power of running.

From her beginnings as Australia's youngest Ironwoman and the joys and heartbreak of elite sport, to being publicly shamed as a woman, and her crucial role in Australia's most successful and highest profile partnership, Running Strong is Candice's story - about climbing back from rock bottom, the power of creating precious sanctuary for yourself and protecting the people closest to you.