Hugh Casey was one of the most colorful members of the iconic Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1940s, a team that took part in four great pennant races, the first National League playoff series, and two exciting World Series over the course of Casey's career. That famed team included many outsized personalities, including executives Larry MacPhail and Branch Rickey, manager Leo Durocher, and players like Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, Dixie Walker, Joe Medwick, and Pete Reiser. In Hugh Casey: The Triumphs and Tragedies of a Brooklyn Dodger, Lyle Spatz details Casey's life and career, from his birth in Atlanta to his suicide in that same city thirty-seven years later. Spatz includes such moments as Casey's famous "pitch that got away" in Game Four of the 1941 World Series, the numerous brawls and beanball wars in which Casey was frequently involved, and the Southern-born Casey's reaction to Jackie Robinson joining the Dodgers. Spatz also reveals how Casey helped to redefine the role of the relief pitcher, twice leading the National League in saves and twice finishing second-if saves had been an official statistic during his lifetime. While this book focuses on Casey's baseball career in Brooklyn, Spatz also covers Casey's often-tragic personal life. He not only ran into trouble with the IRS, he also got into a fistfight with Ernest Hemingway and was charged in a paternity suit that was decided against him. Featuring personal interviews with Casey's son and with former teammate Carl Erskine, this book will fascinate and inform fans of the Brooklyn Dodgers and baseball historians alike.

From his home in the Cairngorms of Scotland, Cameron McNeish reflects on a life dedicated to the outdoors. A prolific author, McNeish has led treks in the Himalayas and Syria, edited The Great Outdoors Magazine, establishing it as Britain's premier walking publication, created new long-distance walks and made television series, contributed a monthly column to Scots Magazine, campaigned for Scottish independence and raised a family with his wife, Gina. In this long-awaited autobiography, he candidly recalls the ups and downs of a full life, much of it in the public eye, much of it until now unseen.

The side-splittingly hilarious new book from Sunday Times bestselling author, rugby icon, and stag do in human form, James Haskell. It's 2021 and James is at a crossroads. His glittering international rugby career that took him from England to New Zealand and France - including 77 caps for England - is over. What will he do now? What is his purpose in life? In Ruck Me, James sets out on a voyage of self-discovery speaking to ex-colleagues, friends and family, reflecting on his career and diving into some of his most memorable personal anecdotes to date. But what started out as a search for understanding and meaning soon turns into a - let's face it, sometimes warranted - chastisement opportunity with James directly in the firing line. Turns out he has a lot of work to do... As funny as it is outrageous, this brilliant book acts as a lesson on how (not) to retire gracefully and move forward. And ruck me - you won't want to miss it.

More than a century ago, the barrel-chested strongman clad in leopard skins, Roman sandals and carrying an oversized barbell was a common performer in fairs, circuses and vaudeville theaters. In 1911, before this phenomenon had disappeared, French gym owner, journalist and athlete Edmond Desbonnet published a colorful history of these mighty performers. Since he knew and interviewed many of these men (and women), Desbonnet was able to put a human face on the strongmen and strongwomen who made their livings by performing spectacular strength stunts for the entertainment of the public. Among these were super-strong athlete Louis Uni, known as Apollon; Eugen Sandow, the mighty Adonis of the stage; the great strongwoman Kati Sandwina Brumbach and many others who entertained audiences by lifting barbells, automobiles, horses and even elephants. Now translated to English and extensively annotated, The Kings of Strength records and preserves the biographies of more than 200 strength performers and bodybuilders from ancient times up to the early 1900s. The book provides a vital contribution to both theatrical and athletic history, while exploring the universal fascination with strength and muscular physiques.

At age 16 Chris Kopczynski carved into the handle of his ice axe the words "Everest/Eiger", marking his goal to climb the two mountains known as the highest and the hardest. He accomplished that goal by the age of 33, becoming the ninth American to summit Everest and the first American to summit both the North Face of the Eiger and Mt. Everest. With the climbing addiction in his blood, he set new goals and became the twelfth in the world to climb the highest peaks on seven continents. Chris' lifelong odyssey to the top of the world includes the climbs, attempts and summits of every continent's highest, hardest, and most significant mountains. He gives us the details, the stories of perseverance and survival as he achieved his dreams on Robson in the Canadian Rockies, Chimney Rock in Idaho, the Pamirs and Elbrus in the USSR, Denali in Alaska, Makalu in Nepal, Antarctica's Vinson, Chile's Aconcagua, Kosciuszko in Australia, and Africa's Kilimanjaro and Carstensz. Kopczynski has climbed with John Roskelley for over 55 years becoming all-around mountaineers from their early days bouldering around Spokane and tackling the vertical and technical big walls of the Pacific Northwest to more challenging peaks around the world. Roskelley calls Chris the most underrated American mountaineer. With the publication of Chris' life story, the climbing world can recognize and applaud the accomplishments of this premier world climber.

Improve your chess by studying the greatest games of all time, from Adolf Anderssen's 'Immortal Game' to Magnus Carlsen's world championship victories, and featuring a foreword by five-times World Champion Vishy Anand. This book is written by an all-star team of authors. Wesley So is the reigning Fischer Random World Champion, the 2017 US Champion and the winner of the 2016 Grand Chess Tour. Michael Adams has been the top British player for the last quarter of a century and was a finalist in the 2004 FIDE World Championship. Graham Burgess is the author of thirty books, a former champion of the Danish region of Funen, and holds the world record for marathon blitz chess playing. John Nunn is a three-time winner of both the World Solving Championship and the British Chess Federation Book of the Year Award. John Emms is an experienced chess coach and writer, who finished equal first in the 1997 British Championship and was chess columnist of the Young Telegraph. The 145 greatest chess games of all time, selected, analysed, re-evaluated and explained by a team of British and American experts and illustrated with over 1,100 chess diagrams. Join the authors in studying these games, the cream of two centuries of international chess, and develop your own chess-playing skills - whatever your current standard. Instructive points at the end of each game highlight the lessons to be learned. First published in 1998, a second edition of The Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest Chess Games in 2004 included an additional twelve games. Another new edition in 2010 included a further thirteen games as well as some significant revisions to the analysis and information regarding other games in earlier editions of the book, facilitated by the use of a variety of chess software. This 2021 edition, further updated and expanded, now includes 145 games. The authors have made full use of the new generation of chess analysis engines that apply neural-network based AI.

They all excited and inspired me by how they fought their corners [...] So I want to place them all round a fantasy dinner-table, not just to dine, but to relive how I saw them in action and how much they had in common. Who would be on your dream dinner party guest list? Over his 50 years in broadcasting, Archie Macpherson has seen many sports personalities come and go; in Touching the Heights he collects the 13 who have inspired him most around his fantasy dinner table. Some are well-known, others less so, but all shaped both their sport and those, like Macpherson, who watched their careers unfold. Tommy Docherty * Jackie Paterson * Jim Baxter Eric Brown * Jimmy Johnstone * Sandra Whittaker Dr Richard Budgett * Ally MacLeod * Jock Stein * Sir Alex Ferguson * Bill McLaren * Jim MacLean * Graeme Souness From football to golf, boxing to athletics, Touching the Heights celebrates the breadth of Scottish sporting achievement. Whether telling the tale of a boy who acquired new shoes by stealing them from the local baths, or that of a distinguished medical scientist at the centre of sporting transgender debates, one thing unites them all: Without them life would have been much poorer.

Remember when Zinedine Zidane lifted the World Cup in 1998? Kylian Mbappe doesn't. The forward wasn't born when the French team first became world champions. But it was Mbappe's unique talent that helped France reach the summit of world football once again in 2018, erasing years of failure, rancour and shame. For Les Bleus, the road between these two highs was blighted by bitterly painful lows. Zidane's headbutt; a players' strike; infighting and recriminations; even sex scandals and blackmail. Mbappe witnessed it all as he honed his prodigious talent in the banlieues of Paris, and his story embodies France's journey from disaster to triumph. In Sacre Bleu, Matthew Spiro traces the rise, fall and rise again of Les Bleus through the lens of Kylian Mbappe. Featuring a foreword by Arsene Wenger and interviews with leading figures in French football, Spiro asks what went wrong for France and what, ultimately, went right.

David Beckham is an English soccer player whose popularity extends beyond the field and into international celebrity. He has played for some of the best clubs in the world, including Manchester United, Real Madrid, and AC Milan, and is known worldwide for his free kick expertise and spectacular long-range shots. His singular dedication to becoming a renowned soccer player has been an inspiration to teammates and fans alike. In The Life and Career of David Beckham: Football Legend, Cultural Icon, Tracey Savell Reavis delivers an up-to-date and refreshing look at one of soccer s most-recognized athletes. Drawing on extensive research and in-depth interviews, Reavis brings an outside perspective to Beckham s life in order to reveal his profound impact on the sport in the United States and worldwide. From his birth in Leytonstone, London and his celebrated playing career to his role in bringing the 2012 Olympic Games to London and his retirement from soccer in 2013, Reavis examines the influences that shaped Beckham into the legend he is today. Featuring photographs and original interviews, this book illuminates Beckham s status as a soccer star, husband, father, fashion icon, and cultural phenomenon. The first biography since his retirement, The Life and Career of David Beckham will not only appeal to soccer fans, but also to anyone who wants to know more about this international icon."

'A book that'll change your perspective on life. You'll not be able to put it down.' Fearne Cotton 'Everyone should read this book. Sophie Morgan is the epitome of grit and determination. Her writing is thought provoking, honest and in parts hilarious.' Katie Piper OBE 'Wrenchingly honest...eye-opening and deeply moving. *****' Mail on Sunday As seen on 'Living Wild; How to Change your Life' a two-part prime-time series on Channel 4, Loose Women and The Great Celebrity Bake Off for SU2C On the precipice of starting her adult life, aged eighteen, Sophie, a rebellious and incorrigible wild child, crashed her car and was instantly paralysed from the chest down. Rushed to hospital, everything she had dreamed for her life was instantly forgotten and her journey to rediscover herself and build a different life began. But being told she would never walk again would come to be the least of her concerns. Over the next eighteen years, as she strived to come to terms with the change in her body, her relationships were put to the test; she has had to learn to cope with the many unexpected and unpredictable setbacks of living with paralysis; she has had to overcome her own and other people's perceptions of disability and explore the limits of her abilities, all whilst searching for love, acceptance, meaning, identity, and purpose. Driving Forwards is a remarkable and powerful memoir, detailing Sophie's life-changing injury, her recovery, and her life since. Strikingly honest, her story is unusual and yet relatable, inspiring us to see how adversity can be channelled into opportunity and how ongoing resilience can ultimately lead to empowerment. 'Raw, life affirming and gorgeously written - this book is filled with extraordinary honesty, courage and warmth. Sophie's words will make us all braver and more hopeful.' Daisy Buchanan 'A truly astonishing read about the power of never giving up.' Sun 'F***king hell!! This book is absolutely brilliant . . . One of the best memoirs I've ever read. Honest and so blooming human, it's fantastic.' Kathy Burke

'Raw. Vulnerable. Open. Truthful . . . This is a book that will open up the floor for even more honest conversations about the side of yoga we don't often see.' - Angie Tiwari @tiwariyoga How did an ancient spiritual practice become the preserve of the privileged? Nadia Gilani has been practising yoga for twenty-five years. She has also worked as a yoga teacher. Yoga has saved her life and seen her through many highs and lows; it has been a faith, a discipline, and a friend, and she believes wholeheartedly in its radical potential. However, over her years in the wellness industry, Nadia has noticed not only yoga's rising popularity, but also how its modern incarnation no longer serves people of colour, working class people, or many other groups who originally pioneered its creation. Combining her own memories of how the practice has helped her with an account of its history and transformation in the modern west, Nadia creates a love letter to yoga and a passionate critique of the billion-dollar industry whose cost and inaccessibility has shut out many of those it should be helping. By turns poignant, funny, and shocking, The Yoga Manifesto excavates where the industry has gone wrong, and what can be done to save the practice from its own success.

This first biography of four-time all-star Al Rosen covers the career of perhaps the best player on the fabulous Cleveland Indians' teams of the 1950s. From 1951 to 1956, the Tribe won one American League pennant (1954) and finished second to New York the other five seasons. Rosen was selected as the League's Most Valuable Player in 1953, the last Indians' player to be so honored. He led the League in home runs (43) and RBI (145). Washington's Mickey Vernon edged Rosen by a single percentage point (.337 to .336) for the league batting championship. His play between the white lines was not the only place where Rosen left his mark on the game. He spent 14 seasons as a President/General Manager for the New York Yankees (1978-1979), Houston Astros (1981-1985) and the San Francisco Giants (1986-1992). Under his guidance, those teams won two pennants and one world championship. Rosen is the only person in Major League Baseball history (since 2020) to win an MVP award as a player and to be recognized as Executive of the Year by The Sporting News (1987).

Finnish figure skater Kiira Korpi's career included triumphal championships and bitter disappointments. Trained from early childhood in a sport that demands uncompromising self-discipline and unrelenting work, her "fight until you make it" attitude brought her success and fame-and an insidious performance anxiety. Mental and physical burnout forced her retirement in 2015. With interviews and quotes from family, friends, coaches and competitors, Korpi's candid memoir describes the making and eventual undoing of a champion, reveals a darker side to the "ice princess" image of women's figure skating and advocates a more holistic, athlete-centered model of training.

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.

Casual observers of the Welsh boxing scene might well think that the best practitioners of the sport have all hailed from the valleys and coastal cities of the south. But the rural counties have contributed their share to the nation's fistic history. In the high-profile heavyweight division alone, the area covered by this book has produced two British champions and another who contested the title. Others have worn and challenged for Lonsdale Belts at lower weights. The first British boxer ever to win a medal at the world amateur championships can be found between these covers, along with the incredible youngster who was ranked in the world's top 10 by the American Ring magazine when he was just 16 years old. This volume, packed with photographs - many published for the first time - profiles more than 50 boxers from the bare-knuckle era to stars of the present and future. It is a must-read for any fight fan, whether from Wales or further afield.

Instant New York Times Bestseller "Buzz Bissinger's Friday Night Lights is an American classic. With The Mosquito Bowl, he is back with a true story even more colorful and profound. This book too is destined to become a classic. I devoured it." - John Grisham An extraordinary, untold story of the Second World War in the vein of Unbroken and The Boys in the Boat, from the author of Friday Night Lights and Three Nights in August. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, college football was at the height of its popularity. As the nation geared up for total war, one branch of the service dominated the aspirations of college football stars: the United States Marine Corps. Which is why, on Christmas Eve of 1944, when the 4th and 29th Marine regiments found themselves in the middle of the Pacific Ocean training for what would be the bloodiest battle of the war - the invasion of Okinawa-their ranks included one of the greatest pools of football talent ever assembled: Former All Americans, captains from Wisconsin and Brown and Notre Dame, and nearly twenty men who were either drafted or would ultimately play in the NFL. When the trash-talking between the 4th and 29th over who had the better football team reached a fever pitch, it was decided: The two regiments would play each other in a football game as close to the real thing as you could get in the dirt and coral of Guadalcanal. The bruising and bloody game that followed became known as "The Mosquito Bowl." Within a matter of months, 15 of the 65 players in "The Mosquito Bowl" would be killed at Okinawa, by far the largest number of American athletes ever to die in a single battle. The Mosquito Bowl is the story of these brave and beautiful young men, those who survived and those who did not. It is the story of the families and the landscape that shaped them. It is a story of a far more innocent time in both college athletics and the life of the country, and of the loss of that innocence. Writing with the style and rigor that won him a Pulitzer Prize and have made several of his books modern classics, Buzz Bissinger takes us from the playing fields of America's campuses where boys played at being Marines, to the final time they were allowed to still be boys on that field of dirt and coral, to the darkest and deadliest days that followed at Okinawa.

Eddie Plank won 326 games and has the most complete games and shutouts by a left-handed pitcher in Major League history. But how much do we know about the hurler best known as "Gettysburg Eddie" in his playing days? And what of him that we do know is factual? This biography of Plank sorts out the truth and the myths--and everything in between--as he made his way from a college team in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, all the way to the Hall of Fame, 20 years after his death. Along the way, readers will discover what made Plank so great, the secrets behind his famous crossfire delivery, and more.

In his day, perhaps no one in baseball was better known than Irish-born Timothy Paul "Ted" Sullivan. For 50 years, America's sportswriters sang his praises, genuflected to his genius and bought his blarney by the barrel. Damon Runyon dubbed him "The Celebrated Carpetbagger of Baseball." Cunning, fast-talking, witty and sober, Sullivan was the game's first player agent, a groundbreaking scout who pulled future Hall of Famers from the bushes, an author, a playwright and a baseball evangelist who promoted the game across five continents. He coined the term "fan" and was among the first to suggest the designated hitter-because pitchers were "a lot of whippoorwill swingers." But he was also a convert to the Jim Crow attitudes of his day-black ballplayers were unimaginable to him. Unearthing thousands of contemporaneous newspaper accounts, this first exhaustive biography of "Hustlin'" Ted Sullivan recounts the life and career of one of the greatest hucksters in the history of the game.

Amos Alonzo Stagg (1862-1965) grew up one of eight children in a poor New Jersey family, graduated high school at 21 and worked his way through Yale. His goal was to become a Presbyterian minister, but he dropped out of Yale Divinity School because he felt he could have more influence on young men through coaching. He was hired as the first football coach at University of Chicago after its founding in 1892. Under Stagg's leadership, Chicago emerged as one of the nation's most formidable football teams during the early 20th century, winning seven Big Ten championships and two national championships. After Chicago forced him to retire at 70, Stagg found another coaching position at College of the Pacific, where he was forced to retire at 84. He found another job and never fully retired from coaching until he was 98. His marriage to his wife to Stella -his de facto assistant coach-lasted almost 70 years. Sports Illustrated wrote of him, "If any single individual can be said to have created today's game, Stagg is the man. He either invented outright or pioneered every aspect of the modern game from...the huddle, shift and tackling dummy to such refinements as the T-formation strategy." This biography tells the story of his life and many innovations, which made him one of the great pioneers of college football.

In this "must-read for anyone concerned with race, sports, and politics in America" (William C. Rhoden, New York Times bestselling author), the inspirational and largely unknown true story of the eighteen African American athletes who competed in the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, defying the racism of both Nazi Germany and the Jim Crow South. Set against the turbulent backdrop of a segregated United States, sixteen Black men and two Black women are torn between boycotting the Olympic Games in Nazi Germany or participating. If they go, they would represent a country that considered them second-class citizens and would compete amid a strong undercurrent of Aryan superiority that considered them inferior. Yet, if they stayed, would they ever have a chance to prove them wrong on a global stage? Five athletes, full of discipline and heart, guide you through this harrowing and inspiring journey. There's a young and feisty Tidye Pickett from Chicago, whose lithe speed makes her the first African American woman to compete in the Olympic Games; a quiet Louise Stokes from Malden, Massachusetts, who breaks records across the Northeast with humble beginnings training on railroad tracks. We find Mack Robinson in Pasadena, California, setting an example for his younger brother, Jackie Robinson; and the unlikely competitor Archie Williams, a lanky book-smart teen in Oakland takes home a gold medal. Then there's Ralph Metcalfe, born in Atlanta and raised in Chicago, who becomes the wise and fierce big brother of the group. From burning crosses set on the Robinsons's lawn to a Pennsylvania small town on fire with praise and parades when the athletes return from Berlin, Olympic Pride, American Prejudice has "done the world a favor by bringing into the sunlight the unknown story of eighteen black Olympians who should never be forgotten. This book is both beautiful and wrenching, and essential to understanding the rich history of African American athletes" (Kevin Merida, editor-in-chief of ESPN's The Undefeated).

The shocking true story of Aaron Hernandez – a sports star, his deadly crimes and his explosive trials. Aaron Hernandez was a college football All-American who became the youngest player in the NFL and later reached the Super Bowl. He was a star on the league-dominant New England Patriots, who extended his contract for a record $40 million. Hernandez’s every move as a professional athlete played out in the headlines, yet he led a secret life – one that ended in a maximum-security prison. What drove him to go so wrong, so fast?

Hernandez was the best athlete Connecticut’s Bristol Central High had ever produced. But by the time he arrived at University of Florida, he was already courting trouble. As his fame grew and he joined the NFL, trouble followed him. Between the summers of 2012 and 2013, Hernandez was linked to a series of violent incidents culminating in the death of Odin Lloyd, a semi-pro American football player who dated the sister of Hernandez’s fiancée.

The Patriot is the first book to fully investigate the shocking story of Aaron Hernandez – from his meteoric rise in the world of American football to his first-degree murder conviction and the mystery of his own untimely death. Drawing on original, in-depth reporting, this is an explosive account of a life cut short in the dark shadow of fame.

An electrifying look inside the wild world of extreme distance running.

Once the reserve of only the most hardcore enthusiasts, ultra running is now a thriving global industry, with hundreds of thousands of competitors each year. But is the rise of this most brutal and challenging sport—with races that extend into hundreds of miles, often in extreme environments—an antidote to modern life, or a symptom of a modern illness?

In The Rise of the Ultra Runners, award-winning author Adharanand Finn travels to the heart of the sport to investigate the reasons behind its rise and discover what it takes to join the ranks of these ultra athletes. Through encounters with the extreme and colorful characters of the ultramarathon world, and his own experiences of running ultras everywhere from the deserts of Oman to the Rocky Mountains, Finn offers a fascinating account of people testing the boundaries of human endeavor.

An inspiring and innovative guide towards living your best life - made easy - from Venus Williams, one of the greatest tennis players of all time.

Throughout Venus Williams' incredible career in tennis, she's been asked almost every question imaginable. What she eats, how she trains, what she does to unwind, and most frequently, how does she manage to do it all?

Venus harnessed a rich blend of hard-won wisdom and core discipline to achieve her goals while keeping a simple promise to herself: to keep things fun. But after being diagnosed with an incurable autoimmune disorder that affected her emotional and physical wellness, Venus's vow was put to the test. She came up with the STRIVE strategy--a winning combination of holistic and scientific approaches to wellness and performance that focuses on making self-improvements reachable and sustainable.

In STRIVE, readers will learn how eight tiny but essential tenets can help turn smart choices into habits. And once that happens, you'll forge a lifestyle you return to because you want to, not because you have to-and that's when you start winning.