Henry Aaron left his mark on the world by breaking Babe Ruth's record for home runs. But the world has also left its mark on him.

"Hammering Hank" Aaron's story is one that tells us much about baseball, naturally, but also about our times. His unique, poignant life has made him a symbol for much of the social history of twentieth-century America.

Raised during the Depression in the Deep South enclave of Mobile, Alabama, Aaron broke into professional baseball as a cross-handed slugger and shortstop for the Indianapolis Clowns of the Negro American League. A year later, he and a few others had the unforgettable mission of integrating the South Atlantic League. A year after that, he was a timid rookie leftfielder for the Milwaukee Braves, for whom he became a World Series hero in 1957 as well as the Most Valuable Player of the National League.

Aaron found himself back in the South when the Braves moved to Atlanta in 1965. Nine years later, in the heat of hatred and controversy, he hit his 715th home run to break Ruth's and baseball's most cherished record--a feat that was recently voted the greatest moment in baseball history. That year, Aaron received over 900,000 pieces of mail, many of them vicious and racially charged.

In a career that may be the most consistent baseball has ever seen. Aaron also set all-time records for total bases and RBIs. He ended his playing days by spending two nostalgic seasons back in Milwaukee with the Brewers, then embarked on a new career as an executive with the Atlanta Braves. He was for a long time the highest-ranking black in baseball. In this position, Aaron has become an unofficial spokesman in racial matters pertaining to thenational pastime.

Because of the depth and pertinence of Aaron's dramatic experiences, "I Had A Hammer" is more than a baseball autobiography. Henry Aaron's candor and insights have produced a revealing book about his extraordinary life and time.

To everyone who truly loves the game, Mickey Mantle epitomizes the golden age of baseball, when the mighty New York Yankees indisputably ruled, appearing in an unprecedented twelve World Series in fourteen years! In this intimate memoir, Mantle recounts the joys and trials of his rise from rural Oklahoma youngster to the pinnacle of baseball greatness.

In "All My Octobers," the one and only Mick relives every one of his World Series appearances -- from the 1951 battle when he played alongside an aging Joe DiMaggio to his three-home-run performance in the 1964 showdown. In addition to the on-field heroics, Mantle talks candidly about the injuries, the alcohol, the parties and celebrations, and the terrible toll they can take on a young athlete's life. But most of all, it is a remembrance of October greatness, of postseason pyrotechnics . . . and a loving appreciation of a team of titans that achieved something marvelous and unequaled to this day.

Jack Beresford was the first British Olympian to win medals of any colour in five consecutive Olympic Games. His record of 3 Gold and 2 silver medals at the 5 Olympic Games held between 1920 and 1936 remained until Sir Steve Redgrave won gold at the 2000 Sydney Games. Historically, men have had two great chances to prove their mettle; in battle and in sport. While many are aware that Jack Beresford was one of Britain's greatest oarsmen, this affectionate but unsentimental tribute by his son, John, reveals what few know, that Beresford served his country with distinction in war as well as in peace, and both with a modesty that is usually indicative of true merit. It is commonly said, show me the boy and I'll show you the man, and this work reveals that Jack the schoolboy, the soldier and the sportsman was driven by the same strict principals of duty and hard work throughout his life. This is, says John, the story that his Father never wrote. It is also a story with a delicious (if vicious) irony; the German bullet that wounded 19-year-old 2nd Lieutenant Beresford in 1918 led to him abandoning rugby and taking up rowing. Eighteen years later, the German favourites to win the Olympic Double Sculls paid the price of Jack's change of sport as, in the final's last 100 metres, Dick Southwood and Jack Beresford rowed them to a standstill to win Olympic Gold.

On the 50th anniversary of American Track and Field icon Steve Prefontaine’s tragic death comes an essential reappraisal of his life and legacy, a powerful work of narrative history exploring the forces and psychology that made Prefontaine great and separating the man from the myths.

In the fifty years since his tragic death in a car crash, Steve Prefontaine has towered over American distance running. One of the most recognizable and charismatic figures to ever run competitively in the United States, Prefontaine has endured as a source of inspiration and fascination—a talent who presaged the American running boom of the late 1970s and helped put Nike on the map as the brand’s first celebrity-athlete face.

Now on the anniversary of his untimely death, author Brendan O’Meara, host of the Creative Nonfiction podcast, offers a fresh, definitive retelling of Prefontaine’s life, revisiting one of the most enigmatic figures in American sports with a twenty-first-century lens. Through over a hundred and fifty original interviews with family, friends, teammates, and competitors, this long-overdue reappraisal of Prefontaine—the first such exhaustive treatment in almost thirty years—provides never-before-told stories about the unique talent, innovative mental strength, and personal struggles that shaped Prefontaine on and off the track. Bringing new depth to an athlete long eclipsed by his brash, aggressive running style and the heartbreak of his death at twenty-four, O’Meara finds the man inside the myth, scrutinizing a legacy that has shaped American sports culture for decades.

What emerges is a singular portrait of a distinctly American talent, a story written in the pines and firs of the Pacific Northwest back when running was more blue-collar love than corporate pursuit—the story of a runner whose short life casts a long, fast shadow.