The single-handed sailing pioneer and his vessels
For anyone interested in single-handed sailing the name of R. T. McMullen and his book, 'Down Channel'-an abiding classic of sailing literature and considered to be essential reading for any yachtsman sailing in coastal waters-require little elaboration. The principal value of this special Leonaur edition is that it includes all of McMullen's writings in a single volume. Published singly McMullen's books contain some repetition of the text, for this edition Leonaur's editors have removed the duplication to create a single cohesive and complete volume of McMullen's writings about his pioneering voyages and his vessels. We have also enhanced and enlarged the original maps and diagrams to provide clear information to the contemporary reader. This is an ideal book for any library on sailing.
Leonaur editions are newly typeset and are not facsimiles; each title is available in softcover and hardback with dustjacket; our hardbacks are cloth bound and feature gold foil lettering on their spines and fabric head and tail bands.

African-American athletes have played a significant role in the development and popularity of American professional sports, and have encountered numerous obstacles on the road to athletic success. This is the first comprehensive multi-sport biographical dictionary of African Americans who reached the pinnacles of success in their sport. It contains more personal and career profiles of African-American sports greats than are found in any other single source. Biographical profiles of 166 noted athletes, coaches, and administrators in team and individual sports include both Ristorical figures such as Jesse Owens and Satchel Paige and contemporary stars such as Charles Barkley, Ken Griffey, Jr., Michael Jordan, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Shaquille O'Neal, and Emmitt Smith. Forty-four sports historians contributed the colorfully written biographies, which blend both personal background information and athletic career accomplishments. All information is current through the middle of 1995. The dictionary covers the contributions made by African-American greats in football, baseball, basketball, track and field, boxing, wrestling, auto and stock car racing, golf, thoroughbred racing, tennis, cycling, and figure skating. More than two-thirds of the entries represent team sports. The dictionary is organized alphabetically by person. Each colorfully written profile is 800-1,000 words in length and traces the subject's personal life, family and educational background, personal struggles, career accomplishments, records set, statistical data, awards and honors, and overall impact; and features lively quotations by and about the sports luminaries. Each entry contains a handy bibliography of books and articles about the subject. Biographies of managers, coaches, and club executives describe their teams, statistical achievements, accomplishments, strategy, and sports impact. A general introduction traces the historic struggle of African-American athletes in professional and Olympic sports and appendices provide alphabetical listings of biographical entries and entries by sport. A selection of photos complement the profiles. For the sports fan or librarian, this is a first stop for biographical information that captures the personality of the athlete and includes all the pertinent information about his or her accomplishments. It is an essential addition to the reference sections of junior high, high school, and public libraries.

Many have called him the greatest dirt-track Sprint car driver of all time. This exciting biography of Tommy Hinnershitz, by veteran writer Gary Ludwig, is a superb account of the life and times of this racecar driver who became an auto-racing legend. This beautifully printed hardcover book is a fascinating history of the Sprint car, telling how it evolved, beginning during the first few years of the 1900s, to become the true American race car. You'll read about the drivers, mechanics, owners, and promoters who spent their American ingenuity and willpower to invent, innovate, and engineer the development of the automobile through high speed rough and tough competition. You'll learn about the early champions, including Ted Horn, Joie Chitwood, Jimmy Bryan, Johnny Thomson, and many more, who were Hinnershitz's rivals during his career that began in 1928 and spanned five decades. Racing and winning on the dusty dirt horsetracks at state and county fairs across America earned him a chance to race in the Indianapolis 500.He was there at the beginning, one of a handful of daredevil athletes, the champions who invented the broadslide; going in low and coming off high, or vice versa. After leading the way, setting the pace, and developing the syle, Hinnershitz set himself apart from all the others; he went in high and stayed there.This history of his life and amazing career includes over 20 pages of photographs and his complete race by race career statistics. This first ediion book is a treasured collector's item for thousands of Hinnershitz's fans.For the modern race fan this book serves as a catalyst for a better understanding of the men who had to overcome awesome obstacles to achieve success during the early years of auto-racing. Hinnershitz raced during an era without safety equipment or concerns. It was before seat belts, roll-bars and cages. He and his contemporaries seemed to embrace a greater lack of fear, adopting the adage that tragedy can't happen to them, only to the "other guy." Because of this lack of safety equipment and much less sophisticated racecars, many drivers died young. Tommy Hinnershitz was there through it all, and he was one of those that survived. He was a true pioneer of American auto-racing. He was inducted into the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame, the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame, and honored by numerous other organizations.

Miami, 1963. A young boy from Louisville, Kentucky, is on the path to becoming the greatest sportsman of all time. Cassius Clay is training in the 5th Street Gym for his heavyweight title clash against the formidable Sonny Liston. He is beginning to embrace the ideas and attitudes of Black Power, and firebrand preacher Malcolm X will soon become his spiritual adviser. Thus Cassius Clay will become 'Cassius X' as he awaits his induction into the Nation of Islam. Cassius also befriends the legendary soul singer Sam Cooke, falls in love with soul singer Dee Dee Sharp and becomes a remarkable witness to the first days of soul music. As with his award-winning soul trilogy, Stuart Cosgrove's intensive research and sweeping storytelling shines a new light on how black music lit up the sixties against a backdrop of social and political turmoil - and how Cassius Clay made his remarkable transformation into Muhammad Ali.

Excerpt: "We could get partly undressed-so that we had only such clothes as would be delicious to hug & squeeze in & then you could sit in my lap & we'd kiss & hug & squeeze & cuddle each other until we couldn't stand it any longer. . . ." Ronald A. Smith, a well-known sport historian and emeritus professor at Penn State University, has published several books in sport history, including an edited diary belonging to the subject of these love letters. "Big-Time Football at Harvard, 1905: The Diary of Coach Bill Reid" chronicles the most important year in college football, when the crisis in brutality led to the creation of the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the legalization of the forward pass. Bill Reid had another side to his life, however-a passionate one in which he and his girlfriend, fianc, and wife exchanged intimate love letters for well over a decade. The passionate nature of Bill and Christine's letters during the late Victorian period and early twentieth century are rare and distinguish them from other collections. Bill and Christine wrote intimate love letters when they first met, through their engagement and a lengthy separation while Christine took an eight-month voyage with her parents to Europe, and especially after their marriage and the birth of their first three children. The explicit love letters of upper-middle and upper class individuals are an exceptional find, and they broach issues between couples that are almost universal, often appearing timeless. The love letters of Bill and Christine not only illuminate aspects of life in the early twentieth century, but also they make us reflect on our own lives.

Born in the segregated South in 1943, Ashe overcame racial prejudices and segregation to break into the world of tennis, which had traditionally been dominated by whites. He rose to the top of the sport, winning three Grand Slam trophies and playing on the Davis Cup team. His tennis career came to an abrupt end when he suffered a heart attack while in his thirties. Ashe began a post-tennis career that included speaking out on social issues that mattered most to him, including educational excellence for African American athletes, the injustice of the apartheid system in South Africa, and better health care for all Americans. After contracting the AIDS virus through a blood transfusion, he began to speak out on the subject of AIDS in order to help people understand the disease. After a brilliant career on the tennis court, Ashe devoted the remainder of his life to fighting for social justice at home and abroad and to fighting the illnesses that had struck him while he was still a young man. Steins tells the inspiring story of Arthur Ashe, a great tennis champion whose skills on the court as well as his exceptional and honorable personal characteristics made him stand out among all players of his generation. A timeline and other appendices highlight Ashe's career and life.

The baseball term, "snake jazz," refers to those squiggly pitches (curve, slider, screwball, etc.) that deviate from a direct path on their way to the catcher. This could also describe the strange and sometimes amusing twists in Dave Baldwin's progress on his way to the big leagues.
As a skinny, awkward kid in the 1940s, Dave learned to throw under the searing Arizona sun amidst cacti and snakes. Despite that modest beginning, his father convinced him that success would come with focused hard work. His dad's encouragement enabled him to become one of the most highly sought-after pitching prospects in the nation as a teenager. Scouts and sportswriters said he was a "natural," "another Bob Feller." He began to see his ability as a gift. Scouts had a favorite mantra - "We can teach a kid to throw a curve, but he has to be born with a fastball." Upon hearing this often from the "experts," Dave lost the idea of self-development his father had instilled. If baseball skill is genetic, there's nothing to be done. Either the kid has the genes or he doesn't.
This philosophy seemed to work well enough until one day during his sophomore year at the University of Arizona he threw a curveball that severely damaged his arm. All that "natural" ability went out the window.
This would have ended his career before it began except he couldn't see life continuing without baseball. Thus, he started a desperate eight year struggle that culminated in his transformation into an unorthodox but successful major league pitcher - the drastic changes in his throwing style inspired by insights gained from his study of ecological genetics and advice he received from Max Surkont, an aging pitcher in Dave's first spring training camp.
On Dave's baseball odyssey he found a roommate who sleepwalked swinging a bat, another who chewed Gillette double-edged razor blades, and still another who was working up to a stretch in prison. He eavesdropped on the witty repartee aboard a burning airplane and a death-defying bus trip, during epicurean brushes with the criminal underworld, and in that awkward moment right after a bullet had ripped through a taxi window. He got to dodge tornadoes, lightning, and baseball hobgoblins. He experienced the bonding effect of minor league pranks and comedy acts, and got a taste of what it was like playing baseball askew in the metaphysical whirl of Steppenwolf and the hippie generation. And he learned the irresistible attraction of Janis Joplin and the dry spitball.
The odd adventures didn't end once Dave made it to the major leagues. He spent a season busily tormenting Ted Williams, and once he unexpectedly found himself teaching the knuckleball to Seri Indians in a remote desert village in northern Mexico.
Snake Jazz includes a number of anecdotes reflecting the world around baseball during the 1960s and '70s, such as the beginnings of the Viet Nam war and the impact on baseball of racial bigotry during the Civil Rights Movement. One chapter recounts the peculiar and dangerous situation of American ballplayers in Havana shortly after Fidel Castro's rebels had gained control of Cuba.
Snake Jazz is more than a series of remarkable anecdotes, however. It is a demonstration of the importance of motivation and mindset in reaching objectives. Dave's dream of playing major league baseball and his stubborn determination drove him to overcome the notion that ability is inherent. If his dad was right, there must be some way to make it to the majors through hard work, even after inherent advantage had been lost. The big question was, "Work hard at what?" He needed a good pitching coach to give him that critical suggestion that would turn his career around. He rarely saw a pitching coach in the minor leagues, and those few that were available did more harm than good.
He continued to work hard to improve, but he was still practicing the same way