With 363 victories, Warren Spahn is the winningest lefty in baseball history. Over 21 years, he won 20 or more games 13 times, was a 17-time All Star, won a Cy Young-award, then, of course, was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Spahn was also a war hero, serving in World War II and awarded the Purple Heart. To say Spahn lived a storied life is an understatement. In Warren Spahn, author Lew Freedman tells the story of this incredible lefty. Known for his supremely high leg kick, Spahn became one of the greatest pitchers in baseball history. However, the road wasn't as easy as it would seem. Struggling in his major-league debut at age twenty, manager Casey Stengel demoted the young left. It would be four years before Spahn would return to the diamond, as he received a calling of a different kind--one from his country. Enlisting in the Army, Spahn would serve with distinction, seeing action in the Battle of the Bulge and the Ludendorff Bridge, and was awarded a battlefield commission, along with a Purple Heart. Upon his return to the game, he would take the league by storm. Spahn dominated for over two decades, spending twenty years with the Braves (both Boston and Milwaukee), as well as a season with the New York Mets and San Francisco Giants. Pitching into his mid-forties, he would throw two no-hitters at the advanced ages of thirty-nine and forty. From his early days in Buffalo and young career, through his time and the military and all the way to the 1948 Braves and "Spahn and Sain and Pray for Rain," author Lew Freedman leaves no stone unturned in sharing the incredible life of this pitching icon, who is still considered the greatest left-handed pitcher to ever play the game.

The Whalers are the only football team above the Arctic Circle: 330 north to be exact, a place with no grass, no trees, and plenty of permafrost. Of the 44 Eskimo, Tongan, Samoan, Asian-American, African-American and Caucasian teenagers who signed up for this experiment, only four had ever played organized football before. Seasoned journalist Lew Freedman captures this inspiring story.

Hoyt Wilhelm's intriguing baseball career lasted two decades. A veteran of the Battle of the Bulge, the eight-time All-Star from Huntersville, North Carolina was a standout for the New York Giants, Baltimore Orioles, Chicago White Sox and Atlanta Braves, though he did not reach the majors until he was nearly 30.He pitched a no-hitter as a starter, won as many as 15 games a season, was the first reliever to win more than 100 games and save more than 200, and broke Cy Young's record for most games on the mound. Along the way, he relied almost entirely on his baffling skill with a rare weapon of choice--the knuckleball. This first full-length biography covers the life and career of the first relief pitcher in the Hall of Fame.

Loyola University Chicago was ahead of its time when racial matters were forefront in a long overdue revolution in civil rights. The Ramblers of the 1962-1963 NCAA college basketball season were pioneers in race relations in sport, though most of the time they were simply playing the sport they loved. When the NCAA tournament began in March, the Ramblers engaged in a series for the ages, daring to be the first NCAA Division I school to play five black athletes on the court at once and capturing the most prestigious title in college basketball at a time when states below the Mason-Dixon line still had laws on the books preventing black and white athletes from mixing even in pick-up games. Records were set, rivals faced and one of the most famous and significant contests in college basketball playoff history played out in what incidentally became a model showcase for race relations. Nearly every time the Ramblers took the court, the game was unique in its magnitude. Relying significantly on exclusive interviews with surviving players, now in their seventies, Lew Freedman chronicles the entire journey, the adventure of the season that bound tight for a lifetime the group of men who lived through it.

The quarterback pass is one of the leading offensive components of today's National Football League and college football's top level of play. This was not always the case. In early American football, the strategy focused entirely on advancing the ball one running play at a time, with the player tucking the then-roundish ball on his hip and sprinting ahead until tackled by a swarm of defenders. The revolution that transformed the sport began in 1906, when passing was first legalized. The passing weapon made the game safer, altered strategy, turned the quarterback into a key offensive player, and made possible the high-scoring games of today. Lew Freedman traces football's passing game from its inception to the present, telling the tale through the stories of the quarterbacks whose arms carried (and threw) the changes forward. Freedman relies especially on the biography of i?1/2Slingin' Sammyi?1/2 BaughaEURO"who hailed from Sweetwater, TexasaEURO"as a framework. Baugh, perhaps the greatest all-around football player in history, came along at just the right time to elevate the passing game to unprecedented importance in the eyes of the sports world.

William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody (1846-1917) rose from humble origins in Iowa to become one of the most famous and most photographed people in the world. He became a leading scout during the American Indian Wars, winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor, and a renowned show business fixture whose traveling Wild West exhibitions played to millions of spectators the world over for 30 years. He hobnobbed with presidents, kings, queens and European heads of state, befriending many legendary individuals of the West, from General George Armstrong Custer and Sitting Bull to Wild Bill Hickok and Annie Oakley. Aside from these achievements, Cody's most important legacy may be how he shaped the world's enduring views of the American West through his shows, which he considered to be educational events rather than entertainment. This biography is a fresh look at the life of Buffalo Bill.

An early celebrity pitcher, Denton "Cy" Young (1867-1955) established supreme standards on the mound. A small-town Ohio farmer made good, he set Major League pitching records in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that will likely last forever. The winner of 511 games - nearly one hundred more than the second-ranked hurler - Young pitched the first perfect game of the modern era, as well as three no-hitters. His talents helped establish the American League in 1901. Among the Hall of Fame's first inductees, he remained a sought-after interviewee decades after retirement. A year after his death, the Cy Young Award was dedicated as baseball's most prestigious honor for pitchers.

Barbara Washburn never set out to become a mountaineering pioneer, but in 1947, defying social conventions, she became the first woman to climb Alaska's Mount McKinley.

Picking up where the best-selling IDITAROD CLASSICS left off, MORE IDITAROD CLASSICS introduces readers to more of the men and women who brave the 1,100-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race from Anchorage to Nome. And do they ever have stories to tell In their own words, champions and lesser knowns share their very best stories--how they came to love the race, train their dogs and themselves, and battle all manner of winter hardships challenging the elements in what some have called the most extreme long-distance competition in the world.

Barbara Washburn never set out to become a mountaineering pioneer, but in 1947, defying social conventions, she became the first woman to climb Alaska's Mount McKinley.

In 1958, no one in the Fur Rendezvous World Championship Sled Dog Race knew the Athabascan Indian from Huslia who limped to the starting line in Anchorage. But when he finished with the winning time, George Attla opened a new chapter in the history of sprint mushing. For decades, Attla, the "Huslia Hustler," reined as Alaska's most winning sprint champion, having overcome crippling TB as a child.
Special note to readers: This is a new edition, with a new title, new introduction and new epilogue, of a work first published by Stackpole Books.

The best baseball stories from the state whose season is short, but there's no shortage of future major leaguers - 300 in the last 30 seasons, include Mark McGwire.

In an inspirational biography, Lew Freedman chronicles Redington's birth on the Chisholm Trail and his boyhood in the Depression -- homeless, motherless, roaming the country looking for work. Alaska was his rebirth in 1948. On his own piece of dirt, a man could raise a family, hunt, fish, run dogs, and stand up for what he believed.

How did a young boy born into poverty become not only an international soccer star but a celebrity who visited and dined with kings and presidents? Where did the passion that fueled his success originate? This book examines the life of Pele to find the answers. Pele is not simply an extraordinarily talented athlete who achieved incredible success on the soccer field; his performances inspired millions of soccer fans as well as individuals outside the sport around the world. During the peak of his career, Pele was arguably the most famous person in the world-at a time when there was no Internet or social media to help build sweeping international awareness of a pop star. This work is the most up-to-date examination of Pele's life, covering his personal history from childhood, his star-studded career as a multi-time World Cup champion playing for Brazil, his experiences in the United States playing for the New York Cosmos, as well as Pele's more recent, current, and future activities as ambassador for Brazil when it hosts the World Cup in 2014 and the Summer Olympics in 2016. All readers-ranging from the completely uninitiated who do not even recognize Pele's name, to die-hard soccer fans and players-will gain a full appreciation of the greatest soccer player of all time. Provides detailed information about Pele's life and amazing career that reveals the unique mindset that was instrumental to his success, allowing readers to fully appreciate how special and inspirational this athlete's accomplishments were Supplies insights into how Pele singlehandedly brought more worldwide attention to soccer and helped spawn professional soccer-and generate a true fanbase for the sport of soccer in general-in the United States

A one-stop record containing everything White Sox fans want to know about their favorite baseball team, this resource is packed with anecdotes, history, explanations of traditions, statistics, trivia, and photos.