Sports & Recreation

25001 books

Bring in the Right-Hander!: My Twenty-Two Years in the Major Leagues - Hardcover

$32.95

by Jerry Reuss (Author) One of only twenty-nine Major Leaguers to play in four different decades, Jerry Reuss pitched for eight teams, including the Pittsburgh Pirates twice. So when Reuss tells his story, he covers about as much of baseball life as any player can. Bring In the Right-Hander! puts us on the mound for the winning pitch in Game Five of the 1981 World Series, then takes us back to the schoolyards and ball fields of Overland, Missouri, where Reuss first dreamed of that scene. His ...

Alexander Cartwright: The Life behind the Baseball Legend - Paperback

$29.95

by Monica Nucciarone (Author), John Thorn (Foreword by)Alexander Joy Cartwright Jr. (1820-92) was present during the organization of the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club of New York in the mid-1800s. That much is certain. Since that time, Cartwright has been celebrated as the founder of our national pastime, much like Abner Doubleday. As with Doubleday, however, Cartwright's claim to fame has also spawned all sorts of conjecture and controversy. His complex life, not just the mythography surround...

Baseball History from Outside the Lines: A Reader - Paperback

$40.43

by John E. Dreifort (Editor)Baseball History from Outside the Lines gathers the best recent historical literature about the game. These well-written essays describe developments in the game's past, assess their impact, and explain how they reflect the period in which they occurred. The essays also explore baseball's influences outside the field of play as well as the effect of external factors on the game. The contributors discuss such key issues as demographics, communities, social mobility,...

Twilight of the Longball Gods: Dispatches from the Disappearing Heart of Baseball - Paperback

$14.95

by John Schulian (Author)A report from the true heart of baseball, this anthology leaves behind the bad boys and big names of the major leagues to take readers to the places where the spirit of America's game resides. These are a veteran sportswriter's dispatches from the bush leagues and the sandlot, his tributes to the Negro leaguers, mining-town dreamers, and certifiable eccentrics who give baseball its heart and soul, laughter and tears. John Schulian, a long-time Sports Illustrated contr...

Small-Town Heroes: Images of Minor League Baseball - Paperback

$24.79

by Hank Davis (Author)In 1993 successful psychologist and journalist Hank Davis undertook an epic journey exploring the atmosphere and culture of both minor league baseball and the small towns that embrace it. Davis shows us the warmth, quirkiness, and desperate energy of minor league ball, from encounters with future stars to those who would never make it to the "show"; from the kids selling Cracker Jacks outside the park to the aging coaches who persevere out of sheer love for the game. As ...

Extra Bases: Reflections on Jackie Robinson, Race, and Baseball History - Paperback

$19.39

by Jules Tygiel (Author)Few sports have as much power and magic as baseball, and few writers have addressed the history of the game as well as Jules Tygiel. In his role as a historian, Tygiel purposefully takes his eye off the ball and focuses on the broader cultural scene that surrounds the game: how developments in the game reflect American society and the ways in which our nation has changed over time. In doing so he captures a part of baseball that many have forgotten, a rich aspect of ou...

They Cleared the Lane: The NBA's Black Pioneers - Paperback

$19.95

by Ron Thomas (Author)Today, black players compose more than eighty percent of the National Basketball Association's rosters, providing a strong and valued contribution to professional basketball. In the first half of the twentieth century, however, pro basketball was tainted by racism, as gifted African Americans were denied the opportunity to display their talents. Through in-depth interviews with players, their families, coaches, teammates, and league officials, Ron Thomas tells the largel...

The Roger Kahn Reader: Six Decades of Sportswriting - Hardcover

$32.95

by Roger Kahn (Author), Bill Dwyre (Editor)Most famous for his classic work The Boys of Summer, Roger Kahn is widely regarded as one of the greatest sportswriters of our time. The Roger Kahn Reader is a rich collection of his stories and articles that originally appeared in publications such as Sports Illustrated, the New York Times, Esquire, and the Nation. Kahn's pieces, published between 1952 and today, present a vivid, turbulent, and intimate picture of more than half a century in Americ...

Mr. Wrigley's Ball Club: Chicago and the Cubs During the Jazz Age - Paperback

$34.95

by Roberts Ehrgott (Author)Chicago in the Roaring Twenties was a city of immigrants, mobsters, and flappers with one shared passion: the Chicago Cubs. It all began when the chewing-gum tycoon William Wrigley decided to build the world's greatest ball club in the nation's Second City. In this Jazz Age center, the maverick Wrigley exploited the revolutionary technology of broadcasting to attract eager throngs of women to his renovated ballpark.Mr. Wrigley's Ball Club transports us to this heady...

The Tour to End All Tours: The Story of Major League Baseball's 1913-1914 World Tour - Paperback

$24.95

by James E. Elfers (Author)During the winter of 1913 and the spring of 1914 the New York Giants and the Chicago White Sox took a trip around the world. Organized by crusty John McGraw of the Giants and the White Sox's Charles Comiskey, it was a trip of epic proportions-a tour to end all tours recreated here in all its monumental sweep and comical detail. This book follows the two teams, whose members include Christy Mathewson, Jim Thorpe, and half a dozen other future Hall-of-Famers, as they ...

American Jews & America's Game: Voices of a Growing Legacy in Baseball - Paperback

$24.95

by Larry Ruttman (Author), Bud Selig (Foreword by), Martin Abramowitz (Introduction by)Most fans don't know how far the Jewish presence in baseball extends beyond a few famous players such as Greenberg, Rosen, Koufax, Holtzman, Green, Ausmus, Youkilis, Braun, and Kinsler. In fact, that presence extends to the baseball commissioner Bud Selig, labor leaders Marvin Miller and Don Fehr, owners Jerry Reinsdorf and Stuart Sternberg, officials Theo Epstein and Mark Shapiro, sportswriters Murray Chas...

$21.95

by Paul Gallico (Author), Zachary Michael Jack (Introduction by)For fourteen years during the golden age of sports, Paul Gallico was one of America's ace sportswriters. He saw them all-the stars and the hams, the immortals and the phonies in boxing, wrestling, baseball, football, golf, tennis, and every other field of muscular endeavor in which men and women try to break hearts and necks for cash or glory. Then in 1937, at the height of his game (and the height of the payroll), Gallico sudden...

Walter Harper, Alaska Native Son - Hardcover

$32.95

by Mary F. Ehrlander (Author)2018 Alaskana Award from the Alaska Library Association 2018 Alaska Historical Society James H. Drucker Alaska Historian of the Year Award Walter Harper, Alaska Native Son illuminates the life of the remarkable Irish-Athabascan man who was the first person to summit Mount Denali, North America's tallest mountain. Born in 1893, Walter Harper was the youngest child of Jenny Albert and the legendary gold prospector Arthur Harper. His parents separated shortly after ...

Waterman: The Life and Times of Duke Kahanamoku - Hardcover

$36.95

by David Davis (Author)Waterman is the first comprehensive biography of Duke Kahanamoku (1890-1968): swimmer, surfer, Olympic gold medalist, Hawaiian icon, waterman. Long before Michael Phelps and Mark Spitz made their splashes in the pool, Kahanamoku emerged from the backwaters of Waikiki to become America's first superstar Olympic swimmer. The original "human fish" set dozens of world records and topped the world rankings for more than a decade; his rivalry with Johnny Weissmuller transform...

Unrivaled: Uconn, Tennessee, and the Twelve Years That Transcended Women's Basketball - Hardcover

$30.19

by Jeff Goldberg (Author), Alysa Auriemma (Afterword by), Rebecca Lobo (Foreword by)For twelve years the women's basketball rivalry between UConn and Tennessee was the most iconic matchup in women's sports. Even now, twenty years since the annual series started, the competition between these two storied programs still provokes heated argument and bitter resentment. Led by Hall of Fame coaches Geno Auriemma and Pat Summitt, UConn and Tennessee combined for nine national championships, with the...

Mashi: The Unfulfilled Baseball Dreams of Masanori Murakami, the First Japanese Major Leaguer - Hardcover

$28.95

by Robert K. Fitts (Author)In the spring of 1964, the Nankai Hawks of Japan's Pacific League sent nineteen-year-old Masanori Murakami to the Class A Fresno Giants to improve his skills. To nearly everyone's surprise, Murakami, known as Mashi, dominated the American hitters. With the San Francisco Giants caught in a close pennant race and desperate for a left-handed reliever, Masanori was called up to join the big league club, becoming the first Japanese player in the Major Leagues.Featuring p...

Pitching in a Pinch: Baseball from the Inside - Paperback

$32.40

by Christy Mathewson (Author), Eric Rolfe Greenberg (Introduction by)Christy Mathewson (1880-1925) was the greatest baseball pitcher of his day, a hero with appeal reaching beyond sports. A college-educated player from Pennsylvania farm country, he restored respectability to a game tarnished by the rowdies who had dominated baseball in the 1890s. Pitching in a Pinch, originally published in 1912, is an insider's account blending anecdote, biography, instruction, and social history. It celebra...

$26.95

by Gerald Robert Vizenor (Author), A. Robert Lee (Author)Postindian Conversations is the first collection of in-depth interviews with Gerald Vizenor, one of the most powerful and provocative voices in the Native world today. These lively conversations with the preeminent novelist and cultural critic reveal much about the man, his literary creations, and his critical perspectives on important issues affecting Native peoples at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The book also casts new ...

$24.79

by Brett H. Mandel (Author)Brett Mandel, tired of his nine-to-five job, dreamed of a life of baseball instead: not merely as a spectator, not in weekend pickup games, but in professional baseball. Unlike millions of other dreamers, he made it happen. In 1994, he convinced the newly formed Ogden (Utah) Raptors of the Pioneer League to allow him to join the team and write a book about the minor-league experience-and the Raptors' first year in baseball. The Pioneer League is a rookie league, des...

$16.95

by Paul Fournel (Author), Allan Stoekl (Translator), Allan Stoekl (Introduction by)A book like no other, Paul Fournel's Need for the Bike conducts readers into a very personal world of communication and connection whose center is the bicycle, and where all people and things pass by way of the bike. In compact and suggestive prose, Fournel conveys the experience of cycling-from the initial charm of early outings to the dramas of the devoted cyclist. An extended meditation on cycling as a pract...

Breaking and Riding: With Military Commentaries - Paperback

$22.95

by James Fillis (Author), M. H. Hayes (Translator), Barbara Burkhardt (Introduction by)One of the most important works ever written on dressage, Breaking and Riding is essential reading for the serious dressage enthusiast. In this work, the result of a lifetime spent training horses, James Fillis (1834-1913) clearly explains his theories and methods, starting with the basics of breaking-lungeing, work in hand, and first mounting-and progressing to advanced work, including canter pirouette, te...

$21.95

by Gordon H. Fleming (Author), Lawrence Ritter (Foreword by)One of Sports Illustrated's top 100 sports books of all-time The 1908 National League pennant race was without question the most exciting and dramatic battle of all time. Three teams, the Giants, the Cubs, and the Pirates, battled from start to finish, concluding the season with just one game separating them in the standings. The story of this race is like a Hall of Fame sprung to life, including John McGraw, Christy Mathewson, Tinke...

The Quality of Courage: Heroes in and Out of Baseball - Paperback

$14.95

by Mickey Mantle (Author), Robert W. Creamer (Joint Author), Robert W. Creamer (Introduction by)As a man who played baseball brilliantly despite near-constant pain from a succession of injuries, Mickey Mantle knew something about courage. In The Quality of Courage we find Mickey's opinion on some of his widely-recognized associates including Jackie Robinson, Roger Maris, Casey Stengel, Joe DiMaggio, and Ted Williams. Here also are Mantle's opinions on some lesser known but equally meritorious...

Repatriation Reader: Who Owns American Indian Remains? - Paperback

$20.00

by Devon a. Mihesuah (Editor)In the past decade the repatriation of Native American skeletal remains and funerary objects has become a lightning rod for radically opposing views about cultural patrimony and the relationship between Native communities and archaeologists. In this unprecedented volume, Native Americans and non-Native Americans within and beyond the academic community offer their views on repatriation and the ethical, political, legal, cultural, scholarly, and economic dimensions...

$14.95

by Ralph Moody (Author)Master storyteller Ralph Moody tells the thrilling story of a plucky horse who refused to quit, a down-on-his-luck jockey who didn't let horrendous accidents keep him out of the saddle, and a taciturn trainer who brought out the best in both. During the Great Depression, Seabiscuit captured the hearts of Americans from the streets to the White House, winning more money than any horse at that time and shattering speed records across the country. In this real-life story M...

The Only Dance in Iowa: A History of Six-Player Girls' Basketball - Paperback

$19.95

by Max McElwain (Author), David (Max) McElwain (Author)Iowa six-player girls' basketball was the most successful sporting activity for girls in American history, at its zenith involving more than 70 percent of the girls in the state. The state tournament was so popular-regularly drawing fifteen thousand fans, more than the boys' tourney-that officials declined a lucrative broadcasting offer from ABC's Wide World of Sports rather than forfeit the Iowa Girls' High School Athletic Union's contro...

Women, Media and Sport: Challenging Gender Values - Paperback

$187.92

by Pamela J. Creedon (Editor)This book - the first to link feminism, sport and media theory - provides a broad cultural studies orientation. In addition to a theoretical analysis, it provides a practical look at models of sport, media effects and the construction of the sportswoman and women′s sports. Divided into three parts, the book: provides an overview of the three areas; focuses on the print and broadcast media portrayal of women′s sport, examining such issues as the relationship of sp...

Sol White's History of Colored Baseball with Other Documents on the Early Black Game, 1886-1936 - Paperback

$14.00

by Sol White (Author), Jerry Malloy (Introduction by)America and baseball are rediscovering the game played by African Americans before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947. We now know a great deal about the Negro Leagues of 1920 on, and their great stars--Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, and their contemporaries. But what of the pre-1920 black game? From the onset in the 1880s of the "gentleman's agreement" that barred blacks from playing in white leagues, that game is nearly invisibl...

Crossing the Line: Black Major Leaguers, 1947-1959 - Paperback

$18.95

by Larry Moffi (Author), Jonathan Kronstadt (Preface by)From 1947, when Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers, through 1959, when the Boston Red Sox became the last Major League team to integrate, more than a hundred African American baseball players crossed the color line and made it to the Major Leagues. Each of these players is profiled in this comprehensive book, which includes their statistics and capsule biographies, their triumphs and trials. Some of these players became supersta...

$19.95

by Dave Meggyesy (Author)Dave Meggyesy had been an outside linebacker with the St. Louis Cardinals for seven years when he quit at the height of his career to tell about the dehumanizing side of the game-about the fraud and the payoffs, the racism, drug abuse, and incredible violence. The original publication of Out of Their League shocked readers and provoked the outraged response that rocked the sports world in the 1970s. But his memoir is also a moving description of a man who struggled fo...

$19.95

by Jim Murray (Author), Vin Scully (Introduction by)Jim Murray, the dean of American sportswriters, entertained readers with writing that is so good and so funny that even people who don't like sports read him. The Jim Murray Reader gathers some of Murray's best columns from the height of his career and showcases the wit and the style that won him a Pulitzer Prize in 1990. His inexhaustible talent and limitless range are on full display here: from the perplexities of tennis scoring ("a game i...

Basketball: Its Origin and Development - Paperback

$17.23

by James Naismith (Author), William Joseph Baker (Introduction by)James Naismith was teaching physical education at the Young Men's Christian Association Training College in Springfield, Massachusetts, and felt discouraged because calisthenics and gymnastics didn't engage his students. What was needed was an indoor wintertime game that combined recreation and competition. One evening he worked out the fundamentals of a game that would quickly catch on. Two peach half-bushel baskets gave the n...