He could run, throw, field and he had a sweet swing. But during his twelve years in the major leagues, Pepi devoted most of his energy to swinging off the field. He blew his career, he destroyed two marriages, he lost three children and he came very close to a nervous breakdown. At age 33 he gave up a $70,000 contract in Japan and quit baseball for good. He finally admitted that most of his life he had been living a lie, acting the carefree clown to cover up his inner pain. It was time to close the act. In Joe, You Coulda Made Us Proud, Pepitone attempts to show what was behind his berserk behavior. He does so in the most devastatingly honest terms, holding back none of the embarrassment, the anguish, the guilt he kept accumulating. He tells of the father he loved so much, "Willie Pep" Pepitone, the toughest man in a tough Brooklyn neighborhood. Obsessed with making his son a baseball star, Willie constantly beat hell out of Joe. One night, enraged at his father, Joe said,"Mom- I wish he'd die!" The next day Willie died. He tells how he demolished two marriages by trying to ball American, of how he was haunted by the words of his first child - "Daddy, don't leave me" - and of the nights when the guilt left him impotent. Despite the travail, though, there is much humor in Joe's story. Such as the time he was staying at Frank Sinatra's home, and Joe has a $350 pool shot line up. Just as he shot, Sinatra knocked the ball away. "All right, Frank... I won the money." Sinatra, grinning, said, "Joe, this is my game, this is my table - and we are playing my rules." Usually Joe Pepitone played only by his rules, and those rules maimed him. Yet his regrets are not for what he did to himself... "You do what you have to do, and you pay the price - but you pay it double when you see how it has hurt others you love." - from book's dustjacket

    Especially in Winter. Especially at Christmas.Edith Atkinson lives hand to mouth on the streets of London with her friends James and his sister Donna Walsh, selling songs, flowers and Christmas wreaths.But survival is never guaranteed for street rats, even at Christmas. Relying on their wits, their meagre sales and the kindness of strangers, the trio manage to keep body and soul together until a terrible circumstance forces a harsh decision. Now Edie finds herself alone facing dangers that she never knew of when she had James to protect her.When desperation drives Edie to try to find James and Donna again, she is dealt a further terrible blow. Everyone Edie has ever loved is lost to her and she is truly alone. On Christmas day, Edie loses all hope and is propelled towards a dreadful fate.Will this be Edith’s last Christmas? And what of James and Donna? Are they lost to her forever, or will fate step in and reveal a miracle that Edie could never have imagined?This heart warming clean and sweet historical romance from Nell Harte brings you to the wintery London streets of the Victorian era. For fans of Dilly Court, Rosie Goodwin and Tania Crosse.

    New Zealand needed just one more win. Oracle ultimately beat back the odds in what's been called the greatest comeback in sport. But was it? G. Bruce Knecht set out to investigate how Oracle turned things around and, most particularly, the source of extra horsepower that seemed to come from nowhere during the final races. What he discovered was that the team was using a sailing technique that was prohibited under the rules. The Comeback is a pulse-pounding account of Oracle's desperate stop-at-nothing campaign.G. Bruce Knecht, a former staff reporter and foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, is the author of three books, including The Proving Ground: The Inside Story of the 1998 Sydney to Hobart Race. Larry Ellison was a major character in that book as well and it explains how his experience in the race led to his pursuit of the America's Cup. A sailor himself, Knecht raced across the Atlantic in 2005 on the yacht that broke the 100-year-old transatlantic race record.Cover design by Charles Rue Woods.

    Titles in this growing series for middle school and high school students analyze novels and plays that are included in most schools' English Lit. curricula. Literature Made Easy books are more than plot summaries. They analyze characters, explain themes, and point out details that make each author's writing style unique. Each book also features "Mind Maps"--diagrams that summarize the work's most important details and serve as stimuli to help students focus their ideas for exams and term papers.

    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.

    All four books are included in this series, including:The Cain Conspiracy:Shot in the head and recovering from brain surgery, Delta Force soldier Thomas Nelson wakes up in a military hospital unable to remember who he is. Faced with going through recovery alone, with no family that he's aware of, he is recruited by a top secret government agency. Project Specter is tasked with eliminating targets they deem to be a threat to the United States. Their goal is to turn Nelson into a super assassin named Matthew Cain. Cain's first mission is supposed to be a piece of cake. Just take out an escaped fugitive in Honduras who's on the run for the rape and murder of a little girl in New York. There's only one problem...somebody beat him to it. Everything is not what it seems as Cain gets mixed up with an international arms dealer and an ex government agent who's gone rogue and supposed to be dead. The Cain Deception:In this follow-up to The Cain Conspiracy, Matthew Cain finds himself on the wrong side of a hit man. After he is sent on an assassination mission in Russia, The Specter Project learns of a man seeking revenge for Cain’s actions. After Cain hears of the man’s intentions, he sets out on a frenetic search to find the killer before he makes good on his plans to kill both Cain and his girlfriend. Along the way, Cain finds more questions than answers about the mysterious assassin, who seems to be a ghost. As Cain dives deeper into his quest, he starts to wonder about his role within the super secret agency and whether there are those above him who know more than what they appear.The Cain Directive:Cain, still reeling from the attack on his girlfriend, gets even more suspicious of Project Specter when they send him to Russia to find Dmitri Kurylenko, a man he has already secretly killed. After another attempt on his life, he soon learns of the agency's involvement in keeping his memory from him and sets to meet with a man who seems to know everything. Unfortunately for Cain, Specter showed up first and framed Cain for murder. Now, on the run, he must protect those close to him, while also trying to prove his innocence. In his quest to take down Project Specter, Cain turns to the only man he can trust for help, Eric Raines, a man Specter wants almost as badly as Cain, and a man as equally bent on taking down Specter as he is.The Cain Redemption:Cain finally relents to getting his head and seizures fixed, but his recovery time is cut short from eight weeks to one week when he learns his fellow agent, and friend, Eric Raines has gone missing. Will the rushed recovery period have dire consequences for the super assassin? Despite the concerns of those closest to him, Cain ignores the personal dangers to his health in his quest to find his friend and the last remaining remnants of the previous Specter regime, who are still on the run. His adventures take him to France, Germany, and back to Honduras, where it all started for him. Will his mission end where it all began?

    Luis was too quick. Before they could move, he had pounced on the ball and fired a shot into the top corner.' Suarez follows the Uruguayan's winding path from love-struck youngster to Liverpool hero to Barcelona star. Grabbing goals and headlines along the way, this is the inspiring story of how the world's deadliest striker made his mark.Ultimate Football Heroes is a series of biographies telling the life-stories of the biggest and best footballers in the world and their incredible journeys from childhood fan to super-star professional player. Written in fast-paced, action-packed style these books are perfect for all the family to collect and share.

    When it did, there stood the central figure in one of the biggest scandals in sports history: Kirk Radomski. Radomski was a regular New York kid who, from the age of fifteen had the amazing fortune of working in the Mets clubhouse. The focus of his job was to give the players whatever they wanted or needed—he got their uniforms ready, packed up their homes at the end of the season, cashed their checks, and helped them beat the drug tests that would have led to suspension. And at the end of the 1986 season he even led the World Champions down Broadway during their victory parade. Eventually, he graduated to helping in other ways: providing them with steroids and human growth hormones. By the time the Feds knocked on his door, he was the main clubhouse supplier of performance-enhancing drugs to almost three hundred baseball players. Under threat of a long prison sentence—and after being identified by players he’d helped—he cooperated with Senator George Mitchell to produce the Mitchell Report, providing names and dates. Now he’s ready to tell the whole story to the world. Radomski made little money from these transactions, and in this stunning book he will recount what baseball knew about the problem, his life since the report came out, and who took what. This is the tale of a young man seeing his heroes turn into clay, and the degradation of a once great sport into the drug-addicted spectacle it has become.

    From Gibson's early days in the Jim Crow South to his glory days as a World Series-winning pitcher, Stranger to the Game is the candid memoir of one of the game's greatest pitchers and most outspoken black players.

    The author offers his views on the state of basball today, and comments on his experiences as a sportscaster.

    Brock's novel picks up Taylor's story in 1911 when Taylor is unsure what to do with his life after his pitching arm gives way to younger talent.

    Against his mother's advice and wishes, he quits, and leaves home to become a professional baseball player

    This is not a book of swing techniques. There are plenty of other resources that teach you how to swing, chip and putt. What this book does provide is a true framework for breaking 80 based on sound principles that will work for any golfer of any level. Provided you faithfully follow and apply these principles, you will begin to improve surely and steadily, to the point where you will eventually gain the ability to break 80, not just as a one-time fluke, but over and over again as a reflection of your true new-found ability. Whether you're struggling to break 100, 90, 80 or even a complete beginner, the Little Book of Breaking 80 will help take your game to the next level!

    It's all here--the lawsuits, the crazy confluence of sports and ego and civic destiny, and of course, superstars Ichiro, A-Rod, Randy Johnson, and Ken Griffey. Seattle sportswriter Art Thiel recounts the painful birth, awkward adolescence, and hard-won maturity of one of the most beloved teams in sports history.