This book also looks at some of the extraordinary Grands Prix the sport has seen, including Schumacher's epic crash at Silverstone in 1999.

    Baseball Prospectus 2013 brings together an elite group of analysts to provide the definitive look at the upcoming season in critical essays and commentary on the thirty teams, their managers, and more than sixty players and prospects from each team.Contains critical essays on each of the thirty teams and player comments for some sixty players for each of those teamsProjects each player's stats for the coming season using the groundbreaking PECOTA projection system, which has been called "perhaps the game's most accurate projection model" (Sports Illustrated)From Baseball Prospectus, America's leading provider of statistical analysis for baseballNow in its eighteenth edition, this New York Times bestselling insider's guide remains hands down the most authoritative and entertaining book of its kind.

    Every moment in the saddle is an opportunity to express his personality, and nobody else has succeeded in making elite cycling look so much fun. From no-hands wheelies on the slopes of Mont Ventoux to press conference mischief with clamouring journalists, Peter exudes a passion for the sport and a lovable desire to bring smiles to the faces of his fans.So, for the very first time, you will have the opportunity to glimpse behind the scenes of Peter’s world. You will discover the gruelling training programmes necessary for success, and how Peter copes with the pressure of high expectation. You will feel that sense of elation when crossing the line ahead of the pack, and moments of desperation, like in 2017 when Peter realised he wouldn’t be allowed to challenge for his sixth Tour de France green jersey. But what better tonic than to ensure a third year in rainbow – an achievement which may never be repeated again.

    While no two are identical, Brandel Chamblee, the highly regarded television analyst and former PGA Tour professional, once noticed that the best players of all time have shared similar positions in each part of the swing, from the grip and setup to the footwork, backswing, and follow-through. Since then, Chamblee, a student of the game’s history, has used scientific precision and thoroughness to make a study of the common swing positions of the greats. Now, in The Anatomy of Greatness, he shares what he has learned, offering hundreds of photographs as proof, to show us how we can easily incorporate his findings into our own swings to hit the ball farther, straighter, and more consistently. What does it tell us that the majority of the greats—from Jack Nicklaus and Byron Nelson to modern masters like Tiger Woods—employ a “strong” grip on the club? How did legends like Ben Hogan, Sam Snead, Mickey Wright, and Gary Player unlock hidden power and control by turning in the right knee at address? Why are some modern teachers preaching quiet footwork when forty-eight of the top fifty golfers of all time lifted their left heels on the backswing, allowing them to build power? At the same time that Chamblee is encouraging certain swing virtues, he also debunks a number of popular—but misguided—swing philosophies that have been hindering golfers for years. The result is perhaps the best and clearest explanation of how to hit a golf ball ever published. Golfers can take The Anatomy of Greatness to the driving range and use Chamblee’s clear explanations to build better swings—and get more speed and consistency into their swings—immediately. This book is like having a series of private lessons from the best golfers of all time, and it will help golfers build swings that make the game easier and more fun.

     One of the most illuminating books ever on a sports subculture, Learning to Breathe Fire combines vivid sports writing with a thoughtful meditation on what it means to be human. In the book, veteran journalist J.C. Herz explains the science of maximum effort, why the modern gym fails an obese society, and the psychic rewards of ending up on the floor feeling as though you're about to die.  The story traces CrossFit’s rise, from a single underground gym in Santa Cruz to its adoption as the workout of choice for elite special forces, firefighters and cops, to its popularity as the go-to fitness routine for regular Joes and Janes. Especially riveting is Herz’s description of The CrossFit Games, which begin as an informal throw-down on a California ranch and evolve into a televised global proving ground for the fittest men and women on Earth, as well as hundreds of thousands of lesser mortals.  In her portrayal of the sport's star athletes, its passionate coaches and its “chief armorer,” Rogue Fitness, Herz powerfully evokes the uniqueness of a fitness culture that  cultivates primal fierceness in average people. And in the shared ordeal of an all-consuming workout, she unearths the ritual intensity that's been with us since humans invented sports, showing us how, on a deep level, we're all tribal hunters and first responders, waiting for the signal to go all-out. From the Hardcover edition.

    The game has been his life, and his enduring passion.Souness has written a perceptive and opinionated autobiography. It chronicles one of the most successful and colourful careers in the history of British football. But it also provides an intriguing assessment of the game which has dominated his existence, drawing extensively on his incredibly rich and varied experiences as a player, manager and pundit.The result is a shrewd, incisive and hard-hitting memoir, at times tinged with hindsight and regret, which also grapples with many of the major talking points affecting the game today. It is shot through with Souness' trademark tenacity and wisdom, and with fantastic anecdotes from his glittering career.In many ways, Football: My Life, My Passion is the story of the last half-century of British football writ large.

    The claims of the 10:1 victory-loss ratio achieved by the US Air Force fighter pilots flying the North American F-86 Sabre against their communist adversaries, amongst other such fabrications, went unchallenged until the end of the Cold War, when Soviet records of the conflict were finally opened. From that point onwards, a very different story began to emerge. Far from decisive American victories over an unsophisticated opponent, the aerial battles of the Korean War were, at least in the early years, evenly matched affairs, fought to an approximate 1:1 victory-loss ratio. Though the Soviet victories declined over the following years, this had more to do with home politics than American tactics.Regardless of the accuracy of claims and wartime propaganda, one fact stands clear: in the battle for air supremacy over Korea, the US Air Force denied to its opponents the opportunity to intervene over the battlefield. In the face of overwhelming enemy manpower superiority, this allowed the United Nations forces to hold the line in Korea until an armistice that protected South Korea could be put into effectIn addition to the aerial combat over MiG Alley, this title covers the full range of US Air Force activities over Korea, including the failed strategic bombing campaign and the escalating nuclear threat. Incorporating first-hand accounts from those involved, both US and Russian, this new history of the US Air Force in Korea reveals the full story of this bitter struggle in the Eastern skies.

    Death, and John Madden’s Oakland Raiders, Badasses is the definitive biography of arguably the last team to play old-fashioned tough-guy football. Peter Richmond, co-author of the New York Times bestseller The Glory Game, offers a fascinating look at the 1970s Oakland Raiders, led by colorful greats from another era: Ken Stabler, Willie Brown, Gene Upshaw, Jim Otto, Art Shell, head coach John Madden, and owner Al Davis. In the bestselling vein of Boys Will Be Boys, Badasses chronicles the bar-room exploits, practice-field pranks, and Super Bowl glories of the team’s many misfits, cast-offs, psychos, and geniuses of the game.

    He had high hopes for a new World Wrestling Federation flag bearer, Shawn Michaels - the man he was looking to as the leader of the WWF's 'New Generation'. With Michaels supported by a strong cast of established characters, some old faces, and an influx of new blood, McMahon fully expected the WWF to dominate rivals WCW in the burgeoning Monday Night War. It did not work out that way. Titan Shattered tells the behind-the-scenes story of the WWF's tribulations in 1996. It was a year where paranoia threatened to destroy the WWF, where decades-old industry traditions were broken, and where Vince McMahon fully abandoned his wrestling principles in pursuit of the almighty dollar.

    

    A lot of us leavers, despite being elderly and thick, knew. The establishment wouldn't let it happen.Quite how the establishment stopped us from leaving the European Union, though, we could never have guessed. A mandate which became a process and resulted in the UK being the laughing stock of the world. We might have guessed at the relentless howls of outrage from that extreme block of transgressed remainers, the hostility of the House of Commons, the civil service and the BBC. That was a given, and it all played its part. But beyond our imagination was the readiness of politicians to ignore or subvert the vote, the sheer ineptitude of those charged with negotiating our withdrawal, the spite of the EU and the intercession of that usual thing, events. The Great Betrayal tells the story of a failed Brexit and a betrayal of the British people, drawn from interviews with those at the very centre of what became, in the end, a surreal charade.

    It was truly horrific, a startling story – and wholly avoidable – but it had only the briefest of inquiries, and it seemed its lessons were not learned.Twelve-year-old Martin Fletcher was at Valley Parade that day, celebrating Bradford's promotion to the second flight, with his dad, brother, uncle and grandfather. Martin was the only one of them to survive the fire – the biggest loss suffered by a single family in any British football disaster.In later years, Martin devoted himself to extensively investigating how the disaster was caused, its culture of institutional neglect and the government's general indifference towards football fans' safety at the time. This book tells the gripping, extraordinary in-depth story of a boy's unthinkable loss following a spring afternoon at a football match, of how fifty-six people could die at a game, and of the truths he unearthed as an adult. This is the story – thirty years on – of the disaster football has never properly acknowledged.

    Y’know, it's not within the spirit of the game.’ Steve Smith was not to know it at Cape Town on 24 March 2018, but he was addressing his last press conference as captain of the Australian cricket team. By the next day morning he would be swept from office by a tsunami of public indignation involving even the prime minister. In a unique admission, Smith confessed to condoning a policy of sandpapering the cricket ball in a Test against South Africa. He, the instigator David Warner and their agent Cameron Bancroft returned home to disgrace and to lengthy bans. The crisis plunged Australian cricket into a bout of unprecedented soul searching, with Cricket Australia yielding to demands for reviews of the cricket team and of itself to restore confidence in their ‘culture’. In Crossing the Line, Gideon Haigh conducts his own cultural review – ‘less official and far cheaper but genuinely independent’. Studying the cricket team across a decade of radical change, he finds an accident waiting to happen, and a system struggling to cope with self-created challenges, on the field and in the boardroom. And he wonders: is there even any longer a spirit of the game to be within? Crossing the Line is the first instalment in Slattery Media Group’s Sports Shorts collection, a new series of sports essays published as small-format books. Sports Shorts has been created as a home for ambitious, lively and engaging writing and journalism on sport—work of a scale and scope not suited to the confines of day-to-day journalism. Every instalment will illuminate or entertain, all the while fitting into your back pocket on the way to the game.

    He is famed for setting a raft of world records and winning the Olympic ten thousand meters in London in 1948, followed by the remarkable and unprecedented wins of the five thousand meters, ten thousand meters, and marathon four years later in Helsinki. His story, however, goes way beyond races and results.From a lowly factory worker, “the Czech Locomotive” became a global hero. But at a time of political instability Zátopek risked everything for the love of his friends and country and soon found himself cast adrift into political exile.At its heart, this is a love story, as Emil courts and marries Dana, a promising javelin thrower. Born on the same day, they end up winning Olympic gold medals within half an hour of each other. With the unprecedented involvement of Dana, award-winning Times author Rick Broadbent has gained unique access to a dramatic past involving blood, guns, and the love that sustained beatings by Soviet henchmen and the cruelest twists of fate.With traces of Chariots of Fire and Laura Hillenbrand's New York Times bestseller and film Unbroken, this is both a beautiful love story and a landmark tale of hope and strength in the face of crushing injustices.

    Like one of Patterson's reliable left hooks, Stratton sharply recounts the life of an important, but often forgotten, two-time world heavyweight champion." — Gary Andrew Poole, author of PacMan: Behind the Scenes with Manny PacquiaoIn 1956, Floyd Patterson became, at age twenty-one, the youngest boxer to claim the title of world heavyweight champion. Later, he was the first ever to lose and regain that honor.Here, the acclaimed author W. K. Stratton chronicles the life of "the Gentle Gladiator" — an athlete overshadowed by Ali's theatrics and Liston's fearsome reputation, and a civil rights activist overlooked in the Who's Who of race politics. From the Gramercy Gym and wildcard manager Cus D’Amato to the final rematch against Ali in 1972, Patterson's career spanned boxing's golden age. He won an Olympic gold medal, had bouts with Moore and Johansson, and was interviewed by James Baldwin, Gay Talese, and Budd Schulberg. A complex, misunderstood figure — he once kissed an opponent at the end of a match — he was known for his peekaboo stance and soft-spoken nature.Floyd Patterson was boxing’s invisible champion, but in this deeply researched and beautifully written biography he comes vividly to life and is finally given his due — as one of the most artful boxers of his time and as one of our great sportsmen, a man who shaped the world in and out of the ring.