Each year, the series editor and guest editor curate a truly exceptional collection. The only shared traits among all these diverse styles, voices, and stories are the extraordinarily high caliber of writing, and the pure passion they tap into that can only come from sports.

    Like Mantle, he came up to the majors as a shortstop, but was later converted to a centerfielder. And like Mantle, his first at-bat in Yankee Stadium was at the tender age of 19.Bobby wasn't the Mick, but he became one of the most beloved Yankees of all time.Yankee for Life is the story of Murcer's stellar career as both a player and as an Emmy Award-winning broadcaster. With self-effacing humor and down-home charm, he shares fascinating, illuminating, and never-before-told anecdotes about former teammates and bosses, including Mantle, Phil Rizzuto, Lou Piniella—and George Steinbrenner.But no relationship was more significant and poignant than his friendship with Yankees captain Thurman Munson, who died in a plane crash in 1979. On the morning of Munson's funeral, Murcer delivered the eulogy for his friend in Ohio; he ended the day by driving in all five runs in an extra-inning 5-4 victory at Yankee Stadium to honor his captain's memory.Following his career, Murcer became a revered figure in the Yankees broadcast booth. From the best seat in the House That Ruth Built, he has watched the latest generation of Yankee superstars—Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, and Mariano Rivera—grow up.No one is more qualified—or brave enough—to choose his own personal Pinstripe All-Star Team of the last 40 years.Murcer is no stranger to courage. On Christmas Eve 2006, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Five days later, after surgery to remove it, he learned that the cancer was terminal. In an uplifting, honest, and even humorous exploration of his battle with illness, Murcer explains how the love of his wife and his family, a deep religious faith, and the passionate support of fans have seen him through his ordeal.Bobby Murcer may not have become the next Mickey Mantle, but he became someone he always wanted to be—a Yankee for life.

    In So You Think You Know Baseball?, lifelong baseball enthusiast Peter E. Meltzer catalogues every noteworthy baseball rule from the Major League rulebook and illustrates its application with actual plays, from the historical to the contemporary.You can read the book from start to finish or consult it while watching a game to understand the mechanics of a play or how it should be scored. Meltzer analyzes the entire Official Baseball Rules using hundreds of Major League plays involving both plays on the field situations and plays which have involved the official scorer. This is the first book ever written which analyzes the entire rulebook in this fashion and which is based on actual plays.With Meltzer’s unique and thoroughly entertaining guide in hand, which includes a foreword by baseball rules expert Rich Marazzi, you’ll never have to scratch your head over an umpire or scorekeeper’s call again.

    While The Damned United was a fictional account of Clough’s short-lived but controversial reign at the club, this book reveals the true story, as told by the players he managed at the time. Vividly recreating the atmosphere of the era, the book features candid contributions from legendary names such as Peter Lorimer, Eddie Gray, and Norman Hunter. They reveal what it was like to make the transition from the relatively smooth management style of former manager Don Revie, who helped the club achieve success in Europe, to a constant crossing of swords with the outspoken Brian Clough, who left the club flailing at the foot of the league upon his premature departure. This explosive account covers all the drama that ensued from the moment Clough was earmarked by the club directors as the favorite to succeed Revie to his exit less than two months later, saddled with the knowledge that he had been the club’s most unsuccessful manager ever. Told from the perspective of those who experienced Clough’s dictatorial managerial methods at Leeds at first hand, We are the Damned United tells it how it really was rather than how it might have been.

    Now, 40 years after sports history was made, acclaimed sports writer Mike Freeman celebrates the Dolphins’ singular achievement in Undefeated. A riveting story filled with heartbreaking injuries, miraculous finishes, and tested relationships—featuring a roster of gridiron greats, including Bob Griese, Earl Morrall, Larry Csonka, Paul Warfield, Mercury Morris, Nick Buoniconti and others—Undefeated follows a underdog team on its remarkable run: 14 regular season victories, 2 postseason wins, and a Super Bowl championship. It is a book no football fan will want to miss.

    Forest won the First Division championship, two League Cups and back-to-back European Cups and they did it, incredibly, with five of the players Clough inherited at a club that was trying to avoid relegation to the third tier of English football.I Believe In Miracles accompanies the critically-acclaimed documentary and DVD of the same name. Based on exclusive interviews with virtually every member of the Forest team, it covers the greatest period in Clough's extraordinary life and brings together the stories of the unlikely assortment of free transfers, bargain buys, rogues, misfits and exceptionally gifted footballers who came together under the most charismatic manager there has ever been.

    George directly influenced the likes of Muhammad Ali, who took his bragging and boasting from George; James Brown, who began to wear sequined capes onstage after seeing George on TV; John Waters, whose films featured the outrageous drag queen Divine as an homage to George; and too many wrestlers to count. Amid these pop culture discoveries are firsthand accounts of the pro wrestling game from the 1930s to the 1960s.The ideal American male used to be stoic, quiet, and dignified. But for a young couple struggling to make ends meet, in the desperation born of the lingering Depression and wartime rationing, an idea was hatched that changed the face of American popular culture, an idea so bold, so over-the-top and absurd, that it was perfect. That idea transformed journeyman wrestler George Wagner from a dark-haired, clean-cut good guy to a peroxide-blond braggart who blatantly cheated every chance he got. Crowds were stunned—they had never seen anything like this before—and they came from miles around to witness it for themselves.Suddenly George—guided by Betty, his pistol of a wife—was a draw. With his golden tresses grown long and styled in a marcel, George went from handsome to . . . well . . . gorgeous overnight, the small, dank wrestling venues giving way to major arenas. As if the hair wasn't enough, his robes—unmanly things of silk, lace, and chiffon in pale pinks, sunny yellows, and rich mauves—were but a prelude to the act: the regal entrance, the tailcoat-clad valet spraying the mat with perfume, the haughty looks and sneers for the "peasants" who paid to watch this outrageously prissy hulk prance around the ring. How they loved to see his glorious mane mussed up by his manly opponents. And how they loved that alluringly alliterative name . . . Gorgeous George . . . the self-proclaimed Toast of the Coast, the Sensation of the Nation!All this was timed to the arrival of that new invention everyone was talking about—television. In its early days, professional wrestling and its larger-than-life characters dominated prime-time broadcasts—none more so than Gorgeous George, who sold as many sets as Uncle Miltie.Fans came in droves—to boo him, to stick him with hatpins, to ogle his gowns, and to rejoice in his comeuppance. He was the man they loved to hate, and his provocative, gender-bending act took him to the top of the entertainment world. America would never be the same again.

    Though they attended a small high school with no baseball field, turned down a professional offer so they could attend college together, and faced more than one missed pitch and injuries, they kept dreaming, praying together on the field, and believing in God’s provision for their lives.David and Jason’s journey, from Little League to college to professional baseball and beyond, reminds us that even when we don’t know what God is up to, He’s putting together the pieces of our life’s puzzle and executing the plans He has for each of us.Miracle in Shreveport tells the story of a family’s love, the power of prayer, and a game that is truly all-American. It is also the story of brotherhood staying strong, despite the threat of comparison in a profession committed to competition. Most of all, it is the story of being faithful in small steps, honoring God in the process, and trusting His hand in our lives. In this book, the Benhams call us to remember that when we follow God’s dream for us, we find it is better than we could have ever dreamed for ourselves.

    The miracle is that I had the courage to start."Take your first step toward fitness and a happier, healthier life.Has the idea of running crossed your mind, but you haven't acted on it because you don't think you have the body of a runner? Have you thought about running but quit before you started because you knew that you would be breathless at the end of your driveway? Well, put aside those fears because you can do it. John Bingham, author of the popular Runner's World column "The Penguin Chronicles," transformed himself from an overweight couch potato who smoked into a runner who has completed eleven marathons and hundreds of road races.Forget about the image of a perfect body in skintight clothes, and don't worry about how fast or how far you go. Bingham shows how anyone can embrace running as a life-enhancing activity -- rather than as a competition you will never win. In an entertaining blend of his own success story and practical advice, Bingham provides reasonable guidelines for establishing a program of achievable goals; offers tips on clothing, running shoes, and other equipment; and explains how anyone can prepare for and run distances ranging from a few miles to marathons.After all, in running and in life, the difference between success and failure sometimes comes down to a single step. Waddle on, friends.

    But that was only part of the tale… Now, in his own words, “Irish” Micky Ward tells his inspirational life story as only he can. From his first bout at the age of seven, Micky Ward was known first and foremost for giving as good as he got, and for leaving absolutely everything he had in the ring. When he fought, quitting was never an option. It was that indomitable spirit that would allow him to survive, battle against, and overcome the harsh realities that he faced every day of his life.For it was outside the ring that Ward’s heart would be most needed, from witnessing his idolized older half-brother Dicky fall from grace, to dealing with his wildly dysfunctional—if frighteningly loyal—family, to the darkest of secrets that he has never revealed until now, and the numerous setbacks and defeats that would have stopped a lesser man. Micky Ward has remained a fighter, through and through—both as a professional boxer, and as a man who finally found his greatest strength in friendship, family, and faith in himselfFrom the rough streets of Lowell, Massachusetts, to the blood and sweat of the international fight game, to the bright lights and adulation of Hollywood, this is the rousing, moving, tragic, and humorous story of the one and only Micky Ward.

    Cub, to Sammy Sosa, today's record-setting sensation, Cubs Nation traces the history of a team that often had everything going for it and yet was so hampered by losses that it came to define the term lovable losers.

    The calls to ban it were more or less instant.Re:cyclists is the tale of what happened next, of how we have spent two centuries wheeling our way about town and country on bikes--or on two-wheeled things that vaguely resembled what we now call bikes. Michael Hutchinson picks his way through those 200 years, discovering how cycling became a kinky vaudeville act for Parisians, how it became an American business empire, and how it went on to find a unique home in the British Isles. He considers the penny-farthing riders exploring the abandoned and lonely coaching roads during the railway era, and the Victorian high-society cyclists of the 1890s bicycle craze--a time when no aristocratic house party was without bicycles and when the Prince of Wales used to give himself an illicit thrill on a weekday afternoon by watching the women's riding-school in the Royal Albert Hall.Re:cyclists looks at how cycling became the sport, the pastime and the social life of millions of ordinary people, how it grew and how it suffered through the 1960s and '70s, and how at the dawn of the twenty-first century it rose again, much changed but still ultimately just someone careering along on two wheels.

    In September 1970, two boys met in the playground on their first day at secondary school in North London. They formed what would be described at the Old Bailey thirty years later as ‘a unique and wicked bond’. Between 1982 and 1986, striking near lonely railway stations in London and the Home Counties, their partnership took them from rape to murder. Three police forces pooled their resources to catch them in the biggest criminal manhunt since the Yorkshire Ripper Enquiry.A Dangerous Place is the first full-length account of the crimes of John Duffy and David Mulcahy. Told by the son of one of the police officers who led the enquiry, exhaustively researched and with unprecedented access, this is the story of two of the most notorious serial killers of the twentieth century and the times they operated in. It is the story of the women who died at their hands. It is the story of the women who survived them, and who had the courage to ensure justice was done. And it is the story of a father, told by a son.

    The book traces Gable's life from its humble, hard-scrabble beginnings in Ohio, to his hard-work and determined efforts to achieve success on Broadway, to his meteoric rise to stardom in Hollywood, his time spent in the Army Air Force in Europe, and his many loves, including Carole Lombard who was tragically killed in an airplane crash in 1942. The King paints an intimate, contemporary portrait of Clark Gable the man, both on and off camera, and ends with Gable's work on his last film, The Misfits, and his subsequent decline in health and his death on November 16, 1960, at age 59.

    The 1980s were certainly loud, often garish and utterly fabulous - no matter how embarrassing the outfits were.There are so many elements, which made the 80s a truly great decade, but one of the greatest contributions, if not the greatest, is the mass introduction of affordable 8-bit home micro computers.These curious machines of geekdom changed the way we regarded computers and technology. No longer were they the sole perverse of tweed jacket clad scientists sporting unruly beards, micro computers were now forming a staple inventory in millions of homes.Much of the technology that we enjoy today, such as desktop computers, notebooks, tablets, gaming consoles and smart phones, all of which are often taken for granted, can be traced back to this innovative decade.If you were a child of the 80s and remember the joy of receiving your very first home computer or maybe a young adult who fondly remembers the excitement, then you will appreciate this unabashed reminiscence of a simpler time whose adolescent technological was on the cusp of great advancements.This book is intended as celebration and reflection of all the computer technology that made the 80s such a wonderful, pioneering period and follows the journey of a self confessed, teenaged computer geek who experienced and enjoyed every ground breaking moment, including publishing his own software.10 Print “The 80s are fab!”20 Goto 10RunAuthor's Comments:The current edition is dated 31st January 2016 and has been edited based on customer feedback.