His experience was not the little league, boys-of-summer stuff of modern America. For him, it was life and death. Now middleaged and living in California, Alan finds himself coaching a team of eight-year-olds in his beloved sport—and nothing is going right. For a start, the kids are no good at soccer. Secondly, they’re pampered. Born and bred on the sport, Black’s hardscrabble Scottish upbringing consisted of playing tough and victory at all costs. Needless to say, his coaching methods are a far cry from the “winning isn’t everything” mentality his little leaguers have been reared with; and players and parents alike are shocked as Black attempts to transform the losing team through drills and bombast. Alone at night, watching evangelicals on TV, Black finds himself searching for some truth in the culture he finds so bizarre. And it’s with the Tigers that he feels most out of sync—faced with a mix of soft suburban children, a raft of overprotective parents, and an Iranian co-coach called Ali. Told with Black’s uproarious Scottish sensibility, Kick the Balls follows the abrasive, irreverent, and hilarious coach as he contends with a team that winds up with a zero-win record. Both a celebration of his own tough childhood and an account of one man’s navigation of an alien culture, Kick the Balls will delight fans of well-told, laugh-out-loud memoirs.

    DFS is fantasy sports on steroids. It’s the domain of bitter rivals FanDuel and DraftKings, online juggernauts who turned a legal loophole into a billion-dollar industry by allowing sports fans bet piles of cash constructing fantasy teams. Yet as Barbarisi quickly realized, what should have been a fun companion to casual sports viewing was instead a ferocious environment infested with sharks, a top tier of pros wielding complex algorithms, drafting hundreds of lineups, and wagering six figures daily as they bludgeon unsuspecting amateur “fish.” Barbarisi embeds himself inside the world of DFS, befriending and joining its rogue’s gallery as he tries to beat them at their own game. In a work equal parts adventure and rigorously reported investigation, Barbarisi wades into this chaotic industry at the very moment its existence is threatened by lawmakers sick of its Wild West atmosphere and pushy advertising. All their money made FanDuel and DraftKings seem invincible; but, as Barbarisi reports, they made plenty of dubious—perhaps even scandalous—moves as they vied for market supremacy. In Dueling with Kings, Barbarisi uncovers the tumultuous inside story of DFS, all while capturing its peculiar cast of characters, from wide-eyed newly minted millionaires, to sun-starved math geeks, to bros living an endless frat party of keggers and Playboy Bunnies. Can he outwit them all and make it to the top?

     We all know what a .300 hitter looks like. The same with a 20-game winner. Those numbers are ingrained in our brains. But do they mean as much as we think? Do we feel the same way when we hear a batter has a .390 wOBA? How about a pitcher with a 1.2 WHIP? These statistics are the future of modern baseball, and no fan should be in the dark about how these metrics apply to the game.In the last twenty years, an avalanche of analytics has taken over the way the game is played, managed, and assessed, but the statistics that drive the sport (metrics like wRC+, FIP, and WAR, just to name a few) read like alphabet soup to a large number of fans who still think batting average, RBIs, and wins are the best barometers for baseball players.In A Fan’s Guide to Baseball Analytics, MLB.com reporter and columnist Anthony Castrovince has taken on the role as explainer to help such fans understand why the old stats don’t always add up. Readers will also learn where these modern stats came from, what they convey, and how to use them to evaluate players of the present, past, and future. For instance, what if we told you that when Joe DiMaggio had his famous 56-game hitting streak in 1941, helping him win the AL MVP, that there was, perhaps, someone more deserving? In fact, the great Ted Williams actually had a higher fWAR, bWAR, wRC+, OPS, OPS+, ISO, RC . . . well, you get the picture. So, streak or no streak, Williams should have been league MVP.An introductory course on sabermetrics, A Fan’s Guide to Baseball Analytics is an easily digestible resource that readers can keep turning back to when they see a modern metric referenced in today’s baseball coverage.

    The incredible finish was contested the world over when Pietri, who initially ran the wrong way upon entering the stadium at Shepherd's Bush, finished first but was disqualified for receiving aid from officials after collapsing just shy of the finish line, thus giving the title to runner-up Hayes. In the midst of anti-American sentiment, Queen Alexandra awarded a special cup to Pietri, who became an international celebrity and inspired one of Irving Berlin's first songs. In Showdown at Shepherd's Bush, David Davis recalls a time when runners braved injurious roads with slips of leather for shoes and when marathon mania became a worldwide obsession. Standing next to Cait Murphy's Crazy '08 as an invaluable look at a bygone sporting era, Showdown at Shepherd's Bush is a dramatic narrative aimed at the recordsetting number of marathon participants in the United States (more than 500,000 in 2010!) and other running enthusiasts, and timed nicely for the return of the Olympics to London in 2012.

    Their initial contact grew into a friendship that O'Brien chronicled for the Miami News, where he began his career as a staff photographer. O'Brien's photo essays conveyed empathy for the homeless and the disenfranchised and won two Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards. In 2006, O'Brien reconnected with the issue of homelessness and learned the problem has grown exponentially since the 1970s, with as many as 3.5 million adults and children in America experiencing homelessness at some point in any given year.In Hard Ground, O'Brien joins with renowned singer-songwriter Tom Waits, described by the New York Times as "the poet of outcasts," to create a portrait of homelessness that impels us to look into the eyes of people who live "on the hard ground" and recognize our common humanity. For Waits, who has spent decades writing about outsiders, this subject is familiar territory. Combining their formidable talents in photography and poetry, O'Brien and Waits have crafted a work in the spirit of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, in which James Agee's text and Walker Evans's photographs were "coequal, mutually independent, and fully collaborative" elements. Letting words and images communicate on their own terms, rather than merely illustrate each other, Hard Ground transcends documentary and presents independent, yet powerfully complementary views of the trials of homelessness and the resilience of people who survive on the streets.

    This is an absorbing book, beautifully written.” —Wall Street Journal“Leavy has hit it out of the park…A lot more than a biography. It’s a consideration of how we create our heroes, and how this hero’s self perception distinguishes him from nearly every other great athlete in living memory… a remarkably rich portrait.” — TimeThe instant New York Times bestseller about the baseball legend and famously reclusive Dodgers’ pitcher Sandy Koufax, from award-winning former Washington Post sportswriter Jane Leavy. Sandy Koufax reveals, for the first time, what drove the three-time Cy Young award winner to the pinnacle of baseball and then—just as quickly—into self-imposed exile.

    They were a ragtag team of girls who wanted to play soccer, and no one took them seriously. Their male coach expected little from his "ladies, " and their mediocre performance convinced them he was right.Then a kind of miracle happened. Emiria Salzmann, Thunder's new coach, a top player herself, knew what it took to win--discipline, relentless drills, thigh-burning sprints, and an inspired passing game. The girls hated it, but their coach never let up. Tough and determined, she showed them what it felt like to be winners--and they loved it. As the momentum grew with a string of victories, the girls thrived on the competition, believing they had the right stuff to become champions.They were right! With spirits soaring, Thunder won its league on the last day of the season and headed for the state cup, emerging not just as powerful athletes but as strong, confident, emotionally healthy human beings--champions in the game of soccer, and in the game of life.

    Home to Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Berra, Mantle, Jackson, and Mattingly; and later Torre, Jeter, Rivera, and Rodriguez, the team has been a fixture in our national consciousness.Yet it's been nearly seventy years since Frank Graham wrote the last narrative history of the team. Marty Appel, the Yankees' PR director during the 1970s, now illuminates the team in all its century-plus of glory: clever, maneuvering owners; rowdy, talented players; and, of course, twenty-seven championships. Appel heard war stories from old-timers like Mantle, Berra, and Casey Stengel, and has maintained a presence in the organization ever since. A collector, writer, and raconteur, he gives life to the team's history, from the muddy, uneven field at Hilltop Park in the 1900s to the evolution of today's team as an international brand. Loaded with over a century's worth of great stories, folklore, and photos, this is a treasure trove for lovers of sports, the Yankees, New York history, and America's game.

    Quine's areas of interest are panoramic, as this lively book amply demonstrates.Moving from A (alphabet) to Z (zero), Quiddities roams through more than eighty topics, each providing a full measure of piquant thought, wordplay, and wisdom, couched in easy and elegant prose--"Quine at his unbuttoned best," in Donald Davidson's words. Philosophy, language, and mathematics are the subjects most fully represented; tides of entries include belief, communication, free will, idiotisms, longitude and latitude, marks, prizes, Latin pronunciation, tolerance, trinity. Even the more technical entries are larded with homely lore, anecdote, and whimsical humor.Quiddities will be a treat for admirers of Quine and for others who like to think, who care about language, and who enjoy the free play of intellect on topics large and small. For this select audience, it is an ideal book for browsing.

    Since winning her first race a little more than a year earlier, the unbeaten, unflappable Ruffian had literally raced her way into the hearts of a nation. One of those hearts belonged to Newsday turf reporter William Nack.As a boy in Illinois, Nack had carried in his pocket a trading card of his hero, Swaps, the winner of the 1955 Kentucky Derby. As a young soldier in Vietnam, Nack tuned out the midnight bomb blasts by listening to racetrack broadcasts from Santa Anita. Now, fresh off the publication of his astonishing biography of Secretariat -- described by Seabiscuit author Laura Hillenbrand as "the gold standard of horse books" -- he found himself smitten once again.But tragedy struck that summer's day at Belmont Park. After charging from the gate, Ruffian stumbled and shattered her right foreleg. She had to be put down. Nack's heartbreaking run with thoroughbred racing's most famous filly will soon be immortalized in a made-for-TV movie to be broadcast on ESPN and ABC. In this moving, lyrical memoir, he relives the afternoon that forever changed his love affair with the track.

    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

    It was the quiet beginning to the most resonant baseball achievement of all time. Starting that day, the vaunted Yankee centerfielder kept on hitting-at least one hit in game after game after game.In the summer of 1941, as Nazi forces moved relentlessly across Europe and young American men were drafted by the millions, it seemed only a matter of time before the U.S. went to war. The nation was apprehensive. Yet for two months in that tense summer, America was captivated by DiMaggio's astonishing hitting streak. In 56, Kostya Kennedy tells the remarkable story of how the streak found its way into countless lives, from the Italian kitchens of Newark to the playgrounds of Queens to the San Francisco streets of North Beach; from the Oval Office of FDR to the Upper West Side apartment where Joe's first wife, Dorothy, the movie starlet, was expecting a child. In this crisp, evocative narrative Joe DiMaggio emerges in a previously unseen light, a 26-year-old on the cusp of becoming an icon. He comes alive-a driven ballplayer, a mercurial star and a conflicted husband-as the tension and the scrutiny upon him build with each passing day.DiMaggio's achievement lives on as the greatest of sports records. Alongside the story of DiMaggio's dramatic quest, Kennedy deftly examines the peculiar nature of hitting streaks and with an incisive, modern-day perspective gets inside the number itself, as its sheer improbability heightens both the math and the magic of 56 games in a row.

    For any golf fan, the words evoke the immortal greats of the game and their quest for the most prized trophy of all -- the green jacket of Augusta National Golf Club. But behind the legendary links and timeless traditions is one of the most overlooked and misunderstood figures in the history of the Masters and Augusta National: Clifford Roberts, the club's chairman from its founding in 1931 until shortly before his death in 1977. Roberts' meticulous attention to detail, his firm authoritarian hand, and his refusal to settle -- even for perfection -- helped build the Masters into the tournament it is today, and Augusta National into every golfer's idea of heaven on earth. David Owen was granted unprecedented access to the archives and records of Augusta National Golf Club. He has produced an honest and affectionate chronicle of the Masters, from its conception to its modern greatness, and a fascinating portrayal of Clifford Roberts -- whose perseverance and pride forged the Augusta National we know today.

    The general manager inherited a major league club that had just one winning season in the previous decade. Moore, a Kansas native who grew up as a Royals fan, implemented a plan to return the franchise to its glory years. Though not without a few bumps in the road, that plan came to fruition in 2014 as the Royals swept through the American League playoffs to take the pennant and returned the World Series to Kansas City. In More Than a Season, Moore shares how his faith and leadership principles guided his rebooting of the Royals. The general manager describes how he built one of baseball’s best farm systems and international scouting departments of out nothing. He shares insight on how he persevered through six consecutive losing seasons and the critical response to controversial trades of Zack Greinke and Wil Myers—transactions that ultimately yielded the foundation of a champion. Full of never-before-told stories from inside the Royals organization More Than a Season features a foreword by star outfielder Alex Gordon and an introduction by William F. High, CEO of the National Christian Foundation Heartland.

    That will teach you to keep your mouth shut' - Ernest Hemingway Over a boozy Sunday lunch, flatmates James Adair and Ben Stenning made a promise to row across the ocean. At first they considered the Pacific, then the Atlantic, but once James Cracknell and Ben Fogle completed the high-profile Atlantic Rowing Race, their thoughts turned to the Indian Ocean, longer and tougher than the Atlantic and having seen fewer people row across its waters than have walked on the Moon. After years of planning and fund raising, they were ready to launch in Spring 2011. Neither James nor Ben had any rowing or sailing experience. To add to this, James had contracted Guillain-Barre syndrome at the age of 14, which had locked his body into total paralysis for three months (while his mind had remained completely active) and which had left him with paralysed feet. This was a challenge that neither man should have ever considered.