Each year, the series editor and guest editor curates 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.

    30,000 first printing."

    In these pages both everyday riders and pros tell their stories of freak accidents, animal attacks, sabotage, idiotic decisions, eerie or unexplained incidents, and other jaw dropping, adrenalin-pumping calamities. These stories bring to life the strange things possibilities that await, once we step on the pedals of our road, mountain, or commuter bikes. A sampling of misadventures in this collection includes the stories of: the mountain biker who follows a bull and then gets gored by it; the twenty African Americans who pioneered cycle touring by completing a Transamerica ride in 1897, but wait - this story gets strange...; the large rat that leapt on top of a woman's bike and slapped her repeatedly with its tail; an inside-the-head narration by a professional racer as he rides a brutal race, and then gets humiliated in changing room afterwards; the recreational cyclist who accidentally rides deep into a prison yard; the computer programmer who crashes a stationary bike during his first spin class; the bike messenger who can't call it quits even after getting hit by eight cars; and, the man who carefully spreads out tacks on the route of an all female race in an attempt to get a date. These stories will make you wonder, drop you to the floor laughing and leave you shaking your head with disbelief.

    Lewis Gordon Pugh recounts his action-packed life, including his SAS training and his swim at the North Pole. He takes examples from his own life to show how we can all achieve our goals.

    An outstanding, thought-provoking study of the state of modern professional football.

    David has had to face the pressure of expectation throughout his career, but his amazing saves have kept United in the hunt for trophies year after year, no matter the pressure. This is the story of one boy's mission to become the best keeper in the world.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.

    I’ve been lionized by the public and the press. The world is at my feet. I’ve spread my wings and here I am, soaring above everything and everyone. But in reality, the descent has already begun.” At age 20, Thomas Dekker was already earning €100,000 a year—as an amateur bike racer. The next year, he turned pro and his salary quadrupled then rose again to €900,000 as he established his position as a super-domestique among Europe’s wealthiest superteams. The sport marveled at Dekker’s rise as the young racer set his ambitions on capturing cycling’s biggest prizes for himself. Before long, though, Dekker found himself corrupted by money, dazzled by fame, and cracking under the relentless pressure to perform at a superhuman level. In his tell-all book DESCENT: My Epic Fall from Cycling Superstardom to Doping Dead End, Dekker reveals a sordid way of life full of blood bags, drugs, prostitutes, and money. DESCENT tells the story of a yearslong bender that exposes the brutal truth of his life as a professional cyclist. And Dekker is not alone; he names those who fell with him and those who aided in his downfall. In DESCENT, we take an unflinching look at the European peloton as it roars through its modern boom years—the height of the EPO era—and what we see is shocking. You won’t be able to turn away from this page-turning read about one man’s rise, fall, and redemption and what his story reveals about professional sports.

    Thousands strong, this huge tribe of disaffected youths laid siege to town centrees and soccer grounds across the country and became a byword for violent disorder. Tony O'Neill was there from the beginning and became its most prominent face.Barely in his teens when he set out from the largest council estate in Europe to follow the Red Devils, his ferocity in street combat and his force of personality soon made him a leader. Running trips in his infamous War Wagon, he became so renowned that he was invited to a sit-down meeting with the Government to discuss the hooligan problem.After serving a jail term, O'Neill emerged to lead the 'casuals' of the 1980s against an even tougher generation of opponents: West Ham's ICF, the Chelsea Headhunters, the Leeds Service Crew and the scally armies of Merseyside. Police intelligence files labelled him a 'prime mover' and he became the target of a huge undercover investigation. Red Army General is the most authoritative account ever written of the wild years when terrace terror reached its peak."BRITAIN'S No.1 FOOTBALL THUG" Daily Mirror"BRITAIN'S WORST SOCCER YOB" The Sun

    Most people think it’s Frisbee football played barefoot and without boundaries. Those people are wrong. Ultimate is a sport played by 824,000 people a year in North America—more than korfball, lawn darts, lacrosse, and curling combined. Ultimate is so popular that it even has rules that are sometimes followed.This book will provide you with complete and total knowledge of the Ultimate game.THIS BOOK INCLUDES:-- The Eight Ultimate Player Types-- The 42 Most Common Nicknames-- 28 Near-Useless Throws on the Field-- How to Name Your Ultimate Team-- Where to Play Ultimate Without Being Mocked-- How to Score at an Ultimate Party-- Useful Playing Tips from Experts of the Game PLUS: HOW TO PLAY ULTIMATE IN EIGHT EASY STEPS – AN ILLUSTRATED GUIDE -- Can I play Ultimate with a mustache?-- Where do Ultimate babies come from?-- How can I become an Ultimate champion without practicing?-- What is “throwing Fire”?-- How can I survive a shark attack?  About the author:Pasquale Anthony Leonardo IV has covered numerous championship Ultimate tournaments since 1997 and was the Media Director for the 2006 World Junior Ultimate Championships. In 2005 he co-wrote Ultimate: The First Four Decades, which was reviewed in Sports Illustrated and featured on ESPN’s live talk show "Cold Pizza." He also writes screenplays. He lives in Brooklyn, New York and/or somewhere out West.

    Tim Hudson was determined to demonstrate his recovery from a recurring injury. Barry Zito had to show the world that after a ho-hum 2003, his 2002 Cy Young Award was not a fluke. Mark Mulder missed the 203 playoffs entirely with a stress fracture, but the way he saw it, he simply needed to be himself-the natural-born pitcher.Given unprecedented access to the Big Three , Mychael Urban recreates their tumultuous season through their eyes. he explores the nuts and bolts of major league pitching, examining each player's unique approach to this craft while revealing how three very different personalities cope with the demands, rewards, and challenges of sports stardom.Now with a new afterword on the 2005 seasonUrban traces the fortunes of the Big Three after Hudson was sent to Atlanta and Mulder to St. Louis, trades which held the dramatic promise of them being reunited again-as opponents-in the playoffs."Written with great color, style, humor, and grace, Aces takes readers on a captivating ride." - Mike Silver, Sports Illustrated"Mychael Urban's book is a fabulous read... This is hardly just a baseball book. It's about life, and he tremendous burden each pitcher carried while trying to lead the Oakland A's to the playoffs. I absolutely loved it." - Bob Nightengale, Senor Writer/Columnist, USA Today Sports Weekly"From the southern fried heat of Tim Hudson to Mark Mulder's cool aloofness to Barry Zito's cerebral wanderings, Urban captures the engine of Oakland's Little Engine That Could of a team with grace and aplomb." - Scott Miller, National Baseball Columnist, CBS.SportsLine.com

    They said Mick had a sixth sense for great accuracy in his playing days - he could find a party from any range. Quinn says he only put £50 on each horse race - but liked to stay in the bookies for twenty races a day!Sentenced in 1987 to three weeks in prison for twice driving whilst banned, Mick's been accused of punching Peter Schmeichel on the football pitch and John Fashanu off it. On retirement, though, Quinn switched to horse racing, the Sport of Kings, but controversy led the blue bloods of racing to hang the scouse oik out to dry and he was suspended from training for two and a half years.Who Ate All The Pies? is the funniest and most honest football book you'll read for a long, long time.

    He saw the Tour for the first time in 1984, avidly following that year's race on television in the Normandy village where he lived. Since joining the Guardian in 1989, William Fotheringham has been at the forefront of British cycling journalism. Here he reflects on the events of the last twenty-three years - the triumphs, the tragedies and the scandals that have engulfed the world's most demanding sport. Key articles from his career are annotated with notes and reflections. What would he have said if he'd known then what we all know now about Lance Armstrong? Which cyclists and teams were not all they seemed? And which victories still rank as the greatest of all time?This is the definitive collection of cycling reporting.

    Blending Buddhist wisdom, modern psychology, and practical golf instruction, Dr. Joe Parent’s 2002 book Zen Golf broke out to become the top instructional book in golf, and continues to be a steady bestseller. Now, in the eagerly awaited follow-up, Dr. Parent provides readers with a new approach to the aspect of golf in which mental skills have the most impact: putting.Zen Putting takes a thinking-outside-the-box approach based on the idea that by tuning into the process of putting rather than worrying about the result, golfers can get out of their own way and maximize performance. Key principles include using mindful awareness to recognize and clear away distractions and negativity, and that confidence increases when golfers take the attitude that there is something fundamentally, essentially right with them rather than focusing on what’s broken or flawed. In succinct, informative chapters, Dr. Parent applies this Zen ideal to a variety of subjects for any putting situation. Chapters include: • “Unconquerable Confidence”: brimming with strategies to cultivate confidence and turn frustration into enjoyment. • “Get Out of Your Own Way”: exploring the obstacles we create for ourselves in putting, and how to recognize and overcome them to get the most out of our abilities. • “How to Make Every Putt”: on reading greens; visualization; putting routine; the key components of a putt—path, pace, and roll; and taking the ideal attitude before putting. Unlike rigid how-to books on putting or fad coaching techniques, Zen Putting stirs each reader to cultivate their own unique style for synchronizing body and mind to achieve peak performance.

     This book does not do that. For many, playing professional sport is the Dream Job. Few manage it, very few make it to the top and for the rest, life is very different. This is their story. In Fringes, Ben Mercer invites you to witness life at the outer edges of professional rugby. This is a first hand account of what life is like as a journeyman professional athlete. You play, but to the wider public you don't exist. You earn but you don't drive a flash car. You sometimes pack out a stadium but sometimes, you play in a deserted park. This is the story for the majority of sports professionals. Only the minority taste the top, only one person gets to lift the cup or win the medal, only 15 get to play for England at any one time. For the rest, that’s not the case. Ben Mercer is a former professional rugby player who after becoming disillusioned and uninspired plying his trade in the English Second Division, accepted an offer out of the blue to go to France and do something different - help an amateur team turn professional. This is a first hand account of what life is like in the lower reaches of professional sport - where your employment status is as precarious as your health and barely anyone will know your name. It's about how it feels to live year to year, with teammates constantly on the move. It's about how professionalism irreversibly changes the French club Stade Rouennais as they move up the divisions, about the tension between progress and identity in a rugby team. It's also about how it feels to actually be out there on the field, how it feels to occasionally do something extraordinary and how it feels when this is no longer enough for you to make the sacrifices that you need to make to keep playing. There's no ghostwriting, it's an unmitigated meditation on how it feels and what it means to play rugby for a living, to dedicate yourself to an uncompromising but occasionally beautiful game. If you've wanted to know what life is really like as a professional athlete, on the Fringes, away from the glitz and glamour of the international game then look no further.

    Four unknown players would seize the day, rising to become champions in his wake. Mike Weir--considered a good golfer but not a great one--triumphed in The Masters, becoming the first Canadian to win a Major. Jim Furyk emerged victorious in the U.S. Open. In the British Open, Ben Curtis became the only player since Francis Ouimet in 1913 to prevail on his first time out, and Shaun Micheel came from nowhere to prevail at the PGA Championship. How does one moment of glory affect the unsung underdog for years to follow? Feinstein chronicles the champions' ups and downs, giving readers an insider's look into how victory (and defeat) can change players' lives.