As the St. Louis Cardinals battle their archrival Chicago Cubs, we watch from the dugout through the eyes of legendary manager Tony La Russa, considered by many to be the shrewdest mind in the game today. In his twenty-seven years of managing, La Russa has been named Manager of the Year a record-making five times and now stands as the third-winningest baseball manager of all time. A great leader, he's built his success on the conviction that ball games are won not only by the numbers but also by the hearts and minds of those who play.Drawing on unprecedented access to a major league manager and his team, Buzz Bissinger brings a revelatory intimacy to baseball and offers some surprising observations. Bissinger also furthers the debate on major league managerial style and strategy in his provocative new afterword.

    What follows is a rich, nostalgic look at one of our most cherished national pastimes and a remarkable story about fathers and sons, love and family, and the inimitable joy of finding your way home.

    He takes us from Roberto Clemente clinching his 3,000th, and final, regular-season hit in Pittsburgh; to ringside for the Muhammad Ali–George Foreman fight in Zaire; and to Arthur Ashe announcing, at a news conference, that he’d tested positive for HIV. There are also little-known private moments: Joe Morgan whispering thank you to a virtually blind Jackie Robinson on the field at the 1972 World Series, or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar saying he was more interested in being a good man than in being the greatest basketball player.Brimming with colorful vignettes and enlivened by Callahan’s eye for detail, Gods at Play offers surprising portraits of the most celebrated names in sports. Roger Rosenblatt calls Callahan “the most complete sportswriter in America. He knows the most and writes the best."

    Yet no sports hall of fame's membership is so hallowed, nor its qualifications so debated, nor its voting process so dissected.Since its founding in 1936, the Hall of Fame's standards for election have been nebulous, and its selection processes arcane, resulting in confusion among voters, not to mention mistakes in who has been recognized and who has been bypassed. Numerous so-called "greats" have been inducted despite having not been so great, while popular but controversial players such as all-time home run leader Barry Bonds and all-time hits leader Pete Rose are on the outside looking in.Now, in The Cooperstown Casebook, Jay Jaffe shows us how to use his revolutionary ranking system to ensure the right players are recognized. The foundation of Jaffe's approach is his JAWS system, an acronym for the Jaffe WAR Score, which he developed over a decade ago. Through JAWS, each candidate can be objectively compared on the basis of career and peak value to the players at his position who are already in the Hall of Fame. Because of its utility, JAWS has gained an increasing amount of exposure in recent years. Through his analysis, Jaffe shows why the Hall of Fame still matters and how it can remain relevant in the 21st century.

    But there was much more to the story than what happened on that October night. From his family’s battle to escape Cuba and the Castro regime, to the ups and downs of his baseball career, to his battle with testicular cancer, this is the story of a man who overcame every challenge thrown at him to become one of the best third basemen in baseball— and a true role model for his millions of fans.

    The life of a neu­rosurgeon’s wife isn’t much easier. But it’s all been worth it. Together, we’ve been through poverty, tragedy, wealth, and joy, and we’ve had each other’s backs. I love that guy!” —CANDY CARSON Like most Americans, you might think of Ben Carson as a trailblazing brain surgeon and, in the last few years, as an outspoken commentator on national is­sues. But his wife of more than forty years knows him as so much more: a loving husband, a devoted father, a devout Christian, a committed philanthropist, and a fierce patriot. Now Candy Carson introduces us to the private side of a very public figure as she shares the inspiring story of their marriage and their family.  Like her husband, Candy grew up in Detroit, one of five children of a teacher and a factory worker. Also like Ben, she overcame her humble background through determination, hard work, and perseverance, earning a scholarship to attend Yale University. In that strange new world she focused on her studies, her music, and her deepening spiritual life. She attended church with a handsome older student who liked to tease her, but never assumed he would be anything more than a friend to her. But Ben and Candy quickly became inseparable, and they married soon after she graduated, with Ben still in medical school, preparing for his career as a soon-to-be world-famous pediatric neurosurgeon.  In A Doctor in the House, Candy reveals many sto­ries that have never been told before, despite the media spotlight on Dr. Carson in recent years. She shows us what it was like when they moved to Baltimore to join the community centered around Johns Hopkins Hos­pital. She describes how their family evolved with the births of their three sons and the tragic miscarriage of their twins. She talks about the challenges of Ben’s twelve- to twenty-hour workdays, saving thousands of lives every year while Candy ran the household.  She also addresses the prejudice they sometimes faced as African Americans, and how Ben’s calm, levelheaded approach made him a great problem solver at home and in their travels, just as he was in the operating room.  Above all, she reveals her husband’s consistency as a believer: in God, in family, and in America. Having lived the American Dream, Ben believes every child from every background is capable of achieving it. That’s why he and Candy have been committed to educating and inspiring young people and over the past twenty years have awarded more than 6,700 students with scholarships through their Carson Scholars Fund.  A Doctor in the House is a classic American love story—and that story is far from over. As Candy writes, “We don’t know what God has for us next, but we’re ready to follow. . . . As we head forward into the un-known once more, I thank God for putting us together."

    Her words inflamed the passions of sports lovers across the country, and her piece quickly became the newspaper's most e-mailed and talked-about article in the week it ran. The intense reaction of fans forced Heller to look inward, and to re-examine her feelings about winning and losing. Was she a "bandwagon" fan, as some branded her? A traitor? Confessions of a She-Fan is a witty, observant, and decidedly female look at the nature of the bond between fan and team. Jane Heller goes in search of answers. With her husband as her traveling partner, she literally follows the Bronx Bombers through the rest of their challenging 2007 season, hoping to score interviews with the players, watch every game in every city, and inject some excitement into her marriage. Through interactions with other fans, as well as members of the media covering the Yankees, plus game-by-game analyses, Heller learns personal life lessons about competition, loyalty, and acceptance--and about why baseball, like any truly romantic relationship, requires commitment, patience, and a deep, abiding love.

    The son of an Italian immigrant butcher, Lombardi toiled for twenty frustrating years as a high school coach and then as an assistant at Fordham, West Point, and the New York Giants before his big break came at age forty-six with the chance to coach a struggling team in snowbound Wisconsin. His leadership of the Green Bay Packers to five world championships in nine seasons is the most storied period in NFL history. Lombardi became a living legend, a symbol to many of leadership, discipline, perseverance, and teamwork, and to others of an obsession with winning. In When Pride Still Mattered, Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Maraniss captures the myth and the man, football, God, and country in a thrilling biography destined to become an American classic.

    Within two years he's a multimillionaire. The press calls him "King of the Bootleggers," writing breathless stories about the Gatsby-esque events he and his glamorous second wife, Imogene, host at their Cincinnati mansion, with party favors ranging from diamond jewelry for the men to brand new Pontiacs for the women. By the summer of 1921, Remus owns 35 percent of all the liquor in the United States.Pioneering prosecutor Mabel Walker Willebrandt is determined to bring him down. Willebrandt's bosses at the U.S. Attorney's office hired her right out of law school, assuming she'd pose no real threat to the cozy relationship they maintain with Remus. Eager to prove them wrong, she dispatches her best investigator, Franklin Dodge, to look into his empire. It's a decision with deadly consequences: With Remus behind bars, Dodge and Imogene begin an affair and plot to ruin him, sparking a bitter feud that soon reaches the highest levels of government--and that can only end in murder.

    In The Light Between Us, she tells her story of how she struggled with her abilities, and even denied them, for many years. She explains how she ultimately found peace through a scientific understanding of her gift, and discovered that she could help people come to terms with loss. And she shares the deeply affecting lessons she has learned in her work, teaching us what she has come to understand about the universe in order to help us live better lives in the here and now.

    It was a time of unregulated madness. And nowhere was it madder than in Chicago at the dawn of the Roaring Twenties. Speakeasies thrived, gang war shootings announced Al Capone’s rise to underworld domination, Chicago’s corrupt political leaders fraternized with gangsters, and the frenzy of stock market gambling was rampant. Enter a slick, smooth-talking, charismatic lawyer named Leo Koretz, who enticed hundreds of people (who should have known better) to invest as much as $30 million--upwards of $400 million today--in phantom timberland and nonexistent oil wells in Panama. When Leo’s scheme finally collapsed in 1923, he vanished, and the Chicago state’s attorney, a man whose lust for power equaled Leo’s own lust for money, began an international manhunt that lasted almost a year. When finally apprehended, Leo was living a life of luxury in Nova Scotia under the assumed identity of a book dealer and literary critic. His mysterious death in a Chicago prison topped anything in his almost-too-bizarre-to-believe life.Empire of Deception is not only an incredibly rich and detailed account of a man and an era; it’s a fascinating look at the methods of swindlers throughout history. Leo Koretz was the Bernie Madoff of his day, and Dean Jobb shows us that the dream of easy wealth is a timeless commodity.

    . .or after one of my teammates hit me in the nuts with the rosin bag while my eyes were closed.Hilariously self-effacing and brutally honest, Hayhurst captures the absurdities, the grim realities, and the occasional nuggets of hard-won wisdom culled from four seasons in the minors. Whether training tarantulas to protect his room from thieving employees in a backwater hotel, watching the raging battles fought between his partially paralyzed father and his alcoholic brother, or absorbing the gentle mockery of some not-quite-starstruck schoolchildren, Dirk reveals a side of baseball, and life, rarely seen on ESPN.My career has crash-landed on the floor of my grandma's old sewing room. If this is a dream come true, then dreams smell a lot like mothballs and Bengay.Somewhere between Bull Durham and The Rookie, The Bullpen Gospels takes an unforgettable trot around the inglorious base paths of minor league baseball, where an inch separates a ball from a strike, and a razor-thin margin can be the difference between The Show or a long trip home."It's not often that someone comes along who is a good pitcher and a good writer." --King Kaufman, Salon"After many minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years spent in the bullpen, I can verify that this is a true picture of baseball."--Tim McCarver"There are great truths within, of the kind usually unspoken. And as he expresses them, Dirk Hayhurst describes himself as 'a real person who moonlights as a baseball player.' In much the same manner, while The Bullpen Gospels chronicles how all of us face the impact when we learn reality is both far meaner and far richer than our dreams--it also moonlights as one of the best baseball books ever written."--Keith Olbermann"A bit of Jim Bouton, a bit of Jim Brosnan, a bit of Pat Jordan, a bit of crash Davis, and a whole lot of Dirk Hayhurst. Often hilarious, sometimes poignant. This is a really enjoyable baseball read."--Bob Costas"Fascinating. . .a perspective that fans rarely see."--Trevor Hoffman, pitcher for the Milwaukee Brewers "The Bullpen Gospels is a rollicking good bus ride of a book. Hayhurst illuminates a baseball life not only with wit and humor, but also with thought-provoking introspection."--Tom Verducci, Sports Illustrated"Dirk Hayhurst has written a fascinating, funny and honest account on life in the minor leagues. I loved it. Writers can't play baseball, but in this case, a player sure can write."--Tim Kurkjian, Senior Writer, ESPN The Magazine, analyst/reporter ESPN television"Bull Durham meets Ball Four in Dirk Hayhurst's hilarious and moving account of life in baseball's glamour-free bush leagues."--Rob Neyer, ESPN.com"If Holden Caulfield could dial up his fastball to 90 mph, he might have written this funny, touching memoir about a ballplayer at a career--and life--crossroads. He might have called it 'Pitcher in the Rye.' Instead, he left it to Dirk Hayhurst, the only writer in the business who can make you laugh, make you cry and strike out Ryan Howard."--King Kaufman, Salon"The Bullpen Gospels is a funny bone-tickling, tear duct-stimulating, feel-good story that will leave die-hard baseball fans--and die-hard human beings, for that matter--well, feeling good."--Bob Mitchell, author of Once Upon a Fastball Dirk Hayhurst is a part time professional baseball player who enjoys comic books, video games, and a good sugar high. Dirk is a former member of the San Diego Padres, and currently a member of the Toronto Blue Jays where he is temporarily on the disabled list. He makes his home in Twinsburg, Ohio, with his wife Bonnie and their pet garfoose.

    As the beloved, longtime PR director for the New York Mets, he has witnessed and quietly shaped some of the most memorable moments in team history, becoming a trusted friend and mentor to generations of players, from Darryl Strawberry to Jacob deGrom. In this fascinating memoir, Horwitz tells the unlikely story of a childhood dream come true, offering an unparalleled insider's perspective on four dynamic and unpredictable decades of Mets baseball. Featuring reflections and anecdotes only Horwitz can tell, on subjects ranging from clubhouse hijinks to the chaotic New York media scene to navigating moments of greatness and defeat, Mr. Met is a remarkable behind-the-scenes ride that fans will not want to miss.

    Emma cares for them through their perilous first days and when the government decides to remove the babies from their francophone parents, making them wards of the British king, Emma signs on as their nurse.Over 6,000 daily visitors come to ogle the identical “Quints” playing in their custom-built playground; at the height of the Great Depression, the tourism and advertising dollars pour in. While the rest of the world delights in their sameness, Emma sees each girl as unique: Yvonne, Annette, Cécile, Marie, and Émilie. With her quirky eye for detail, Emma records every strange twist of events in her private journals.As the fight over custody and revenues turns increasingly explosive, Emma is torn between the fishbowl sanctuary of Quintland and the wider world, now teetering on the brink of war. Steeped in research, Quintland™ is a novel of love, heartache, resilience, and enduring sisterhood—a fictional, coming-of-age story bound up in one of the strangest true tales of the past century.

    Wow. Too much energy. Wow. Too much anticipation. WOW. It’s the new memoir from the biggest star in gaming: Dr Disrespect.Dr Disrespect is a 6-foot-8 freak of nature with a 37-inch vertical, the two-time, back-to-back 1993-94 Blockbuster Video Game Champion, and in his factual opinion, the most dominant international gaming superstar in the history of the world. It was just a matter of time before Western civilization came begging Doc to save literature by writing a memoir that reads like a vicious, muscular lion clawing his way through the rocks, roaring in anger and dominance. Here you will find his deepest, most intimate secrets. The untold history of his mysterious, legendary origins and his rise to unparalleled dominance. And most of all, you will find out what, exactly, Doc’s a doctor of. Are you ready for a book with the rhythm of a sleazy ’70s muscleman and the ruthlessness of a ’90s serial killer? A journey that stares down the long, dark alley of your fears and never looks back? Does your warrior’s heart yearn to reach the tippity top of the mountain just to realize you’re still only halfway up? If so, firm handshakes, Champion: Welcome to the salvation of literature.