He hits people with pile driver force. Running backs and pass receivers shudder with expectation as the charging free safety crashes into them. Surprisingly, Jack Tatum is a gentle man off the gridiron. Though he loves the combat, he hates the injuries that result, some permanently, and he has been responsible for his share. He also hates the cheap shot. Tatum says enforce the rules...cut down the injuries and allow the game to be played with some degree of civilized behavior. This is the only sport, except for boxing and hockey, where everyone is inevitably injured because the rules don't provide for adequate safety. The classic combat of the gridiron began for Tatum, an under-privileged kid, in Passaic, New Jersey, where he became just about the most celebrated football player that area of the country had every produced. Tatum makes no apologies for his roughness; but he says the wold picture and was strongly moved by the terrible accident which paralyzed Darryl Stingley after Tatum hit him in a pres-season game. In the book, Tatum evaluates the players, especially the quarterbacks, the coaches, his teammates, the fans and the total ambiance of the football experience in a hardhitting colorful style.

    Some of his tales will seem far fetched, unless you're a cop and then you know that anything can happen - and just when you think you've seen it all, someone will surprise you.

    Kilkenny were beaten in that final by Tipperary but Tyrrell’s inner-most thoughts from his diary, both in the lead-up to, and after the game, provide the narrative to a compelling life story. His unique insights paint the picture of a relentless individual and a relentless team – the most successful side in the history of Irish male sport. The intrigue and aura around Kilkenny coach Brian Cody and his players was always heightened because very little ever emerged from the camp, or the dressing room. Now, for the first time, Tyrrell opens a unique window into the elite mindset and attitude which forged such unprecedented success. Tyrrell’s own journey is chronicled with brutal and unwavering honesty. The hurling legend’s constant drive to be a winner with his beloved county have pushed him towards breaking point many times. Tyrrell operates somewhere between obsessed and maniacal. On the pitch, he displayed the ruthless mentality of an assassin but behind it all, he had to conquer crippling self-doubt and fear. It took until his fourth successive All-Ireland final for Tyrrell to believe he had finally arrived as a senior inter-county hurler, going on to become one of the most feared and respected defenders in the game.

    Born in Otley, West Yorkshire, in 1988, Lizzie won her first medal in the Junior World Track Championships in 2005 after being talent spotted at school, before going on to win silver at the 2012 Olympics Games in London. Three years later she was World Road Race Champion and began 2016 as one of the favorites for a medal at the Rio Olympic Games. From the rolling hills of Yorkshire through to the treacherous climbs of the Vista Circuit in Rio de Janeiro - through setbacks, life lessons and ups and downs of a professional life in cycling - Steadfast is an intense and inspiring story of sporting triumph.

    

    At the Tour de France, he has taken the coveted green jersey three times. He spent his teen years winning just about every possible title for his age group at BMX, before discovering road cycling at 18. McEwen soon established himself as one of the foremost road sprinters of his generation. He took his first ever stage win at the Tour de France in the celebrated final stage of the race in 1999, on the Champs Elyseés. But it was between 2002 and 2007 that he had claim to being the fastest sprinter in the world. McEwen is renowned for being a forthright character, a favorite among fans, and respected by his competitors. Few cyclists have ever approached the sport in such a detailed way, and few have been as competitive. He now rides for Lance Armstrong's RadioShack team, still competing at the very highest level.

    In the subsequent twenty years as manager he has transformed the club. English football's longest serving manager has overseen a period of radical change. His experience spans across the spectrum from complex challenges to historic success.The Wenger Revolution chronicles this fascinating era through the combination of distinctive photographs taken from the inner sanctum, and words from Amy Lawrence.This is a stunning photographic journey, based on the images captured by official club photographer Stuart MacFarlane, who has had exclusive access for many years. Publication coincides with the twentieth anniversary of Wenger's arrival in England.The Arsenal he joined bears little resemblance to what the club looks like as we approach 2016. A total renovation in terms of training, stadium, style, economics and a global audience has taken place under Wenger's instruction.His successes illustrate what a sensation he created in English football. He is regarded as a guru of new football methods, getting a club with a traditional English culture to give up drinking, modernize diet, embrace new training methods, and play with a panache that ripped up the stereotype of Boring Arsenal. The Wenger Revolution is worth commemorating, and this book will do so in style.

    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 certainly, by his own admission, a man who leaves nothing to chance. A disciple in the 1970s of Rinus Michels' Total Football philosophy, he is a fascinating contradiction - an ultra-individualist utterly devoted to the collective effort. He believes in the team over the individual, in always having a plan and a team prepared to follow that plan. Van Gaal led the young Ajax team he moulded to Champions League glory in 1995, went on to win titles across Europe with Barcelona, AZ Alkmaar and Bayern Munich and is currently in his second stint as national coach of Holland. It is a career that has never been short on colour and drama - from fallouts with players to rants at the media wherever he has managed. Dutch football commentator Maarten Meijer's has written the definitive biography of Van Gaal - both the man and his methods. It offers the best psychological insight so far - from his earliest roots to his greatest triumphs - into the man given the task of returning the glory days to Manchester United.

    An artist and a showman he was always willing to take the difficult fight: his gruelling encounters with Roberto Duran, Thomas Hearns and Marvin Hagler have become legendary.Ruthlessly honest and inspiring, Ray's autobiography lets you get into the ring - with the mind games, brutality and euphoria. But, outside of the ring, Ray's biggest opponent of all was himself. From early domestic violence and experience of sexual abuse, he began a determined rise to Olympic champion and national icon, before losing control of his life at the height of his career in the blur of fame, sex, greed, drink and drug addiction that cost him so much.The Big Fight is a remarkable portrait of the rise, fall and final redemption of a true fighter in every sense.

    John Arlott and E.W. ('Jim') Swanton transformed the broadcasting of the nation's summer game into a national institution. For any cricket follower in his fifties or older, just the mention of their names immediately evokes a flood of memories.Swanton was born into a middle-class family and privately educated; Arlott was the son of a working-class council employee, educated at state schools until he left at the age of sixteen. Because of their strong personalities and distinctive voices – Swanton's crisp and upper-class, Arlott's with its Hampshire burr – each had a loyal following in the post-war years, when England's class system had a slot for almost everyone. Within a few minutes of the start of a conversation, it would be possible to identify the speaker as an Arlott or a Swanton man.Arlott and Swanton never grew to like each other, but both typified the contrasting aspects of post-war Britain and the way both it and the game they loved was to change. As England moved from a class-based to a more egalitarian society, nothing stayed the same – including professional cricket. Wise, lively and filled with rich social and sporting history, Arlott, Swanton and the Soul of English Cricket shows how these two very different men battled to save the soul of the game as it entered a new era.

    To football fans everywhere, Bill Shankly was far more than just a manager: he was a folk hero whose legend still dominates the game.Shankly took Liverpool FC from Second Division obscurity and helped create the legend that became the Anfield of Keegan, Hughes, Toshack and Heighway. With his impertinent questions, blunt observations and appreciation of life, Bill Shankly's wit, down-to-earth wisdom and sheer determination set a standard that holds good to this day. This full and frank biography tells his larger-than-life story and is an inspiring tribute to one of football's most enduring heroes.

    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.

    Part of one of the most prominent and richest families in America: The du Pont Family. Then, strangely, he started losing his mind. This is what is known: du Pont was a fan of amateur sports and established a wrestling facility at his Foxcatcher Farm. He befriended several Olympic champions--including Dave Schultz, who he murdered. It was a never a question of if he did it; the question is why. What turns an otherwise sane man into a psychotic killer? This page-turning true crime story will take you into the mind of a man who had everything and let it all fall away due to madness and paranoia.

    It offers: • In-depth, insightful essays on all 30 Major League Baseball clubs, with no-holds-barred evaluations of at least 50 players per organization • Baseball Prospectus’s exclusive (and deadly accurate) PECOTA projection system, forecasting the chances that a player will break out, improve, or collapse • In-depth features on the true costs of injuries, adventures in win expectancy, the limitations of statistical analysis—plus all our stats explained! The Baseball Prospectus team of cutting-edge analysts includes Mark Armour, Andrew Baharlias, Jim Baker, James Click, Clifford J. Corcoran, Clay Davenport, John Erhardt, Gary Gillette, Steven Goldman, Thomas Gorman, Gary Huckabay, Jay Jaffe, Rany Jazayerli, Christina Kahrl, Jonah Keri, Mark McClusky, Dave Pease, Dayn Perry, Nate Silver, and Keith Woolner. Check out www.baseballprospectus.com for year-round baseball coverage.