Within these pages, the celebrated Washington Post columnist, Pardon the Interruption cohost, and ESPN radio personality relates his experience as an OnStar user, the proud new owner of the Ronco Showtime Rotisserie & BBQ, and a “phone-a-friend” on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. And in between, he dishes political commentary on Monica and Bill and George W. and Al. New for the paperback edition is Tony’s final Washington Post Style column. So read all about his quest to fit into size 36 Dockers and his struggle to buy holiday gifts. And know that in the process you’re handing this Kornheiser guy way too much dough for these columns.

    A tape measure. A lottery ticket.These were in the pocket of Bengie Molina’s father when he died of a heart attack on the rutted Little League field in his Puerto Rican barrio. The items serve as thematic guideposts in Molina’s beautiful memoir about his father, who through baseball taught his three sons about loyalty, humility, courage, and the true meaning of success.Bengie and his two brothers—Jose and six-time All-Star Yadier—became famous catchers in the Major Leagues and have six World Series championships among them. Only the DiMaggio brothers can rival the Molinas as the most accomplished siblings in baseball history.Bengie was the least likely to reach the Majors. He was too slow, too sensitive, and too small. But craving his beloved father’s respect, Bengie weathered failure after deflating failure until one day he was hoisting a World Series trophy in a champagne-soaked clubhouse. All along he thought he was fulfilling his father’s own failed dream of baseball glory—only to discover it had not been his father’s dream at all.Written with the emotional power of sports classics such as Field of Dreams and Friday Night Lights, Molina is a love story between a formidable but flawed father and a son who, in unearthing answers about his father’s life, comes to understand his own.

    This insider's view of the humorous and bizarre journey of a World Series champion pitcher turned color commentator will delight Pirates and baseball fans alike. Recounting his first years in the Major Leagues and his battle with the baffling condition that would ultimately bear his own name, Steve Blass tells the story of his life on and off the field with a poignant, dazzling wit and shares the life of a baseball player who had the prime of his career cut short.

    Over three decades, his affliction has spawned immeasurable chaos, destruction and debauched good times. While his rivals have graced the covers of Spin and Rolling Stone, Shubaly's projects inevitably flame out in the eleventh hour. Is he finally ready to give up his lifelong dream for good?

    But it happens every game. Baseball’s rules, it seems, were made to be broken. And they are, by the players, the front office, and even sometimes the fans. Like it or not, cheating has been an integral part of America’s favorite pastime since its inception. The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball will show you how cheating is really done. In this lively tour through baseball’s underhanded history, readers will learn how to cork a bat, steal signs, hurl a spitball, throw a World Series, and win at any cost!They’ll also see the dirty little secrets of the game’s greatest manipulators: John McGraw and Ty Cobb; Billy Martin and Gaylord Perry; Graig Nettles and Sammy Sosa; and, yes, even Barry Bonds. They’ll find out how the Cleveland Indians doctored their basepaths to give new meaning to the term home field advantage. They’ll delight in a hilarious examination of the Black Sox scandal, baseball’s original sin. And, in the end, they’ll come to understand that cheating is as much a part of baseball as pine tar and pinch hitters. And it’s here to stay.

    But not just one head coach. A composite portrait is drawn through interviews with at least 20 current and former head coaches (including Super Bowl winners such as Bill Parcells, Tom Coughlin, Jimmy Johnson, Tony Dungy, Sean Payton, Mike Shanahan, Dick Vermeil, Mike Holmgren, Brian Billick, and Joe Gibbs), taking us through the professional and personal challenges of the job. This book covers the draft, free agency, big trades, training camp, family crisis, player troubles, coaching relationships with members of the staff, coach-owner dynamics, rivalries, Xs and Os, the playoffs--all the way to the Super Bowl.      Just getting to Sunday is almost a relief for NFL head coaches. It's during that three-hour window 16 days a year when they can simply concentrate on what they do best, which is trying to win football games. But the job is, of course, much more than that.

    Jerry Remy's name and face are already known to millions of fans. Every night during the baseball season, 400,000 or more households tune in to listen to his broadcast of the Red Sox game. But fans learned to love him years ago, when he was traded to the Red Sox in 1978, earning a trip to the All-Star Game in his first year with the team; Remy hit .278, scored eighty-seven runs, and stole thirty bases. Injured in 1984, Remy never played another game. In 1988, he began his work as an announcer, working color commentary for Red Sox broadcasts on NESN, which is a basic cable channel throughout New England and available by satellite across the country. He covers more than 150 games per season for NESN and broadcast television, plus regular assignments on the national Fox Game of the Week. But the best part of Jerry Remy is his easy style: listeners feel like they're having a beer with a friend while they're watching the game.If spectators just follow the ball, they are missing much of the game. Baseball is a lot more complex than that. Everyone talks about second-guessing the manager; and there's a lot of fun in that for everyone except the manager. Those opinions can be heard all day on the sports talk shows and read in the newspaper columns. But if the people are really going to get into the game, they need to start first-guessing. That's what this book is all about.

    They discuss organizational sports and why white youngsters aren’t out there playing the game like they used to; the college game as compared to the pros; coaches, good and bad; and why the quarterback position is the most difficult one in all of sports.This is the story of Peyton's dizzying rise to the elite of the NFL, and the story of his father, himself a #1 draft pick for the New Orleans Saints in 1971, who harkens back to a time when football and gallantry were one and the same. Archie helps guide Peyton through the money, the endorsements, and the everyday life in the NFL. Meanwhile, Archie’s youngest son, Eli, picks up the gauntlet as he begins playing quarterback for Archie's alma mater, Ole Miss.MANNING is a truly personal and inspiring story of a family, a tradition and a legacy, providing a stirring multigenerational — and at times controversial — look at football over the past 50 years.

    It began, in 1979, as a mad idea of starting a cable channel to televise local sporting events throughout the state of Connecticut. Today, ESPN is arguably the most successful network in modern television history, spanning eight channels in the Unites States and around the world. But the inside story of its rise has never been fully told-until now. Drawing upon over 500 interviews with the greatest names in ESPN's history and an All-Star collection of some of the world's finest athletes, bestselling authors James Miller and Tom Shales take us behind the cameras. Now, in their own words, the men and women who made ESPN great reveal the secrets behind its success-as well as the many scandals, rivalries, off-screen battles and triumphs that have accompanied that ascent. From the unknown producers and business visionaries to the most famous faces on television, it's all here.

    A huge and awesome legend who leaps and spins and shoots players with an index finger while screaming OUTOUTOUT!!! Now baseball's flamboyant fan-on-the-field comes out from behind the mask to call the game as he really sees it.

    Brett wildly charged out of the dugout and chaos ensued. The call temporarily cost the Royals the game, but the decision was eventually overturned, resulting in a resumption of the game several weeks later that created its own hysteria.The Pine Tar Game chronicles this watershed moment, marking a pivot in the sport, when benign cheating tactics, like spitballs, Superball bats, and a couple extra inches of tar on an ash bat, gave way to era of soaring salaries, labor struggles, and rampant use of performance-enhancing drugs. Filip Bondy paints a portrait of the Yankees and Royals of that era, featuring two diametrically opposed owners, in George Steinbrenner and Ewing Kauffman; a host of bad actors and phenomenal athletes; and lots of yelling. Players and club officials like Brett, Goose Gossage, Willie Randolph, Ron Guidry, Sparky Lyle, David Cone, and John Schuerholz offer fresh commentary on the events along with their take on a rivalry that culminated in one of the most iconic baseball tantrums of all time. Rush Limbaugh, employed by the Royals at the time as a promotions director, offers his own insider’s perspective. Through this one fateful game, the ensuing protest, and ultimate fallout, The Pine Tar Game examines a more innocent time in professional sports, as well as the shifting tide that gave us today’s modern iteration of baseball.

    But few of us ever put those hopes to the test. In Year of the Dunk, Asher Price does, and he seizes on basketball’s slam dunk--a feat richly freighted with distinctly American themes of culture, race, and upward mobility--as a gauge to determine his own hidden potential. The showmanship of the dunk mesmerized Asher as a child, but even with his height (six foot plus) and impressive wingspan, he never pushed himself to try it. Now, approaching middle age, Asher decides to spend a year remaking his body and testing his mind as he wonders, like most adults, what untapped talent he still possesses.   In this humorous and often poignant journey into the pleasures and perils of exertion, Asher introduces us to a memorable cast of characters who help him understand the complexity of the human body and the individual drama at the heart of sports. Along the way he dives into the history and science of one of sports' most exuberant acts, examining everything from our genetic predisposition towards jumping to the cultural role of the slam dunk. The year-long effort forces him to ask some fundamental questions about human ability and the degree to which we can actually improve ourselves, even with great determination.

    Freddie really knew how to antagonize the fans -- how to "get heat." Death threats were frequent, enraged fans stabbed him twenty-one times, and he was even doused with acid. Undeterred, Blassie just took the action up a level. He reveled in being the heel. It was commonplace to see him biting his opponents and then spitting out their blood. Blassie would routinely "file" his teeth during interviews. His matches in Los Angeles' Olympic Stadium brought him to the attention of Hollywood. Freddie's style and unpredictability made him a natural for the medium, and he became one of the biggest draws in the wrestling business. In the early '60s, he was invited to wrestle in Japan. Blassie both horrified and mesmerized sedate Japanese society. At seventeen, Freddie made his wrestling debut in a carnival. Unhappy with his choice of occupation, his family persuaded him to get a "real" job, and for a while he worked as a meatcutter. But after serving in the Navy in World War II, Freddie returned to wrestling. Here he picked up his catch phrase: "pencil neck geek." Early in his career, Blassie wrestled for Jess McMahon, and would later work for both his son, Vincent James McMahon, and his grandson, Vincent Kennedy McMahon, the current owner of World Wrestling Entertainment. ™ When his days in the ring ended, "Classy" Freddie Blassie became the manager of heels, transferring to a whole new generation of wrestlers the style, moves, and ring knowledge that had made him a legend of wrestling. Released just prior to his death, Legends of Wrestling: "Classy" Freddie Blassie contains vibrant tales of his days in wrestling with the likes of Hulk Hogan, Killer Kowalski, and the Iron Sheik. He frankly chronicles his dealings with the wrestling fraternity and the promoters, even recounting the infamous "boxer vs. wrestler" match with Muhammad Ali, who was managed by Blassie. His out-of-the-ring stories are equally compelling. Freddie details his countless sexual exploits, and his three marriages. He reflects on the cult status that he gained after his song "Pencil Neck Geek" rocketed to the top of the Dr. Demento Show play list. He recounts his touching relationship with comedian Andy Kaufman, who cast him in Breakfast with Blassie -- an underground classic in which Blassie uttered: "What the hell ever happened to the human race?" Added to this edition is an epilogue, recounting Freddie's last days and his unforgettable funeral.

    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.

    This text presents an account of the epic Baseball World Series in 1966 between the celebrated Los Angeles Dodgers and the perennial underdog Baltimore Orioles.