But how about Alex Rodriguez, Jeter's teammate, former American League MVP, and probable future Hall of Famer? Many would argue he's even better than Jeter. And what about Jeter's seemingly unassailable status as one of the greatest Yankees of all time? Such discussions highlight one of the great joys of being a baseball fan: arguing over who's really great and who falls just short, who doesn't get the respect he deserves and who gets too much. In other words, who's overrated and who's underrated. In The Stark Truth, baseball analyst, writer, and researcher Jayson Stark of ESPN considers the entire history of professional baseball and picks the most overblown and underappreciated players in the history of the game. His results, based on extensive research using both traditional and more modern methods of evaluating baseball players and performance, are provocative, entertaining, and go a long way toward settling many of baseball's most persistent debates. No book can hope to settle every baseball argument, but The Stark Truth: The Most Overrated and Underrated Players in Baseball History takes one of baseball's most enduring debates and provides some compelling and stunning clarity.

    Perry Groves spent over a decade in the footballing spotlight. Sometimes he was at the top, often he was at the bottom and that's half the reason the fans loved him so much--and still do. This is the most truthful and hilarious book about professional football you will ever read. Perry Groves was the first signing by the legendary Arsenal manager George Graham, and that unmistakeable figure with his Tin-Tin haircut and cheeky grin was a player in one of the Gunners' greatest sides. Now he has decided to tell all about his rollercoaster years of booze binges, girl-chasing and gambling sprees. He's a nonstop fund of of hilarious anecdotes, recounting top-flight games played with a hangover, 125 mph motorway chases with international stars, visits to a brothel with an England World Cup hero and revealing how one drunken escapade ended with a group of internationals beting questioned over an attempted murder charge. This is a unique chance to find out what top-flight footballers really get up to off the field and how they behave when the dressing room door is closed.

    

    Book by Meltzer, Dave

    Sort of. As the back-up for several legendary goalies, he saw everything - except much playing time. In this book, McLennan looks back on his career, from breaking into the NHL, to working with the legends, to life on the road and in the league.

    Among them is Sir Bradley Wiggins – a man uniquely placed to reflect on the history of this remarkable sport and its unforgettable titans.In Icons, Wiggins takes the reader on an extraordinarily intimate journey through the sport, presenting key pieces from his never-before-seen collection of memorabilia. Over the course of his illustrious career, he amassed hundreds of items – often gifts from its greatest and most controversial figures. Each reflects an icon, a race or a moment that fundamentally influenced Wiggins on both a personal and professional level.By exploring the lives and achievements of 21 of the sport’s key figures – among them Fausto Coppi, Jacques Anquetil, Miguel Induráin and Tom Simpson – Wiggins sheds new light on what professional cycling demands of its best competitors. Icons lauds their triumphs, elucidates their demons and sheds light on the philosophy and psychology that comprise the unique mindset of a cycling champion.

    

    Opening up about the toll that chasing and achieving his dream of being a champion golfer took on his mental health, Bubba Watson shares his powerful story of the breaking point that gave him clarity.Bubba Watson is known as the big-hitting left-handed golfer who plays with the pink driver--the small-town kid who grew up as a child golf prodigy before going on to win two Masters Tournaments, competing in the Olympics, and rising to be the number two golfer in the world.But every dream comes with a price. Feeling that he was never good enough, Bubba began to let the constant criticism from fans and commentators haunt his thoughts. Success in the game he loved was killing him.In Up and Down, Bubba opens up about his debilitating anxiety attacks, the death of his father and namesake, adopting his children, and how reaching a breaking point professionally and personally drew him closer to his family and God.Golf is what Bubba Watson does, but it is not who he is. Through his story, you'll learn how Bubba:Overcame his anxiety and feelings of inadequacyFound his true identity not in the standards of the world, but in the God who already knows he is enoughLearned to trust God with his gifts, family, and biggest dreamsBecame the husband, father, friend, and mentor he was called to beLife, like golf, is filled with ups and downs. Up and Down is the inspiring story of an imperfect man striving to become the best person he can be--wherever the course may take him.

    His passion for the game is at the fore on the BBC 's number one cricket podcast and 5Live show, Tailenders, which he co-presents with Greg James and Jimmy Anderson. It's Always Summer Somewhere is his funny, heartbreaking and endlessly engaging love letter to the game.Felix takes us through his life growing up in South West London and describes how his story is forever punctuated and given meaning by cricket. Through his own exploits as a slow left arm spinner of 'lovely loopy stuff', to the tragic illness of his mother, life with The Maccabees and his cricket redemption, Felix touches on both the comedic and the tragic in equal measure. Throughout, there's the ever-present roller coaster of following the England cricket team. The exploits of Tufnell (another bowler of 'lovely loopy stuff'), Atherton, Hussain et al, are given extra import through the eyes of a cricket-obsessed youth. Felix meets them at each signposted moment to find out what was really behind those moments that gave cricket fans everywhere sporting memories that would last forever, sending the book into an exploration of grief, transgenerational displacement and how the people we've known and things we've loved culminate and take expression in our lives. It's Always Summer Somewhere is an incredibly honest detail of a life lived with cricket. It offers a sense of genuine empathy and understanding not just with cricket fans, but sports and music fans across the world, in articulating our reasons for pouring so much meaning into something that we simply cannot control.Culminating in the heart-stopping World Cup Final in 2019, the book finally answers that question fans have so often asked...what is it about this game?

    In his car were the drugs the team needed if they were to have any chance of playing a competitive part in the 1998 Tour de France. The car was searched, he was immediately arrested and so the story that has been undermining the sport of cycling since the death of Tommy Simpson in 1967, finally broke. Imprisoned for sixteen days, sacked from the Festina team and ostracised from the sport to which he had dedicated his life, Willy Voet at last was able to tell the truth. His sensational story will change cycling forever.Cocaine, amphetamines, EPO, heroin - all these are now considered not optional but necessary, not to win but just to compete in the Tour de France. Details of how these drugs are obtained, mixed together to make cocktails, administered and concealed are all included in this graphic and uninhibited account of how drugs brought cycling to its knees.

    Though competing against one another for the flying assignments of their dreams, like the fearsome F-15 and F-16 fighters, a good mission sometimes takes a backseat to a good party or punch line in this classroom of cut-ups. The high stakes, however, loom over Lt. Wright. In a program where one out of three students fails, not everybody who starts UPT will finish it. And not everybody who does finish will get a desirable flying assignment. Some won’t even escape the Columbus Air Force Base. Will Lt. Wright get his dream assignment flying a C-141 cargo plane based out of beachside Charleston, South Carolina? Or be forced to perpetuate the If you ain’t a pilot… system as the dreaded FAIP (First Assignment Instructor Pilot) in Columbus, Mississippi? Though a military memoir, IF YOU AIN’T A PILOT… is a story of youthful innocence, a happy tale of the best of friends. Beneath the story’s surface layer of how an Air Force officer’s aeronautical rating determines his worth, similar thematic layers unfold around gender, race, and other ways people define each other. At its core, this story is about people, our relationships, and how we choose to treat each other. While 30 years have passed since the memoir’s events—and our aircraft, our enemy, and our pop-culture ties have changed—we still struggle with our differences. IF YOU AIN’T A PILOT taps into the mystic of Top Gun, the satirical wryness of Candide and Catch-22, and the allure of the air-travel genre captured by Mark Vanhoenacker’s recent Skyfaring: A Journey with a Pilot (2015), Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff, and James Salter’s The Hunters. Set at the end of the Cold War in the heart of Dixie, IF YOU AIN’T A PILOT…crosses Top Gun adrenaline with Pee-Wee’s Playhouse antics at a flight training base where Air Force idealism collides with Deep South heritage. Complete at 142,000 words, this comedic memoir written for a general audience charts the year when a newly commissioned officer is challenged not only by flight school but also by the Air Force dictum If you ain’t a pilot, you ain’t $#!+. That said, the primary mission for IF YOU AIN’T A PILOT...is to make readers laugh. While the story is written for a non-military audience, military pilots, civilian pilots, and any person who ever dreamed about flying as a kid will love IF YOU AIN’T A PILOT….

    The complex and troubled relationship with discipline, alcohol and authority during his exhilarating cricket career. The search for an authentic voice as a player, free from the blandness and conformity of modern professionalism. Is Flintoff the last of his kind, in any sport?Through all his highs and lows, triumphs and reversals, this book reveals a central tension. There is 'Fred' - performer, extrovert, centre of attention. Then there is 'Andrew' - reflective, withdrawn and uncertain. Two people contained in one extraordinary life. And sometimes, inevitably, keeping the two in balance proves too much.We are taken backstage, seeing the mischief and adventure that has defined Andrew Flintoff's story. Above all, we observe the enduring power of fun, friendship and loyalty - the pillars of Flintoff's career. At ease with his faults as well as his gifts, Andrew Flintoff has sought one thing, even more than success: to be himself.

    Now the true inside story of the sports agent business is exposed as never before.During baseball's evolution from national pastime to a $3.6 billion business, the game's agents have played a pivotal role in driving and (some might say) ruining the sport. In a world of unchecked egos and minimal regulation, client-stealing and financial inducements have become commonplace, leading many to label the field a cesspool, devoid of loyalties and filled with predators.Matt Sosnick entered these shark-infested waters in 1997, leaving a job as CEO of a San Francisco high-tech company to represent ballplayers--and hoping to do so while keeping his romantic love of baseball and his integrity intact. License to Deal follows Sosnick as he deals with his up-and-coming clients (his most famous is the 2003 rookie-of-the-year pitching sensation Dontrelle Willis). We become privy to never-before-disclosed stories behind the rise of baseball's most powerful agent, Scott Boras. And we get a novel perspective on the art of the deal and the economics of baseball.By one of baseball's most respected sportswriters, who is now ESPN.com's lead Insider baseball reporter, License to Deal, like Michael Lewis's bestselling Moneyball, will provide fuel for many a heated baseball discussion.

    All the ten year old Bowden knew about golf was that it was a stupid game that took up too much of his father’s time, and that he’d much rather kick around a soccer ball or stay home and read a book. But all that changed once Bowden’s father, a renowned local doctor, introduced him to one of his patients, Freddie Bennett, the legendary Augusta National caddie master. Though Bowden was a white child of considerable privilege and Bennett was an older black gentleman of more modest means, the two formed an unusual bond. It was Bennett who introduced Bowden to the game of golf, a sport that would one day earn him a Division 1 golf scholarship and lead him to the final stage of a British Open qualifier. But it was the lessons Bennett taught the young Bowden off the course that had their profoundest impact on his life. Through Freddie and his particular brand of homespun wisdom, the author learned invaluable lessons about personal responsibility, hard work, and respect for others regardless of age, race or religion. He also learned that there’s much more to life than just playing golf. Like the bestsellers Tuesdays With Morrie and Seasons of Life before it, Freddie & Me is a heartwarming tale of two unlikely friends and their uncommon bond forged through sport.

    His goal: play a round of golf in each of the lower forty-eight states. From a gritty municipal course in Flint, Michigan, to rubbing elbows with Phil Mickelson at Quail Hollow, Dylan would spend a remarkable year exploring the astonishing variety of the nation’s golf courses—and its people. Over one year, thirty-five thousand miles, and countless nights alone in his dusty Subaru, Dylan showered at truck stops, slept with an ax under his seat, and lost his virginity, traveling “wherever the road took him, with golf as a vehicle for understanding America” (The New York Times). The result is a book that “would be considered fine work by any writer, let alone one so young” (Maine Edge).