Book picks similar to
Stumbling on Wins: Two Economists Expose the Pitfalls on the Road to Victory in Professional Sports by David J. Berri
sports
economics
non-fiction
statistics
Mourinho
José Mourinho - 2014
In the legendary manager's very first book, and in his own images and captions, Jose Mourinho charts the peaks and troughs of the opening fifteen years of what has been a stellar rise to the summit of the global game.Through more than 120 personally selected images (some of which are exclusive to the book), fans will relish an intimate and unmissable opportunity to understand and further appreciate this giant of the sport.
The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires
Tim Wu - 2010
With all our media now traveling a single network, an unprecedented potential is building for centralized control over what Americans see and hear. Could history repeat itself with the next industrial consolidation? Could the Internet—the entire flow of American information—come to be ruled by one corporate leviathan in possession of “the master switch”? That is the big question of Tim Wu’s pathbreaking book.As Wu’s sweeping history shows, each of the new media of the twentieth century—radio, telephone, television, and film—was born free and open. Each invited unrestricted use and enterprising experiment until some would-be mogul battled his way to total domination. Here are stories of an uncommon will to power, the power over information: Adolph Zukor, who took a technology once used as commonly as YouTube is today and made it the exclusive prerogative of a kingdom called Hollywood . . . NBC’s founder, David Sarnoff, who, to save his broadcast empire from disruptive visionaries, bullied one inventor (of electronic television) into alcoholic despair and another (this one of FM radio, and his boyhood friend) into suicide . . . And foremost, Theodore Vail, founder of the Bell System, the greatest information empire of all time, and a capitalist whose faith in Soviet-style central planning set the course of every information industry thereafter.Explaining how invention begets industry and industry begets empire—a progress often blessed by government, typically with stifling consequences for free expression and technical innovation alike—Wu identifies a time-honored pattern in the maneuvers of today’s great information powers: Apple, Google, and an eerily resurgent AT&T. A battle royal looms for the Internet’s future, and with almost every aspect of our lives now dependent on that network, this is one war we dare not tune out.Part industrial exposé, part meditation on what freedom requires in the information age, The Master Switch is a stirring illumination of a drama that has played out over decades in the shadows of our national life and now culminates with terrifying implications for our future.
Of Mikes and Men: A Lifetime of Braves Baseball
Pete Van Wieren - 2010
Pete Van Wieren’s legacy began in 1976, when he and a young Skip Caray were hired to call Atlanta Braves games. During the next three decades, "the Professor" and Caray became the voices of a team known nationwide as America's Team courtesy of Ted Turner's SuperStation TBS. In this heartfelt autobiography, Van Wieren shares his memories of thrilling moments in Braves history, such as the 1995 season when the Braves won the world championship; the pitching mastery of Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and John Smoltz; the heartbreak of the 1996 World Series loss to the Yankees; and Atlanta's unprecedented run of 14 consecutive division titles.
The Only Guide You'll Ever Need for the Right Financial Plan: Managing Your Wealth, Risk, and Investments
Larry E. Swedroe - 2010
The Only Guide You'll Ever Need for the Right Financial Plan focuses on the art of investing and gives you the information you need to create a strategy that is tailor-made for your particular situation.Designed for savvy investors and professional advisors, this book offers the vital information needed for developing and implementing an overall strategic financial plan. In this essential resource, Swedroe outlines the basics in asset allocation and other investment planning concepts.Addresses how you can design an investment policy statement and an individual asset allocation plan Examines how to maintain your portfolio's risk profile in the most cost-effective and tax-efficient manner Offers insights on integrating risk management and estate planning issues into your plan The Only Guide You'll Ever Need for the Right Financial Plan offers a handy tool to help you make more informed and prudent decisions that will go a long way to ensure a secure financial future.
Fearless: How Leicester City Shook the Premier League, and What it Means for Sport
Jonathan Northcroft - 2016
Out on the pitch a lone brass player sounds the haunting Post Horn Gallop, for 80 years the home players' entrance tune. Spines tingle. Air is gulped into opposition lungs. Game time, time to begin the chase. Burning fox eyes peer down from between the decks of one of the stands. On the stadium's outside wall a royal blue LCD display says #Fearless.Welcome to Leicester City. They were always a club with a difference but in 2015-16 they created a story that in modern football stands unique. Who could believe it: from relegation certainties to champions of England? It was when, on behalf of every small club, dreams were hunted at the King Power, a season where the impossible became merely quarry.5,000-1 shots when the campaign started, Leicester's transformation has been remarkable. This is the most incredible cast of written-offs, grafters, misfits and journeymen, coming together in a special time and place to simultaneously have the season of their lives. Fearless will document Leicester's hunt of their impossible dream. It will tell the greatest football tale of the Premier League era, in loving detail, with the inside track. Now that Leicester have gone all the way and won the title, it is the best story in world sports - for years.Premier League champions. The side who'd been adrift at the bottom 12 months previously, who's started the season as relegation favourites, whose manager was favourite to be the first one sacked once the campaign got underway. A League One side only seven seasons previously. A squad of �500,000 and �1m men. Leicester. Ridiculous. Miraculous. Fearless.
A Drive into the Gap
Kevin Guilfoile - 2012
About fathers and sons. It’s about memory and identity, and an insidious illness that can rob a person of both.It’s also a detective story, an investigation into the improbable journey of a baseball bat from one of the most iconic moments in baseball history to a 12-year-old boy’s bedroom.
The Quants: How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It
Scott Patterson - 2010
They were preparing to compete in a poker tournament with million-dollar stakes, but those numbers meant nothing to them. They were accustomed to risking billions. At the card table that night was Peter Muller, an eccentric, whip-smart whiz kid who’d studied theoretical mathematics at Princeton and now managed a fabulously successful hedge fund called PDT…when he wasn’t playing his keyboard for morning commuters on the New York subway. With him was Ken Griffin, who as an undergraduate trading convertible bonds out of his Harvard dorm room had outsmarted the Wall Street pros and made money in one of the worst bear markets of all time. Now he was the tough-as-nails head of Citadel Investment Group, one of the most powerful money machines on earth. There too were Cliff Asness, the sharp-tongued, mercurial founder of the hedge fund AQR, a man as famous for his computer-smashing rages as for his brilliance, and Boaz Weinstein, chess life-master and king of the credit default swap, who while juggling $30 billion worth of positions for Deutsche Bank found time for frequent visits to Las Vegas with the famed MIT card-counting team. On that night in 2006, these four men and their cohorts were the new kings of Wall Street. Muller, Griffin, Asness, and Weinstein were among the best and brightest of a new breed, the quants. Over the prior twenty years, this species of math whiz --technocrats who make billions not with gut calls or fundamental analysis but with formulas and high-speed computers-- had usurped the testosterone-fueled, kill-or-be-killed risk-takers who’d long been the alpha males the world’s largest casino. The quants believed that a dizzying, indecipherable-to-mere-mortals cocktail of differential calculus, quantum physics, and advanced geometry held the key to reaping riches from the financial markets. And they helped create a digitized money-trading machine that could shift billions around the globe with the click of a mouse. Few realized that night, though, that in creating this unprecedented machine, men like Muller, Griffin, Asness and Weinstein had sowed the seeds for history’s greatest financial disaster. Drawing on unprecedented access to these four number-crunching titans, The Quants tells the inside story of what they thought and felt in the days and weeks when they helplessly watched much of their net worth vaporize – and wondered just how their mind-bending formulas and genius-level IQ’s had led them so wrong, so fast. Had their years of success been dumb luck, fool’s gold, a good run that could come to an end on any given day? What if The Truth they sought -- the secret of the markets -- wasn’t knowable? Worse, what if there wasn’t any Truth? In The Quants, Scott Patterson tells the story not just of these men, but of Jim Simons, the reclusive founder of the most successful hedge fund in history; Aaron Brown, the quant who used his math skills to humiliate Wall Street’s old guard at their trademark game of Liar’s Poker, and years later found himself with a front-row seat to the rapid emergence of mortgage-backed securities; and gadflies and dissenters such as Paul Wilmott, Nassim Taleb, and Benoit Mandelbrot. With the immediacy of today’s NASDAQ close and the timeless power of a Greek tragedy, The Quants is at once a masterpiece of explanatory journalism, a gripping tale of ambition and hubris…and an ominous warning about Wall Street’s future.
The Title: The Story of the First Division
Scott Murray - 2017
They may even have a point. But to build something so successful, so popular, so inescapable, you've got to have mighty strong foundations.Prior to 1992, the old First Division was England's premier prize. Its rich tapestry winds back to 1888 and the formation of the Football League. A grand century-long tradition in danger of being lost in the wake of Premier League year zero.No more! In The Title Scott Murray tells the lively, cherry-picked story of English football through the prism of the First Division. Rich with humour yet underpinned with solid research, this is a glorious meander across our national sport's varied terrain.With as much about Burnley, Wolves, West Brom and Portsmouth as the likes of Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United, we learn the less well-known stories the sport has to tell, such as the plight of Glossop, the smallest club to ever play top-flight football, and final day drama involving Huddersfield and Cardiff that knocks Michael Thomas into a cocked hat. We bask in the managerial genius of Tom Watson, the bowler-hatted Victorian Mourinho; celebrate the joy of the Busby Babes; discover the shameless showmanship of George Allison; embark on righteous escapades with Hughie Gallacher; and meet some old favourites in Don Revie, Bill Shankly, Alex Ferguson and Brian Clough.At turns exciting, surprising, witty and bittersweet, The Title is a highly informed, fresh and affectionate love-letter to the English game, and a delight for any football fan.
Effective Cycling
John Forester - 1984
The core of John Forester's concept of Effective Cycling is thatbicyclists fare best when they act, and are treated in return, as drivers ofvehicles, with the same rights and responsibilities that motorists have.In this newedition of his classic introductory work, Forester reasserts this idea in terms ofpractice and education as well as theory while also addressing--among much else--thetwo major forces that have shaped bicycling since the early 1980s: the proliferationof high-quality equipment and the seriously insufficient progress on the social, political, and psychological fronts.The book is filled with details, strategies, andtips that will be useful both to occasional cyclists and to those who enjoy cyclingas a way of life--all drawn from the author's many years of experience as a cyclist, a Cycling Transportation Engineer, and the founder of the Effective CyclingProgram.
Coaching the Mental Game: Leadership Philosophies and Strategies for Peak Performance in Sports--And Everyday Life
H.A. Dorfman - 2001
Author H.A. Dorfman details appropriate coaching strategies aimed at perfecting the player's mental approach to performance. Coaching the Mental Game will become the Bible for coaches who strive to make their athletes the most complete performers possible. Not only a wonderful asset to athletic coaches, this book will also prove to be a motivational resource for workers in all industries as well as in the game of life.
Robbie Fowler: My Life In Football: Goals, Glory & The Lessons I've Learnt
Robbie Fowler - 2019
He is the sixth-highest goal scorer in the history of the Premier League and notched 183 goals for Liverpool alone.But before all of that, he was a Liverpool lad who loved the game, the Kop and everything that came with it. My Life In Football is the story of a boy who became a legend.Born in Liverpool in 1975, Robbie Fowler became a club icon by the time he was 18. Now, he takes us through the games that have shaped his life and football philosophy, over 25 years after he first signed as a professional for Liverpool.Engaging, personal and revealing, Robbie opens up about his astounding achievements, the price of fame and the regrets and struggles of being a professional footballer. From Hillsborough to Madrid, via the cup treble, that goal line celebration, hundreds of goals, Houllier, Benítez, Klopp and more, Robbie explains his thinking about the modern game. Inviting readers inside the dressing room, he shares stories of legendary teammates like Rush, Owen and Gerrard, as well as his rise to football's top table. How did he get back up so many times after the injuries that blighted his career? What gave him the drive to keep going and pursue his dreams?Robbie's My Life In Football harks back to a simpler time when fans and players shared the same story, and when the local boy really could dream of scoring a hat-trick for his home club when Saturday came.
Venus Envy: A Sensational Season Inside the Women's Tennis Tour
L. Jon Wertheim - 2001
They are the stars of professional tennis -- the young, brash, and often reckless women who hold court, and serve.The last several years have seen such a seismic explosion in women's tennis that you might be surprised to learn there's still a men's game. Fans flock to the high-voltage matches, which come packaged with tales of infighting, family squabbles, and, of course, Anna Kournikova's micro-miniskirts. In Venus Envy, Sports Illustrated investigative reporter and tennis columnist L. Jon Wertheim draws back the curtain on the soap opera that is the women's professional tennis tour, with its primal plotlines driven by ambition, sex, and revenge.Here are the stories behind the stories: the tragic Garbo-like star who whiles away hours in a midwestern hotel room because she's afraid to go outdoors; the teenager who tries to cope with the pressure of the big time as well as an abusive father; the brilliant number one who plays out her adolescent tantrums on the public stage; the coquette who launched a thousand Web sites; and a little-understood African-American family who proved that they could play by their own rules and still win the game -- not to mention the endorsements.The biggest story in sports in 2000 was Venus Williams. Forced to the sidelines for the early months by injuries to both her wrists and her psyche, she stormed back to win Wimbledon, the U.S. Open, and two Olympic gold medals. Not since the glory days of Martina Navratilova -- and the historic days of Althea Gibson -- has women's tennis seen such a dominant champion with the rare combination of athleticism, intelligence, and competitive fire. By the time Venus signed the biggest endorsement deal ever for a female athlete, her opponents' sentiments could be described in just two words: Venus Envy.
Mission 27
Mark Feinsand - 2019
With the previous season's failed playoff bid still as fresh as the paint job on the new Yankee Stadium, a 27th championship flag represented both the floor and the ceiling in the eyes of a squad. It was the last title for the "Core Four"—Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada, and Andy Pettitte—who would each retire over the course of the next five years. It would be the lone title for Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira, A.J. Burnett, and Nick Swisher, each of whom saw memorable peaks and valleys during their time in the Bronx. For CC Sabathia and Brett Gardner, it was their first championship, though the veterans were still in pinstripes as the latest generation of Yankees arrived for what they hope will be the next dynasty. Mission 27 is a thoroughly reported examination of an unforgettable season, packed with interviews with the full cast of key players, team executives, broadcasters, and more.
The Shape of the New: Four Big Ideas and How They Made the Modern World
Scott L. Montgomery - 2015
Yet these ideas also hold contradictions. They have been used in the service of brutal systems such as slavery and colonialism, been appropriated and twisted by monsters like Stalin and Hitler, and provoked reactions against the Enlightenment’s legacy by Islamic Salafists and the Christian Religious Right.The Shape of the New argues that it is impossible to understand the ideological and political conflicts of our own time without familiarizing ourselves with the history and internal tensions of these world-changing ideas. With passion and conviction, it exhorts us to recognize the central importance of these ideas as historical forces and pillars of the Western humanistic tradition. It makes the case that to read the works of the great thinkers is to gain invaluable insights into the ideas that have shaped how we think and what we believe.
Tales from the Dugout: The Greatest True Baseball Stories Ever Told
Mike Shannon - 1997
Tales from the Dugout brings together never-before-told stories from baseball personalities such as Roger Maris, Ken Griffey Jr., Pete Rose, Phil Rizzuto, and Gaylord Perry in this illustrated, one-of-a-kind compendium.