That's what Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller got to do when the Sonoma Stompers, an independent minor-league team in California, offered them the chance to run the team's baseball operations according to the most advanced statistics. The Only Rule Is It Has to Work is unlike any other baseball tale you've ever read.We tag along as Lindbergh and Miller apply their number-crunching insights to all aspects of assembling and running a team. We meet colorful figures like general manager Theo Fightmaster and boundary-breakers like the first openly gay professional player and the first Japanese manager in American professional baseball. Even José Canseco makes a cameo appearance.Will sabermetrics bring the Stompers a championship, or will they fall on their face? Will the team have a competitive advantage or is the old folk wisdom really true after all? Will the players be able to maximize their talents and attract the attention of big-league scouts, or will this be a fast track to oblivion?It's a wild ride, as the authors' infectious enthusiasm and feel for the absurd make the Stompers' story one that will speak to numbers geeks and traditionalists alike. And it proves that you don't need a bat or a glove to make a genuine contribution to the game.

    Packed with insights, observations, and war stories of his twelve years in the NFL--including his championship season--"In the Trenches" delves into the heart of an amazing athlete who balances an array of extremes: he is both beloved and feared, tough and gentle, competitive and compassionate, fierce and generous.

    Like Mantle, he came up to the majors as a shortstop, but was later converted to a centerfielder. And like Mantle, his first at-bat in Yankee Stadium was at the tender age of 19.Bobby wasn't the Mick, but he became one of the most beloved Yankees of all time.Yankee for Life is the story of Murcer's stellar career as both a player and as an Emmy Award-winning broadcaster. With self-effacing humor and down-home charm, he shares fascinating, illuminating, and never-before-told anecdotes about former teammates and bosses, including Mantle, Phil Rizzuto, Lou Piniella—and George Steinbrenner.But no relationship was more significant and poignant than his friendship with Yankees captain Thurman Munson, who died in a plane crash in 1979. On the morning of Munson's funeral, Murcer delivered the eulogy for his friend in Ohio; he ended the day by driving in all five runs in an extra-inning 5-4 victory at Yankee Stadium to honor his captain's memory.Following his career, Murcer became a revered figure in the Yankees broadcast booth. From the best seat in the House That Ruth Built, he has watched the latest generation of Yankee superstars—Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, and Mariano Rivera—grow up.No one is more qualified—or brave enough—to choose his own personal Pinstripe All-Star Team of the last 40 years.Murcer is no stranger to courage. On Christmas Eve 2006, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Five days later, after surgery to remove it, he learned that the cancer was terminal. In an uplifting, honest, and even humorous exploration of his battle with illness, Murcer explains how the love of his wife and his family, a deep religious faith, and the passionate support of fans have seen him through his ordeal.Bobby Murcer may not have become the next Mickey Mantle, but he became someone he always wanted to be—a Yankee for life.

    His journey from the treadmill in North London to the mountains of Wales to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway illuminates the meaning of the egalitarian race, the only sport where any weekend jogger can run with world-class champions. For everyone who has contemplated running the marathon or watched from the sidelines feeling an uneasy mix of envy and gratitude, this comical and inspiring account will change their understanding of the legendary race.

    Before we can ask the Little Master to tell us about the dizzying heights of his career we need to know the beginning. And Sunny Days is all about it. The baby is switched after birth, luckily restored by an eagle-eyed uncle; he grows up and almost breaks his mother's nose with a mighty hit (a childhood habit persisting in later life); plays good cricket in school and college; graduates inevitably through university and Trophy cricket; is at times booed by the crowd as his uncle happens to be a Selector - in fact all that could happen does happen to make him reach the age of twenty-one, when at Port of Spain Gavaskar bursts upon the cricket scene with his Test debut. The year is 1971, Gavaskar's year, and sunny days have truly begun for Indian cricket. By the end of the 1975-76 season Gavaskar has played 147 first class matches, amassed 11574 runs and 38 hundreds. He has played in 24 matches in 8 Tests, with 2123 runs and 8 hundreds. Still eight years to go for the great days of the Kotla and the Chidambaram Stadium; but as it is said, in the beginning is the end. Fluently written, self-effacing modesty imparting a rare grace to the pages, Sunny Days is great to read.

    With lively reporting, penetrating insight, and a keen sense of history, Shaughnessy brings the 2004 baseball season alive in all its glory, drama, and garishness as the Boston Red Sox victory turns everyday sports into the stuff of legend.

    As oil prices continue to plummet, the economic outlook grows bleaker by the day. Political changes have ushered in an era of uncertainty. And, as though mirroring the city’s fortunes, the Edmonton Oilers continue to struggle on the ice, offering little solace or escape to the city’s long-suffering hockey fans. But on June 26, 2015, hope was reborn in Edmonton. With the first overall pick in the NHL Entry Draft, the Edmonton Oilers selected Connor McDavid, a once-in-a-generation talent who, at only eighteen years old, was already being compared to the Great One who had preceded him twenty-five years earlier. Sparked by the arrival of McDavid, the construction of a new state-of-the-art hockey arena, and the development of a revitalized downtown core, a new sensibility began to emerge in Edmonton. Sensing an opportunity, the city started to rebuild and rebrand itself in search of a new future. Through exclusive access, uplifting anecdotes, and colourful interviews, The McDavid Effect traces the renewal of not just a hockey team, but of an entire city. Reflecting the multitude of viewpoints that make up Edmonton—from Connor himself to construction crews at work on the downtown development to business executives directing the new shape of the Albertan capital—The McDavid Effect paints a portrait of the city as it is being reimagined, captures the near-religious reverence people have for sports, and shows how the people of Edmonton are coming to hope again.

    The process of finding these elite athletes is not simply a matter of jotting down some movements on a piece of a paper. Nor is it random, although the best athletes are prepared for any physical challenge. The purpose of this book is to chronicle the process used to develop and refine the events that tested the best athletes in the world in 2017. Dave Castro, Director of the CrossFit Games, will take you from the early stages of the season to the end of the final event in Madison, and he’ll share detailed thoughts on every aspect of the competition, including the workouts of the Open and Regional rounds. In 2017, this is how Castro constructed the tests that defined the CrossFit Games and determined the Fittest on Earth.

    Odessa is not known to be a town big on dreams, but the Panthers help keep the hopes and dreams of this small, dusty town going. Socially and racially divided, its fragile economy follows the treacherous boom-bust path of the oil business.In bad times, the unemployment rate barrels out of control; in good times, its murder rate skyrockets. But every Friday night from September to December, when the Permian High School Panthers play football, this West Texas town becomes a place where dreams can come true. With frankness and compassion, Bissinger chronicles one of the Panthers' dramatic seasons and shows how single-minded devotion to the team shapes the community and inspires-and sometimes shatters-the teenagers who wear the Panthers' uniforms. Includes Reader's Group Guide inside. Now a major motion picture starring Billy Bob Thorton.

    David Maraniss now brings the great baseball player brilliantly back to life in "Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero," a book destined to become a modern classic. Much like his acclaimed biography of Vince Lombardi, "When Pride Still Mattered," Maraniss uses his narrative sweep and meticulous detail to capture the myth and a real man. Anyone who saw Clemente, as he played with a beautiful fury, will never forget him. He was a work of art in a game too often defined by statistics. During his career with the Pittsburgh Pirates, he won four batting titles and led his team to championships in 1960 and 1971, getting a hit in all fourteen World Series games in which he played. His career ended with three-thousand hits, the magical three-thousandth coming in his final at-bat, and he and the immortal Lou Gehrig are the only players to have the five-year waiting period waived so they could be enshrined in the Hall of Fame immediately after their deaths.

    In 1972 he became the youngest winner of the World Championship, repeating his victory in emotional style in 1982.Higgins's story is so much more than just snooker. Head-butting tournament officials, threatening to shoot team-mates, getting involved with gangsters, abusing referees, affairs with glamorous women, frequent fines and lengthy bans, all contributed to Higgins slipping down the rankings as he succumbed to drink and lost his fortune. After suffering throat cancer, Alex Higgins now reflects on his turbulent life and career in his first full autobiography. The Hurricane is back - prepare to be caught up in the carnage.

    They were the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team, a blue-collar bunch led by an unconventional coach, and they engineered what Sports Illustrated called the greatest sports moment of the twentieth century. Their “Miracle on Ice” has become a national fairy tale, but the real Cinderella story is even more remarkable. Wayne Coffey casts a fresh eye on this seminal sports event, giving readers an ice-level view of the amateurs who took on a Russian hockey juggernaut at the height of the Cold War. He details the unusual chemistry of the Americans—formulated by their fiercely determined coach, Herb Brooks—and seamlessly weaves portraits of the boys with the fluid action of the game itself. Coffey also traces the paths of the players and coaches since their stunning victory, examining how the Olympic events affected their lives.Told with warmth and an uncanny eye for detail, The Boys of Winter is an intimate, perceptive portrayal of one Friday night in Lake Placid and the enduring power of the extraordinary.Also available as an eBook

    With unprecedented access to club officials, players and coaches, author Konrad Marshall takes the reader inside the rooms at the key moments the campaign, chronicling the Tigers' journey towards premiership contention. This is not just a book of wins and losses, it's the story of a professional football club and how it operates at every level: from the fitness staff, to the coaching panel, the players, and the Board. Football has changed enormously since Richmond's last flag, in 1980, and Marshall explains in great detail the enormous amount of work and thought that goes into every decision made-on and off the field. Whether the Tigers make it to the last Saturday in September or not, their story is rich and explosive. A Season with Richmond is full of unparalleled access to all the key moments, including frank and occasionally emotional interviews with all the key figures. A Season with Richmond is a compulsory read for all football fans.

    The coaches and players of Duke University's 1977-78 team, who ended an otherwise successful season with their NCAA championship loss to Kentucky, are traced from their time on the squad to their present occupations.

    Often called the greatest middleweight boxer of all time, he held the world title for 12 defenses, including bouts with Sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns, and Roberto Duran which entered fistic folklore. This biography tells the story of Hagler's extraordinary life for the first time, separating truth from myth to get right to the heart of a complex and charismatic man. From his wild early fights in the boxing wilderness of Brockton, Massachusetts, the book follows the blazing trail of Hagler's career: the controversial defeats subsequently avenged, a riot-scarred title win in London, and his unification of the middleweight crown. It also cover the Ring magazine's "greatest round of all time" against Hearns, his ferocious battle with Duran, and the still-controversial loss to his nemesis Leonard.