Well – sort of close. He ended up in the minor leagues of professional basketball instead, in the storied and now defunct CBA, a league that has turned out a record-setting number of NBA players and coaches, such as Phil Jackson and George Karl. It wasn’t glamorous, in fact the playing conditions in the CBA were pretty grim; near-empty arenas, interminable bus rides to nowheresville, oddball coaches, little loyalty from management, meager pay, these were a few realities of CBA life. And yet, even as it chipped away at your dignity and made little economic sense to remain, the CBA drew you in with the allure of action and the prospect of an NBA call-up. And it could inspire, like when you and your teammates caught a rhythm that made you remember why basketball is such a beautiful game, or when you saw guys continue to strive, to persevere, even if their dreams weren't fully realized.Carson writes honestly, hilariously and often touchingly of his running and gunning days as a CBA also-ran, with flash backs to his college days where the future seemed brighter than a new pair of Nikes. A top recruit with superior ballhanding and shooting skills along with a sixth basketball sense, in 1997 Carson was a Sporting News All-American freshman who broke Gary Payton's freshman scoring record and a few years later helped his team at Purdue get within a game of the Final Four.

    After her husband became involved with another woman, she did everything she could to save their marriage, to no avail. Their two daughters continue to stand by Julia in the wake of their father's behavior--and they've had a tough time getting along with the other woman who became their stepmother. Distraught after selling the family home, Julia moved into a condominium complex that offers the warmth and charm of a fresh start. Now, having settled into her new community and sold her successful interior design business, she's embraced a fulfilling new life, one that doesn't seem to need a man in it. Her beloved father's trusty saying is ringing truer than ever: It's better this way.But when Julia meets a handsome new resident in the building's exercise room, she can't help but be drawn to him. Heath Johnson is a welcome change from the men she's encountered on the occasional--mostly disastrous--dates her sister has eagerly planned for her over the years. As she and Heath, a divorcé himself, begin to grow close, their friendship blossoms into a love neither of them had expected. However, they soon realize that combining families, even with four adult children, presents inevitable challenges.When a dramatic revelation threatens the happiness they've found, Julia and Heath must reconcile their love for their children with their love for each other. If they can't, their bright future together may be nothing but a dream.

    As Moody has put it, "this is a story in which a lot of bad luck is the daily fare of the protagonists, but in which they are also in love.” To Moody’s astonishment, matrimony turns out to be the site of strength in hard times, a vessel infinitely tougher and more durable than any boat these two participants would have traveled by alone. Love buoys the couple, lifting them above their hardships, and the reader is buoyed along with them.

    Slowed by a wooden leg and haunted by memories of the Korean War, Rory runs bootleg whiskey for a powerful mountain clan in a retro-fitted '40 Ford coupe. Between deliveries to roadhouses, brothels, and private clients, he lives with his formidable grandmother, evades federal agents, and stokes the wrath of a rival runner.In the mill town at the foot of the mountains - a hotbed of violence, moonshine, and the burgeoning sport of stock-car racing - Rory is bewitched by the mysterious daughter of a snake-handling preacher. His grandmother, Maybelline “Granny May” Docherty, opposes this match for her own reasons, believing that "some things are best left buried." A folk healer whose powers are rumored to rival those of a wood witch, she concocts potions and cures for the people of the mountains while harboring an explosive secret about Rory’s mother - the truth behind her long confinement in a mental hospital, during which time she has not spoken one word. When Rory's life is threatened, Granny must decide whether to reveal what she knows...or protect her only grandson from the past.With gritty and atmospheric prose, Taylor Brown brings to life a perilous mountain and the family who rules it.

    In keeping with his reputation for writing about big ideas in an illuminating and graceful way, he shows how sports respond to deep human needs; describes the ways in which baseball, football and basketball became national institutions and how they reached their present forms; and covers the evolution of rules, the rise and fall of the most successful teams, and the historical significance of the most famous and influential figures such as Babe Ruth, Vince Lombardi, and Michael Jordan. Whether he is writing about baseball as the agrarian game, football as similar to warfare, basketball as the embodiment of post-industrial society, or the moral havoc created by baseball's designated hitter rule, Mandelbaum applies the full force of his learning and wit to subjects about which so many Americans care passionately: the games they played in their youth and continue to follow as adults. By offering a fresh and unconventional perspective on these games, The Meaning of Sports makes for fascinating and rewarding reading both for fans and newcomers.

    Post, the President and First Lady are here to see you. . . . So begins another average evening for Marjorie Merriweather Post. Presidents have come and gone, but she has hosted them all. Growing up in the modest farmlands of Battle Creek, Michigan, Marjorie was inspired by a few simple rules: always think for yourself, never take success for granted, and work hard--even when deemed American royalty, even while covered in imperial diamonds. Marjorie had an insatiable drive to live and love and to give more than she got. From crawling through Moscow warehouses to rescue the Tsar's treasures to outrunning the Nazis in London, from serving the homeless of the Great Depression to entertaining Roosevelts, Kennedys, and Hollywood's biggest stars, Marjorie Merriweather Post lived an epic life few could imagine.Marjorie's journey began gluing cereal boxes in her father's barn as a young girl. No one could have predicted that C. W. Post's Cereal Company would grow into the General Foods empire and reshape the American way of life, with Marjorie as its heiress and leading lady. Not content to stay in her prescribed roles of high-society wife, mother, and hostess, Marjorie dared to demand more, making history in the process. Before turning thirty she amassed millions, becoming the wealthiest woman in the United States. But it was her life-force, advocacy, passion, and adventurous spirit that led to her stunning legacy.And yet Marjorie's story, though full of beauty and grandeur, set in the palatial homes she built such as Mar-a-Lago, was equally marked by challenge and tumult. A wife four times over, Marjorie sought her happily-ever-after with the blue-blooded party boy who could not outrun his demons, the charismatic financier whose charm turned to betrayal, the international diplomat with a dark side, and the bon vivant whose shocking secrets would shake Marjorie and all of society. Marjorie did everything on a grand scale, especially when it came to love.Bestselling and acclaimed author Allison Pataki has crafted an intimate portrait of a larger-than-life woman, a powerful story of one woman falling in love with her own voice and embracing her own power while shaping history in the process.

    To get a truly random sample of players, Balukjian followed this wildly absurd but fun-as-hell premise: he took a single pack of baseball cards from 1986 (the first year he collected cards), opened it, chewed the nearly thirty-year-old gum inside, gagged, and then embarked on a quest to find all the players in the pack. Absurd, maybe, but true. He took this trip solo in the summer of 2015, spanning 11,341 miles through thirty states in forty-eight days. Balukjian actively engaged with his subjects—taking a hitting lesson from Rance Mulliniks, watching kung fu movies with Garry Templeton, and going to the zoo with Don Carman. In the process of finding all the players but one, he discovered an astonishing range of experiences and untold stories in their post-baseball lives, and he realized that we all have more in common with ballplayers than we think. While crisscrossing the country, Balukjian retraced his own past, reconnecting with lost loves and coming to terms with his lifelong battle with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Alternately elegiac and uplifting, The Wax Pack is part baseball nostalgia, part road trip travelogue, and all heart, a reminder that greatness is not found in the stats on the backs of baseball cards but in the personal stories of the men on the front of them.

    LakersThe L.A. Lakers have long been one of the NBA's most exciting teams. In The Show, critically acclaimed sportswriter Roland Lazenby brings the story of this charismatic team to life in an unprecedented oral history, featuring such legendary players as Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West, Kareem Abdul- Jabbar, and Magic Johnson, along with current stars like Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant.Through in-depth interviews with players, coaches, and many other key figures, Lazenby follows the Lakers from their birthplace in 1946 Minneapolis to their eventual successes and failures in Los Angeles, using his flair for storytelling and eye for detail to show you exactly why the 14-time NBA champion Lakers are a celebrated favorite for sports fans all over America.

    From catch wrestling masters Strangler Lewis and Billy Robinson to pro-wrestling icons like Frank Gotch and Lou Thesz, from Olympic heroes Danny Hodge and Kurt Angle to the Japanese wrestler who trained the famous Gracie family and gave birth to the global phenomenon of MMA, Shooters takes you from the shadowy carnival tent and the dingy training hall to the bright lights of the squared circle and the Las Vegas glitz of the Octagon. This volume takes fans of pro wrestling and MMA from Billy Riley’s legendary Wigan Snake Pit to the rigorous UWF Dojo in Tokyo, and draws on meticulous research and original interviews with today’s tough guys.

    Duke and Carolina will be here forever." ---Mike KrzyzewskiFor fifty years the rivalry between Duke and Carolina has featured famous brawls, endless controversy, long-nurtured hatred---and some of the best basketball ever played in the history of the sport. For Duke and UNC players and fans, the competition is not about winning a prize, trophy or title---it's about bragging rights and raw pride.Blue Blood is a thrilling chronicle of the Duke-Carolina rivalry as it has evolved over the last fifty years. With unparalleled insider access, veteran journalist and author Art Chansky details the colorful, revered, and respected rivalry---for the first time ever. The Duke-Carolina rivalry has fostered more than thirty former players from the two schools playing or coaching in the NBA; it has enchanted a nation of spectators to watch games between the archrivals---garnering some of the highest regular-season TV ratings in history. Blue Blood celebrates the history of this rivalry, the traditions, the heritage, and, most importantly---spectacular basketball."You can see the beads of sweat on coaches' and players' faces as the tale by this former sports editor for the Durham Morning Herald unfolds."---News & Record (Greensboro, NC)"A book on this rivalry was long overdue, and Chansky does it justice. This is sure to become a staple of every Tar Heel or Blue Devil fan's library."---InsideCarolina.com"A holy text for both sides of the rivalry. . . . This book is a coffee table necessity for anyone that claims to have a background in college basketball . . . you need to read this book cover to cover as many times as possible until you can recite from it."---The East Carolinian"I'm biased, but I think this is the greatest rivalry, not just in college basketball, but in all of sports."---Dick Vitale, ESPN"Art Chansky has more than learned what Duke-Carolina is all about; he's lived it for more than thirty years. His columns, commentaries, and characterizations have long been on the money, and Blue Blood puts them all together in an anticipated and entertaining work that reads more like a novel. But truth is stranger than fiction, and Chansky tells it just like it is."---Curry Kirkpatrick, who has covered Duke-Carolina for Sports Illustrated, ESPN, and ESPN the Magazine

    It was the quiet beginning to the most resonant baseball achievement of all time. Starting that day, the vaunted Yankee centerfielder kept on hitting-at least one hit in game after game after game.In the summer of 1941, as Nazi forces moved relentlessly across Europe and young American men were drafted by the millions, it seemed only a matter of time before the U.S. went to war. The nation was apprehensive. Yet for two months in that tense summer, America was captivated by DiMaggio's astonishing hitting streak. In 56, Kostya Kennedy tells the remarkable story of how the streak found its way into countless lives, from the Italian kitchens of Newark to the playgrounds of Queens to the San Francisco streets of North Beach; from the Oval Office of FDR to the Upper West Side apartment where Joe's first wife, Dorothy, the movie starlet, was expecting a child. In this crisp, evocative narrative Joe DiMaggio emerges in a previously unseen light, a 26-year-old on the cusp of becoming an icon. He comes alive-a driven ballplayer, a mercurial star and a conflicted husband-as the tension and the scrutiny upon him build with each passing day.DiMaggio's achievement lives on as the greatest of sports records. Alongside the story of DiMaggio's dramatic quest, Kennedy deftly examines the peculiar nature of hitting streaks and with an incisive, modern-day perspective gets inside the number itself, as its sheer improbability heightens both the math and the magic of 56 games in a row.

    In the hundred years that have passed since that fateful day, the former scrappy upstart league that once struggled to stay afloat has become America's most popular and lucrative professional sport. Along the way it has survived a host of challenges--the Great Depression and WW2, controversies and scandals, battles over labor rights and competition from rival leagues--even as it has produced American icons like Vince Lombardi, Joe Montana and Tom Brady. It is an extraordinary and entertaining history that could only be told by Joe Horrigan, Executive Director of the Pro Football Hall of Fame and perhaps the greatest living historian of the NFL. By drawing upon decades of NFL archives, Joe has written the definitive history of the NFL. Compelling, eye-opening and authoritative, NFL Century is a must-read for NFL fans and anyone who loves the game of football.

    They partied their way through their twenties, slowly descending into a bleak world of binge-drinking and broken promises, inebriated for most of a decade. Now Ben is dead, and Cass is broke, homeless, scared…and pregnant.Determined to have a healthy pregnancy and raise Ben’s baby, Cass has to find a way to stop drinking and build a stable life for herself and her child. But with no money, skills, or sober friends or family, the task seems insurmountable. At wit’s end, Cass turns to the only person with the means to help her: Ben’s brother Scott, third basemen for the Boston Red Sox, a man with a temper and problems of his own.The two make a deal that neither one of them is sure they can live up to. As Cass struggles to take control of her life and to ask for help when she needs it, Scott begins to realize there’s a life for him beyond the baseball diamond.By turns heartbreaking and humorous, with its message that change is not impossible, that forgiveness can be freely given, and that life, though imperfect, is worth embracing, Catch Us When We Fall is a novel you will never forget.

    If you love watching "Major League," you’ll be fascinated by this inside story. Based on interviews with all major cast members plus crew and producers, it tells how writer/director David S. Ward battled the Hollywood system to turn his own love of the underdog Cleveland Indians into a classic screwball comedy. Learn how a tight-knit group of rising young stars (and a few wily veterans) had a blast pretending to play ball while creating several iconic characters. Filled with little-known facts and personal recollections about outtakes and inside jokes, batting practice and script changes, all-night location shoots, bar hopping and more, this is the ultimate guide to the film that reinvented the baseball movie and inspired a generation of belly laughs. Includes rare photos, storyboard illustrations, script excerpts, and more. With a foreword by Charlie Sheen.

    Petersburg, 1725. Peter the Great lies dying in his magnificent Winter Palace. The weakness and treachery of his only son has driven his father to an appalling act of cruelty and left the empire without an heir. Russia risks falling into chaos. Into the void steps the woman who has been by his side for decades: his second wife, Catherine Alexeyevna, as ambitious, ruthless and passionate as Peter himself.Born into devastating poverty, Catherine used her extraordinary beauty and shrewd intelligence to ingratiate herself with Peter’s powerful generals, finally seducing the Tsar himself. But even amongst the splendor and opulence of her new life—the lavish feasts, glittering jewels, and candle-lit hours in Peter’s bedchamber—she knows the peril of her position. Peter’s attentions are fickle and his rages powerful; his first wife is condemned to a prison cell, her lover impaled alive in Red Square. And now Catherine faces the ultimate test: can she keep the Tsar’s death a secret as she plays a lethal game to destroy her enemies and take the Crown for herself?From the sensuous pleasures of a decadent aristocracy, to the incense-filled rites of the Orthodox Church and the terror of Peter’s torture chambers, the intoxicating and dangerous world of Imperial Russia is brought to vivid life. Tsarina is the story of one remarkable woman whose bid for power would transform the Russian Empire."