What is happening in our brains and bodies when we feel strong emotion while watching a game? How do sports fans resemble political junkies, and why do we form such a strong attachment to a sports team? Journalist Eric Simons presents in-depth research in an accessible and brilliant way, sure to interest readers of Jonah Lehrer and Malcolm Gladwell. Through reading the literature and attending neuroscience conferences, talking to fans, psychologists, and scientists, and working through his issues as part of a collaboration with the NPR science program RadioLab, Eric Simons hoped to find an answer that would explain why the attractive force of this relationship with treasured sports teams is so great that we can't leave it.

    He explains why he openly considered the pros and cons of fighting a fan, opens up about tales of partying on road trips, and even how he became friends with former Vice President Dan Quayle. In one chapter, Roenick lends the pen to his wife, Tracy, to tell her side of the story. Nothing is held back as J. R. reveals his opinions about teammates, opponents, and the future of the game.

    He takes cricket fans through all the seismic events in cricket’s tragicomic history, from its accidental birth to its run-in with death. Lords, maharajahs and refugees have all played the game that has survived many wars, corruption and terrorism to still be standing – still be captivating – today. Cricket has been dented by history, evolved by nature, grown entire nations and had to fight just to remain. This is not just the story of the people who played the game; this is Test cricket’s story.

    In twenty-four seasons pitcher Roger Clemens put together one of the greatest careers baseball has ever seen. Seven Cy Young Awards, two World Series championships, and 354 victories made him a lock for the Hall of Fame. But on December 13, 2007, the Mitchell Report laid waste to all that. Accusations that Clemens relied on steroids and human growth hormone provided and administered by his former trainer, Brian McNamee, have put Clemens in the crosshairs of a Justice Department investigation.Why did this happen? How did it happen? Who made the decisions that altered some lives and ruined others? How did a devastating culture of drugs, lies, sex, and cheating fester and grow throughout Major League Baseball's clubhouses? The answers are in these extraordinary pages.American Icon: The Fall of Roger Clemens and the Rise of Steroids in America’s Pastime is about much more than the downfall of a superstar. While the fascinating portrait of Clemens is certainly at the center of the action, the book takes us outside the white lines and inside the lives and dealings of sports executives, trainers, congressmen, lawyers, drug dealers, groupies, a porn star, and even a murderer—all of whom have ties to this saga. Four superb investigative journalists have spent years uncovering the truth, and at the heart of their investigation is a behind-the-scenes portrait of the maneuvering and strategies in the legal war between Clemens and his accuser, McNamee.This compelling story is the strongest examination yet of the rise of illegal drugs in America’s favorite sport, the gym-rat culture in Texas that has played such an important role in spreading those drugs, and the way Congress has dealt with the entire issue. Andy Pettitte, Jose Canseco, Alex Rodriguez, and Chuck Knoblauch are just a few of the other players whose moving and sometimes disturbing stories are illuminated here as well. The New York Daily News Sports Investigative Team has written the definitive book on corruption and the steroids era in Major League Baseball. In doing so, they have managed to dig beneath the disillusion and disappointment to give us a stirring look at heroes who all too often live unheroic shadow lives.

    MSNBC calls his ESPN blog "the best and most compelling football column anywhere." With Liberty and Football for All takes an expansive look at our biggest sport. Easterbrook explores these and many other topics:The real harm done by concussions (It’s not to NFL players)The real way in which college football players are exploited (It’s not by not being paid)The reason football helps American colleges to be great institutions (It’s not bowl revenue.)The way football has aided the revival of American cities (It’s not Super Bowl trophies)The hidden scandal of the NFL (You’ll have to read the book)Using his year-long exclusive insider access to the Virginia Tech football program, where Frank Beamer has compiled the most victories of any active NFL or college head coach, Easterbrook shows how VT does things right. Then he reports on all the things wrong with football and moves to examples of how the sport can be reformed to keep it just as popular and exciting, but not as notorious.Rich with reporting details from interviews with current and former college and pro football players and coaches. With Liberty and Football for All promises to be the most provocative and best-read sports book of the year.

    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.

    Illustrated with 16 pages of photographs.

    Michael Bamberger, who has covered the game for twenty years at Sports Illustrated, shows us the big names as we’ve never seen them before: Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Curtis Strange, Fred Couples—and the late Ken Venturi. But he also chronicles the legendary figures known only to insiders, who nevertheless have left an indelible mark on the sport. There’s a club pro, a teaching pro, an old black Southern caddie. There’s a tournament director in his seventies, a TV director in his eighties, and a USGA executive in his nineties. All these figures, from the marquee names to the unknowns, have changed the game. What they all share is a game that courses through their collective veins like a drug. Was golf better back in the day? Men in Green weaves a history of the modern game that is personal, touching, inviting, and new. This meditation on aging and a celebration of the game is “a nostalgic visit and reminiscence with those who fashioned golf history…and should be cherished” (Golf Digest).

    It's all here--the lawsuits, the crazy confluence of sports and ego and civic destiny, and of course, superstars Ichiro, A-Rod, Randy Johnson, and Ken Griffey. Seattle sportswriter Art Thiel recounts the painful birth, awkward adolescence, and hard-won maturity of one of the most beloved teams in sports history.

    Signed by the Detroit Red Wings at 16, Gordie became a six-time leading scorer, a six-time Hart Trophy winner as the most valuable player, and he surpassed Rocket Richard's NHL goals record to reach an amazing total of 801--unmatched for years until Gretzky finally caught up to his mentor and idol. Gordie also includes a new introduction.

    This man was a freediver, and his amphibious abilities inspired Nestor to seek out the secrets of this little-known discipline. In Deep, Nestor embeds with a gang of extreme athletes and renegade researchers who are transforming not only our knowledge of the planet and its creatures, but also our understanding of the human body and mind. Along the way, he takes us from the surface to the Atlantic’s greatest depths, some 28,000 feet below sea level. He finds whales that communicate with other whales hundreds of miles away, sharks that swim in unerringly straight lines through pitch-black waters, and seals who dive to depths below 2,400 feet for up to eighty minutes—deeper and longer than scientists ever thought possible. As strange as these phenomena are, they are reflections of our own species’ remarkable, and often hidden, potential—including echolocation, directional sense, and the profound physiological changes we undergo when underwater. Most illuminating of all, Nestor unlocks his own freediving skills as he communes with the pioneers who are expanding our definition of what is possible in the natural world, and in ourselves.

    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.

    Edited by the award-winning Peter Gammons, the pieces in this volume embrace the world of sports in all its drama, humanity, and excitement.

    In Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Legends, Neyer breathes new life into both classic and obscure stories throughout twentieth-century baseball—stories that, while engaging on their own, also tell us fascinating things about their main characters and about the sport's incredibly rich history. With his signature style, Rob gets to the heart of every anecdote, working through the particulars with careful research drawn from a variety of primary sources. For each story, he asks: Did this really happen? Did it happen, sort of? Or was the story simply the wild invention of someone's imagination? Among the scores of legends Neyer questions and investigates... -Did an errant Bob Feller pitch really destroy the career of a National League All-Star? -Did Greg Maddux mean to give up a long blast to Jeff Bagwell? -Was Fred Lynn the clutch player he thinks he was? -Did Tommy Lasorda have a direct line to God? -Did Negro Leaguer Gene Benson really knock Indians second baseman Johnny Berardino out of baseball and into General Hospital? -Did Billy Martin really outplay Jackie Robinson every time they met? -Oh, and what about Babe Ruth's “Called Shot”? Rob checks each story, separates the truths from the myths, and places their fascinating characters into the larger historical context. Filled with insider lore and Neyer's sharp wit and insights, this is an exciting addition to a superb series and an essential read for true fans of our national pastime.

    The station manager who hired him was the first to recognize his considerable on-air talent, and helped start what has become a legendary radio career. Often compared to Howard Stern, Carton has hosted a series of highly rated shows, and in 2007 he joined WFAN, where he and Boomer Esiason host an eponymous show every morning for four hours out of a studio in New York City.In this debut book, Carton invites the reader to join him as he recounts tales from his suburban youth, defends his long-held love affair with the New York Jets, reminisces about the shenanigans of some of the highest paid and most celebrated athletes playing today, and reflects on his work as one of radio’s craftiest, most hilarious personalities ever to get behind the microphone.