His marriage to Spice Girl Victoria Adams and the birth of their son, Brooklyn, crowned the couple's celebrity status. But while much is written about him, David Beckham remains an elusive character. Here, for the first time, he tells his own story and talks of the artistry of his football skills, his personal heroes and influences, his daily life in football and the celebrity world, and his hopes for the future. With exclusive and intimate photographs throughout by Dean Freeman, DAVID BECKHAM - MY WORLD will provide a unique insight in to this much talked about icon of our times.

    It offers: • In-depth, insightful essays on all 30 Major League Baseball clubs, with no-holds-barred evaluations of at least 50 players per organization • Baseball Prospectus’s exclusive (and deadly accurate) PECOTA projection system, forecasting the chances that a player will break out, improve, or collapse • In-depth features on the true costs of injuries, adventures in win expectancy, the limitations of statistical analysis—plus all our stats explained! The Baseball Prospectus team of cutting-edge analysts includes Mark Armour, Andrew Baharlias, Jim Baker, James Click, Clifford J. Corcoran, Clay Davenport, John Erhardt, Gary Gillette, Steven Goldman, Thomas Gorman, Gary Huckabay, Jay Jaffe, Rany Jazayerli, Christina Kahrl, Jonah Keri, Mark McClusky, Dave Pease, Dayn Perry, Nate Silver, and Keith Woolner. Check out www.baseballprospectus.com for year-round baseball coverage.

    Christians are active in all areas of life, preaching, singing, acting, competing, and always working for the glory of God and his kingdom.

    Play to win. Play like a champion.In Winning Fantasy Baseball, Larry Schechter discloses the secrets of his proven methods. Packed with commonsense, easy-to-use strategies for beginners through experienced players, Schechter supplies readers with a toolkit to achieve the most important thing in fantasy ball--winning! Some have called Schechter one of the best fantasy baseball players in the world. He is the only two-time winner of the CDM Sports national salary-cap challenge, having defeated 7,500 competitors in 2002 and 6,000 in 2005. He is also a five-time winner of the renowned Tout Wars experts league and a member of the USA Today-sponsored League of Alternative Baseball Reality (LABR).Readers will learn directly from the champ everything they need to know about:- how to project player stats;- how to convert those stats into a specific value;- strategy for snake drafts, and mono-league and mixed auctions;- selecting teams using a salary cap;- playing in keeper leagues;- and performing in-season management.Although the book is primarily about fantasy baseball, many of the concepts also apply to fantasy football and other fantasy sports.

    That’s hardly the stuff that NHL careers are made of. But Snyder earned his spot on the NHL’s Atlanta Thrashers roster through sheer force of will and strength of character, even though scouts thought the odds were against him. Those who knew Snyder describe him as the kind of person others naturally gravitated towards. One of those people was Dany Heatley, college star, All-Star, and marked one of the nhl’s next great players. On September 29, 2003, while driving down a treacherous Atlanta road with Snyder, Heatley lost control of his car. Snyder was injured, and died in hospital six days later. The lives of his family, friends, and teammates changed forever, as they searched for meaning and healing. Meanwhile, authorities in Atlanta charged Heatley with vehicular homicide. Snyder’s family, however, took a path of forgiveness and reconciliation — a path that is ingrained in the Mennonite tradition from which they hail. While some might lash out against an easy target, the Snyders invited Heatley and his parents into their lives in an effort to make peace with their grief. This paperback edition contains an afterword by the Snyder family.

    This book is the culmination of Butler's decade spent in the trenches of Havana, trying to understand a culture perplexing to Westerners: one whose elite athletes regularly forgo multimillion-dollar opportunities to stay in Cuba and box for their country, while living in penury. Butler's fascination with this distinctly Cuban idealism sets him off on a remarkable journey, training with, befriending, and interviewing the champion boxers that Cuba seems to produce more than any other country. In the process, though, Butler gets to know the landscape of the exhilaratingly warm Cuban culture—and starts to question where he feels most at home. In the tradition of Michael Lewis and John Jeremiah Sullivan, Butler is a keen and humane storyteller, and the perfect guide for this riotous tour through the streets of Havana.

    Set against the dark backdrop of Hurricane Katrina, this luminous and infinitely inviting memoir traces the affecting stories of Rea and his hilarious and dynamic friends and teammates. Comprised primarily of ex-pats over the age of 35, Finn McCool's Football Club boasts a dynamic mix of idiosyncratic personalities. From Macca, the team's Scottish coach and a hard-drinking ex-professional player, to its outspoken South African landscape gardener/striker Benji, each character comes vibrantly to life in Rea's fresh and frank prose. Hilarious moments and poignant reflections shine with equal intensity throughout this multifarious work, which captures the individual experiences of the Finn's players in the wake of Katrina. A literary memoir, soccer story, and tale of survival and resolve, this work is an indefatigable tribute to a city and its residents who determined to play on after their lives were all but washed away.

    NFL Unplugged lets you see that world through the eyes of the pros who live and sweat in it. Here are the places the cameras don't go: the locker room where coaches' speeches can deflate or motivate, the huddle where fart jokes vie with playcalling, the training camp where locusts and heat conspire to break the strongest bodies and shake the most determined minds. Now you can experience it all up close and unplugged.Draws on firsthand accounts of more than thirty players and coaches from teams across the NFL, including Mark Schlereth, Bill Romanowski, Kevin Long, Kyle Turley, John Gruden, Hugh Douglas, Jon Runyan, and Michael StrahanAn unvarnished look at everything from training camp and broken dreams, conditioning and injuries, and camaraderie and hazing to the quest to gain a competitive edge and the exhilarating triumphs of the gameWritten by one of the top figures in sports radio, Anthony Gargano of Philadelphia's 610-WIPFrom the injuries that never heal and the money that never lasts to the memories and the glory that never fade, NFL Unplugged shows the unbridled brutality and sheer brilliance of the game.

    Millions of fans have listened to Rose’s trademark calls over the years, and now, with his patented honesty and humor, he gives a firsthand account of the Amazins’—from the greatness of Tom Seaver to Johan Santana’s recent no-no. In addition to a personalized look at the rich history of the of the team, this work also features Rose’s thoughts and opinions on the current Mets team and roster and his thoughts on the future of the club.

    Illustrated with 16 pages of photographs.

    But when she drops out of vet school to get her jockey’s license in New York, intent on coming back to Ontario to ride Chique in the Queen’s Plate in three years, he’s the obvious choice to keep an eye on the filly. Nate’s content to watch Liv go, even though he’s got similar aspirations – when he’s not talked out of them by voices from his past. His growing bond with Chique might earn him Liv’s approval and give him the fresh start he’s looking for, but that’s as involved as he’s getting with the boss’s daughter. Not that Liv’s been receptive to anything more. Liv’s determined to keep their relationship professional, no matter how much Chique draws them together. Because racetrack romances are messy…and nothing can interfere with getting Chique to the Plate.Set against the backdrop of North America’s greatest racetracks, Good Things Come is a story about the hearts of Thoroughbreds...thepeople who love them...and the allure of Canada’s most prestigious race.

     As a player, he established himself as one of the leading midfielders of his era, being named PFA Player of the Year in 1985 and credited with being the fourth best footballer in the world. He won numerous honours with Everton, including two league titles, one FA Cup and one European Cup Winners’ Cup during the most successful period in the Blues’ history. He also won 13 England caps, playing at the 1986 World Cup – where a date with destiny at the ‘hand’ and feet of Diego Maradona would provide a lasting, painful memory. As a manager, his journey has taken him from Manchester to Sunderland, India to Thailand, each step a voyage into the unknown and sometimes into difficulties and even controversy. This is the unique story of a footballer who got to the top and yet never forgot his roots, who mixed with the powerful but has never been afraid to challenge authority. Told with typical forthrightness, Peter’s book will capture the imagination of football fans far and wide.

    Working his way through the minor leagues, earning three hundred dollars a month, he survived just about everything, even riots in stadiums in Puerto Rico. And while players and other umps hit the bars at night, Harvey memorized the rule book. In 1962, he broke into the big leagues and was soon listening to rookie Pete Rose worrying that he would be cut by the Reds and laying down the law with managers such as Tommy Lasorda and Joe Torre. This colorful memoir takes you behind the plate for some of baseball’s most memorable moments, including Roberto Clemente’s three thousandth and final hit; the heroic three-and-two pinch-hit home run by Kirk Gibson in the ’88 World Series; and the nail-biting excitement of the ’68 World Series. But beyond the drama, Harvey turned umpiring into an art. He was a man so respected, whose calls were so feared and infallible, that the players called him “God.” And through it all, he lived by three rules: never take anything from a player, never back down from a call, and never carry a grudge. A book for anyone who loves baseball, They Called Me God is a funny and fascinating tale of on- and off-the-field action, peopled by unforgettable characters from Bob Gibson to Nolan Ryan, and a treatise on good umpiring techniques. In a memoir that transcends the sport, Doug Harvey tells a gripping story of responsibility, fairness, and honesty.

    His autobiography charts the life of a seven-year-old BMX fanatic, supported by a devoted dad and his local cycling club, through paralyzing self-doubt and a major career overhaul, to the sport’s holy grail. This 32-year-old cycling fanatic from Musselburgh in the suburbs of Edinburgh defied the doubters who thought he would struggle when his specialist discipline, the 1km time trial, was dropped from the Olympics, and went on to reinvent himself as a track cycling sprinter and triple Olympic gold medalist in Beijing. His return to these shores sparked unprecedented celebrations and real admiration that here was a role model who was the epitome of all things that are good in sport. What makes a champion in sport? In his autobiography, Hoy returns to his roots as a child fully engaged with the BMX craze of the 1980s; when, even as a spotty seven-year-old his will to succeed allied to an unyielding mental strength set him apart from other youngsters of his age. A promising rower and rugby player in school, it was when he joined his first local cycling club and spent most weekends of the year competing in national events from Blackpool to Bristol that the seeds of his future career were sown.

    A veritable Hall of Fame list of competitors had gathered that spring in Augusta, Georgia, for the game's most famous event, including Arnold Palmer, Tom Watson, Gary Player, Lee Trevino, Hale Irwin, Billy Casper, and Sam Snead. The lead-up had been dominated by Lee Elder, the first black golfer ever invited to the exclusive club's tourney. But by the weekend, the tournament turned into a showdown between the three heavyweights of the time: Jack Nicklaus, Johnny Miller, and Tom Weiskopf. Never before had golf's top three players of the moment summoned the best golf of their lives in the same major championship. Their back-and-forth battle would rivet the sporting world and dramatically culminate in one of the greatest finishes in golf history.In The Magnificent Masters, Gil Capps, a twenty-two-year veteran of the golf industry with NBC Sports and Golf Channel, recaptures hole-by-hole the thrilling drama of this singular event during golf's golden era, from the media-crazed build-up and intertwined careers of the three combatants to the tournament's final dramatic putts that would change the game of golf forever.