His boxing career blighted by broken hands, the New York Irishman had won five of his previous 21 bouts and had been forced to quit. The Great Depression was at its height. When work dried up on the Hudson River docks, Braddock was forced to claim welfare relief to feed his young family.Then came a visit from his old manager, asking if he wanted one more fight. Desperate for money, Braddock had no choice but to say yes. Four wins later, he was the heavyweight champion of the world in the greatest upset in the sport’s history.Braddock’s rags-to-riches success led Damon Runyon to call him the Cinderella Man. His story captivated the nation in much the way the racehorse Seabiscuit’s would a few years later. Braddock came to represent the struggle for survival facing many families in mid-1930s America.James J. Braddock was born in New York City in 1906, one of seven children. He developed an early taste for fighting and quit school to work a series of menial jobs before resolving to pursue his boxing dream. Over the next decade he became a contender, before injury ruined his prospects. Redemption came on the night of June 13, 1935, with his famous victory over the outrageous champion Max Baer. Braddock would later lose his title to the great Joe Louis, but his place as the people’s champion was cemented forever.Author Michael DeLisa is historical consultant on a major motion picture entitled The Cinderella Man, starring Russell Crowe and Renée Zellweger, to be released in the summer of 2005.

    Louis Cardinals. It should be a hit with younger students of the game, who'll eat up the vivid portrayals of legends like Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris of the Yankees and Bob Gibson and Lou Brock of the Cardinals. Most of all, however, David Halberstam's new book should be a hit with anyone interested in understanding the important interplay between sports and society.--The Boston GlobeCompelling...1964 is a chronicle of the end of a great dynasty and of a game, like the country, on the cusp of enormous change.--NewsweekHalberstam's latest gives us the feeling of actually being there--in another time, in the locker rooms and in the minds of baseball legends. His time and effort researching the book result in a fluency with his topic and a fluidity of writing that make the reading almost effortless....Absorbing.--San Francisco ChronicleWonderful...Memorable...Halberstam describes the final game of the 1964 series accurately and so dramatically, I almost thought I had forgotten the ending.--The Washington Post Book WorldSuperb reporting...Incisive analysis...You know from the start that Halberstam is going to focus on a large human canvas...One of the many joys of this book is the humanity with which Halberstam explores the characters as well as the talents of the players, coaches and managers. These are not demigods of summer but flawed, believable human beings who on occasion can rise to peaks of heroism.--Chicago Sun-Times

    Following in the footsteps of Christopher Hitchens, Roger Penrose, and even Stephen Hawking, Jim Holt now enters this fractious debate with his lively and deeply informed narrative that traces the latest efforts to grasp the origins of the universe. The slyly humorous Holt takes on the role of cosmological detective, suggesting that we might have been too narrow in limiting our suspects to Yahweh vs. the Big Bang. Tracking down an eccentric Oxford philosopher, a Physics Nobel Laureate, a French Buddhist monk who lived with the Dalai Lama, and John Updike just before he died, Holt pursues unexplored angles to this cosmic puzzle. As he pieces together a solution--one that sheds new light on the question of God and the meaning of existence--he offers brisk philosophical asides on time and eternity, consciousness, and the arithmetic of nothingness.“The pleasure of this book is watching the match: the staggeringly inventive human mind slamming its fantastic conjectures over the net, the universe coolly returning every serve.... Holt traffics in wonder, a word whose dual meanings—the absence of answers; the experience of awe—strike me as profoundly related. His book is not utilitarian. You can’t profit from it, at least not in the narrow sense.... And yet it does what real science writing should: It helps us feel the fullness of the problem.” (Kathryn Schulz, New York Magazine)" Jim Holt leaves us with the question Stephen Hawking once asked but couldn't answer, ‘Why does the universe go through all the bother of existing?’” (Ron Rosenbaum, Slate )

    ECW with Jerry Lawler pulling the strings, the death of Brian Pillman, Austin vs. Tyson, the seedy story elements that overtook WWF programming, the birth of the nefarious Mr. McMahon, and of course, Montreal: the build-up, the secret plotting, the match, the moment, and the aftermath in all of its incredible details.Exclusive author-conducted interviews for Titan Screwed include Ken Shamrock, Rob Van Dam, Jim Cornette, "The Patriot" Del Wilkes, Dr. Tom Prichard, Danny Doring, former ECW owner Tod Gordon, and more.***Includes foreword from WrestleCrap's RD Reynolds***

    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.

    One Night Only brings you the stories of 39 men who lived the dream — only to see it fade away almost as quickly as it arrived. Ken Reid talks to players who had one game, and one game only, in the National Hockey League — including the most famous single-gamer of them all: the coach himself, Don Cherry.Was it a dream come true or was it heartbreak? What did they learn from their hockey journey and how does it define them today? From the satisfied to the bitter, Ken Reid unearths the stories from hockey’s equivalent to one-hit wonders in the follow-up to his bestselling Hockey Card Stories.

     As seen on ESPN's Cold Pizza Fantasy football -- one of America's most popular, and profitable, virtual pastimes -- became a way of life for sports humorist and author Mark St. Amant. Utterly fed up with never having won his league championship, St. Amant abandoned a successful advertising career to make fantasy football his full-time job, embarking on a sprawling reconnaissance mission to discover what really makes this game, and its 20 million players, tick. Committed is the result of St. Amant's ranting, relentless, and strategic pursuit of his own obsession. In this wickedly funny and deeply informative work, St. Amant offers readers an all-access sideline pass to his wild, unprecedented fantasy football season, and to the hobby itself. From its humble beginnings in a New York hotel in 1962 to a multibillion-dollar business today, from local and online leagues to high-stakes, cutthroat Las Vegas competitions, St. Amant lays bare the facts, figures, and fanaticism of fantasy football in all its multidimensional glory.

    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 this new edition of 'Wide-Eyed and Legless', Connor describes in detail what it takes to compete, survive and win during those 26 days of gruelling effort in the name of sport.

    But for Cubs fans, "never say die" is a way of life. And Kevin Kaduk is no exception-so much so that in a fit of loyalty to his "Lovable Losers," he quit his job as a sportswriter in Kansas City and moved back to the Windy City on a quest to find the heart and soul of what has come to be known as "Wrigleyville"-the idiosyncratic neighborhood that has sprung up around Wrigley Field." This is a rollicking adventure of baseball, blind faith, and America's pastime as it's played in America's heartland.

    . . all of whom just so happened to play professional basketball. The 2019-20 Nets were the team of tomorrow—a player-first franchise, in a star-first city, at a nation-first moment—and anything was possible. As soon as the mega-stars Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving arrived, the Nets were destined to become a dynasty for the ages.Then came the wildest year in modern NBA—and world—history.Can't Knock the Hustle is the definitive chronicle of the season when basketball's status as a force for progress in society was put to the ultimate test, and Matt Sullivan had a courtside seat: Deal-making with Kyrie and Jay-Z. Rehabbing with KD at the Nets' world-class health facility. International intrigue between LeBron James and the Chinese government. The final days of Kobe Bryant, front-row at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. The first days of Covid-19, when the Nets found themselves at the epicenter of a virus—and integral to a comeback of the very culture they had come to define.Hundreds of interviews—with NBA Hall-of-Famers, All-Stars, coaches, owners and power-brokers from across the globe—provide a lasting portrait of an unforgettable time, as sports brought people back together again, like never before.

    It covers a sport that has inspired millions and the mountains and snowfall that make it possible. It is not a tale of the end. It is a beginning - a reminder of how dynamic and fulfilling the skiing life is. And a wake-up call regarding what needs to be done to save it.  The narrative follows the unlikely rise of skiing from prehistoric Norwegian hunters to nobility in the Alps in the 1800s to present-day freeriders on the vaunted slopes of the Rocky Mountains. On his global tour of the most celebrated peaks in the Northern Hemisphere, from Washington’s Cascade Range to Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn, Fox talks to alpinists about the allure and mysticism of the sport and to scientists about climate change and its effect on snow—ultimately finding a story that is far larger than the impending demise of skiing.For the seven million skiers in America who dedicate their winters to tracking storms and waking up at dawn to catch the first chairlift, the lifestyle change will be radical. It will likely be far worse for the rest of the world. Fox uses primary evidence and interviews, mixed with groundbreaking scientific studies, to explain exactly how and when the Great Melt will play out, the vital importance snow and ice have to Earth's climate system and the tremendous groundswell that is rising up to fight climate change. DEEP goes on to map a way to mitigate global warming, reduce human impact on our planet and repair the water cycle. As it turns out, the efforts to save snow and ice might end up saving the world."

    The infectious excitement in his voice, his boyish love of the game, and his uncanny ability to anticipate the play have earned him the affection of generations of fans, induction into the Hall of Fame, and the unofficial title of best hockey broadcaster ever.Now, for the first time, readers will see Cole at the centre of the story rather than watching it from the broadcast booth. We meet the young man growing up in Newfoundland in the years before it joins Canada. We see him talk his way into Foster Hewitt's office and into his first job. And of course we see some of the most cherished players in the game backstage: on the plane back from Russia in 1972, rubbing elbows with Bobby Orr; in the hallway on the old Montreal Forum, running into Jean Beliveau; meeting young players like Steve Stamkos, who grew up listening to him on Hockey Night in Canada.Written with the expert help of massively bestselling author and respected broadcaster Stephen Brunt, these stories come to life with the charm and detail of a conversation with Cole. They sound like Cole.No one has been closer to the game over the years than Cole, and no one is more closely associated with all we love about the game than the man whose eyes we've seen it though. Now we will see so much more through those same eyes and in that unforgettable voice.

    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).

    Sure, there have been plenty of great baseball teams--but which was the best ever? While it seems like an unwinnable argument, the authors of Baseball Dynasties have risen to the challenge. They took the top fifteen teams of the twentieth century, ran them through rigorous statistical analysis, and threw in some good old-fashioned opinion in their quest to determine, definitively, who was the greatest team in the history of baseball. Looking at continued brilliance over time (no one-season wonders allowed), Hall of Famers on the roster, offensive and defensive production, performance in the postseason, and numerous other tangibles and intangibles, Eddie Epstein and Rob Neyer put each team under the microscope--and picked a winner. Who will come out on top? Was it the 1927 Yankees, the legendary squad blessed with both Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig? Or how about Earl Weaver's 1970 Orioles, who over a three-year span dominated their opponents at a higher level than any other team this century? Full of anecdotes, intriguing facts, and scores of statistics, Baseball Dynasties is a fascinating look at baseball history certain to provoke, entertain, and edify baseball fans of all ages.