An Olympic gold medalist recalls his four years on Indiana University's basketball team under the brilliant but controversial coach Bobby Knight, whose volatility and manipulativeness exacted a heavy toll from his players.An Olympic gold medalist recalls his four years on Indiana University's basketball team under the brilliant but controversial coach Bobby Knight, whose volatility and manipulativeness exacted a heavy toll from his players.

    Perfect for readers of Jeff Pearlman’s The Bad Guys Won!, Peter Richmond’s Badasses, and Pat Williams’s Coach Wooden, Araton’s revealing story of the Knicks’ heyday is far more than a review of one of basketball’s greatest teams’ inspiring story—it is, at heart, a stirring recreation of a time and place when the NBA championships defined the national dream.

    With Greene, Jordan let down his guard.In an extraordinary book that transcends sports biography, Greene takes the reader along with Jordan over two seasons with the Chicago Bulls, during glorious championship surges and trying personal moments. With rare insight, Greene reveals the person inside the icon: a man who makes millions but cannot go for a quiet walk around the block without getting mobbed, a man who competes ferociously on the court, but who performs some of his most remarkable and unexpected feats away from the limelight.Drawn from inside Michael Jordan's daily life, rich with the sound of Jordan's own voice, Hang Time is a startlingly candid and intimate story of time spent with a champion, and of the growing friendship between two men.

    Today he is considered one of the most articulate and insightful broadcasters in baseball, bringing the game to life in ways that few can match. Now he gives us an engaging, sophisticated, practical, and philosophical exploration of the art, strategy, and psychology of pitching.Darling takes us inside the pitcher’s mind, illuminating the subtler aspects of the game and providing a deeper appreciation of what happens on the field. He explains why the position of pitcher is uniquely strategic and complex and explores the various tactics a pitcher uses in different scenarios, including the countless factors in deciding what to throw and how he bounces back from a tough inning. Throughout, we get a glimpse of what it feels like to stand alone on the mound, the center of attention for tens of thousands of fans.While there are technical books on pitching, there is no other book that examines the position in such compelling depth as The Complete Game. Filled with captivating, real-life anecdotes, it will do for pitching what Ted Williams’s The Science of Hitting did for batting—and it will be an essential book for every fan and aspiring player.

    5 towering brothers: Three who play in the NFL - a Denver Bronco, a Cleveland Brown and a record-breaking tight end with the New England Patriots, Rob Gronkowski, who is realizing a meteoric rise to a spot in NFL history. Another who played major league baseball. And the youngest, an up-and-coming Division 1 football player.  Growing Up Gronk takes readers behind the scenes to tell the Gronkowski's incredible story, revealing how they were raised, how they were motivated, how they trained, how they played, even how their mother kept them fed. It all started with their father, Gordy, under whose tutelage this collection of giants has broken every rule about how 21st century athletic success functions. Beyond their monstrous size, physicality, and raw talent, Papa Gronk recognized early on that a clear commitment to fitness, health, and determination would give his boys a leg up in a way other families simply couldn’t match.  This unique story of the NFL's new first family reveals the secrets to the Gronkowski's collective success and opens the door a one-of-a-kind household, a veritable incubator of athletic greatness.

    Thomas, the grandson of Walter Johnson, lives in Arlington, Virginia. He is currently editing, for audio release, the interviews taped by Lawrence Ritter for his classic The Glory of Their Times. Shirley Povich died in 1998 at the age of 92 after seventy-five years as an award-winning sportswriter for the Washington Post.

    To millions of football fans across America, he was the “Voice of the NFL.” And as open and giving as Harry Kalas was throughout his professional and personal life, there are countless layers of the man that have remained unknown . . . until now. Author Randy Miller interviewed more than 160 people—including all of Harry’s surviving family, many of his close friends from childhood to present, numerous colleagues from baseball and the NFL, and even Harry’s longtime personal psychologist—to craft a loving and shockingly honest portrayal of one of the most celebrated broadcasters in the history of sports. With incredible details from all phases of his life—from his upbringing in the Chicago suburbs, to his Hall of Fame broadcasting career in baseball, to his ubiquitous voiceover work with the NFL, to his personal vices for drinking and women, to his legendary friendship with Richie “Whitey” Ashburn, to his ongoing feud with on-air partner Chris Wheeler— Harry the K: The Remarkable Life of Harry Kalas will surprise, delight, and enlighten all fans of the man they called “Harry the K.”

    Jay Paterno paints a full picture of his father’s life and career as well as documenting that almost none of the horrific crimes that came to light in 2012 took place at PennState. Jay Paterno clear-headedly confronts the events that happened with cool facts and with passion, demonstrating that this was just one more case of an innocent man convicted by the media for a crime in which he had no part. Noting that the scandal itself was but a short moment in Joe Paterno’s life and legacy, the book focuses on Paterno’s greatness as a father and grandfather, his actions as a miraculous coach to his players, and his skillful dealings with his assistant coaches. A memorial to one of the greatest coaches in college football history, the book also reveals insightful anecdotes from his son and coaching pupil.

    It begins, appropriately, with the winter doldrums and "sweating out" a new contract, then follows the author and his family to spring training in Florida and through the full season s schedule to October. "One of the best baseball books ever written. It is probably one of the best American diaries as well." New York Times Book Review. "The greatest baseball book ever written." Jimmy Cannon."

    Most of the best players were white; the set shot and layup were the sport’s chief offensive weapons. But by the 1970s, the league ruled America’s biggest media markets; contests attracted capacity crowds and national prime-time television audiences. The game was played “above the rim”–and the most marketable of its high-flying stars were black. The credit for this remarkable transformation largely goes to two giants: Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain. In The Rivalry, award-winning journalist John Taylor projects the stories of Russell, Chamberlain, and other stars from the NBA’s golden age onto a backdrop of racial tensions and cultural change. Taylor’s electrifying account of two complex men–as well as of a game and a country at a crossroads–is an epic narrative of sports in America during the 1960s.It’s hard to imagine two characters better suited to leading roles in the NBA saga: Chamberlain was cast as the athletically gifted yet mercurial titan, while Russell played the role of the stalwart centerpiece of the Boston Celtics dynasty. Taylor delves beneath these stereotypes, detailing how the two opposed and complemented each other and how they revolutionized the way the game was played and perceived by fans. Competing with and against such heroes as Jerry West, Tom Heinsohn, Bob Cousy, John Havlicek, and Elgin Baylor, and playing for the two greatest coaches of the era, Alex Hannum and the fiery Red Auerbach, Chamberlain and Russell propelled the NBA into the spotlight. But their off-court visibility and success–to say nothing of their candor–also inflamed passions along America’s racial and generational fault lines. In many ways, Russell and Chamberlain helped make the NBA and, to some extent, America what they are today.Filled with dramatic conflicts and some of the great moments in sports history, and building to a thrilling climax–the 1969 final series, the last showdown between Russell and Chamberlain–The Rivalry has at its core a philosophical question: Can determination and a team ethos, embodied by the ultimate team player, Bill Russell, trump sheer talent, embodied by Wilt Chamberlain? Gripping, insightful, and utterly compelling, the story of Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain is the stuff of sporting legend. Written with a reporter’s unerring command of events and a storyteller’s flair, The Rivalry will take its place as one of the classic works of sports history.From the Hardcover edition.

    And then, last year in his rookie season as head coach of the Indiana Pacers, he infused the team with these same qualities -- and the results were remarkable. He turned around a slumping franchise and led the Pacers to the conference finals. To finish off a great season, Bird was named the NBA's "Coach of the Year" -- quite an accolade for Bird, who had never coached before and surprised many fans with his unusual and unorthodox coaching methods. This book is a look into one of the greatest minds to have ever stepped on a hardwood court. Larry Bird shares his inner thoughts on basketball that to date only his Celtic teammates and Pacers players have been privy. From dissecting offensive and defensive strategies to assessing the talent of NBA players; from sharing the genesis of his coaching philosophies to how he deals with today's overpriced and temperamental players, it's all there. This book is Larry Bird's basketball playbook, and it's the one book every basketball fan will want to read. Cover design by Tom TafuriCover photograph by Glenn James/NBA Photos

    The commissioner, executives, and players were shocked. Sportswriters called author Jim Bouton a traitor and "social leper." Baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn tried to force him to declare the book untrue. Fans, however, loved the book. And serious critics called it an important social document. Today, Jim Bouton is still not invited to Oldtimer's Days at Yankee Stadium. But his landmark book is still being read by people who don't ordinarily follow baseball.

       In Dream Team, acclaimed sports journalist Jack McCallum delivers the untold story of the greatest team ever assembled: the 1992 U.S. Olympic Men’s Basketball Team that captivated the world, kindled the hoop dreams of countless children around the planet, and remade the NBA into a global sensation.   As a senior staff writer for Sports Illustrated, McCallum enjoyed a courtside seat for the most exciting basketball spectacle on earth, covering the Dream Team from its inception to the gold medal ceremony in Barcelona. For the duration of the Olympics, he lived with, golfed with, and—most important—drank with some of the greatest players of the NBA’s Golden Age: Magic Johnson, the ebullient showman who shrugged off his recent diagnosis of HIV to become the team’s unquestioned captain and leader; Michael Jordan, the transcendent talent at the height of his powers as a player—and a marketing juggernaut; and Charles Barkley, the outspoken iconoclast whose utterances on and off the court threatened to ignite an international incident. Presiding over the entire traveling circus was the Dream Team’s beloved coach, Chuck Daly, whose laissez-faire approach proved instrumental in getting the most out of such disparate personalities and superstars such as Larry Bird, Patrick Ewing, and Scottie Pippen.   Drawing on fresh interviews with the players, McCallum provides the definitive account of the Dream Team phenomenon. He offers a behind-the-scenes look at the controversial selection process. He takes us inside the team’s Olympic suites for late-night card games and bull sessions where the players debate both the finer points of basketball and their respective places in the NBA pantheon. And he narrates a riveting possession-by-possession account of the legendary July 1992 intrasquad scrimmage that pitted the Dream Teamers against one another in what may have been the greatest pickup game—and the greatest exhibition of trash talk—in history.   In the twenty years since the Dream Team first captivated the world’s attention, its mystique has only grown—and so has its influence. The NBA is now flush with international stars, many of them inspired by the exuberant spirit of ’92. Dream Team vividly re-creates the moment when a once-in-a-millennium group of athletes came together, outperformed the hype, and changed the future of sports—one perfectly executed fast break at a time.  The Dream Team was . . .  Michael Jordan, Guard, Chicago Bulls Magic Johnson, Guard, Los Angeles Lakers Larry Bird, Forward, Boston Celtics Charles Barkley, Forward, Phoenix Suns Chris Mullin, Forward, Golden State Warriors Scottie Pippen, Forward, Chicago Bulls John Stockton, Guard, Utah Jazz Karl Malone, Forward, Utah Jazz David Robinson, Center, San Antonio Spurs Patrick Ewing, Center, New York Knicks Christian Laettner, Forward, Duke University Clyde Drexler, Guard, Portland Trailblazers

    2 cassettes.

    Gaining access to personal letters, albums and scrapbooks, plus spending hours with family members among some 300 interviews, has allowed the authors to craft the definitive biography of Pistol Pete Maravich, who lived a life of triumph and tragedy.