That judgment, implausible even to a casual fan, also contradicted the opinion of a growing cadre of neuroscientists who worked in vain to convince the NFL that it was facing a deadly new scourge: A chronic brain disease that was driving an alarming number of players -- including some of the all-time greats -- to madness.League of Denial reveals how the NFL, over a period of nearly two decades, sought to cover up and deny mounting evidence of the connection between football and brain damage.Comprehensively, and for the first time, award-winning ESPN investigative reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru tell the story of a public health crisis that emerged from the playing fields of our 21st century pastime. Everyone knew that football is violent and dangerous. But what the players who built the NFL into a $10 billion industry didn’t know – and what the league sought to shield from them – is that no amount of padding could protect the human brain from the force generated by modern football; that the very essence of the game could be exposing these players to brain damage.In a fast-paced narrative that moves between the NFL trenches, America’s research labs and the boardrooms where the NFL went to war against science, League of Denial examines how the league used its power and resources to attack independent scientists and elevate its own flawed research -- a campaign with echoes of Big Tobacco’s fight to deny the connection between smoking and lung cancer. It chronicles the tragic fates of players like Hall of Fame Pittsburgh Steelers center Mike Webster, who was so disturbed at the time of his death he fantasized about shooting NFL executives; and former Chargers great Junior Seau, whose diseased brain became the target of an unseemly scientific battle between researchers and the NFL. Based on exclusive interviews, previously undisclosed documents and private emails, this is the story of what the NFL knew and when it knew it – questions at the heart of crisis that threatens football, from the highest levels all the way down to Pop Warner.

    Whether it is a manager being sacked, the signing of a new star player, television rights negotiations, player misconduct or multi-million-pound club takeovers, lawyers remain at the heart of all football business dealings. Written by leading Premier League lawyer Daniel Geey, who has dealt with all these incidents first hand, this highly accessible book explores the issues - from pitch to boardroom - that shape the modern game and how these impact leagues, clubs, players and fans.Featuring insider anecdotes and expert contributions, Done Deal provides football fans with a fresh and authoritative perspective on all off-field football matters.

    When he heard that Coach Dick Vermeil was holding open tryouts, he decided to give it a shot. Shocking himself and the coaches, he ran an explosive 40-yard-dash in just 4.5 seconds -- a world-class time -- and was offered a contract on the spot. When he joined the team, Papale became the oldest non-kicking rookie in NFL history, a fan favorite who played for four years and was named a team captain. Invincible is Vince Papale's story, and a tie-in to the Disney Pictures film of the same name starring Mark Wahlberg as Papale and Greg Kinnear as Vermeil. But more than just a tie-in, it tells Papale's story in his own words, covering subjects not included in the film. Like Rudy, Glory Road, and Rookie, it is the true story of an ordinary man who achieves an extraordinary goal.

    It is a perfect window into the cross-currents of today's world, with all its joys and its sorrows. In this remarkably insightful, wide-ranging work of reportage, Franklin Foer takes us on a surprising tour through the world of soccer, shining a spotlight on the clash of civilizations, the international economy, and just about everything in between. How Soccer Explains the World is an utterly original book that makes sense of our troubled times.

    Since his death at just 51 from pancreatic cancer, this has been the accepted view of a national hero. But how much do we really know of England’s only World Cup-winning skipper? We all know that Bobby Moore was an extraordinary captain and defender, but alongside his legendary feats on the pitch he knew scandal, death threats, bankruptcy business, and the sack. He divorced after a long affair, was rumored to have friends in the East End underworld, and he loved a drink. The tragedy of his life was to be ignored by soccer in his latter years and to drift into obscurity. After he applied to be England manager, the FA didn’t even bother to send a rejection letter. There was no job in the game and, famously, no knighthood. As well as the undeniable moments of glory, this long overdue, definitive biography won’t shy away from the grit. Tracing his journey from the East End to a pedestal outside Wembley Stadium, it will, for the first time, look at Moore’s life from all sides, through the testimony of teammates, rivals, family, and friends. What was Moore like to play with, to drink with? What was he like as a husband, father, opponent, and captain? A struggling manager and a failed businessman? This book will tell the story of an Essex boy who became the patron saint of English soccer, revealing a lifetime of intrigue, triumph, and tragedy in between.

    Now, a generation later, Harry Pearson returns to the region to discover how much things have changed - and how much they have remained the same.  In the mid-1990s, Kevin Keegan brought sporting romance and expectation of trophies to Newcastle, Sunderland moved the the Stadium of Light backed by a wealthy consortium, Middlesbrough signed one of the best Brazilians of the era and won their first major trophy - even little Darlington had a former safe-cracker turned kitchen magnate in charge, promising the world. The region even provided England's two key players in Euro 96 in Alan Shearer and Paul Gascoigne - the far corner seemed destined to become the centre of England's footballing world. But it never happened. Using travels to and from matches in the 2018-19 season, The Farther Corner will explore the changes in north-east football and society over the past twenty-five years. Visiting new places and some familiar ones, catching the stories, the sentiment and the sound of the supporters, locating where football now sits in the life of a region that was once proud to be what John Arlott suggested was ‘The Hotbed of Soccer’, it will be about love and loss and the happiness to be found eating KitKats and joking about Bobby Mimms on cold February days in coal-scented northern air. The region may have been left behind in the Champions League stakes, but few would doubt the power of its beating heart.

    Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, ESPN, has blazed a stunning path of achievement with its expansive coverage of broadcast sports-spinning off into ESPN2, ESPN Classic Sports, ESPNews, and ESPN Magazine-but has also experienced its share of controversy. Along the way, this American entrepreneurial triumph has alienated on-air talent, drawn charges of racial discrimination, and seen employees accused of blatant sexual harassment. ESPN's success story is no fairy tale. Among the colorful lore and amusing anecdotes lurk serious complications and controversies. Through information gleaned from internal documents, police and court records, and interviews with network employees, on-air talent, producers, and executives, ESPN: The Uncensored History probes the inside story of America's premiere sports network. Part corporate history, part media and cultural analysis, and part expose, the book examines both the positive developments effected by the network and the bad habits it has picked up from the business it covers. This paperback reveals the most recent developments at ESPN since the publication of the hardback, including the network's aggressive reactions to the book.

    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.

    In these days of oligarch owners, superstar managers and players on sky-high wages, the tide is turning against the big teams as fans search for football with a soul. Enter non-league football – the heartland of the beautiful game.Nige Tassell spends a season among the characters who inhabit this world. The raffle-ticket seller who wants her ashes scattered in the centre-circle. The envelope salesman who discovered a future England international. The ex-pros still playing with undiluted passion on Sunday mornings. One thing unites them: they are all dreamers.Tassell ventures all over the footballing map, from the giantkillers of Salford City to hungover cloggers on Hackney Marshes, interviewing obsessive groundhoppers, record-smashing goalscorers, dictatorial managers, ukulele-strumming fans and the captain of the Filipino national team. He makes extended stopovers at both new boys Tranmere Rovers looking for a speedy return to the Football League and the inhabitants of the ‘bottom corner’ Bishop Sutton, who are just trying to get eleven men on a pitch.Hope and ambition. Triumph and tragedy. Faith and despair. All human life is here in the win-or-sink drama of non-league football.

    His memoir of those years, North Toward Home, became a modern classic. In The Courting of Marcus Dupree he turned again home to Mississippi to write about the small town of Philadelphia and its favorite son, a black high-school quarterback. In Marcus Dupree, Morris found a living emblem of that baroque strain in the American character called southern.Beginning on the summer practice fields, Morris follows Marcus Dupree through each game of his senior varsity year. He talks with the Dupree family, the college recruiters, the coach and the school principal, some of the teachers and townspeople, and, of course, with the young man himself. As the season progresses and the seventeen-year-old Dupree attracts a degree of national attention to Philadelphia neither known nor endured since the Troubles of the early sixties, these conversations take on a wider significance. Willie Morris has created more than a spectator's journal. He writes here of his repatriation to a land and a people who have recovered something that fear and misdirected loyalties had once eclipsed. The result is a fascinating, unusual, and even topical work that tells a story richer than its apparent subject, for it brings the whole of the eighties South, with all its distinctive resonances, to life.

    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.

    Even before turning thirty, Pujols has accrued batting totals that most players only dream of gaining over the course of an entire career.Among all Major Leaguers who ever played the game, Pujols already ranks in the top twenty in batting average, slugging percentage, on-base percentage, and adjusted on-base plus slugging. In simple terms, he is one of the greatest offensive players to in baseball history.Pujols hit 201 home runs in his first five seasons, placing him in second place all-time for the most homers hit during a player's first five years. Not stopping there, in 2009 he reached the 350-home run mark at a younger age than anyone except Ken Griffey Jr. and Alex Rodriguez. By doing so, he also surpassed the record for most home runs in the first nine years of a career, breaking the mark established by Hall of Famer Ralph Kiner way back in 1954. And speaking of nine seasons, Pujols now stands as the only player ever to begin a career with nine consecutive years of 30 home runs and 100 runs batted in. And that's just for starters.But when the adulation comes his way, Pujols points people to an even greater hero, directing them to Christ. "At the end of the day," he says, "as long as I glorify him, and those 45,000 people know who I represent out there every time I step out on the field, that's what it's about. It's about representing God." Albert Pujols: Bigger than the Game will satisfy MLB fans who like their baseball slathered in amazing stats, and it will shed light on the faith that Pujols says makes it all possible.

    Madden is a former lineman and head coach for the Oakland Raiders. Anderson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning sports columnist and author.

    The Reds became the first team in British history to hold the European Cup, Super Cup, World Club Cup and domestic league title simultaneously in a masterclass of free-scoring, full throttle footballing prowess.Journalist Melissa Reddy reveals the inside story of Jürgen Klopp’s astonishing revival of Liverpool, culminating in the club’s first domestic league trophy in thirty years. Featuring incisive and insightful reporting, and the thoughts of players, management and club hierarchy, Believe Us paints a vivid picture of this titanic sporting success. Reddy’s unparalleled access to the club brings interviews with everyone from fans and key backroom staff to players including talismanic captain Jordan Henderson, and of course Klopp himself.The perfect gift for any fan of the club or its inimitable leader, this is heavy metal football writing at its best.

    In a book that's sure to thrill--and infuriate--countless fans, Bill James takes a hard look at the Hall, probing its history, its politics and, most of all, its decisions.