He is certainly, by his own admission, a man who leaves nothing to chance. A disciple in the 1970s of Rinus Michels' Total Football philosophy, he is a fascinating contradiction - an ultra-individualist utterly devoted to the collective effort. He believes in the team over the individual, in always having a plan and a team prepared to follow that plan. Van Gaal led the young Ajax team he moulded to Champions League glory in 1995, went on to win titles across Europe with Barcelona, AZ Alkmaar and Bayern Munich and is currently in his second stint as national coach of Holland. It is a career that has never been short on colour and drama - from fallouts with players to rants at the media wherever he has managed. Dutch football commentator Maarten Meijer's has written the definitive biography of Van Gaal - both the man and his methods. It offers the best psychological insight so far - from his earliest roots to his greatest triumphs - into the man given the task of returning the glory days to Manchester United.

    Out on the pitch a lone brass player sounds the haunting Post Horn Gallop, for 80 years the home players' entrance tune. Spines tingle. Air is gulped into opposition lungs. Game time, time to begin the chase. Burning fox eyes peer down from between the decks of one of the stands. On the stadium's outside wall a royal blue LCD display says #Fearless.Welcome to Leicester City. They were always a club with a difference but in 2015-16 they created a story that in modern football stands unique. Who could believe it: from relegation certainties to champions of England? It was when, on behalf of every small club, dreams were hunted at the King Power, a season where the impossible became merely quarry.5,000-1 shots when the campaign started, Leicester's transformation has been remarkable. This is the most incredible cast of written-offs, grafters, misfits and journeymen, coming together in a special time and place to simultaneously have the season of their lives. Fearless will document Leicester's hunt of their impossible dream. It will tell the greatest football tale of the Premier League era, in loving detail, with the inside track. Now that Leicester have gone all the way and won the title, it is the best story in world sports - for years.Premier League champions. The side who'd been adrift at the bottom 12 months previously, who's started the season as relegation favourites, whose manager was favourite to be the first one sacked once the campaign got underway. A League One side only seven seasons previously. A squad of �500,000 and �1m men. Leicester. Ridiculous. Miraculous. Fearless.

    Based on the colorful personalities of powerful men and women, this book begins with the Plains Indians and moves through legendary hunters like Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Kit Carson, Buffalo Bill, Teddy Roosevelt, Ernest Hemingway, Lyndon Johnson, and of course, Duck Dynasty’s Robertson family. Also included are the histories of American fox, rabbit, deer, squirrel, duck, goose, and big-game hunting, as well as action biographies of classic hunting weapons. Author Willie Robertson, famed hunter of Duck Dynasty and Duck Commander, lends his voice to share this amazing collection of true stories to tell around the campfire after a long day’s hunt. As Teddy Roosevelt put it, “The virility, clear-sighted common sense and resourcefulness of the American people is due to the fact that we have been a nation of hunters and frequenters of the forest, plains, and waters.” It’s about time we honor American hunters with a book that tells their incredible stories of skill, courage, and survival. American Hunter is the perfect book for everyone who enjoys sweeping tales of American history and for those who love hunting, sport shooting, and wide open spaces.

    This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    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

    They were pure ballplayers, sluggers and sweet fielders who played with unbridled joy and breathtaking skill. The national press converged on Crenshaw. So many scouts gravitated to their games that they took up most of the seats in the bleachers. Even the Crenshaw ballfield was a sight to behold -- groomed by the players themselves, picked clean of every pebble, it was the finest diamond in all of inner-city Los Angeles. On the outfield fences, the gates to the outside stayed locked against the danger and distraction of the streets. Baseball, for these boys, was hope itself. They had grown up with the notion that it could somehow set things right -- a vague, unexpressed, but persistent hope that even if life was rigged, baseball might be fair. And for a while it seemed they were right. Incredibly, most of of this team -- even several of the boys who sat on the bench -- were drafted into professional baseball. Two of them, Darryl Strawberry and Chris Brown, would reunite as teammates on a National League All-Star roster. But Michael Sokolove's The Ticket Out is more a story of promise denied than of dreams fulfilled. Because in Sokolove's brilliantly reported poignant and powerful tale, the lives of these gifted athletes intersect with the realities of being poor, urban, and black in America. What happened to these young men is a harsh reminder of the ways inspiration turns to frustration when the bats and balls are stowed and the crowd's applause dies down.

    Though tragic, it is also a story of triumph that scarcely has an equal. It is one of history's great witnesses of the power of faith and sacrifice. Although this story is one of the most frequently told of all Mormon pioneer accounts, it is also among the least understood. This book provides the most comprehensive and accessible account of these pioneers' epic 1856 journey. In addition to painting a broad perspective of the trek, it includes dozens of personal stories from the pioneers themselves. Woven into the larger story of the journey west, these stories inspire, build faith, recount miracles, and reveal how these pioneers were able to endure such adversity. The book also includes chapters on the lives of many of these pioneers after the handcart trek. Immerse yourself in the challenges and miracles of this astounding odyssey as never before!

    Flavored with wild (and often ribald) anecdotes, inside stories, interviews, and never-before-told material, Going Long brings the incredible story of the maverick American Football League to life through the words of those who lived it.

    In So You Think You Know Baseball?, lifelong baseball enthusiast Peter E. Meltzer catalogues every noteworthy baseball rule from the Major League rulebook and illustrates its application with actual plays, from the historical to the contemporary.You can read the book from start to finish or consult it while watching a game to understand the mechanics of a play or how it should be scored. Meltzer analyzes the entire Official Baseball Rules using hundreds of Major League plays involving both plays on the field situations and plays which have involved the official scorer. This is the first book ever written which analyzes the entire rulebook in this fashion and which is based on actual plays.With Meltzer’s unique and thoroughly entertaining guide in hand, which includes a foreword by baseball rules expert Rich Marazzi, you’ll never have to scratch your head over an umpire or scorekeeper’s call again.

    The Blues, as they were called, were perpetually understrength and considered to be acceptable losses in hopeless situations—but their amazingly successful record proved otherwise.A firsthand account of mortal combat with the Ninth Cavalry, Flashing Saber is the remarkable story of the brave men who served in the First Air Cavalry Division's reconnaissance squadron. Included is an account of an air-ground raid that overran a regimental command post and killed more high-ranking enemy officers than any similar engagement of the war. The story begins when a teenager, an Eagle Scout and West Point Prep School student, goes to Vietnam in 1965. Motivated by patriotism and the desire to see combat firsthand, Brennan volunteers for front line duty and spends years as an artillery forward observer and infantryman. Promoted to sergeant and then to lieutenant, Brennan participates in hundreds of assault landings.An expansion and careful reworking of his previous work, Brennan's War, published in 1985, and in the vein of classic memoirs by Johnnie Clark and Frederick Downs, Flashing Saberis a harrowing firsthand account of life and death in war, one filled with breathtaking details about a renowned unit.

     What happened at Essendon, what happened at Cronulla, is only part of the story. From the basement office of a suburban football club to the seedy corners of Peptide Alley to the polished corridors of Parliament House, The Straight Dope is an inside account of the politics, greed and personal feuds which fuelled an extraordinary saga. A football club and coach determined to win, a sports scientist who doesn't play by the rules, an AFL administration hell bent on control, an anti-doping authority out of its depth, a generation of footballers held hostage by scandal and an unpopular government that just wants it to end; for two tumultuous seasons this was the biggest game of all.

    He encounters enterprising owners, dedicated managers, die-hard fans, Hall of Fame instructors, and hopeful players. 8-page insert.

    This is untrue. In fact, this period helped resuscitate KISS’s career, as they reestablished themselves in arenas, on the charts, and via MTV, and yielded some of their most popular songs – including Lick It Up, Heaven’s On Fire, Tears Are Falling, Crazy Crazy Nights, Hide Your Heart, Forever, Unholy, and more – many of which consistently found their way into the band’s set lists. While the majority of KISS books are focused on the glitz and glamour of the iconic makeup era, the non-makeup years are ripe to be explored in book form, and Take It Off does just that, zeroing in on the eleven albums KISS issued during this period – including such gold- and platinum-certified hits as Lick It Up, Animalize, Revenge, and Alive III – as well the resulting tours, videos, and other escapades.Take It Off draws on all-new interviews with KISS experts and associates, including the band’s lead guitarist throughout most of this period, Bruce Kulick, plus Crazy Nights producer Ron Nevison and video director Paul Rachman (Unholy/I Just Wanna/Domino). Among the other contributors are Charlie Benante (Anthrax), K.K. Downing (ex-Judas Priest), Derek Sherinan (ex-Dream Theater), and rock music experts Eddie Trunk, Katherine Turman, and Lonn Friend. The book also includes a foreword by Fozzy frontman Chris Jericho and an afterword by acclaimed producer Andreas Carlsson, as well as rare photographs and memorabilia from the period. With KISS currently in the midst of their last ever tour, now is the time to get Truly Unmasked.

    Army as a two-tour helicopter pilot in Vietnam. It is a true-life story of a pilot who fought for freedom and often his very life. Vietnams Saga is also a story about the meaning of life. Standing back from his war experience, Stan reflects on his ever-present faith and how it carried him through this challenging period of his life. Originally written as a legacy to Stan Corvin’s family- something that will be passed down for many generations-Vietnam Saga is now an opportunity for you to share in the legacy and the personal recollections, memories, thoughts, fears and shed tears of a decorated and dedicated American military pilot. The book also contains numerous photos.