Keep the family together, that's what her old mum always said. Put up and shut up. And that's what everyone else did around there. Essex, 1959. Flo earns her money as a scrubber, cleaning the cruise ships and dreaming of a day when she might sail away from her life in the Dwellings, the squalid tenements of Tilbury docks. Then the Blundell family are evicted from their home.Fred, Flo's husband, finds work at Monday's, a utopian factory town. Suddenly, it seems like everything is on the up for Flo Blundell and her children. Even Jeanie, Flo's sulking teenage daughter, seems to be thawing a little in her shiny new surroundings. But when Flo's abusive husband Fred starts drinking again, he jeopardises the family's chance to escape poverty for good.Flo is faced with a terrible decision. Must she fight to keep her family together? Or could she strive for the life of her dreams - the kind of life she could have when her ship comes in?

    Longtime sports columnist Bryan Burwell has written the first comprehensive biography of this living legend, whose incredible football knowledge, down-home sensibilities, and tireless work ethic made him arguably the most popular sports analyst in any sport. As a coach, he has the highest winning percentage in history, and he led the Oakland Raiders to a 1979 Super Bowl Championship. He followed that up by becoming the most beloved and popular football announcer in the country, and in the third stage of his public life, the Hall of Fame coach became known to new generations of fans through his eponymous line of groundbreaking video games, which are among the bestselling titles of all time."

    Now, Erik Sherman, the New York Times bestselling coauthor of Mookie, profiles key players from that infamous Mets team, revealing never-before-exposed details about their lives after that championship year…as well as a look back at the magical season itself.      Darryl Strawberry, Doc Gooden, Keith Hernandez, Lenny Dykstra, Mookie Wilson, Howard Johnson, Doug Sisk, Rafael Santana, Bobby Ojeda, Wally Backman, Kevin Mitchell, Ed Hearn, Danny Heep, and the late Gary Carter were all known for their heroics on the field. For some of them—known as the “Scum Bunch”—their debauchery off the field was even more awe-inspiring. But when that golden season ended, so did their aura of invincibility. Some faced battles with addiction, some were traded, and others struggled just to keep their lives together.    Through interviews with these legendary players, Erik Sherman offers fans a new perspective on a team that will forever be remembered in sports history.INCLUDES PHOTOSFrom the Hardcover edition.

     By the fall of 2019, most teams around Major League Baseball suspected that the Houston Astros has been "stealing signs" for several years. The Astros had come out of nowhere to win the 2017 World Series, and pitchers and coaches felt as though the Astros batters always knew exactly which pitch was coming their way. In a scandal that rivals other legendary baseball scandals, news finally broke that the Astros were using new high-definition ballpark technology (a camera installed in center field, transmitting the opposing catcher's sign calls back to the Astros' dugout, where a coach was interpreting the signs and either whistling in code or banging on a dugout garbage can to alert their batters which pitch was about to be thrown). In time, several other teams--the Red Sox, Yankees, Dodgers and Mets--were suspected of doing similar things in the spirit of, "if you can't beat em, join em," and baseball had suffered a serious black eye.Andy Martino, a respected lead sports analyst on SNY television network, and author of "SNY MLB Insider," takes readers to the heart of these events. From top Astros coaches and players, to prominent contacts on the Yankees, Red Sox and others, Martino is on-and-off the record with everyone involved. He breaks down not only what happened and when, but gets the fascinating explanations of why this came about, and how many of the people involved believed they were seeking competitive advantages that, while not expressly legal, were not illegal at the time. The nuance and detail of this scandal is its most fascinating piece--and Andy Martino is the guy who has the real and whole story. Cheated is an electrifying read.

    The Killings of Stanley Ketchel is a sweeping and powerful literary adventure by one of our most daring novelists.

    His incredible career spanned two decades, during which time he played for the Chargers, Dolphins, and Patriots. A charismatic leader and competitor known for playing through injuries and leaving it all on the field, Seau started in almost 250 regular season games and electrified fans with his dynamic play.   In 2012, at the age of forty-three, Seau committed suicide with a gunshot wound to the chest. News of his death sent shockwaves through the NFL. Later, studies concluded that Seau had been suffering from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a type of brain damage. His tragic death opened the door to hundreds of inquiries about the trauma from NFL players and their families.  Drawing on exclusive access to Seau’s family and Seau’s never-before-seen diaries and letters, veteran reporter Jim Trotter goes beyond the statistics to paint a moving portrait of a larger-than-life star whose towering achievements in the game came at a great cost.

    For a supporter of any team, from the U.S. national teams to Manchester United, or any competition, from Mexico's Liga MX to the World Cup, this book reveals what players and managers are thinking before, during, and after games and delivers a true behind-the-scenes perspective on the inner workings of the sport's brightest minds. America's premier soccer journalist, Grant Wahl, follows world-class players from across the globe examining how they do their jobs. This access imbues Masters of Modern Soccer with deep insight from the players on how goalkeepers, defenders, midfielders, and forwards function individually and as a unit to excel and win. Wahl also shadows a manager and director of soccer as they juggle the challenges of coaching, preparation, and the short- and long-term strategies of how to identify and acquire talent and deploy it on the field. A book that will stand the test of time, Masters of Modern Soccer is the most in-depth analysis of the craft of soccer ever written for the American fan. For any fan, player, coach, or sideline enthusiast, this book will change the way they watch the game.

    Tasked with routing out enemy agents and thwarting an elaborate espionage ring, which includes beautiful American double agent Josephine Lafitte, MacLea’s mission is betrayed. Now, trapped in a dramatic showdown aboard a captured American warship headed for the breach at Niagara Falls, battle-hardened MacLea finds himself fighting not just for freedom, but for his life.

    Having been brought up in a Roman Catholic family in Havana, Cuba and descending from Spanish ancestry did not ensure that her life would be lived within that realm. In response to strong feelings and an affinity towards Judaism, her search for her family's past, took on a deeper significance as she researched her maternal lineage and not only discovered but documented and verified her Pre-Inquisition Spanish Roots to Fifteenth Century Spain and Portugal where they lived first as Jews, then as Crypto Jews and finally as Roman Catholics. She was able to unravel the web of lies and deceit that her family had spun around themselves in order to survive the Spanish Inquisition .They lived with one foot in each world as they converted to Catholicism openly while secretly practicing their own religion underground. Genie was fortunate enough to grab the brass ring that was thrown in the air over 500 years ago.

    He was born to race —some of the fastest cars ever to tear up a speedway.  Carroll Shelby wasn’t born to run. He was born to race—some of the fastest cars ever to tear up a speedway. The exciting new feature film Ford v Ferrari--starring Matt Damon as Shelby and Christian Bale as fellow racer Ken Miles--immortalizes the small-town Texas boy who won the notorious Le Mans 24-hour endurance challenge, and changed the face of auto racing with the legendary Shelby Cobra. But there’s much more to his high-velocity, history-making story.A wizard behind the wheel, he was also a visionary designer of speed machines that ruled the racetrack and the road. While his GT40s racked up victories in the world’s most prestigious professional racing showdowns, his masterpiece, the Ford Cobra, gave Europe’s formidable Ferrari an American--style run for its money. If you’ve got a need for speed, strap in next to the man who put his foot down on the pedal, kept his eyes on the prize, and never looked back.

    Hank Greenberg, one of the most exciting sluggers in baseball history, gave the people of Detroit a reason to be proud.But America was facing more than economic hardship. With the Nazis gaining power across Europe, political and social tensions were approaching a boiling point. As one of the few Jewish athletes competing nationally, Hank Greenberg became not only an iconic ball player, but also an important and sometimes controversial symbol of Jewish identity and the American immigrant experience.When Hank joined the Detroit Tigers in 1933, they were headed for a dismal fifth-place season finish. The following year, with Hank leading the charge, they were fighting off the Yankees for the pennant. As his star ascended, he found himself cheered wherever he went. But there were other noises also. On and off the field, he met with taunts and anti-Semitic threats. Yet the hardship only drove him on to greater heights, sharing the spotlight with the most legendary sluggers of the day, including Babe Ruth, Jimmie Foxx, and Lou Gehrig.Hank Greenberg offers an intimate account of the man’s life on and off the field. It is a portrait of integrity, triumph over adversity, and one of the greatest baseball players to ever grace the field.

    In a life spanning over four decades as a poker professional, Mike has excelled both on the felt and on the business side of poker. He is a World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner, helped create PartyPoker in 2001 and was a key player in an event that changed the poker world forever the launch of the World Poker Tour (WPT) in 2002. He has been a commentator on the WPT, along with Vince Van Patten, since its inception. In addition, Mike was recognized as poker's Top Ambassador at the Card Player Magazine Player of the Year Awards gala in 2006. That same year, he won WSOP Tournament of Champions, winning $1 million in prize money half of which he donated to charity. He was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2009. In this book Mike recounts his personal experiences and gives his take on some of poker's legendary characters over the past 40 years. If you enjoy poker, are fascinated by the development of the game and enjoy compelling poker, golf and gambling adventures, then you'll love Life's A Gamble."

    Half of them finish the day in joyous celebration, and the other half in abject depression, but all of them are ever ready to do it over again the next weekend.College football is one of the unifying cornerstones of American culture. Since the first game in 1869, football has grown from a stratified offshoot of rugby to a ubiquitous part of our national identity. Today, as college conferences fracture and grow, amateur athlete status is called into question, and a playoff system threatens to replace big-money bowl games, we’re in the midst of the most dramatic transitional period in the history of the sport.Michael Weinreb’s Season of Saturdays examines the evolution of college football, from the moral and ethical quandaries that informed its past to the fascinating changes that may affect its future. Since its nascent days on elite Ivy League campuses, college football has inspired both school spirit and controversy. Weinreb explores the game’s inherent violence, its early seeds of big-business greed, and its impact on institutions of higher learning. Filtered through the stories of such iconic coaches as Woody Hayes and Joe Paterno and Steve Spurrier, Season of Saturdays also celebrates some of the greatest games of all time while exploring their larger significance. Part popular history, part memoir—and always uniquely American—Season of Saturdays is both a look back at how the sport became so fraught with problems, and a look ahead at how the sport might survive another century.

    Re-introduced to the Tour in 1976, Alpe d’Huez has risen to mythical status, thanks initially to a string of victories by riders from Holland, whose exploits attracted tens of thousands of their compatriots to the climb, which has become known as ‘Dutch mountain’. A snaking 13.8-kilometre ascent rising up through 21 numbered hairpins at an average gradient of 7.8%, Alpe d’Huez is the climb on which every great rider wants to win. Many of the sport’s most famous and now even infamous names have won on the Alpe, including Bernard Hinault, Joop Zoetemelk, Lucho Herrera, Marco Pantani and Lance Armstrong. As well as days of brilliance, there have controversies such as the high-speed and drug-fuelled duels of the EPO years in the 1990s and into the new millennium.  In Alpe d’Huez, veteran cycling journalist Peter Cossins reveals the triumphs, passion and despair behind the great exploits on the Alpe and discloses the untold details that have led to the mountain becoming as important to the Tour as the race is to resort at its summit. It is a tale of man and machine battling against breath-taking terrain for the ultimate prize.

    CAUGHT UP IN A MASSIVE FBI AND NCAA INVESTIGATION - AND THE INTENSE MEDIA SPOTLIGHT - WAS RICK PITINO, THE LOUISVILLE CARDINALS' HALL OF FAME COACH.Here, from Pitino himself, comes the real story of the ongoing case and the hard truth about how college hoops has been pushed to the brink of disaster by greed, bad actors, and shoe company money.Rick Pitino has spent a lifetime in basketball. He is the recruiting and coaching maestro behind Final Four appearances with three different teams, and National Championships at two of them. He worked the early days of the legendary Five-Star camp and scouted players without the influence of agents, runners, or shoe companies. And he has run today's recruiting gauntlet of sports apparel marketing, corrupted assistant coaches, unethical youth coaches, and powerful organizations hellbent against him. Rick Pitino has seen it all, dealt with it all, and now tells it all while offering his take on what needs to be done to save the game he loves. 'Pitino' is the story of an epic coaching career and the evolution of NCAA basketball to the multi-billion-dollar enterprise it is today. It is also a master's course on the arts of coaching and recruiting. And in the telling, the one and only Rick Pitino lays all his cards on the table in addressing scandals of his past and the current headline-grabbing investigation that led to a packed Board of Directors at Louisville to derail his career.©2018 Rick Pitino (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing Inc., all rights reserved.