Over the course of their decades-long partnership, Cheech and Chong performed to sold-out crowds across the country, made nine hit albums, starred in eight blockbuster movies, and created memorable and iconic characters that still resonate with fans today.But the good life didn't just appear in a haze of smoke. It all started during the late 1960s in a strip club in the fragile heart of Vancouver's Chinatown, where Tommy was winding down his career as a Motown recording artist and starting an improv comedy troupe, and Cheech was a draft-dodging, pottery-throwing, underground music reviewer. Together they came to define the hippie-era counterculture, and theircelebrated movie debut, "Up in Smoke," remains one of the highest-grossing Warner Bros. films ever.In his very own unauthorized autobiography, "New York Times" bestselling author and pop culture hero Chong reveals his unique relationship with Cheech and recalls the inspiration for their most beloved bits. He introduces famous guest stars like Peter Sellers, John Belushi, Jimi Hendrix, Dan Aykroyd, John Lennon, Diana Ross, and Jack Nicholson, and examines the influences that had the greatest impact on his comedy -- from R&B musicians and Redd Foxx to Lenny Bruce and (of course) marijuana. Finally, with keen insight and utter candor, he explores the rift that has separated the legendary comedy team for more than twenty years.From pot smoking to politics to the universe at large, "Cheech & Chong: The Unauthorized Autobiography" is the closestyou'll ever get to sitting in a van made entirely of marijuana, trading stories with an unlikely legend, and feeling...well...funny.

    His lifetime batting average is still the highest of all time, and when he retired in 1928, after twenty-one years with the Detroit Tigers and two with the Philadelphia Athletics, he held more than ninety records. But the numbers don't tell half of Cobb's tale. The Georgia Peach was by far the most thrilling player of the era: "Ty Cobb could cause more excitement with a base on balls than Babe Ruth could with a grand slam," one columnist wrote. When the Hall of Fame began in 1936, he was the first player voted in.But Cobb was also one of the game's most controversial characters. He got in a lot of fights, on and off the field, and was often accused of being overly aggressive. In his day, even his supporters acknowledged that he was a fierce and fiery competitor. Because his philosophy was to "create a mental hazard for the other man,"; he had his enemies, but he was also widely admired. After his death in 1961, however, something strange happened: his reputation morphed into that of a monster - a virulent racist who also hated children and women, and was in turn hated by his peers. How did this happen? Who is the real Ty Cobb? Setting the record straight, Charles Leerhsen pushed aside the myths, traveled to Georgia and Detroit, and re-traced Cobb's journey, from the shy son of a professor and state senator who was progressive on race for his time, to America's first true sports celebrity. In the process, he tells of a life overflowing with incident and a man who cut his own path through his times - a man we thought we knew but really didn't.

    is a funny and moving memoir about Fathers, Fate and Field of Dreams. Dwier Brown played Kevin Costner's father for five minutes at the end of the movie Field of Dreams. Despite being an actor for 35 years and performing in hundreds of other films, plays and television shows, it was those five minutes that changed his life. Since the movie's release in 1989, Brown has been recognized by dozens of fans who have told him poignant stories about their fathers and how watching the film changed their lives. Their touching stories helped Brown put into perspective his own father's unexpected death just a month before he began filming Field of Dreams.

    Bad choices were my specialty, and if something honest and decent came along, I would shun it or run the other way.”With striking intimacy and candor, Eric Clapton tells the story of his eventful and inspiring life in this poignant and honest autobiography. More than a rock star, he is an icon, a living embodiment of the history of rock music. Well known for his reserve in a profession marked by self-promotion, flamboyance, and spin, he now chronicles, for the first time, his remarkable personal and professional journeys. Born illegitimate in 1945 and raised by his grandparents, Eric never knew his father and, until the age of nine, believed his actual mother to be his sister. In his early teens his solace was the guitar, and his incredible talent would make him a cult hero in the clubs of Britain and inspire devoted fans to scrawl “Clapton is God” on the walls of London’s Underground. With the formation of Cream, the world's first supergroup, he became a worldwide superstar, but conflicting personalities tore the band apart within two years. His stints in Blind Faith, in Delaney and Bonnie and Friends, and in Derek and the Dominos were also short-lived but yielded some of the most enduring songs in history, including the classic “Layla.” During the late sixties he played as a guest with Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan, as well as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and longtime friend George Harrison. It was while working with the latter that he fell for George’s wife, Pattie Boyd, a seemingly unrequited love that led him to the depths of despair, self-imposed seclusion, and drug addiction. By the early seventies he had overcome his addiction and released the bestselling album 461 Ocean Boulevard, with its massive hit “I Shot the Sheriff.” He followed that with the platinum album Slowhand, which included “Wonderful Tonight,” the touching love song to Pattie, whom he finally married at the end of 1979. A short time later, however, Eric had replaced heroin with alcohol as his preferred vice, following a pattern of behavior that not only was detrimental to his music but contributed to the eventual breakup of his marriage. In the eighties he would battle and begin his recovery from alcoholism and become a father. But just as his life was coming together, he was struck by a terrible blow: His beloved four-year-old son, Conor, died in a freak accident. At an earlier time Eric might have coped with this tragedy by fleeing into a world of addiction. But now a much stronger man, he took refuge in music, responding with the achingly beautiful “Tears in Heaven.”Clapton is the powerfully written story of a survivor, a man who has achieved the pinnacle of success despite extraordinary demons. It is one of the most compelling memoirs of our time.

    One of Australia's most admired and respected journalists and media personalities, her warm, intelligent and elegant presence has graced our television screens for many years, where she has shared and shaped many important national conversations. Australians of all ages love and respect her warmth, empathy, humour, integrity and fighting spirit. But it all could have been so different... When she was at school, Lisa found herself wishing she could just disappear. Subjected to horrific bullying as a teenager, she survived by making herself as small as possible, but she swore when she left school that no one was ever again going to determine who she was - or limit what she was capable of. That determination and drive led to Lisa blazing an unprecedented and enormously successful trail through the Australian media and cultural landscape for more than four decades. She was only twenty-one when she became the editor of Dolly - the youngest ever appointed to a national women's magazine - and four years later, after almost tripling the circulation, Lisa was head-hunted by the late Kerry Packer, who offered her the editorship of the iconic Cleo magazine. which she transformed into the number-one bestselling women's lifestyle magazine per capita in the world. Moving to television, first on Channel Ten's Beauty and the Beast, then as host of the Seven Network's Weekend Sunrise, she went on to spend almost eleven years as co-host of the Nine Network's Today Show, becoming its longest-serving female co-host, and where her talents took the program to the number-one spot in breakfast television. Lisa then caused a media storm in Australia and the world when she moved to the Ten Network as co-host of its prime-time award-winning program The Project. Lisa's interviews with everyone from George Clooney to Lady Gaga to Sophia Loren to Kim Kardashian, to every one of the country's last eight prime ministers, always create headlines. But it is her most recent work and the leading role she took in uncovering the misogyny in Parliament House, with her powerful, exclusive interview with Brittany Higgins, of which Lisa says she is most proud. A fierce campaigner for women and gender equality, Lisa has fought her own personal battles on this front, and continues to lead the way. It Wasn't Meant to Be Like This, the story of how a young girl from Campbelltown came to be such a force in Australian cultural life, is honest, warm, funny, engaging - and powerfully inspirational.

    Richard Ben Cramer, Pulitzer Prize winner and acclaimed biographer of Joe DiMaggio, decodes this oversized icon who dominated the game and finds not just a great player, but also a great man. In 1986, Richard Ben Cramer spent months on a profile of Ted Williams, and the result was the Esquire article that has been acclaimed ever since as one of the finest pieces of sports reporting ever written. Given special acknowledgment in The Best American Sportswriting of the Century and adapted for a coffee-table book called Ted Williams: The Seasons of the Kid, the original piece is now available in this special edition, with new material about Williams' later years. While his decades after Fenway Park were out of the spotlight -- the way Ted preferred it -- they were arguably his richest, as he loved and inspired his family, his fans, the players, and the game itself. This is a remembrance for the ages.

    They know his father, Jack Buck, is a broadcasting legend and that he was beloved in his adopted hometown of Saint Louis.   Yet they have no idea who Joe really is. Or how he got here. They don't know how he almost blew his career. They haven't read his funniest and most embarrassing stories or heard about his interactions with the biggest sports stars of this era.They don't know how hard he can laugh at himself—or that he thinks some of his critics have a point. And they don't know what it was really like to grow up in his father's shadow. Joe and Jack were best friends but it wasn't that simple. Jack gave Joe his broadcasting start but it wasn't that easy. And Joe's childhood as the son of a famous broadcaster was not as idyllic as it seemed. In Lucky Bastard, Joe takes the reader into the broadcast booth and into his childhood home. Hilarious and occasionally heartbreaking, this is a book that any sports fan will love.

    He was a star by the time he was a preteen and a professional athlete when he was still a teenager. Everything he knew about how to be a person—an adult, a husband and father, a leader—he learned in rhythm with the baseball season, the every-fifth-day high-intensity spotlight of a starting pitcher, all while dealing with one of the sport’s most turbulent eras: racism in a sport with diminishing black presence; the era of performance-enhancing drugs; and the increasing tension between high-value contracts and sports owners who moved players around like game pieces. But his biggest struggle was with his own body and mind: Buoyed his whole life by talent and a fiery competitive spirit, CC found himself dealing with the steady and eventually alarming breakdown of his own body and his growing addiction in a world that encouraged and enabled it.Till the End is the thrilling memoir of one of the most beloved players in the game, a veteran star of the sport’s marquee team during its latest championship era. It’s also a book about baseball—about the ins and outs of its most important and technical position and its evolution in this volatile era. But woven within it is the moving, universal story of resilience and mortality and discovering what matters.

    Overnight, these women were transformed from military spouses into American royalty. They had tea with Jackie Kennedy, appeared on the cover of Life magazine, and quickly grew into fashion icons.Annie Glenn, with her picture-perfect marriage, was the envy of the other wives; JFK made it clear that platinum-blonde Rene Carpenter was his favorite; and licensed pilot Trudy Cooper arrived with a secret that needed to stay hidden from NASA. Together with the other wives they formed the Astronaut Wives Club, providing one another with support and friendship, coffee and cocktails.As their celebrity rose-and as divorce and tragedy began to touch their lives-the wives continued to rally together, forming bonds that would withstand the test of time, and they have stayed friends for over half a century. THE ASTRONAUT WIVES CLUB tells the story of the women who stood beside some of the biggest heroes in American history.

    Award-winning baseball historian Glenn Stout reveals brand-new information about Babe and the unique political situation surrounding his sale, including:-Prohibition and the lifting of Blue Laws in New York affected Yankees owner and beer baron Jacob Ruppert-Previously unexplored documents reveal that the mortgage of Fenway Park did not factor into the Ruth sale- Ruth's disruptive influence on the Red Sox in 1918 and 1919, including sabermetrics showing his negative impact on the team as he went from pitcher to outfielder.Winner of the 2017 Larry Ritter Award by the Society for American Baseball Research as best book of the Deadball EraThe Selling of the Babe is the first book to focus on the ramifications of the sale and captures the central moment of Ruth's evolution from player to icon, and will appeal to fans of The Kid and Pinstripe Empire. Babe's sale to New York and the subsequent selling of Ruth to America led baseball from the Deadball Era and sparked a new era in the game, one revolved around the long ball and one man, The Babe.

    But the man behind the mesmerizing stories has remained largely an enigma. A single-minded adventurer and an eternal child who gave us the iconic Willy Wonka and Matilda Wormwood, Dahl was better known during his lifetime for his blunt opinions on taboo subjects—he was called an anti-Semite, a racist and a misogynist—than for his creative genius. His wild imagination, dark humor and linguistic elegance were less than fully appreciated by critics and readers alike until after his death.Granted unprecedented access to the Dahl estate's extraordinary archives—personal correspondence, journals and interviews with family members and famous friends—Donald Sturrock draws on a wealth of previously unpublished materials that informed Dahl's writing and his life. It was a life filled with incident, drama and adventure: from his harrowing experiences as an RAF fighter pilot and his work in wartime intelligence, to his many romances and turbulent marriage to the actress Patricia Neal, to the mental anguish caused by the death of his young daughter Olivia. Tracing a brilliant yet tempestuous ascent toward notoriety, Sturrock sheds new light on Dahl's need for controversy, his abrasive manner and his fascination for the gruesome and the macabre.A remarkable biography of one of the world's most exceptional writers, Storyteller is an intimate portrait of an intensely private man hindered by physical pain and haunted by family tragedy, and a timely reexamination of Dahl's long and complex literary career.

    Over the course of his forty-plus year career, he has logged more hours on live network television than any other broadcaster in history, and is the only play-by-play commentator to have covered all four major sports championships: the Super Bowl, World Series, NBA Finals, and the Stanley Cup Final. He has also witnessed first-hand some of the most memorable events in modern sports, and in this highly personal and revealing account, brings them vividly to life.Michaels shares never-before-told stories from his early years and his rise to the top, covering some of the greatest moments of the past half century—from the “Miracle on Ice”—the historic 1980 Olympic hockey finals—to the earthquake that rocked the 1989 World Series. Some of the greatest names on and off the field are here—Michael Jordan, Bill Walton, Pete Rose, Bill Walsh, Peyton and Eli Manning, Brett Favre, John Madden, Howard Cosell, Cris Collinsworth, and many, many more.Forthright and down-to-earth, Michaels tells the truth as he sees it, giving readers unique insight into the high drama, the colorful players, and the heroes and occasional villains of an industry that has become a vital part of modern culture.

    This fortuitous interview sparked a magnificent friendship between the two, one that would see both men through periods of grief as well as the hope of new beginnings. I’m Proud of You is the story of this friendship and of the enduring legacy left to us all by Fred Rogers. Tim’s career as a journalist was flourishing when he met Fred Rogers, but his personal life was a shambles. As Rogers welcomed Tim into his family, his church, and his life, Tim found an advisor who imparted a gentle but powerful perspective on spirituality, marriage, depression, and the nature of true friendship. With the television icon’s loving and patient guidance, Tim eventually came to understand that his emotional troubles were rooted in a deep fear that his father had never truly been proud of him. Hence the mantra of the friendship between the two, the phrase Rogers used to conclude dozens of letters and e-mail messages to Tim: “I’m Proud of You.” Tim’s friendship with Rogers helped him to mend his relationship with his father and become a better husband and father himself, all the while marveling at how many simple pleasures he had overlooked throughout his life.

    Mays signed 100 copies for his Charity, The Say Hey Foundation. The signing took place at a local sporting goods store. You will receive the retail store receipt, copies of 2 newspaper articles announcing the signing and The Letter of Evaluation.

    This deeply personal account is a survey of the limitations and discoveries of great age, with abundant life, poignant loss, jokes, retrieved moments, and fresh love, set down in an informal and moving fashion. A flood of readers from different generations have discovered and shared this classic piece.Angell’s fluid prose and native curiosity make him an amiable and compelling companion on the page. The book gathers essays, letters, light verse, book reviews, Talk of the Town stories, farewells, haikus, Profiles, Christmas greetings, late thoughts on the costs of war. Whether it’s a Fourth of July in rural Maine, a beloved British author at work, Derek Jeter’s departure, the final game of the 2014 World Series, an all-dog opera, editorial exchanges with John Updike, or a letter to a son, what links the pieces is the author’s perceptions and humor, his utter absence of self-pity, and his appreciation of friends and colleagues—writers, ballplayers, editors, artists—encountered over the course of a full and generous life.