Professional Sports

When we first meet the young man at the center of this extraordinary and moving story, he is one of 13 children by a mother addicted to crack; he does not know his real name, his father, his birthday, or any of the things a child might learn in school. And he has no serious experience playing organized football.

To most Canadians, the Molson name is part of the very fabric of Canada. Since 1786, when John Molson founded his first brewery in Montreal, it has become synonymous with beer, hockey, and philanthropy. Few realize, however, how close the family came in recent years to losing control of the enterprise. Back to Beer...and Hockey offers intimate details of the life and work of Eric Molson, who not only saved the company, but positioned it to thrive as a global brewery into the 21st century.

A breakthroughexamination of professional wrestling - its history, its fans, and its widercultural impact - that does for the sport what Chuck Klosterman did for heavymetal

The Squared Circle grows out of David Shoemaker'swriting for both Deadspin, where hestarted the column "Dead Wrestler of the Week" - a feature on the many wrestlingsuperstars who died too young because of the abuse they subjected their bodiesto - and Grantland,where he covers the pro-wrestling world and its place in the pop culturemainstream. Shoemaker's sports writing has since struck a nerve withgenerations of wrestling fans who, like him, grew up worshiping a sport oftenderided as "fake" in the wider culture. To them, these professional wrestlingsuperstars are not just heroes but an emotional outlet and the lens throughwhich they learned to see the world.

Starting in the early 1900s and exploring the path of prowrestling in America through the present day, The Squared Circle is thefirst book to acknowledge both the sport's broader significance and wrestlingfans' keen intellect and sense of irony. Divided into eras, each section offersa snapshot of the wrestling world, profiles some of the period's preeminentwrestlers, and examines the sport's influence on our broader culture. Throughthe brawling, bombast, and bloodletting, Shoemaker argues that pro wrestlingcan teach us about the nature of performance, audience, and, yes, art.

Full of unknown history, humor, and self-deprecatingreminiscence - but also offering a compelling look at the sport's rightful placein pop culture - The Squared Circle is the book that legions of wrestlingfans have been waiting for. In it, Shoemaker teaches us to look past thespandex and body slams to see an art form that can explain the world.

This book is not just about how I got back on my horse and went clippity-clop all the way to the World Cup final in Japan. It's the story of how a fat kid who had to live up to the nickname Psycho grew up to play (and party) for over a decade with rugby's greatest pros. From just about surviving the equivalent of 30 car crashes a game and crooning Adele for team spirit, to extensive field notes on the smell of the Scrum and the fine art of on-pitch relief. Then there's rugby's secret naked wrestling scene and how it was exposed. In my world, you never know how the ball will bounce.

For more than 20 years, Heavey has staked a claim as one of America's best sportsmen writers. In feature stories and his Field & Stream column A Sportsman's Life, he has taken audiences across the country and beyond to experience his triumphs and failures as a suburban dad who happens to love hunting and fishing. This new collection gathers together a wide range of his best work - tales that are odes to the notion that enthusiasm is more important than skill and testaments to the enduring power of the natural world.

According to investigative journalist Dan E. Moldea, for decades the National Football League has had a strong and unspoken understanding with a dangerous institution: Organized crime. In his classic expos, Interference, Moldea bares the dark, sordid underbelly of America's favorite professional team sport, revealing a nest of corruption that the league has largely ignored since its inception.

In the early 2000s, 16-year-old Todd Davison and his older brother Wade were living the Canadian hockey dream—playing together in the Western Hockey League, a stepping-stone for many future NHL stars. Todd seemed destined to be one of them. But after facing off against Sidney Crosby at the Canada Winter Games in 2003, that dream became a nightmare when Todd's mysterious shoulder pain led to a devastating cancer diagnosis. His Last Shift: The Playbook of Todd Davison recounts the journey of an incredible young man as he comes to terms with his death long before his time.

Lex Luger, wrestling mega-sensation and three-time world heavyweight champion, ruled the ring for years as "The Total Package." Yet backstage, he was wrestling with addictions to sex, drugs, and alcohol - things he clung to even when his mistress died suddenly of a drug overdose and Lex went to jail. In Wrestling with the Devil, Lex Luger reveals never-before-told stories from his career, his struggle with personal demons, and how, through unexpected faith, grace, and redemption, he overcame all odds to fight the only battle that really matters.

Humanity has come a long way in the 500,000 years since Neanderthal man first started chucking spears around. Or has it? In his blisteringly funny new book, former professional player Wayne Mardle, whose crowd-pleasing antics were even more lively off stage than they were on, blows the lid off one of the UK's biggest televised sports.

American Sniper meets Jaws in this gripping true account of the deadliest animal of all time, the Champawat Tiger - responsible for killing more than 400 humans in Northern India and Nepal in the first decade of the 20th century - and the legendary hunter who finally brought it down.

At age 47, a mother of two, Debbie Moderow was not your average musher in the Iditarod, but that's where she found herself when, less than 200 miles from the finish line, her dogs decided they didn't want to run anymore. After all her preparation, after all the careful management of her team, and after their running so well for over a week, the huskies balked. But the sting of not completing the race after coming so far was nothing compared to the disappointment Moderow felt in having lost touch with her dogs.

Dan Rooney was one of the most influential sports executives of his generation—the man who transformed the Pittsburgh Steelers into one of the National Football League's greatest dynasties and premiere franchises. Some of Dan Rooney’s most important achievements, however, took place off the playing field as he sought to bring about equity in the league's hiring practices and peace in his ancestral homeland of Ireland. In A Different Way to Win, Jim Rooney takes listeners behind the scenes and share stories of Dan Rooney’s life and achievements.

Secrets of Professional Tournament Poker, Volume 1 dealt with the fundamentals of play. Volume 2 builds on this base and examines the highly complex issue of how to handle the different stages of a tournament. At times the best strategy is to play loose, create problems for your opponent and thus keep accumulating chips. At other times an ultra-tight strategy will be the most profitable. Understanding when to "change gears" is a highly developed skill that requires a great deal of study and experience.

Seven Days in Augusta is a celebration of what makes the Masters singular and iconic, from the par-3 contest to Amen Corner to Butler Cabin. Mark Cannizzaro goes behind the scenes of the exclusive competition, covering wide-ranging topics including green jacket rituals, tales from The Crow's Nest atop the clubhouse, the extreme lengths some fans have gone to acquire tickets, and what goes on outside the gates during Masters week. Features some of the most memorable and dramatic moments from the tournament's history, this is an essential, expansive look at golf's favorite event.

To be a part of Red Sox Nation is to be a hopeful romantic who neither betrays loyalty nor surrenders hope in the direst of circumstances. From Bangor to Back Bay, New Englanders endure in baseball matters. And life. The team's history has intersected with the history of Boston and well beyond it, through the Curse of the Bambino, the military service of Ted Williams during World War II, and the Boston Marathon bombing. The Fenway Effect chronicles these stories and others that have built the incredible saga of the Boston Red Sox.

Two-time championship-winning and record-breaking racing driver Jason Plato is a living, breathing example of what you shouldn't do if you want to become a professional racing driver. Since joining the Williams Touring Car team in 1997 it's no coincidence that he has had more race wins than Lewis Hamilton and Stirling Moss, competed in more races than Jenson Button and set the largest number of fastest laps ever. But it's also no coincidence that he once spent several days in prison in Monaco for stealing a JCB.

In Open Net, George Plimpton takes to the ice as goalie for his beloved Boston Bruins. After signing a release holding the Bruins blameless if he should meet with injury or death, he survives a harrowing, seemingly eternal five minutes in an exhibition game against the always-tough Philadelphia Flyers.

An ex-Wall Street trader improved on Moneyball’s famed sabermetrics to place bets that would beat the Vegas odds on Major League Baseball games - with a 41 percent return in his first year. Trading Bases explains how he did it. After the fall of Lehman Brothers, Joe Peta was out of a job. He found a new one but lost that, too, when an ambulance mowed him down. In search of a way to cheer himself up while he recuperated, Peta started watching baseball again. That’s when inspiration hit: Why not apply his outstanding risk-analysis skills to improve on sabermetrics, the method made famous by Moneyball?

Pour la majorité des Canadiens, le nom de la famille Molson fait partie de l’essence même du Canada. Depuis 1786, année où John Molson fonda sa première brasserie à Montréal, il rime avec bière, hockey et philanthropie. Rares sont cependant ceux qui savent à quel point la famille est passée proche, ces dernières années, de perdre le contrôle de cette entreprise.

Never have the best sportspeople seemed so far removed from the rest of us. So how are these extraordinary athletes made, and what do their achievements tell us about success? The Best reveals how the most incredible sportspeople in the world got that way. It is a unique look at the path to sporting greatness. This is a story of origins, training, luck, and serendipity, as well as of sports science and cutting-edge technology.