Professional Sports

No one knew it when their experiment began, but without any particular genius or acumen, the motley cast of billionaires and hucksters behind the modern Premier League struck gold. Pretty soon, everyone wanted to try their luck, from Russian oligarchs to Emirati sheikhs, American tycoons, and Asian Tiger titans. Some succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Some lost everything. Today, players are sold for tens of millions, clubs are valued in the billions, and games are beamed out to nearly 200 countries, all while the league struggles to preserve its English soul.

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.

This smart and funny fan's guide to baseball explains the ins and outs of pitching, hitting, running, and fielding, while offering insider trivia and anecdotes that will appeal to anyone - whether you're a major league couch potato, lifelong season ticket-holder, or a beginner. Combining the narrative voice and attitude of Michael Lewis with the compulsive brilliance of Schott's Miscellany, Watching Baseball Smarter will increase your understanding and enjoyment of the sport-no matter what your level of expertise.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Kim Stanley Robinson first ventured into the Sierra Nevada mountains during the summer of 1973. He returned from that encounter a changed man, awed by a landscape that made him feel as if he were simultaneously strolling through an art museum and scrambling on a jungle gym like an energized child. He has returned to the mountains throughout his life—more than a hundred trips—and has gathered a vast store of knowledge about them. The High Sierra is his lavish celebration of this exceptional place.

From the New York Times best-selling author of Return of the King comes the story of LeBron James' incredible transformation from basketball star to sports and business mogul.

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.

Men's hockey in Canada may hog the limelight, but interest in women's hockey has never been higher. The Role I Played is a memoir of Sami Jo Small's 10 years with Canada's National Women's Hockey Team. Beginning with her experience as a rookie at the first-ever women's Olympic hockey tournament in Nagano in 1998 and culminating with Canada's third straight Olympic gold medal in Vancouver in 2010, the veteran goaltender gives the listener behind-the-scenes insight into one of the most successful teams in sports history.

Lightweight, compact, distinctively styled, and now, electric: The Brompton isn't the only folding bicycle—or even the first. But everyone who has been on one will enthusiastically testify to its marvelous design (virtually unchanged over decades) and the particular joy of riding it. Will Butler-Adams, CEO of Brompton Bicycles, has been at the company for twenty years. Initially, he worked as an engineer for Andrew Ritchie, the bike's brilliant inventor and the business's founder, before taking the helm in 2008.

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.

Against the odds, John Urschel found a way to manage his double life as a scholar and an athlete. While he was an offensive lineman for the Baltimore Ravens, he simultaneously pursued his PhD in mathematics at MIT. This is his story.

In Playing Through the Pain, writer Dan Good seeks to make sense of MLB MVP Ken Caminiti's fascinating, troubled life. The story of Caminiti, the player who opened the lid on performance-enhancing drugs in baseball, has never been properly told. Caminiti voluntarily admitted in a 2002 Sports Illustrated cover story that he used steroids during his career, including his 1996 season, and guessed that half of the players were using performance-enhancing drugs. Good's on-the-record sources include Caminiti's steroids supplier, people who attended rehab with him, and more.

Born into a family of Irish traveller heritage, Big John Fury descends from a long line of bare-knuckle fighters, including King of the Gypsies. So it’s no surprise that he too found himself fighting outside the ring at a young age. From his early years in Manchester, John learned to box by practising bare-knuckle fighting within the travelling community, before graduating into the sport professionally. The ring has never been far from his sights, and John has played a crucial role in coaching and being a cornerman for his two-time British heavyweight champion son, Tyson Fury.

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.

In Brave Enough, Jessie Diggins reveals the true story of her journey from the American Midwest into sports history. With candid charm and characteristic grit, she connects the dots from her free-spirited upbringing in the woods of Minnesota to racing in the bright spotlights of the Olympics. Going far beyond stories of races and ribbons, she describes the challenges and frustrations of becoming a serious athlete.

On the morning of December 22, 2005, New York City firefighter Matt Long was cycling to work when he was struck by and sucked under a 20-ton bus making an illegal turn. The injuries he sustained pushed him within inches of death. Miraculously, after five months in the hospital and more than 40 operations, Matt was able to start his recovery. This book chronicles Matt's road to recovery as he teaches himself to walk again and, a mere three years later, to run in the 2008 New York City Marathon.

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.