Sports Culture

Learn about the game of Poker with iMinds insightful knowledge series. Poker is a family of card games, first popularised in the United States, and now played throughout the world. Traditionally played with a deck of fifty-two cards, it has many rule variations and is played at both amateur and professional levels. Regarded by many as a game of equal parts luck and skill, poker is a mainstay of modern popular culture.

Weaving elements of memoir, philosophical reflection, sports writing, and humour, Fail Better is an intellectual love letter to baseball by one of North America's most engaging philosophers. Kingwell illustrates complex concepts like theoretically infinite game-space, "time out of time", and the rules of civility with accessible examples drawn from the game, its history, and his own halting efforts to hit 'em where they ain't.

In 1963, the West Indian Marxist C.L.R. James posed the deceptively benign question: "What do they know of cricket, who only cricket know?" A challenge to the public to reconsider cricket and its meaning by placing the game in its true social, political, and economic context. Different Class does not simply challenge the widely accepted orthodoxy of English cricket, it demonstrates how the values and belief systems at its heart were intentionally developed in order to divide the English along class lines at every level of the game.

Decried as “human cockfighting” by Senator John McCain and dismissed by the New York Times as a “pay-per-view prism” onto the decline of Western civilization, the UFC seemed by 2000 to be bleeding out. The cage fighting promotion had been banned in thirty-six states and was struggling to cover production costs for its next event.

Birds are highly intelligent animals, yet their intelligence is dramatically different from our own and has been little understood. As we learn more about the secrets of bird life, we are unlocking fascinating insights into memory, relationships, game theory, and the nature of intelligence itself. The Thing with Feathers explores the astonishing homing abilities of pigeons, the good deeds of fairy-wrens, the influential flocking abilities of starlings, the deft artistry of bowerbirds, the extraordinary memories of nutcrackers, and other mysteries.

The iconic Sydney to Hobart Race, a 723-mile deepwater challenge - often called the “Everest” of offshore ocean racing - is considered one of the toughest in the world. Unpredictable weather and seas make each race demanding, but in 1998, an unexpected “weather bomb” hit the fleet, creating 80-foot waves and 100-mile-per-hour winds. Many bigger, better-equipped boats tried to maneuver around the storm, but the crew of the AFR Midnight Rambler chose to head directly into its path.

In Golden Days, acclaimed sports journalist Jack McCallum uses these two teams - the Jerry West/Wilt Chamberlain/Elgin Baylor Lakers and the Stephen Curry/Kevin Durant/Draymond Green Warriors - to trace the dynamic history of the National Basketball Association, which for much of the last half century has marched memorably through the state of California. Tying together the two strands of McCallum's story is Hall of Famer West, the ferociously competitive Laker guard who later became one of the key architects of the Warriors.

Minamoto Yoshitsune should not have been a samurai. But his story is legend in this real-life saga. This epic warrior tale may sound like a novel, but this is the true story of the greatest samurai in Japanese history. When Yoshitsune was just a baby, his father went to war with a rival samurai family - and lost. His father was killed, his mother captured, and his surviving half-brother banished. Yoshitsune was sent away to live in a monastery. Skinny, small, and unskilled in the warrior arts, he nevertheless escaped and learned the ways of the samurai.

Acclaimed sports writers Jessica Luther and Kavitha A. Davidson tackle the most pressing issues in sports, why they matter, and how we can do better. For the authors, "sticking to sports" is not an option - not when our taxes are paying for the stadiums, and college athletes aren't getting paid at all. But simply quitting a favorite team won't change corrupt and deplorable practices, and the root causes of many of these problems are endemic in our wider society.

Will Castro, star of Velocity Channel's Unique Rides and one of the most popular car customizers in America, has achieved the American Dream, finding great success doing something he loves. He has worked with marquee names in entertainment, and Unique Hustle is packed with anecdotes of some of the biggest names in sports, music, film, and television.

In May 2017, journalist Matt Hart received a USB drive containing a single file—a 4.7-megabyte PDF named “Tic Toc, Tic Toc. . . .” He quickly realized he was in possession of a stolen report prepared a year earlier by the United States Anti-Doping Agency, part of an investigation into legendary running coach Alberto Salazar, an endocrinologist named Dr. Jeffrey Brown, and cheating by Nike-sponsored runners. Combining sports drama and business exposé, Win at All Costs tells the full story of Nike’s running program, uncovering a corporate win-at-all-costs culture.

In the late morning of 29th May 1953, the sun was shining brightly on the roof of the world, a gentle breeze was blowing and two men were there to witness it for the first time ever...their names were Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay and the roof of the world was Everest. This is the breathtaking story of how two very different yet equally determined men battled frost-biting temperatures, tumbling ice rocks, powerful winds and death-defying ridges to climb the world’s highest mountain.

En Lugares asombrosos. Travesías insólitas y otras maneras extrañas de conocer el mundo podrás viajar -con Luisito como compañero y guía- a los lugares más recónditos de uno, dos y más continentes: a sitios abandonados que conservan la huella de un hecho inexplicable; espacios delineados por trazos y personajes místicos; habitáculos hechizados por almas que vagan entre dimensiones desconocidas; zonas marcadas por los errores de la historia y sus fantasmas, y pintorescas comisuras del orbe con el sello de una costumbre o un suceso perturbador.

Suzanna and her father, Peter, head to Andros Island, a diving paradise in the Caribbean. There, she learns the basics of scuba diving and eventually swims with fifteen reef sharks in this lively true underwater adventure.

Throughout the NCAA Tournament’s history, underdogs, Cinderella stories, and upsets have captured the attention and imagination of fans. Making March Madness is the story of this premiere tournament, from its early days in Kansas City, to its move to Madison Square Garden, to its surviving a point-shaving scandal in New York and taking its games to different sites across the country.

The Cold War was fought in every corner of society, including in the sport and entertainment industries. Recognizing the importance of culture in the battle for hearts and minds, the United States, like the Soviet Union, attempted to win the favor of citizens in nonaligned states through the soft power of sport. Athletes became de facto ambassadors of US interests, their wins and losses serving as emblems of broader efforts to shield American culture - both at home and abroad - against communism.

Have you always wanted to search for secret treasure? Try geocaching! You can get outside and search for hidden treasure in your very own neighborhood. Learn about geocaching around the world, the supplies you'll need, and the fun that awaits you in this exciting activity!

For more than a decade, New York University president John Sexton has used baseball to illustrate the elements of a spiritual life in a wildly popular course at NYU. Using great works of baseball literature as well as the actual game’s fantastic moments, its legendary characters, and its routine rituals - from the long-sought triumph of the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers to the heroic achievements of players like the saintly Christy Mathewson and the sinful Ty Cobb to the loving intimacy of a game of catch between a father and son - Sexton teaches that through the game we can touch the spiritual dimensions of life.

Who works in a stadium? Where do the players get ready for the big game? Who makes all those hot dogs? Go on a guided tour of a stadium to find out! Meet a baseball manager and see how thousands of people can gather, have fun, and cheer their team at a stadium.

This book looks at the rich diversity of games around the world. It introduces children to similarities found in games played in different cultures, and honors differences.