Sports Obsession

From the day Princeton played the first intercollegiate game in 1869, these major schools of the northeast - Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Pennsylvania, Princeton, and Yale - shaped football as we now know it. In this rich history, Bernstein shows that much of the culture that surrounds American football, both good and bad, has its roots in the Ivy League.

Before he made a name for himself as an acclaimed essayist and nature writer, David Gessner devoted his 20s to a cultish sport called Ultimate Frisbee. Like his teammates and rivals, he trained for countless hours, sacrificing his body and potential career for a chance at fleeting glory without fortune or fame. His only goal: to win Nationals and go down in Ultimate history as one of the greatest athletes no one has ever heard of.

Here is the story of a community - Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts - and a sporting event - the island's legendary Striped Bass & Bluefish Derby - that is rendered with the same depth, color, and emotional power of the best fiction. Among the characters we meet Dick Hathaway, a crotchety legend who once caught a bluefish from a helicopter and was ultimately banned for cheating; and Janet Messineo, a recovering alcoholic who says that striped bass saved her life.

John Garrity is well known in the golf world for his writing for Sports Illustrated, Golf Magazine, and on Golf.com. In this new book, Garrity travels to the remote corner of Ireland from which his great-grandfather left for America, now home to a majestic golf course. There he discovers why local farmers spent seven years carving the course out of unforgiving terrain, using only rakes and spades for their work. From there, he visits Musselburgh, Scotland, where his maternal ancestors played golf before the first 13 rules of the game were written there in 1774, and to Wisconsin’s St. Croix River Valley, where his father learned the Ancient Game.

From well-known nature and adventure writer Dan Koeppel, whose work has appeared in Audubon and National Geographic Adventure, comes this true story of one bird watcher's incredible achievements.

In Icons, Wiggins takes the listener on an extraordinarily intimate journey through the sport, presenting key pieces from his never-before-seen collection of memorabilia. Over the course of his illustrious career, he amassed hundreds of items - often gifts from its greatest and most controversial figures. Each reflects an icon, a race or a moment that fundamentally influenced Wiggins on both a personal and professional level.

Whether you’re hoping your Cinderella school dances its way to the Sweet 16 or one of the millions of Americans hoping to win their office pool, it all starts with the 68-team NCAA Tournament bracket. After all, there is no true Madness without the oft-debated question about what teams should be seeded where - from the Power Five blue blood with some early-season stumbles on its résumé to the mid-major that rampaged through its less competitive conference season. The inventor of Bracketology himself, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi, is here to reveal the mystery and science behind it all.

Pickleball is the fastest growing sport in America. Easy to learn, but impossible to master, it’s no wonder that nearly 5 million people nationwide have picked up their paddles and taken to the court. But people aren’t just dabbling in this up-and-coming activity, they are obsessed; some hit the court as many as five, six, even seven times a week. As Vanity Fair put it, pickleball has “won over everyone, from Leonardo DiCaprio to your grandparents.”