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| When Graysen Viola moves across the country to coach a college basketball team, she thought the hardest part of her job would be establishing a winning record. Being wrong has never been so challenging. A misunderstanding puts her in the unique position of coaching the men's team, which is struggling just to be competitive. The last thing this team wants or thinks it needs is a female coach. Together they must find a way to understand and trust each other in order to succeed. Complicating matters is the lovely and persistent volleyball coach, Darby Evan, a former crush from their college days. Graysen isn't sure starting a relationship with a colleague amidst her job turmoil is the wisest idea, but feelings rarely follow practicality. If she can figure out how to handle a team that disapproves of her, then dealing with an unexpected love life should be a breeze by comparison. Or so she hopes. |
  Adobe Digital Edition [ 1.2 Mb ] Street Date: Friday, February 19, 2010
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Wondering why you should purchase this book when there are other titles on the shelves written by much higher-caliber fighters? Well, Forrest Griffin is not as good-looking as those guys. He's not as smart as them. He's also not as athletically endowed. And let's face it, neither are you. Those other fighters are pretty much better than you in every way. But you can actually aspire to be as good as Forrest one day. Why? Because he is nothing special, just like you. Forrest is not a martial artist. He's a fighter, and this book was written for his kin. If you're a hillbilly like Forrest and you get off on having your face rearranged, Got Fight? is for you. This is a manifesto more strategic than Sun Tzu's The Art of War, more philosophical than Bruce Lee's Tao of Jeet Kune Do, more powerful than a well-lubricated locomotive. In these pages you will learn about true mental toughness—whether it's scraping it out in the Octagon or picking up chicks. You will learn about the mental defects that made Forrest Griffin into the abomination he is today and how you can use your shortcomings to become equally horrible. You will learn the essential tactics of hand-to-hand combat as well as how to defend yourself in the event of a sword attack. Never been attacked by a sword? You need this book worse that we thought. Still not convinced? Don't worry. Even if you find that the book sucks, it will be no worse than having sex with Forrest Griffin. You'll feel a small prick and some minor discomfort, and then it will all be over. |
 Adobe ePub [ 5.9 Mb ] Street Date: Tuesday, June 2, 2009 Adobe Digital Edition [ 4.1 Mb ] Street Date: Tuesday, June 2, 2009 Microsoft Reader [ 5.8 Mb ] Street Date: Tuesday, June 2, 2009 MobiPocket (OD) [ 5.1 Mb ] Street Date: Tuesday, June 2, 2009 eReader [ 1.8 Mb ] Street Date: Tuesday, June 2, 2009
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THE INNER GAME OF TENNIS is a revolutionary program for overcoming the self-doubt, nervousness, and lapses of concentration that can keep a player from winning. This classic bestseller can change the way the game of tennis is played. |
 Audio Book (MP3) [ 132.7 Mb ] Street Date: Tuesday, January 8, 2008 Audio Book (WMA) [ 67.8 Mb ] Street Date: Tuesday, January 8, 2008
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From Andre Agassi, one of the most beloved athletes in history and one of the most gifted men ever to step onto a tennis court, a beautiful, haunting autobiography.
Agassi's incredibly rigorous training begins when he is just a child. By the age of thirteen, he is banished to a Florida tennis camp that feels like a prison camp. Lonely, scared, a ninth-grade dropout, he rebels in ways that will soon make him a 1980s icon. He dyes his hair, pierces his ears, dresses like a punk rocker. By the time he turns pro at sixteen, his new look promises to change tennis forever, as does his lightning-fast return.
And yet, despite his raw talent, he struggles early on. We feel his confusion as he loses to the world's best, his greater confusion as he starts to win. After stumbling in three Grand Slam finals, Agassi shocks the world, and himself, by capturing the 1992 Wimbledon. Overnight he becomes a fan favorite and a media target.
Agassi brings a near-photographic memory to every pivotal match and every relationship. Never before has the inner game of tennis and the outer game of fame been so precisely limned. Alongside vivid portraits of rivals from several generations--Jimmy Connors, Pete Sampras, Roger Federer--Agassi gives unstinting accounts of his brief time with Barbra Streisand and his doomed marriage to Brooke Shields. He reveals a shattering loss of confidence. And he recounts his spectacular resurrection, a comeback climaxing with his epic run at the 1999 French Open and his march to become the oldest man ever ranked number one.
In clear, taut prose, Agassi evokes his loyal brother, his wise coach, his gentle trainer, all the people who help him regain his balance and find love at last with Stefanie Graf. Inspired by her quiet strength, he fights through crippling pain from a deteriorating spine to remain a dangerous opponent in the twenty-first and final year of his career. Entering his last tournament in 2006, he's hailed for completing a stunning metamorphosis, from nonconformist to elder statesman, from dropout to education advocate. And still he's not done. At a U.S. Open for the ages, he makes a courageous last stand, then delivers one of the most stirring farewells ever heard in a sporting arena.
With its breakneck tempo and raw candor, Open will be read and cherished for years. A treat for ardent fans, it will also captivate readers who know nothing about tennis. Like Agassi's game, it sets a new standard for grace, style, speed, and power. |
"Insightful [and] exceedingly well-written . . . [Open] has the cadence and plotting of a good novel . . . The raw energy and emotion throughout are pure Agassi." -Newsday Top 10 Books of 2009
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From the book THE ENDI open my eyes and don't know where I am or who I am. Not all that unusual--I've spent half my life not knowing. Still, this feels different. This confusion is more frightening. More total.
I look up. I'm lying on the floor beside the bed. I remember now. I moved from the bed to the floor in the middle of the night. I do that most nights. Better for my back. Too many hours on a soft mattress causes agony. I count to three, then start the long, difficult process of standing. With a cough, a groan, I roll onto my side, then curl into the fetal position, then flip over onto my stomach. Now I wait, and wait, for the blood to start pumping.
I'm a young man, relatively speaking. Thirty-six. But I wake as if ninety-six. After three decades of sprinting, stopping on a dime, jumping high and landing hard, my body no longer feels like my body, especially in the morning. Consequently my mind doesn't feel like my mind. Upon opening my eyes I'm a stranger to myself, and while, again, this isn't new, in the mornings it's more pronounced. I run quickly through the basic facts. My name is Andre Agassi. My wife's name is Stefanie Graf. We have two children, a son and daughter, five and three. We live in Las Vegas, Nevada, but currently reside in a suite at the Four Seasons hotel in New York City, because I'm playing in the 2006 U.S. Open. My last U.S. Open. In fact my last tournament ever. I play tennis for a living, even though I hate tennis, hate it with a dark and secret passion, and always have.
As this last piece of identity falls into place, I slide to my knees and in a whisper I say: Please let this be over.
Then: I'm not ready for it to be over.
Now, from the next room, I hear Stefanie and the children. They're eating breakfast, talking, laughing. My overwhelming desire to see and touch them, plus a powerful craving for caffeine, gives me the inspiration I need to hoist myself up, to go vertical. Hate brings me to my knees, love gets me on my feet.
I glance at the bedside clock. Seven thirty. Stefanie let me sleep in. The fatigue of these final days has been severe. Apart from the physical strain, there is the exhausting torrent of emotions set loose by my pending retirement. Now, rising from the center of the fatigue comes the first wave of pain. I grab my back. It grabs me. I feel as if someone snuck in during the night and attached one of those anti-theft steering wheel locks to my spine. How can I play in the U.S. Open with the Club on my spine? Will the last match of my career be a forfeit?
I was born with spondylolisthesis, meaning a bottom vertebra that parted from the other vertebrae, struck out on its own, rebelled. (It's the main reason for my pigeon-toed walk.) With this one vertebra out of sync, there's less room for the nerves inside the column of my spine, and with the slightest movement the nerves feel that much more crowded. Throw in two herniated discs and a bone that won't stop growing in a futile effort to protect the damaged area, and those nerves start to feel downright claustrophobic. When the nerves protest their cramped quarters, when they send out distress signals, a pain runs up and down my leg that makes me suck in my breath and speak in tongues. At such moments the only relief is to lie down and wait. Sometimes, however, the moment arrives in the middle of a match. Then the only remedy is to alter my game--swing differently, run differently, do everything differently. That's when my muscles spasm. Everyone avoids change; muscles can't abide it. Told to change, my muscles join the spinal rebellion, and soon my...
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Prudence Stewart had it all at Beverly Hills High: straight A's, the cutest crush, and a sweet gig as captain of the cheerleading squad. Then poof! Mom and Dad announce they're moving to Salem, Massachusetts. Turns out, Pru comes from a long line of witches and it's time for her to learn the craft. Buh-bye, Beverly Hills High -- hello, Agatha's Day School! But Pru's not about to trade in her spirit stick for a broomstick! She's sure she can keep her kewl at her new school -- until she discovers it's all magic, all the time, and she's failing Witchcraft 101. Worst of all, even the cheerleaders bring a special "spirit" to their routine. As in, triple-back-somersault-with-a-twist kind of spirit. It's time for Pru to cast a spell and prove she's just as enchanting as the next girl -- and somehow make cheering tryouts a flying S-U-C-C-E-S-S! |
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Into Thin Air is the definitive, personal account of the deadliest season in the history of Mount Everest--told by acclaimed journalist, and bestselling author of Into the Wild and Eiger Dreams, Jon Krakauer. On assignment for Outside magazine, Krakauer, an accomplished climber, went to the Himalayas to report on the growing commercialization of the planet's highest mountain. Even though one climber in four dies attempting to reach the summit of Everest, business is booming as guides take the rich and the adventurous up the mountain for a fee of $65,000. Krakauer examines what it is about Everest that has compelled so many people--including himself--to throw caution to the wind and willingly subject themselves to so much danger, hardship, and expense. |
Audio Book (MP3) [ 172.3 Mb ] Street Date: Thursday, November 8, 2007 Audio Book (WMA) [ 87.9 Mb ] Street Date: Thursday, November 8, 2007
"Into Thin Air ranks among the great adventure books of all time . . . a book of rare eloquence and power that could remain relevant for centuries." Galen Rowell, The Wall Street Journal
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Listen to the MP3 excerpt of this title! Listen to the WMA excerpt of this title! From the book In March 1996, Outside Magazine sent me to Nepal to participate in, and write about, a guided ascent of Mount Everest. I went as one of eight clients on an expedition led by a well-known guide from New Zealand named Rob Hall. On May 10 I arrived on top of the mountain, but the summit came at a terrible cost. Among my five teammates who reached the top, four, including Hall, perished in a rogue storm that blew in without warning while we were still high on the peak. By the time I'd descended to Base Camp nine climbers from four expeditions were dead, and three more lives would be lost before the month was out. The expedition left me badly shaken, and the article was difficult to write. Nevertheless, five weeks after I returned from Nepal I delivered a manuscript to Outside, and it was published in the September issue of the magazine. Upon its completion I attempted to put Everest out of my mind and get on with my life, but that turned out to be impossible. Through a fog of messy emotions, I continued trying to make sense of what had happened up there, and I obsessively mulled the circumstances of my companions' deaths. The Outside piece was as accurate as I could make it under the circumstances, but my deadline had been unforgiving, the sequence of events had been frustratingly complex, and the memories of the survivors had been badly distorted by exhaustion, oxygen depletion, and shock. At one point during my research I asked three other people to recount an incident all four of us had witnessed high on the mountain, and one of us could agree on such crucial facts as the time, what had been said, or even who had been present. Within days after the Outside article went to press, I discovered that a few of the details I'd reported were in error. Most were minor inaccuracies of the sort that inevitably creep into works of deadline journalism, but one of my blunders was in no sense minor, and it had a devastating impact on the friends and family of one of the victims. Only slightly less disconcerting than the article's factual errors was the material that necessarily had to be omitted for lack of space. Mark Bryant, the editor of Outside, and Larry Burke, the publisher, had given me an extraordinary amount of room to tell the story: they ran the piece at 17,000 words -- four or five times as long as a typical magazine feature. Even so, I felt that it was much too abbreviated to do justice to the tragedy. The Everest climb had rocked my life to its core, and it became desperately important for me to record the events in complete detail, unconstrained by a limited number of column inches. This book is the fruit of that compulsion. The staggering unreliability of the human mind at high altitude made the research problematic. To avoid relying excessively on my own perceptions, I interviewed most of the protagonists at great length and on multiple occasions. When possible I also corroborated details with radio logs maintained by people at Base Camp, where clear thought wasn't in such short supply. Readers familiar with the Outside article may notice discrepancies between certain details (primarily matters of time) reported in the magazine and those reported in the book; the revisions reflect new information that has come to light since publication of the magazine piece. Several authors and editors I respect counseled me not to write the book as quickly as I did; they urged me to wait two or three years and put some distance between me and the expedition in order...
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He is that rare American icon who has never been captured in a biography worthy of him. Now, at last, here is the superbly researched, spellbindingly told story of athlete, showman, philosopher, and boundary breaker Leroy "Satchel" Paige.
Through dogged research and extensive interviews, award-winning author and journalist Larry Tye has tracked down the truth about this majestic and enigmatic pitcher. Here is the stirring account of the child born to a poor Alabama washerwoman, the boy who earned his nickname from his enterprising work as a railroad porter, and the young man who took up baseball on the streets and in reform school before becoming the superstar hurler of the Negro Leagues.
In unprecedented detail, Tye reveals how Paige, hurt and angry when Jackie Robinson beat him in breaking the Majors' color barrier, emerged at the improbable age of forty-two to help propel the Cleveland Indians to the World Series. ("Age is a case of mind over matter," he said. "If you don't mind, it don't matter.")
Rewriting our history of baseball's integration with Paige in the starring role and separating truth from legend, Satchel is a story as large as this larger-than-life man. |
"Having known Satchel when I was a young ballplayer, I'm reminded of the man who took over the game with both his superior pitching and his dynamic personality. This book is a must-read that captures the essence of one of the greatest legends in baseball history, Satchel Paige." Dusty Baker, Manager, Cincinnati Reds
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Chapter One
Coming Alive
"I was no different from any other kid,
only in Mobile I was a nigger kid."
Satchel Paige entered the world as Leroy Robert Page. He was delivered at home into the hands of a midwife, which was more help than most poor families could afford in 1906 in Mobile, Alabama. His mother, Lula, was a washerwoman who already spent her nights worrying how to feed and sustain the four daughters and two sons who had come before. Five more would follow. Leroy's father, John, alternated between the luxuriant lilies in the gardens he tended uptown and the corner stoops on which he liked to loiter, rarely making time to care for his expanding brood. With skin the shade of chestnut and a birthplace in the heartland of the former Confederacy, the newborn's prospects looked woeful. They were about to get worse.
The hurricane that battered Mobile Bay just two months after Leroy's birth started with two days of torrential rains carried in on the back of a driving northeast wind. By the next morning ten-foot-high surges had dispatched oyster and fishing vessels to the bottom of the sea. Tornado-like squalls ripped from their roots southern pines, blew tin roofs off Greek Revival homes, and made it look as if birds were flying backward. At historic Christ Church only the choir loft was left standing. The lucky escaped by fleeing to third-floor attics or climbing tall trees; 150 others were consigned to watery graves. One area hit especially hard was the Negro slum known as Down the Bay, where the Pages lived.
Their home was a four-room shack called a shotgun, because a shot fired through the front door would exit straight out the back. That is the path storm waters took when they burst through Down the Bay's alleys on the way to more fashionable quarters. Rental units like the Pages' were ramshackle and fragile, with no flood walls to protect them from the nearby sea and no electricity to ease their recovery. The Page cottage remained standing but the thin mattresses the children shared and their few furnishings needed airing out. That cleanup would have to wait: Lula's white employers insisted she be at their homes early the next morning to mop up the storm damage. The kids would wait, too, the way they did every day when Mama headed to work, with the older ones watching over baby Leroy and the rest of the young ones.
Leroy's world was being reshaped in another way that would mark him even more profoundly. Mobile historically was a center of the slave trade and the destination for the last slave ship to America, but Alabama's oldest city also was home to more than a thousand blacks who bought or were granted their freedom in the antebellum era. That paradox was consistent with the coastal city's push toward the conservative state of which it was part and its pull to a more tolerant world beyond its shores. For more than two hundred years Mobile had welcomed outsiders--Irish Catholics fleeing the famine, Jewish merchants, Yankees and English, along with legions of Creoles, the free offspring of French or Spanish fathers and chattel mothers--and they in turn challenged inbred thinking on everything from politics to race. The result, during the Reconstruction period, was a blurring of color lines in ways unthinkable in Montgomery, Selma, and most of the rest of Alabama. Jim Crow--the system of segregation named after a cowering slave in an 1820s minstrel show--was there in Mobile, but so was Booker T. Washington's gospel of black self-help. The races were separated on trolleys and in other public settings, but the separation was done by tradition more than law. Blacks...
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Living in small town Rockabill, Maine, Jane True always knew she didn't quite fit in with so-called normal society. During her nightly, clandestine swim in the freezing winter ocean, a grisly find leads Jane to startling revelations about her heritage: she is only half-human.
Now, Jane must enter a world filled with supernatural creatures alternatively terrifying, beautiful, and deadly- all of which perfectly describe her new "friend," Ryu, a gorgeous and powerful vampire.
It is a world where nothing can be taken for granted: a dog can heal with a lick; spirits bag your groceries; and whatever you do, never-ever-rub the genie's lamp.
If you loveSookie Stackhouse, then you'll want to dive into Nicole Peeler's enchanting debut novel. |
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"I'm someone who will push you beyond all reasonable limits. Someone who will ask you not to just fulfill your potential but to exceed it. Someone who will expect more from you than you may believe you are capable of. So if you aren't ready to go to work, shut this book."
--Pat Summitt
Pat Summitt, head coach of the University of Tennessee Lady Vols, is a phenomenon in women's basketball. Her ferociously competitive teams won the NCAA championship in 1996 and 1997, and they've won five times in the last ten years. After twenty-four years as head coach at Tennessee, Summitt is well on her way to becoming the winningest coach in NCAA Division 1 women's history.
Now Summitt has written the first motivational book by a high-achieving female coach. In Reach for the Summit, she presents her formula for success, which she calls the "Definite Dozen System." In each of the book's twelve chapters, Summitt talks about one of the system's principles--such as responsibility, discipline, and loyalty--and shows you how to apply it to your own situation.
Pat Summitt uses her own remarkable story as a vehicle for explaining how anyone can transform herself through ambition. Through many amusing anecdotes and a few very painful memories, she reveals her mistakes and triumphs as a beginning basketball player, as an Olympic athlete, as a Division 1 coach, and as a mother. Although Summitt was not born to the easy life--she was born into a hard-working farm family in a remote corner of Tennessee--she has become one of the most successful and highest-paid coaches in the country. She candidly talks about how she turned her losses into wins and then shows you how you can do the same. Setting the example, she challenges you to embrace change while reaching for the brass ring.
Wonderfully entertaining and brilliantly instructive, Reach for the Summit discloses the winning secret to building a principled system and making it to the top at whatever you do. Pat Summitt will motivate you to achieve in sports, business, and the most important game of all--life.
From the Hardcover edition. |
"Pat Summitt . . . [is] a genius of a coach." New York Times
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From the book Never Wait 'Til Next YearWhen I get after something, the veins in my neck stand out. The color begins to rise up from my collarbone, and you can see the pulse going in my throat, and my eyes look like the high beams of an oncoming car. I am what you would call a classic Type A personality. An extremely demanding person. Certainly the people close to me would tell you that, including my seven-year-old son, Tyler. In whom, may I just say, I have met my match. The other night, Tyler pulled out his own front tooth, and it wasn't even that loose. The fact that it was his only remaining front tooth, and that it bled like a slaughtered hog, and that he reminded me more than a little bit of myself, may have accounted for the exorbitant fee of seven dollars he received from the tooth fairy.
"Mama," Tyler says, when I get that look in my eye. "Please put your sunglasses back on."
That's who you're dealing with here. Someone who will sell her house to own your farm. Someone who will push you beyond all reasonable limits. Someone who will ask you to not just fulfill your potential, but to exceed it. Someone who will expect more from you than you may believe you are capable of. So if you aren't ready to go to work, shut this book.
They tell a story about me back in Henrietta, Tennessee. One day when I was about fourteen years old, I passed a neighbor boy who was struggling to load a forty-five-pound bale of hay on to a truck. He was hot and sweaty, and trying to push the bale up onto the flatbed. I was just a tall, stick-legged girl everybody called Bone.
I watched him for a minute, and then I said, "You want me to show you how to do that?"
I grabbed the bale from him and threw it four stacks high.
You're wondering what a bale of hay has to do with success. Well, there's a trick to loading hay. You have to use your knee. What you do is, you put your right knee behind it and half kick it up in the air. That way you get some loft on it. It works with luggage, too.
My point is, there are certain ways to make a hard job easier. Which is what this book is all about. It's about some tried-and-true methods of success, applicable to any job, that I have found over the course of my career.
I can fix a tractor, mow hay, plow a field, chop tobacco, fire a barn, and call cows. I can also teach, cook, and raise a child. But what I'm known for is winning. I wrote this book because I believe the winning formula we have created at Tennessee deserves to be documented.
I also wrote it because I'm not happy unless I'm driving myself to my limit, and driving everybody around me crazy while I'm doing it. Fortunately, I have a loyal, long-suffering staff in my assistants Mickie DeMoss, Holly Warlick, and Al Brown, and my secretary of seventeen years, Katie Wynn. I usually try to do five things at once--in fact, we remodeled our house at the same time I was working on this book.
I'm famous for putting my makeup on at stoplights. I constantly drive barefoot, changing my shoes in the car. I seem to arrive at my latest appointment still screwing in one earring.
My attitude is, why do things one at a time, when you can do two at once? The more work I have to do, the happier I am.
In my opinion, too many people in this world are born on third base and think they've hit a triple. They think winning is a natural state of being. Take our team, the 1998 University of Tennessee Lady Volunteers. Every year, we...
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The bestselling beginning networking book is now updated to cover the latest tools and trends!
Fully updated and revised to include the latest trends in networking, this perennial bestseller features updated coverage of broadband technologies, storage, and backup. You'll discover the hottest topics for setting up a network at home or in the office.
Popular For Dummies author Doug Lowe knows what the networking beginner is looking for, so to that end, he offers you networking fundamentals written in his easy-to-understand style and discusses topics such as Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008.
- Walks you through networking basics with valuable updates of the latest networking tools and trends
- Explains exactly what a network is and how to use it
- Demonstrates how to build a wired or wireless network
- Addresses securing, optimizing, and troubleshooting a network
- Discusses networking with all major operating systems
Networking For Dummies, 9th Edition is the guide you need to start sharing resources and exchanging data today.
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Eddie Lowery left his first imprint on the game of golf in 1913 as the 10-year-old caddie to underdog U.S. Open champion Francis Ouimet. Best-selling author Mark Frost continues Lowery's story 43 years later with Lowery as a multi-millionaire car-dealer, who boasted to fellow millionaire and golf staple George Coleman that amateur golfers Harvie Ward and Ken Venturi could hands down beat any other two golfers in the world in a best ball match. A bet was made for a substantial sum of cash, and a tee time was set at the prestigious Cypress Point Country Club (Hampton Roads, Virginia) for Ward and Venturi to play whomever Coleman decided to bring.The morning of the match, Coleman showed up with the other half of the foursome: Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson, the two most distinguished golfers in the world. Despite efforts to keep the match under wraps from the public, word leaked out as soon as the men arrived at the course and a hundred people surrounded them by the time they reached the first tee. Three and a half hours later, nearing the conclusion of what many in the game now refer to as the greatest private match in the history of American golf, the crowd lining Highway 1 and the eighteenth fairway numbered close to five thousand people.Mark Frost brings to life an unlikely golf match that changed golf forever. |
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A THOUGHT-PROVOKING LOOK AT THE BIG BUSINESS AND IMMORAL PRACTICES BEHIND PROFESSIONAL SPORTS BY ACCLAIMED SPORTSWRITER DAVE ZIRIN, HAILED AS THE "CONSCIENCE OF AMERICAN SPORTSWRITING" (THE WASHINGTON POST ) The fastest-growing sector of today's sports audience is the alienated fan. Complaints abound: from inflated ticket prices, $6 hot dogs, and $9 beers to owners endlessly demanding new multimillion-dollar stadiums funded by public tax dollars. Those sitting in the owners' boxes are increasingly placing profit over players' performances and fan loyalty. Bad Sports cuts through the hype and bombast to zero in on tales of abusive, dictatorial owners who move their teams thousands of miles away from their fan base, use their stadiums as religious and political platforms, or hold communities ransom for millions of dollars of taxpayer money to fund their gargantuan stadiums. As the multibillion-dollar sports-industrial complex continues to lumber along, Dave Zirin is the voice in the wilderness, speaking out for the common fan with a tough, passionate, and intelligent voice that will remind readers that there is more to sportswriting than glowing athlete profiles. |
Adobe ePub [ 2.0 Mb ] Street Date: Tuesday, July 20, 2010
From the book Intro: Diogenes in High Tops In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face. --DIOGENES I once had a coach who could spit tobacco hard enough to break a window. He smelled like a hamper and only wore pants that came with a drawstring. And every last person on the team loved the guy. He always said to us, "Sports is like a hammer, gents. And you can use a hammer for all kinds of things. You can use it to build a house, or you can use it to bash somebody's head. Choose wisely." In the twenty-first century, far too many sports fans have a headache that is rapidly entering migraine territory. It's not just the 1,440 minutes a day of televised sports coverage causing the damage. It's not even the sports talk radio blabbocracy that is making people reach for the Extra Strength Tylenol. The headache comes from the idea that we are loving something that simply doesn't love us in return. If sports was once like a playful puppy you would wrestle on the floor, it's now like a house cat demanding to be stroked and giving nothing back. It's the way it gets harder to sit through a full game, or the way you go a year without making it to the ballpark and fail to even notice. It's the extra commercials tacked on to a broadcast, as companies attempt to use the games to "brand" our subconscious. It's when you decide to finally take the trip to the park, look up the ticket prices, and decide immediately to do something, anything, else with your time. It's the way you don't feel the same urgency to watch every second of every game for fear you might miss something magical. As economic times get tougher, the question of what to trim out of the budget doesn't become a question at all. Fun has become pain, and sports have become expendable. Ask a junior high classroom whether they know or even care about sports, and the answer should send a chill up the spine of all league commissioners. In my mind, this is a tragic state of affairs. How did sports become so overbearing in our culture, and yet so distant from our personal embrace? When, as fans, did we develop the equivalent of battered spouse's syndrome? And who is at fault for this state of affairs? There are certainly fans who blame the players for being too wealthy and too aloof. If only they didn't live in gated communities, only emerging to charge for autographs. There also are nonfans who blame the fans themselves. If only they would stop buying tickets and merchandise, the game would change. But the days of pointing the finger at players and fans have to end. If a car's brakes failed, you wouldn't blame the driver. All eyes would be on the manufacturer. If professional sports have been beating us over the head with their hammer, it's the owners who need to answer for this sorry state of affairs. Players play. Fans watch. Owners are uniquely charged with being the stewards of the game. It's a task that they have failed to perform in spectacular fashion. These are the caretakers, and yet, with barely a sliver of scrutiny, they are wrecking the world of sports. The old model of the paternalistic owner caring for a community has become as outdated as the Model T. Because of publicly funded stadium construction, luxury box licenses, sweetheart cable deals, globalized merchandizing plans, and other "revenue streams," the need for owners to cater to a local working- and middle-class fan base has shrunk dramatically. Fans have become scenery for television broadcasts. The fastest-growing sector of fans? People who love sports, but hate what they are becoming. I...
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Full of incredible characters, amazing athletic achievements, cutting-edge science, and, most of all, pure inspiration, Born to Run is an epic adventure that began with one simple question: Why does my foot hurt? In search of an answer, Christopher McDougall sets off to find a tribe of the world's greatest distance runners and learn their secrets, and in the process shows us that everything we thought we knew about running is wrong.
Isolated by the most savage terrain in North America, the reclusive Tarahumara Indians of Mexico's deadly Copper Canyons are custodians of a lost art. For centuries they have practiced techniques that allow them to run hundreds of miles without rest and chase down anything from a deer to an Olympic marathoner while enjoying every mile of it. Their superhuman talent is matched by uncanny health and serenity, leaving the Tarahumara immune to the diseases and strife that plague modern existence. With the help of Caballo Blanco, a mysterious loner who lives among the tribe, the author was able not only to uncover the secrets of the Tarahumara but also to find his own inner ultra-athlete, as he trained for the challenge of a lifetime: a fifty-mile race through the heart of Tarahumara country pitting the tribe against an odd band of Americans, including a star ultramarathoner, a beautiful young surfer, and a barefoot wonder.
With a sharp wit and wild exuberance, McDougall takes us from the high-tech science labs at Harvard to the sun-baked valleys and freezing peaks across North America, where ever-growing numbers of ultrarunners are pushing their bodies to the limit, and, finally, to the climactic race in the Copper Canyons. Born to Run is that rare book that will not only engage your mind but inspire your body when you realize that the secret to happiness is right at your feet, and that you, indeed all of us, were born to run.
From the Hardcover edition. |
"Compelling. . . . Entertaining. . . . [McDougall] uses an extended portrait of one of the world's least known cultures, the Tarahumara Indians of Mexico's Copper Canyons, to put modern American running under an exacting magnifying glass." San Francisco Chronicle
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Chapter One From the Hardcover edition.
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Transform basic sailing skills into true mastery No other sport is as complex or as gear- and technique-intensive as sailing. The details and nuances are vast, but beneath the surface are 27 elements, or core areas of knowledge. By understanding these principles you can attain true mastery: tie any knot, shape any sail, take the helm of any boat, no matter how large or unfamiliar. |
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Say it ain't so, Joe! Controversial new sports eBook from long-time Yankee manager, Joe Torre
Twelve straight playoff appearances. Six American League pennants. Four World Series titles. This is the definitive story of a dynasty: the Yankee years
When Joe Torre took over as manager of the New York Yankees in 1996, the most storied franchise in sports had not won a World Series title in eighteen years. The famously tough and mercurial owner, George Steinbrenner, had fired seventeen managers during that span. Torre's appointment was greeted with Bronx cheers from the notoriously brutal New York media, who cited his record as the player and manager who had been in the most Major League games without appearing in a World Series
Twelve tumultuous and triumphant years later, Torre left the team as the most beloved and successful manager in the game. In an era of multimillionaire free agents, fractured clubhouses, revenue-sharing, and off-the-field scandals, Torre forged a team ethos that united his players and made the Yankees, once again, the greatest team in sports. He won over the media with his honesty and class, and was beloved by the fans.
But it wasn't easy.
Here, for the first time, Joe Torre and Tom Verducci take us inside the dugout, the
clubhouse, and the front office in a revelatory narrative that shows what it really took to keep the Yankees on top of the baseball world. The high-priced ace who broke down in tears and refused to go back to the mound in the middle of a game. Constant meddling from Yankee executives, many of whom were jealous of Torre's popularity. The tension that developed between the old guard and the free agents brought in by management. The impact of revenue-sharing and new scouting techniques, which allowed other teams to challenge the Yankees' dominance. The players who couldn't resist the after-hours temptations of the Big Apple. The joys of managing Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera, and the challenges of managing Alex Rodriguez and Jason Giambi. Torre's last year, when constant ultimatums from the front office, devastating injuries, and a freak cloud of bugs on a warm September night in Cleveland forced him from a job he loved.
Through it all, Torre kept his calm, kept his players' respect, and kept winning.
And, of course, The Yankee Years chronicles the amazing stories on the diamond. The stirring comeback in the 1996 World Series against the heavily favored Braves. The wonder of 1998, when Torre led the Yanks to the most wins in Major League history. The draining and emotional drama of the 2001 World Series. The incredible twists and turns of the epic Game 7 of the 2003 American League Championship Series against the Red Sox, in which two teams who truly despised each other battled pitch by pitch until the stunning extra-inning home run.
Here is a sweeping narrative of Major League Baseball in the Yankee era, a book both grand in its scope and fascinating in its details. |
Adobe ePub [ 9.3 Mb ] Street Date: Tuesday, February 3, 2009 Adobe Digital Edition [ 8.5 Mb ] Street Date: Tuesday, February 3, 2009 Microsoft Reader [ 5.3 Mb ] Street Date: Tuesday, February 3, 2009 MobiPocket (OD) [ 2.0 Mb ] Street Date: Tuesday, February 3, 2009 eReader [ 2.0 Mb ] Street Date: Tuesday, February 3, 2009
"One of the best books about baseball ever written." New York Daily News
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Chapter One
On Wednesday, November 1, Bob Watson, in his ninth day on the job as general manager after replacing Gene Michael, called Torre while Torre was driving to a golf course in Cincinnati. Watson summoned him to an interview in Tampa, Florida. That evening, Torre met with Steinbrenner, Watson, Michael, assistant general manager Brian Cashman and Joe Molloy, Steinbrenner's son-in-law and a partner with the team. The next morning, Torre was introduced as the manager of the Yankees at a news conference in the Stadium Club of Yankee Stadium, standing in the same spot where Showalter had stood twelve months earlier as the 1994 AL Manager of the Year.
It was an inauspicious hiring in most every way. Steinbrenner did not bother to attend the introductory event of his new manager. The press grilled Torre. Not only had Torre been fired three times, but also he was 55 years old and brought with him a losing record (894-1,003), not one postseason series victory, and the ignominy of having spent more games over a lifetime of playing and managing without ever getting to the World Series than any other man in history. Torre was a highly accomplished player, even a star player, for 18 seasons with the Braves, Cardinals and Mets. He was named to nine All-Star teams and won one Most Valuable Player Award, with the Cardinals in 1971.When he played his last game in 1977,Torre was one of only 29 players in baseball history to have amassed more than 2,300 hits and an OPS+ of 128 (a measurement of combined on-base and slugging percentages adjusted for league averages and ballpark effects, thus making era-to-era comparisons more equitable). His career profile, however, was dimmed by never having played in the postseason.
Torre's baseball acumen and leadership skills were so highly regarded that the Mets named him a player/manager at age 36 during the 1977 season. He ceased playing that same year, the first of his five years managing awful Mets teams. When the Mets fired him after the 1981 season, the Braves, owned by Ted Turner, quickly snapped him up. Torre immediately led the Braves to their first division title in 13 years. He lasted only two more seasons with Turner's Braves. Torre spent almost six years out of baseball, serving as a broadcaster with the California Angels, until the Cardinals hired him to replace the popular Whitey Herzog in 1990. Those five seasons were the only seasons in which Torre did not play or manage in the major leagues since he broke in as a 20-year-old catcher in 1960 with the Milwaukee Braves, a team that also included Hall of Famers Hank Aaron, Eddie Mathews and Warren Spahn and Joe's brother Frank.
One of Torre's great strengths as a manager was that he understood what it was like to both star and struggle at the major league level. For instance, he hit .363 when he won the MVP Award in 1971, and 74 points lower the very next year. "And I tried just as hard both years," he said. One day in 1975 with the Mets, Torre became the first player in National League history to ground into four double plays, each of them following a single by second baseman Felix Millan. He reacted to such infamy with humor. "I'd like to thank Felix Millan for making all of this possible," he said.
At his introductory news conference, Torre displayed his cool demeanor and ease in front of a hostile media crowd. He answered questions with humor and optimism, and did not hesitate to talk about his lifetime goal of winning the World Series, something the Yankees had not done in 17 years, the longest drought for the franchise since it won its first in 1921. He knew Steinbrenner had grown restless....
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As a bestselling author and successful publisher of Strebor Books, Zane's name is synonymous with popular fiction -- especially erotica. Her website, Eroticanoir.com, gets over a million hits a year from around the world, and her fans look forward to every one of her publishing ventures with eager anticipation. Chocolate Flava is the first in a series of collections of great erotic fiction edited by Zane, the reigning queen of erotica. Based on the Featured Erotica section of her website, Chocolate Flava gathers twenty-five sizzling tales from some of the most talented -- and dedicated -- writers of erotica working today. This is a his-and-her collection. There are stories specifically written with female readers in mind, and others written expressly for men. Among the contributors are names already familiar to readers of erotica, such as Reginald Harris, Robert Edison Sandiford, Jonathan Luckett and, of course, Zane -- as well as emerging voices, such as Geneva Barnes and Robert Scott Adams. What they all have in common is that they are great at what they do, and have been handpicked by Zane -- an editor who knows a hot story when she sees it. Zane wanted stories "that took risks, that explored unique situations, that were creative beyond compare." She wanted to show that men and women can equally express themselves through the medium of erotic fiction. She wanted stories that would turn her on. This collection of selected sexy short stories will turn you on, too. |
From the book The Reunion, by Ife Ayodele It was nearly night in the city they both loved. He stood at the window of the luxurious hotel room she'd arranged for in celebration of his return, the curtains drawn back, open to the sight of the lighted Capitol dome. Over two years had passed since they last made love. I can't believe that I'm home and that she waited for me, he thought. He was so lost in his thoughts of deep joy and anticipation that he was unaware the woman he had loved for so long stood silently behind him. Two years ago he would have bet any amount of money that this day would never come. In 1995, Carrie had no time in her life for a relationship. Work -- designing her line of hand-painted scarves -- and small business development classes occupied most of her time. There was little energy left, even for her love of reading. On many nights, a book would slide from her hand to the floor with a thud, startling her awake with just enough energy to turn off the light and pull the covers closer. "How you doing this morning?" Nasir smiled. He was a recent regular passenger at the Metrobus stop on Fourteenth and Missouri avenues in Northwest Washington, D.C. Smiling back, she returned his greeting. "Freezing, and waiting for June." It was a cold, cloudy morning in late January and the streets were dotted with mounds of dirt-flecked slush, remnants of a huge snowfall that had unexpectedly hit the city. D.C. had been virtually shut down for nearly a week and was finally getting back to a semblance of its normal workday routine. Carrie and Nasir traveled the same route daily: up Connecticut Avenue, around Chevy Chase Circle, and then on to Bethesda. They often exchanged small talk that was part of the camaraderie of the daily commute. "Man, I'll be glad when I don't have to work for anyone but myself. Nothing beats owning a business and doing it for yourself. I know it'll be harder than clocking in and clocking out, but there's nothing like it. At least, not for me." Nasir spoke with great feeling and expressed the same thoughts that ran through her mind each day. In her opinion, too many of the attorneys in the firm where she worked as a legal assistant invoked the law of "divine right of kings" when it came to dealing with anyone whose office wall was not decorated with a framed law school diploma. "I know what you mean. One day I'm going to work and tell them all 'Massah day done! Beulah done lef' de buildin'.' Nasir laughed out loud in surprise at her perfectly exaggerated mammy imitation. That was the beginning of their friendship, and they made sure to share a seat on the fifteen-minute ride to work each day. On some mornings, they took an earlier bus and shared breakfast at Bethesda's Metro Center, enjoying its early morning quiet. The realization that there was a mutual attraction both pleased and frightened her. He was witty and curious, both articulate and streetwise. Handsome and intensely masculine, his features were an unusual combination of smooth dark skin and curly, wavy hair that was completely natural. Long lashes graced his brown eyes and the shadow of a beard enhanced his good looks. It amused her greatly to see the reaction his looks caused in both men and women. "Ooh, girl, he looks like Rick Fox, only darker," stage-whispered one of two young women who slowed and stared on their way out through the glass doors leading to the subway near the Uno's where they were having lunch. "He must be some kind of foreigner. Ain't too many homegrown brothers looking like that!" exclaimed her...
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