The Dad Coach
The New York Times bestselling author of The Matheny Manifesto offers the definitive guide to coaching youth baseball and instilling positive values on and off the field. Long before he became manager of the St. Louis Cardinals and Kansas City Royals, Mike Matheny grasped the core values of what really mattered when it came to playing baseball. It wasn't attention from fans or the trophy at the end of a season that guided his morals, but the hard-won discipline, labor, and humility that he incorporated into every game he played. Now, in The Dad Coach, Matheny puts his philosophy into action and provides a step-by-step template for coaches and parents to develop solid fundamentals and a strong sense of character in their players, including: Age-specific drills and exercises to develop skills, along with practice plans to help young ballplayers improveGame preparation and evaluation techniques to help coaches stay on track and keep kids engagedAdvice on making coaching a meaningful experience and investment of timeMore than seventy QR codes leading to instructional videos featuring Matheny and other Dad Coach advocates Drawing on Matheny's playing and coaching expertise at every level of the game, The Dad Coach is an engaging and essential resource for anyone, regardless of experience, who wants to coach their players to success in baseball and life.
The Wonder Boy
ESPN's Tim MacMahon chronicles the career of the Dallas Mavericks' Luka Doncic and examines the pressure of building an NBA team around a prodigy. In 2018, the Dallas Mavericks landed the most hyped European teen prospect in basketball history--Luka Doncic, who has proven to be a generational NBA talent with a flair for sensational playmaking. But that's only half the story. With The Wonder Boy, MacMahon takes us beyond the highlights to the madness that ensues as the Mavericks try to avoid blowing their golden opportunity. From the internal power struggles in owner Mark Cuban's front office during the early years of Doncic's career, to the new regime's effort to earn Doncic's loyalty and put the ruthless competitor in position to win, readers will learn never-before-reported details about the saga's biggest moments, including: the blockbuster deal for Kristaps Porzingis that blew up in the Mavs' faces the divorces with coach Rick Carlisle and GM Donnie Nelson Jalen Brunson's exit after a run to the Western Conference finals the new pairing with the mercurial Kyrie Irving the improbable journey to the 2024 Finals As the clock ticks on the Mavs' quest to win it all with their irreplaceable young star, The Wonder Boy pulls back the curtain on a dilemma every NBA team would love to have.
Black Arsenal
Arsenal is special. Its multicultural fandom reflects a changing city and a unique relationship with Black British popular culture. Thanks to its decades of fielding iconic Black players on the pitch and the storied and diverse histories of its terraces, Arsenal has emerged as a powerful symbol of what an organic and convivial multiculture can be. From the earliest hints in the late 1960s that something remarkable was happening, up to Arsenal's ascendence as a global organisation, Black Arsenal is the first dedicated exploration of the club's relationship to contemporary Black identity and culture. It sees the club's affinity with Black identity transcend football and spread across cultures: in the media, music, fashion, politics and everyday social experiences. Explored through a combination of stunning photography and rare archival images, Black Arsenal examines how a new Black iconography emerged at Arsenal at key moments in British history that became crucial to the creation of new forms of Black identification. With contributions including former legends Ian Wright and Paul Davis, critical appraisals from Paul Gilroy, Gail Lewis and Clive Chijioke Nwonka, and personal responses from Clive Palmer, Ezra Collective, Amy Lawrence and others, Black Arsenal encounter the moments, stories and experiences of how Arsenal became an important and underexamined feature of modern Black British culture and identity.
Banner Year
As Banner 18 ascended to the TD Garden rafters in October 2024, Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and the Boston Celtics' reigning championship squad were in very good company. They were surrounded not only by a sell-out crowd of ardent supporters but by Celtics legends of previous eras, symbolizing the franchise's continued, unwavering commitment to greatness. Cedric Maxwell was among the former players commemorating the achievement, and he was present as a broadcaster throughout the dominant journey to the NBA title; from the offseason shake-ups that dispatched Marcus Smart while welcoming Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday, to the final buzzer against the Dallas Mavericks. Banner Year is the definitive chronicle of the Celtics' 2023-2024 season and their quest for that long-elusive 18th championship. Through exclusive insights and firsthand accounts, Maxwell and Mike Isenberg offer a behind-the-scenes look at the dynamics that fueled the team's success, including keen observations on prominent figures such as Tatum, Brown, Al Horford, and coach Joe Mazzulla. Boston fans will delight in this captivating account that captures the spirit of a franchise determined to rise once more.
Rainmaker
NATIONAL BESTSELLER From his work with Tiger Woods and Greg Norman to his thoughts on golf's current money-grab era, golf superagent Hughes Norton presents a rollicking tell-all that "takes you inside the room with some of golf's biggest personalities for some never-before-heard stories" (Chris Solomon, host of No Laying Up). When twenty-one-year-old Tiger Woods stunned the world by winning The Masters by a mind-blowing twelve strokes, the first thing he did was embrace the three most important people in his life: his father, his mother, and Hughes Norton. At the peak of his career, agent Norton earned a million-dollar salary, flew to all corners of the world in first class, and enjoyed a lifestyle nearly as lavish as his A-list clients. That dizzying success, however, came at a high price. The seventy-hour work weeks, constant travel, and intense pressure--both from his players and their corporate partners--took Norton away from his family and ultimately led to divorce. At the same time, to protect his players and his career, he found himself making ethical and moral choices he would later regret. Soon, he realized he had made as many enemies as friends. Now, in Rainmaker, Norton offers "the most amazing 'behind the curtain' view ever written about the world of sports management" (Jim Nantz, CBS Sports). With exclusive insights, he discusses what it was like being Tiger's first agent, his time representing the narcissistic Greg Norman, and shining a bright light on his sudden--and controversial--ouster as the head of IMG's Golf Division--a juggernaut he helped build. This is an engaging and unforgettable memoir that explores golf as never before.
Cricket in the 21st Century
This book examines the ways in which cricket has reflected and reproduced some of the social and political tensions of the twenty-first century. The chapters in this volume employ cricket as a useful conceptual tool to analyse the dynamics underwriting interactions between races, sexes, classes, and polities.
Playing Dirty
Greed and self-preservation have overtaken professional golf, with factions battling to buy and control its ecosystem without accounting for the cost and collateral damage of their ambitions. As the top level of golf threatens to tear itself in two, Golf Digest senior writer Joel Beall travels to Scotland, the birthplace of golf, to see if the soul of the sport is intact. Here, far from the boardroom battles, the game still breathes as it was meant to-pure and democratic. Links and life intertwine without ceremony: fairways spill into village squares, first tees lurk behind bus stops, flagsticks wave to fishermen. Duck into any pub and you'll find half the day's tee sheet has preceded you, scorecards spread across tables like battle maps, pints marking the spots where glory was found or lost. This is golf's last pure kingdom, where wealth is measured not in gold but in twilight rounds, where every weary wanderer can find refuge. Where the past feels present and the game never gets old, because good things never do. Not perfect, mind you; nothing wrapped in human hands ever is, yet Scotland golf is as unadulterated of a product as we get. It reminds us that all that is good with this beautifully dumb sport can continue in the face of the unknown. Whatever happens ... well, professional golf tournaments come and go, but Scotland golf is forever. With a hyper focus on the towns and courses and people that ensure the game of golf remains a game of the people, Beall examines golf's roots hoping to find an answer to where the sport is headed, who decides its fate, and if the game can truly be bought ... before golf swallows itself whole.ADVANCED PRAISE"There is a deep contrast in modern golf between the sacred and the profane, and though many writers have explored the gulf, none have done it with such eloquence and insight as Joel Beall in his tremendous work Playing Dirty. This is a masterful examination of where golf went wrong at the professional level, and how salvation must come from its historical roots. This book is the reckoning we needed, and it comes with a bold and bracing refusal to let the mistakes of the past define the future. Like so many fans, I have spent the last few years wondering where golf's heart has gone. I don't have to wonder anymore-Joel Beall has found it." -Shane Ryan, New York Times-bestselling author of Slaying the Tiger "Nobody in golf marries world class reporting and storytelling as well as Joel Beall. He hunts down facts that nobody else has discovered and weaves them together with the aplomb of a novelist. In a world where everything in golf hurtles toward uniformity, Joel's writing stands out as supremely unique. He is truly a one of one in the modern golf media landscape, and his hunt for golf soul amid all the chaos reflects this reality."-Kyle Porter, Founder of Normal Sport, formerly with CBS Sports "This here is an act of love. Joel Beall was meant to write this book, what amounts to a journey of how we square all the realities of a game that's ours to play, but controlled by forces beyond our grasp. Beall approaches golf from two directions. He's the gifted journalist covering the game's civil war. And he's the player looking to believe there's still some good in something that's gone so far awry. You will join him for the ride, from frontline coverage of the PGA Tour and LIV, to the shorelines of Scotland, and maybe see things differently in the end." -Brendan Quinn, Senior enterprise writer for The Athletic/New York Times
One More for the White Rat
Despite being picked to finish dead last in the National League's Eastern Division, the 1985 St. Louis Cardinals astounded the sports world by winning 101 regular-season games, capturing the pennant, and playing in the World Series. With expectations greatly elevated going forward, manager Whitey Herzog and his team subsequently endured a rash of injuries and poor performances from key players that sent the 1986 season into a tailspin. The veteran skipper had never seen the likes of it before in his professional baseball career, and he even considered tendering his resignation midyear to team owner August A. Busch Jr. Herzog was uncertain which version of the ball club would surface entering 1987, as their clash for divisional honors with the New York Mets was rekindled once again. Though observers at the start of the 1987 season once again gave them no chance to win their division, the Cardinals chased victory. Herzog's style of play, nicknamed "Whiteyball," terrorized opponents with its daring baserunning led by Vince Coleman and Ozzie Smith. Veteran players and newcomers, including Jack Clark and Tony Pe簽a, returned the Cardinals to contention. One More for the White Rat features contemporary interviews with members of the 1987 Cardinals and compelling stories and colorful insights into that incredible summer. Veteran Cardinals author Doug Feldmann takes the reader inside the St. Louis locker room and onto the field for the daily struggles and triumphs that made the 1987 baseball season unlike any other.
The Nba's Global Empire
During the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, the Dream Team, a collective of the National Basketball Association's top talent led by Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Charles Barkley, shook up the world as they amazed spectators and opponents on their way to winning gold. Their success introduced the world to the NBA's charismatic superstars and their artistic brand of basketball. Over the next two decades, youth outside of America dreamed of becoming the next Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and LeBron James. The NBA took advantage of its popularity in China by forming lucrative television and streaming deals and opening training academies. By the 2022-23 NBA season, there were 109 international players from 39 countries, a Canadian franchise, and a league in Africa. Today's best players are Africans, Canadians and Europeans like Nikola Jokic and Victor Wembanyama. This book presents the history of the NBA's ascension to a billion-dollar global empire, analyzing the globalization of American sports since the end of the Cold War and the dawn of the millennium. How essential is globalization for the NBA to thrive in the 21st century? Do the benefits outweigh the geopolitical controversies associated with being a global brand? Is globalization responsible for a decline in American-born NBA players and declining domestic popularity? These questions and others are answered in this first treatment of the NBA's global reach.
Golf for Dummies
Level up your own golf game, or enjoy the sport as a spectator Golf is a great sport for all types of people. It's a low impact form of exercise, a social activity, and it gets you outdoors. Golf For Dummies teaches you the rules of the game and gives you tips on improving your play. If you're more of a spectator, you'll love this book's coverage of the latest golf trends and the best players on the pro courses. Helpful illustrations make it easy to understand how golf really works, so you can step onto the green with confidence. In this new edition, you can learn all about new golf formats and recent changes to the rulebook. Ready to play a round? Understand golf basics, perfect your swing, and master the mental game Follow simple instructions and diagrams to improve your grips and stances Learn how the sport of golf is changing, at the amateur and professional levels Improve your golf game with advice from a championship-winning golfer This is a great Dummies guide for anyone looking for a general introduction to the sport, as well as current players who want to take their game to the next level. Have fun when you hit the links!
Blue Is the Colour
This beautiful coffee-table book takes readers through the history of the famous west London's club kit and in doing so also tell the story of the club, the famous matches and of course the iconic players who wore the shirt with pride and distinction. Compiled using stunning photographs of match worn shirts actually donned by many of the football clubs greatest players, the book presents a stunning timeline of Chelsea's history and of their emblematic shirt. This deluxe edition brings together the rarest and most iconic blues shirts ever seen and includes: - A player shirt example from virtually every one of the home and away shirt variations worn by Chelsea over the last 70 years - A player shirt from every major cup final Chelsea have played in - Shirts worn by many of Chelsea's greatest players. Blue Is The Colour is a breathtaking and historic record of the greatest collection of blues match worn shirts that have ever been seen together, and through these classic and iconic shirts the history of one of the world's most famous football clubs comes to life.
