Showing titles in Sports History

Patrick S. Washburn and Chris Lamb tell the full story of the past, the present, and to a degree, the future of American sports journalism. Sports Journalism chronicles how and why technology, religion, social movements, immigration, racism, sexism, social media, athletes, and sportswriters and broadcasters changed sports as well as how sports are covered and how news about sports are presented and disseminated.

In 11 seasons with the Buffalo Bills, the diminutive 5-foot-9, 175-pound Steve Tasker was a huge contributor as the Bills strung together an unprecedented four consecutive Super Bowl appearances in the early 1990s. Along the way, Tasker earned seven invitations to the Pro Bowl, and during the National Football League’s 75th anniversary celebration, he was named the greatest special-teams player of all time.

Boston Globe sports columnist Dan Shaughnessy traces the bewitching story of the curse that has lain over the Red Sox since they sold Babe Ruth to the hated Yankees in 1920. He sheds light on classic Sox debacles, from Johnny Pesky's so-called hesitation throw to the horrifying dribbler that slithered between Bill Buckner's legs. Lively and filled with anecdotes, this is baseball folklore at its best.

Lost in the annals of boxing is the sport's true Cinderella story. James J. Braddock, dubbed "Cinderella Man" by Damon Runyon, was a once promising light heavyweight for whom a string of losses in the ring and a broken right hand happened to coincide with the Great Crash of 1929.

In celebration of the Women’s Tennis Association’s 50th anniversary, this updated and expanded edition—based on the 1988 original We Have Come a Long Way: The Story of Women's Tennis—includes more than 33 years’ worth of stories about inspiring women and their achievements. The book arrives 53 years after King and eight other women players broke with the male tennis establishment and launched their own professional tour.

Tasked with finding common ground and building friendships between the world's two largest countries and arctic neighbors, a young Canadian diplomat finds himself on his first overseas assignment in Moscow, the Soviet capital. It's the early 1970s and a Cold War between communism and capitalism, the west and the east, is simmering-while the ice rink is just starting to heat up. Smith opts for sports diplomacy, throwing off his embassy black tie dress codes and donning the blue and white sweater of the Moscow Maple Leafs.

The 1890s was the peak of the American bicycle craze, and consumers, including women, were buying bicycles in large numbers. Despite critics who tried to discourage women from trying this new sport, women took to the bike in huge numbers, and mastery of the bicycle became a metaphor for women’s mastery over their lives. Spurred by the emergence of the “safety” bicycle and the ensuing cultural craze, women’s professional bicycle racing thrived in the United States from 1895 to 1902.

Thoroughbred racing was one of the first major sports in early America. Horse racing thrived because it was a high-status sport that attracted the interest of both old and new money. It grew because spectators enjoyed the pageantry, the exciting races, and, most of all, the gambling. In The Sport of Kings and the Kings of Crime, author Steven Riess fills a long-neglected gap in sports history, offering a richly detailed and fascinating chronicle of thoroughbred racing's heyday.

Welsh brawn, all black mystique, South African power, Australian courage, Celtic grit, English resolve: all have given us occasions to remember. Moments of courage and resistance, moments of passion and pride. Moments when a flash of brilliance or collective determination helped turn the game one way or another. Moments when the best proved they are the best, and times when the unsung had their moment in the spotlight. These are rugby's greatest moments.

In this newly revised edition of Chuck Carlson’s Game of My Life Green Bay Packers, the greatest men to don that green and yellow uniform talk about the best, the most important, and the most entertaining game they ever played. Was it during the immortal "Ice Bowl" of 1967, when Bart Starr snuck across the goal line in the withering cold of Lambeau Field to beat the Dallas Cowboys? Or was it the NFC championship win over the Carolina Panthers in 1997 that sent the Packers back to the Super Bowl for the first time in 30 years?

In Tales from Augusta’s Fairways, Jim Hawkins, who covered his first Masters in 1968, takes listeners behind the high, thick hedges of Augusta National Golf Club for an intimate, entertaining glimpse of the classic cathedral that is home to golf’s most enchanting event. Tales from Augusta’s Fairways takes an inside look at the greats, the amateurs, and the underdogs who have made the Masters the most revered, prestigious golf tournament in the world.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association has come under fire. Fans have begun to realize that the athletes involved in the two biggest college sports, men's basketball and football, are little more than indentured servants. Millions of teenagers accept scholarships to chase their dreams of fame and fortune - at the price of absolute submission to the whims of an organization that puts their interests dead last.

Baseball explores the history of organized baseball during the mid-twentieth century, examining the sport on and off the field and contextualizing its development as both sport and business. Steven P. Gietschier begins with the Great Depression, looking at how those years of economic turmoil shaped the sport and how baseball responded. Gietschier covers a then-burgeoning group of owners, players, and key figures whose stories figure prominently in baseball's past and some of whom are still prominent in its collective consciousness.

From Lord’s to the Fjords is the uproarious tale of cricket in Iceland: how the national press believed a stag party from Oxford were the official England team, how Sky Sports accidentally sent a crew to televise an Icelandic Cricket Cup final that didn’t exist, how the lead singer of Iron Maiden flew a passenger jet into a match under the midnight sun, how Henry Blofeld umpired in a blizzard on top of an ice cap, how the Iceland team was sold to the world’s public and became a viral Twitter sensation (incurring the wrath of Jofra Archer)....

In June 2002, the world watched a U.S. Open like no other. The most prestigious golf championship was played, for the first time in history, on a public golf course. Feinstein takes us through every step of the event, from how the players qualified to how pairings were made, from preparing the course to the negotiations between the USGA and NBC. You will meet golf's biggest stars - and come to understand why playing in the Open at Bethpage meant so much to so many.

The story of NASCAR's legendary racer - newly revised Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s name virtually assured that his life would not be ordinary. Over the past decade, he has fulfilled that destiny. His father, one of the most successful drivers in the history of international motorsports, gave his son more than his name. Dale Earnhardt Sr. placed Dale Jr. in position to follow the footsteps and tire tracks he had left from Darlington to Daytona, from coast to coast, from one championship to the next.

Today, sports arenas have been transformed into staging grounds for American patriotism and the hero worship of law enforcement. Teams wear camouflage jerseys to honor those who serve; police officers throw out first pitches; soldiers surprise their families with homecomings at halftime. Sports and politics are decidedly entwined. But as journalist Howard Bryant reveals, this has always been more complicated for black athletes, who from the start were committing a political act simply by being on the field.

El fútbol es un juego, una pasión, una forma de agregación social, un negocio; y, por todo ello, también una eficaz herramienta de control sobre las masas. Gracias a su inigualable capacidad de crear mitos, a su épica intrínseca, este deporte ha sido explotado desde sus albores como arma de propaganda ideológica y, más recientemente, también comercial. Los primeros en darse cuenta de su inmenso poder de sugestión fueron quizá los regímenes totalitarios del siglo XX, que, en su afán de calar transversalmente en todos los estratos de la sociedad.

Taking us back to that feverish spring, The Last Good Year gives an intimate account not just of an era-defining seven games, but of what the series meant to the men who were changed by it: Marty McSorley, the tough guy who took his whole team on his shoulders; Doug Gilmour, the emerging superstar; celebrity owner Bruce McNall; Bill Berg, who went from unknown to famous when the Leafs claimed him on waivers; Kelly Hrudey, the Kings' goalie who would go on to become a Hockey Night in Canada broadcaster; Kerry Fraser, who would become the game's most infamous referee.

On June 26, 1976, Muhammad Ali fought in a mixed-rules contest against iconic pro wrestling champion Antonio Inoki for the so-called "martial arts championship of the world." Broadcast from Tokyo to a potential audience of 1.4 billion in 34 countries, the spectacle foreshadowed and, in many ways, led to the rise of mixed martial arts as a major sport.