**Longlisted for the PEN/ESPN Award“Everything that’s rousing and distressing about block-and-tackle football is encompassed in Tropic of Football. . . illuminating.”—NewsdayHow a tiny Pacific archipelago is producing more players—from Troy Polamalu to Marcus Mariota—for the NFL than anywhere else in the world, by an award-winning sports historian**Football is at a crossroads, its future imperiled by the very physicality that drives its popu...

Longlisted for the PEN/ESPN Award"Everything that's rousing and distressing about block-and-tackle football is encompassed in Tropic of Football. . . illuminating."— NewsdayHow a tiny Pacific archipelago is producing more players—from Troy Polamalu to Marcus Mariota—for the NFL than anywhere else in the world, by an award-winning sports historianFootball is at a crossroads, its future imperiled by the very physicality that dri...

From an award-winning writer, the first linked history of African Americans and Latinos in Major League BaseballAfter peaking at 27 percent of all major leaguers in 1975, African Americans now make up less than one-tenth--a decline unimaginable in other men's pro sports. The number of Latin Americans, by contrast, has exploded to over one-quarter of all major leaguers and roughly half of those playing in the minors. Award-winning historian Rob Ruck not only explain...

In a new afterword Rob Ruck looks at the current state of baseball in the country that has produced Sammy Sosa and many other major league stars.

Mal Goode (1908–1995) became network news’s first African American correspondent when ABC News hired him in 1962. Raised in Homestead and Pittsburgh, he worked in the mills, graduated from the University of Pittsburgh, and went on to become a journalist for the Pittsburgh Courier and later for local radio. With his basso profundo voice resonating on the airwaves, Goode challenged the police, politicians, and segregation, while providing Black listeners a voice that captured their ...

Over 170 years, Pittsburgh rose from remote outpost to industrial powerhouse. With the formation of the United States, the frontier town located at the confluence of three rivers grew into the linchpin for trade and migration between established eastern cities and the growing settlements of the Ohio Valley. Resources, geography, innovation, and personalities led to successful glass, iron, and eventually steel operations. As Pittsburgh blossomed into one of the largest cities in the country...

Born to an Irish Catholic working-class family on the Northside of Pittsburgh, Art Rooney (1901–88) dabbled in semipro baseball and boxing before discovering that his real talent lay not in playing sports but in promoting them. Though he was at the center of boxing, baseball, and racing in Pittsburgh and beyond, Rooney is best remembered for his contribution to the NFL, in particular to the Pittsburgh Steelers, the team he founded in 1933.As Rooney led the team in the early years, ...

ROBERTO DURAN is a sporting legend. Often called the greatest boxer of all time, he held world titles at four different weights and is the only professional in history to have fought in five different decades. His bouts with fellow greats like Sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns and Marvin Hagler have gone down in fistic folklore and his pro record of 104 wins, 69 by KO, in 120 fights puts him in an elite group of fighters. They called him Manos de Piedra: “Hands of Stone”.American jo...

“Football is force and fanatics, basketball is beauty and bounce. Baseball is everything: action, grace, the seasons of our lives. George Vecsey’s book proves it, without wasting a word.”—Lee Eisenberg, author of The NumberIn Baseball, one of the great bards of America’s Grand Old Game gives a rousing account of the sport, from its pre-Republic roots to the present day. George Vecsey casts a fresh eye on the game, illuminates its foibles a...

Pelé—legendary footballer and humanitarian—explores the sport’s recent history and shares his most inspiring experiences, heartwarming stories, and hard-won wisdom.“I know in my heart that soccer was good to me, and great to the world....I saw, time and again, how the sport improved countless millions of lives, both on and off the field. For me, at least, that’s why soccer matters.”The world’s most popular sport goes by many names—soccer, football,...

The masterful, definitive history of Argentinian soccer, focusing on its dominant sports culture and unsurpassed ability to consistently produce champions.Lionel Messi, Diego Maradona, Alfredo Di St’fano: in every generation Argentina has uncovered a uniquely brilliant soccer talent. Perhaps it’s because the country lives and breathes the game, its theories, and its myths.Argentina’s rich, volatile history—by turns sublime and ruthlessly pragmatic—is mirror...

There are not many boxing stories that have happy endings. Roberto Duran's seems to be one. Now in his sixties he has both his faculties and an intact body. He still has money and his wife of more than four decades and his family are his greatest joys. He lives in a country that worships him.For a fighter who personified the face of evil in the ring he seems to have made no lasting enemies. He invited Ken Buchanan, from whom he won his first title, to his 50th birthday party and off...