At 47, Tim Derk had long been the San Antonio Spur’s crowd-pleasing Coyote and was widely regarded as the NBA’s funniest, most inventive mascot. Then, as the Spurs were headed toward their third championship, Derk suffered a massive stroke and his seemingly charmed existence was shattered. Here, he recounts his courageous battle to recover from the stroke’s devastating impact, both on his body and his career. Amusing reminiscences of Spurs’ players and owners, and of his own on-court hijin...

In this New York Times bestseller from the world's #1 bestselling author**, two high school students leave their hometown on the West Coast to go on an impulsive cross-country road trip in this moving romance about friendship and the power of love.**Axi Moore is a "good girl". She studies hard, stays out of the spotlight, and doesn't tell anyone that she wants to run away from it all. The only person she can tell is her best friend, Robins...

From the humble heights of a Class-A pitcher's mound to the deflating lows of sleeping on his gun-toting grandmother's air mattress, veteran reliever Dirk Hayhurst steps out of the bullpen to deliver the best pitch of his career--a raw, unflinching and surprisingly moving account of his life in the minors.I enjoyed the visualizations, maybe a little too much, and would stop only when I felt I'd centered myself. . .or after one of my teammates hit me in the nuts with the rosin b...

"Dirk Hayhurst has done it again. . .Turns out he's a starter and a closer." —Tim Kurkjian, ESPNAs a major and not-so-major league pitcher, Dirk Hayhurst has learned to master more than striking out batters. While waiting for his name to be called in the bullpen, he honed his gifts as a storyteller, one the New York Times calls the "best writer in a baseball uniform." In this often hilarious collection of adventures on and off the diamond, Dirk details the intricacies of pulling of...

For fans of Elmore Leonard and Robert B. Parker, meet hockey scout turned private detective Brad Shade, from “one of the best sports writers on the continent” Brad Shade has been just about everywhere hockey is played. He has ridden the buses in the minors, shared dressing rooms with the legends of the game, closed bars with guys destined for the Hall of Fame, and dropped the gloves with journeymen like himself who’ll never get near it. And even though he’s retired after fourteen years of ...

One man's odyssey into the brutal hive of the National Football LeagueAs an unsigned free agent who rose through the practice squad to the starting lineup of the Denver Broncos, Nate Jackson took the path of thousands of unknowns before him to carve out a professional football career twice as long as the average player. Through his story recounted here—from scouting combines to preseason cuts to byzantine film studies to glorious touchdown catches—even knowledgeable football fans w...

The Toronto Blue Jays pitcher recounts his fateful season of injury, rehab, and reinvention in a memoir by “the best writer in a baseball uniform” (Tyler Kepner, The New York Times).After nearly a decade in the minors, Dirk Hayhurst defied the odds to climb onto the pitcher's mound for the Toronto Blue Jays. Newly married, with a big league paycheck and a brand new house, Hayhurst was ready for a great season in the Bigs.Then fate delivered a crush...

Entrepreneur Jesse Itzler chronicles his month of living and extreme fitness training with a Navy SEAL in this New York Times bestseller—now with two bonus chapters.Jesse Itzler will try almost anything. His life is about being bold and risky. So when Jesse felt himself drifting on autopilot, he hired a rather unconventional trainer to live with him for a month—an accomplished Navy SEAL widely considered to be "the toughes...

"The best baseball book of the year . . . a close, exceptionally well-written look into the game's epidemic of ruptured elbow ligaments." — The Boston GlobeThe import of baseball pitchers is exceeded only by their fragility. One tiny band of tissue in the elbow, the ulnar collateral ligament, is snapping at unprecedented rates, leaving current big-league players vulnerable and the coming generation of baseball-playing children dreading the three scariest wo...

In his book Pro Cycling on $10 a Day, Phil Gaimon brings the full powers of his wit to tell his story.Plump, grumpy, slumped on the couch, and going nowhere fast at age 16, Phil Gaimon began riding a bicycle with the grand ambition of shedding a few pounds before going off to college. He soon fell into racing and discovered he was a natural, riding his way into a pro contract after just one season despite utter ignorance of a century of cycling etiquette. Presented here as a guide--and a w...

A New York City firefighter's emotional and inspiring memoir of learning to run again after a debilitating accidentOn the morning of December 22, 2005, Matt Long was cycling to work in the early morning when he was struck by and sucked under a 20-ton bus making an illegal turn. The injuries he sustained pushed him within inches of his life. Miraculously, more than 40 operations and months later, Matt was able to start his recovery. In spite of the severity of his injuries, Matt fou...

Includes new chapters with small, easy-to-understand words. Bestselling words!Fantasy football, fantasy baseball, fantasy basketball, even fantasy sumo wrestling: the world of fantasy sports is huge, and still growing. Today, more than 35 million people in the United States and Canada spend hours upon hours each week on their fantasy sports teams. And as the Senior Fantasy Sports Analyst for ESPN, Matthew Berry is on the front lines of what has grown from a niche subculture into a ...