Is this a great country or what?You can bet on the turn of the card or a roll of the dice, but also on the NFL, the NCAA, and which Olsen twin marries first. We bet $80 billion a year, the amount growing wildly as more and more people gain access to this huge American wheel of fortune. No longer quarantined in Las Vegas, gambling has become as local and convenient as our neighborhood cineplex. If there's not a casino around the corner, there's one on your laptop computer.In...

In the tradition of Seabiscuit and The Summer of ’49, a gripping sports narrative that brilliantly tells the amazing individual stories of the unforgettable athletes who gathered in Mexico City in a year of dramatic upheaval.The 1968 Mexico City Olympics reflected the spirit of their revolutionary times. Richard Hoffer’s Something in the Air captures the turbulence and offbeat heroism of that historic Olympiad, which was as rich in inspir...

Bouts of Mania describes the glorious era when Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, and George Foreman fought each other in every possible combination, on nearly every possible continent. In their most memorable bouts from 1971 to 1975, the three men created athletic set pieces that continue to resonate: the Fight of the Century, Down Goes Frazier!, the Rumble in the Jungle, and the Thrilla in Manila. Their fights for the heavyweight belt (when that title still meant something) made for a r...

The inspirational memoir of the Canadian boxer who fought some of the greatest heavyweights in history, including Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, but lost everything outside the ring.From a tough Toronto childhood as the only son of immigrant parents, through a twenty-three-year career that earned him induction into the World Boxing Hall of Fame, to the public tragedies that decimated his family long after the cheering stopped, George Chuvalo tells his life story as ...

An insider’s look at baseball’s unwritten rules, explained with examples from the game’s most fascinating characters and wildest historical moments.Everyone knows that baseball is a game of intricate regulations, but it turns out to be even more complicated than we realize. All aspects of baseball—hitting, pitching, and baserunning—are affected by the Code, a set of unwritten rules that governs the Major League game. Some of these rules are openly discussed (don’t steal a ...

If baseball is America's national religion, then the Hall of Fame is its High Church. Being named among its 286 inductees makes you the closest thing our country has to an undisputed hero - even a secular saint. But the men in the Hall of Fame are no angels. Among their number are gamblers, drunks, race-baiters, at least one murderer, and perhaps the greatest collection of bona fide characters ever to be dignified by an honor of any kind.This is the book the Hall of Fame deserves. ...

The memoir that "lives up to its title in spades" from the famed newsman who looks back over his storied and sometimes controversial career ( Los Angeles Times ).This memoir by Dan Rather is told in a straightforward and conversational voice, and covers all the important moments of his journalistic career, including a frank accounting of his dismissal from CBS, the Abu Ghraib story, the George W. Bush Air National Guard co...

“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...

The return of a sports classic with a new foreword by the authorFinally back in print after many years, here is Bill Lee’s classic tale of his renegade life on and off the mound. Whether walking out on the Montreal Expos to protest the release of a valued teammate or telling sportswriters eager for candid and offbeat comments more about the game than his bosses wanted anyone to know, pitcher Bill “Spaceman” Lee became celebrated as much for his rebellious personality as for his rem...

The sensational tell-all biography of Hollywood's most infamous mob boss who dominated Los Angeles's underworld—and headlines—from the 1940s to the 1970s.When Bugsy Siegel was murdered in 1947, his henchman Mickey Cohen took over his criminal enterprise in Los Angeles. As charismatic as he was ruthless, Cohen attained so much power up until his death in 1976 that he was a regular above-the-fold newspaper name, with more than one thousand front-pages in LA papers al...

The first book ever to delve into the life of the legendary heavyweight boxing champion.Acclaimed sportswriter Phil Pepe explores the iconic boxer "Smokin' Joe" Frazier's early beginnings. From his dirt poor childhood and relationship with his father to his street fights and Olympic boxing championship, Pepe's book follows Frazier's rise, culminating in the "Fight of the Century" with Muhammad Ali. Pepe beat all other writers to the punch in his seminal work on the...

“This look at a largely forgotten reign of terror in San Francisco in 1973 and 1974 is an interesting . . . true police procedural.” —Publishers WeeklyOn October 20, 1973, in San Francisco, a white couple strolling down Telegraph Hill was set upon and butchered by four young black men. Thus began a reign of terror that lasted six months and left fifteen whites dead and the entire city in a state of panic. The perpetrators wanted nothing less than a race wa...