Showing titles in Sports Writing

The best stories about one of baseball's most colorful teams - updated to include their recent glory years. Since 1883, the Philadelphia Phillies have been up, down, and all around. Most recently, thanks to Charlie Manuel, the Phillies have become a National League powerhouse, with four NL East titles, two pennants and the 2008 World Series championship to show for it. In Tales from the Philadelphia Phillies Dugout Rich Westcott takes listeners behind the scenes into the glorious, quirky, and victorious stories that make this team the legend it is.

In his late 30s, celebrated essayist, journalist, and author Bill McKibben - never much of an athlete - decided the time had come for him to really test his body. Cross-country skiing his challenge of choice, he lived the fantasy of many amateur athletes and trained - with the help of a coach/guru - nearly full-time, putting in hours and miles typical of an Olympic hopeful. For one vigorous year, which would culminate in a series of grueling, long-distance races, McKibben experienced his body's rhythms and possibilities as never before.

From elite marathoner and Olympic hopeful Becky Wade comes the story of her yearlong exploration of diverse global running communities from England to Ethiopia - nine countries, 72 host families, and over 3,500 miles of running - investigating unique cultural approaches to the sport and revealing the secrets to the success of runners all over the world.

In Tales from the New Jersey Devils Locker Room, former New Jersey goalie Chico Resch and coauthor Mike Kerwick bring listeners along for a wild ride from the lean early seasons to the three Stanley Cup championships of this beloved team.

Doctor, angler, and raconteur Donald Thomas takes fishermen on a rollicking road trip through Alaska, Costa Rica, Australia, the Galapagos, and more. Fishing in oceans along the way, he enjoys the kind of adventures most people can only dream of. Each chapter includes a sidebar that gives Thomas an opportunity to riff entertainingly on a particular game fish, as well as an “At a Glance” section with both the current IGFA All-Tackle and Fly-Rod world records for that species.

In Drama in the Bahamas, Dave Hannigan tells the occasionally poignant, often troubling, yet always entertaining story behind Ali's last bout. Through interviews with many of those involved, he discovers exactly how and why, a few weeks short of his 40th birthday, a seriously diminished Ali stepped through the ropes one more time to get beaten up by Trevor Berbick.

What happens when a weekend athlete - of average skill at best - joins the professional golf circuit? George Plimpton, one of the finest participatory sports journalists, spent a month of self-imposed torture on the tour to find out. Along the way, he meets amateurs, pros, caddies, officials, fans, and hangers-on. In The Bogey Man, we find golf legends, adventurers, stroke-saving theories, superstitions, and other golfing lore and, best of all, Plimpton's thoughts and experiences.

Over the course of 100 luminous player profiles, the best sports newsroom on the planet paints vivid portraits of the game’s most compelling characters. The Basketball 100, edited by award-winning reporters David Aldridge and John Hollinger, also answers the game’s toughest, most important questions: How should we weight championship rings, versus statistical profiles, versus the “eye test”? Were the great players of yesteryear, like Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell, propelled by the inferior athleticism of their competition or would they have been transcendent in any era?

The pro football season of 1963 was dominated by the unexpected. In April, months prior to the beginning of play, it was revealed that two All-Star players, Paul Hornung and Alex Karras, were gambling on the sport and would be suspended from play for at least a year. Even worse, in May, one of the league’s bigger-than-life personalities, Big Daddy Lipscomb, was found dead, with police saying he perished from a heroin overdose, something those who knew him best still dispute.

This newly updated edition captures the best stories ever told about "America's Team." Tales from the Dallas Cowboys Sideline is a fascinating, fun look at the inner workings of one of the most beloved teams of all time. From what really happened during Tony Dorsett’s TD run in Super Bowl XII to Coach Tom Landry’s suggestions on pre-game meals, this book is a hilarious and unique collection of stories. Cliff Harris and Charlie Waters never lost sight of how much fun it was to play in the NFL—especially for the Dallas Cowboys—and they share that fun with you in Tales from the Dallas Cowboys Sideline.

Author Brin-Jonathan Butler was granted unique access to the two-and-half-week tournament (the World Chess Championship) and watched every move. In The Grandmaster, he aims to do for Magnus Carlsen what Norman Mailer did for Muhammed Ali in The Fight, John McPhee did for Arthur Ashe in Levels of the Game, and David Foster Wallace did for Roger Federer in his famous New York Times Magazine profile. Butler captures one of the world’s greatest sportsmen at the height of his powers and attempts to decipher the secret to that greatness.

This riveting collection of adventure writing includes the work of The Perfect Storm author, Sebastian Junger. Listen as men and women battle the elements, and often each other, to stay alive, confronting sharks, savage storms, rogue waves, mountainous icebergs, starvation, and their own fear and suffering.

Since 2015, Fred Segal has chronicled "unprophetic" sports predictions on the internet. His Freezing Cold Takes social media pages feature quotes and predictions from members of the sports world that have aged poorly or were, in hindsight, flat-out wrong. The pages have become a guilty pleasure for hundreds of thousands of sports fans who love to see sports media's infamous "hot takes" that went cold.

For those who dare, things often go wrong on the sea. Deep Blue offers some of literature's greatest stories about the ocean and the people who risk its wrath. Castaways, pirates, and victims of shipwreck all fight to survive in far-flung places and under harrowing circumstances. Together, these works offer a convincing reminder of the sea's dangers and mysteries.

Stefan Fatsis infiltrates a strikingly different subculture: pro football. After more than a year spent working out with a strength coach and polishing his craft with a gurulike kicking coach, Fatsis molded his fortyish body into one that could stand up - barely - to the rigors of NFL training. And over three months in 2006, he became a Denver Bronco.

Stepping into the ring against light-heavyweight champion Archie Moore, George Plimpton pauses to wonder what ever induced him to become a participatory journalist. Bloodied but unbowed, he holds his own in the bout—and lives to tell in this timeless book on boxing and its devotees, among them Ali, Joe Frazier, Ernest Hemingway, and Norman Mailer.

A philosophical musing on sports and play, this wholly inspiring and utterly charming reissue of Bart Giamatti's long-out-of-print final book, Take Time for Paradise, puts baseball in the context of American life and leisure. Giamatti begins with the conviction that our use of free time tells us something about who we are. He explores the concepts of leisure, American-style. And in baseball, the quintessential American game, he finds its ultimate expression.

So, who’s the best of 'em all? Tiger Woods? Jack Nicklaus? Bobby Jones? Ben Hogan? Golf fans will disagree until the end of time, but one thing is certain: For well over 100 years, the sport has provided its share of spectacular careers and indelible moments. And what about fan favorites such as Phil Mickelson, Nancy Lopez, and Lee Trevino? Where do they rank on the list? Or modern players like Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele, Jordan Spieth, Nelly Korda, and Justin Thomas. Did they make the final cut—and if so, where?

Blood Knots is about angling, about great fish caught and lost, but it is also about friendship, honor, and coming of age. As an adult, Jennings has sought out lost and secretive waterways, probing waters at dead of night in search of giant pike. The quest, as always, is for more than the living quarry. For only by searching far beneath the surface, he suggests in this most moving and thought-provoking of memoirs, can you connect with your own deep history. Jennings offers here a striking, elegiac narrative for lovers of unique memoirs and the finest fly-fishing literature.

In this love letter to his father, former professional golfer Nathaniel Crosby shares memories of Bing Crosby on the golf course and the lessons he taught him about the game and about life. With a foreword by Jack Nicklaus.