Sports Legends

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to be the best basketball player who ever lived, then Legends in Sports: Michael Jordan is the audiobook for you. In this exciting biography, Matt Christopher, the number one children’s sportswriter in America, puts you on the basketball court with the legendary superstar. Take an inside look at the triumphs, struggles, and statistics of one of the most determined players in National Basketball Association history.

In Legendary, LeBeau along with veteran Steelers’ scribes Scott Brown and George Von Benko will revisit that unforgettably dominant 2008 defensive unit, one of the most feared and successful in the modern NFL landscape. A deep dive into each game of the 2007-2008 championship season, with added perspective of how that “Blitzburgh” defense stacks up against the other great contemporary defenses, LeBeau also intersperses revelations about the 2008 Steelers with anecdotes from his nearly 60 years in the NFL as both a star player and groundbreaking coach who spanned decades of football innovation.

Months after the explosive events in A Court of Wings and Ruin, Feyre, Rhys, and their companions are still busy rebuilding the Night Court and the vastly-changed world beyond. But Winter Solstice is finally near, and with it, a hard-earned reprieve. Yet even the festive atmosphere can't keep the shadows of the past from looming. As Feyre navigates her first Winter Solstice as High Lady, she finds that those dearest to her have more wounds than she anticipated - scars that will have far-reaching impact on the future of their Court....

Over the decades, the reputation of the samurai has grown to mythical proportions, owing to such films as Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai and Yojimbo, as well as works such as James Clavell's epic Shogun. In Legends of the Samurai, Hiroaki Sato confronts both the history and the legend of the samurai, untangling the two to present an authentic picture of these legendary warriors.

Few names in the history of baseball evoke the excellence and dynamism that Rickey Henderson’s does. He holds the record for the most stolen bases in a single game, and he’s scored more runs than any player ever. “If you cut Rickey Henderson in half, you’d have two Hall of Famers,” the baseball historian Bill James once said. But perhaps even more than his prowess on the field, Rickey Henderson’s is a story of Oakland, California, the town that gave rise to so many legendary athletes like him.

In Killing the Legends, Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard explore the lives, legacies, and tragic deaths of three of the most famous people of the 20th century. Each experienced immense success, then failures that forced them to change; each faced the challenge of growing old in fields that privilege youth; and finally, each became isolated, cocooned by wealth but vulnerable to the demands of those in their innermost circles.

At a 1931 barnstorming exhibition game in Tennessee, a 17-year-old pitcher for the Chattanooga Lookouts struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig back to back. Her name was Jackie Mitchell - "organized baseball's first girl pitcher." In July 1970, a stripper rushed onto the field at Riverfront Stadium to kiss Johnny Bench, temporarily disrupting a game attended by President Nixon and his family. These are just some of the great, quirky, and comic moments in the annals of baseball recorded in The Greatest Baseball Stories Ever Told.

As the NHL's notorious bad boy, a casual hook-up with the nanny is part of the game - until a fake engagement has me playing for keeps. The new nanny ends up in my bed the first night, and something tells me she is different from all the rest. Her rocking body and sensual lips keep me coming back for more. When my buddies bust me eying her, they make a bet I can’t refuse - I have to figure out a way to make her agree to be my fake fiancée. Once on board, fantasy and reality merge and I don't stand a chance. Little did I know she never had any intention to stick around. Now not only am I ...

James “Cool Papa” Bell (1903-1991) was a legend in Black baseball, a lightning-fast switch hitter elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974. Bell’s speed was extraordinary; as Satchel Paige famously quipped, he was so fast he could flip a light switch and be in bed before the room got dark. In The Bona Fide Legend of Cool Papa Bell, experienced baseball writer and historian Lonnie Wheeler recounts the life of this extraordinary player, a key member of some of the greatest Negro League teams in history.

Dave Hahn, a local of Taos, New Mexico, is a legendary figure in mountaineering. Elite members of the climbing community have likened him to the Michael Jordan, Cal Ripkin, or Michael Phelps of the climbing world. The 2015 expedition he would lead came just one short year after the notorious Khumbu Icefall avalanche claimed the lives of 16 Sherpas. Dave and his team spent weeks honing the techniques that would help keep them alive through the Icefall and the Death Zone. None of this could have prepared them for the earthquake that shook Everest and all of their lives on April 25, 2015.

Prior to his untimely death, in 2010, Captain Phil Harris was a star of Discovery Channel's Deadliest Catch, the hit show that follows the exhilarating lives of Alaskan crab fishermen as they brave the vicious Bering Sea. He led his crew through hurricane-force winds and four-story-high waves, hauling in millions of pounds of crab and raking in millions of dollars. Phil worked hard, but he played even harder....

He was the biggest man baseball has ever produced. Babe Ruth transcended the sport that brought him fame, money, and adulation, moving beyond the limits of baselines and outfield fences into the mainstream of American life. In this extraordinary biography, Creamer uncovers the complex and captivating man behind the legend.

As Nazi Germany launched its campaign of racial terror and pushed the world toward war, three misfits banded together to challenge Hitler’s dominance at the apex of motorsport: the Grand Prix. Their quest for redemption culminated in a remarkable race that is still talked about in racing circles to this day - but which, soon after it ended, Hitler attempted to completely erase from history.

After a lifetime of putting his body on the line to entertain his dozens (and dozens!) of fans, the Hardcore Legend is paying the price - physically and emotionally. When the final bell on Mick's career tolls, not in the ring, but in a neurologist's office, his future seems far from merry and bright. Until Mick is given the chance to become Santa Claus - not dress up, not pretend, but become Santa - allowing him to rediscover the joy of performing. Fully committing to his new mission, Mick details the drastic measures he takes to keep the Christmas magic alive.

For 20 years, Miki "Da Cat" Dora was the king of Malibu surfers - a dashing, enigmatic rebel who dominated the waves, ruled his peers' imaginations, and who still inspires the fantasies of wannabes to this day. And yet, Dora railed against surfing's sudden post-Gidget popularity and the overcrowding of his once empty waves, even after this avid sportsman, iconoclast, and scammer of wide repute ran afoul of the law and led the FBI on a remarkable seven-year chase around the globe in 1974.

A book that explores the enduring legends of Snake, Foo, Dr. Death, and John Madden's Oakland Raiders, Badasses is the definitive biography of arguably the last team to play old-fashioned tough-guy football. Peter Richmond, co-author of the New York Times best seller The Glory Game, offers a fascinating look at the 1970s Oakland Raiders, led by colorful greats from another era.

Inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1997, Don Shula remains the winningest coach of all time with 347 career victories and the only undefeated season in NFL history. But before he became the architect of the Dolphins dynasty, Shula was a hardworking kid selling fish on the banks of Lake Erie. As acclaimed sports biographer Mark Ribowsky shows, Shula met serious resistance at home when he asked to play high school football, but when his parents finally relented, they discovered that their son had an unmatched mind for the game's strategy and a stomach for its brutality.

It was a Thursday at Chicago's Wrigley Field, mostly sunny with the wind blowing out. Nobody expected an afternoon game between the Philadelphia Phillies and Chicago Cubs on May 17, 1979, to be much more than a lazy early-season contest matching two teams heading in opposite directions - the first-place Phillies and the Cubs, those lovable losers - until they combined for 13 runs in the first inning. Ten Innings at Wrigley is Kevin Cook's vivid account of a game that could only have happened at this ballpark, in this era, with this colorful cast of heroes and heels.

The Kansas City Monarchs, the Chicago American Giants, the St. Louis Stars, the Birmingham Black Barons, the Homestead Grays, and the Indianapolis Clowns; for over 50 years, they were the Yankees, Cardinals, and Red Sox of black baseball in America. And for over a decade beginning in the late 1940s, umpire Bob Motley called balls and strikes for many of their games, working alongside such legends as Satchel Paige, Hank Aaron, Ernie Banks, and Willie Mays.

Did a major-league pitcher really hit a bird with a fastball in the middle of a game? What did a goat have to do with the Chicago Cubs not winning a championship for more than 70 years? Did Babe Ruth really point toward center field just before hitting a big home run in the 1932 World Series? Prepare to uncover the real stories behind these and other great baseball myths and legends!