Biography: sport Books

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Book SynopsisAlbert Goodwill Spalding became the initial star pitcher of the first professional sports association, cofounded baseball's National League, founded the world's greatest sporting goods empire, owned the team that became the Chicago Cubs, organized an around-the-world tour to promote baseball, broke the first players union, and crushed three rivals of the National League before retiring to San Diego. A monopolist in true Gilded Age fashion, he sought to create a bicycle trust even as he battled advocates of a baseball trust.A moralist who railed against alcohol and gambling, he sired a child with a long-time mistress. He was a man of many firsts in the fields in which he competed: the highest winning percentage as pitcher, first player to receive a percentage of gate receipts, the first player to openly wear a glove while playing (and, by virtue of his status, to make it acceptable for other players to wear gloves), the captain of the first NL champion, the founder of the first verti

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Book Synopsis''Maunder''s book is more than just a biography of the rise and fall of a complicated man . . . It is also a critique of the damage that myth-making and the media can do to an athlete; a study of what happens to a demigod when thrown from Mount Olympus'' The TimesCharly Gaul is a forgotten cycling legend. Once a household name across Europe, the diminutive Luxembourger won the 1958 Tour de France and the Giro d''Italia twice. A unique rider, Gaul was supremely gifted at climbing and resilient even in the foulest weather. His pedalling style was smooth and swift, and he could set an unmatchable metronome rhythm on a mountain climb. ''Mozart on two wheels,'' was how one contemporary writer described him; another dubbed him ''The Angel of the Mountains''.At the end of his cycling career Gaul disappeared, becoming a hermit living in a forest in Luxembourg. What drove Charly Gaul into a recluse''s life? In Angel of the Mountains, Paul Maunder seeks to

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Book SynopsisIn 1970, Chris Bonington and his now-legendary team of mountaineers were the first climbers to tackle a big wall at extreme altitude. Their target was the south face of Nepal's Annapurna: 12,000 feet of steep rock and ice leading to a 26, 454-ft. summit. As serious armchair climbers will tell you, Annapurna South Face is better than all but a handful of equally gripping classics. One could also argue that all that has happened in the big mountains in the past 30 years has come out of this expedition and out of this book. Bonington and his team--most of whom subsequently died in the mountains--represented a kind of "greatest generation" of modern mountaineers. They pioneered a new, bolder approach to high altitude climbing, and this book is about how they hit the big time.

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Book SynopsisBen Hogan''s former ball shagger recounts firsthand stories of the golf legend—andreveals, for the first time, Hogan''s Swing Secret, a source of mystery to golfers for more than fifty years.Ben Hogan''s pro golf record is legendary. A four-time PGA Player of the Year, he celebrated sixty-three tournament wins and became known as a man of few words and fewer close friends. Most of what we know about Hogan has been based on myth and speculation. Until now.In the 1960s, though Hogan''s competitive career was over, he kept the practice habits that made him famous and remade modern competitive golf. He hired seventeen-year-old Jody Vasquez to help. Each day, after driving to a remote part of the course at Shady Oaks Country Club, Hogan would spend hours hitting balls and Vasquez would retrieve them. There, and over the course of their twenty-year friendship, Hogan taught Jody the mechanics of his famous swing and shared his thoughts on playing, practicing, and course management—unknowingly revealing much about his character, values, and beliefs, and the events that shaped them.In Afternoons with Mr. Hogan, Jody Vasquez shares dozens of stories about Hogan, from the way he practiced, selected his clubs, and interacted with other star players to his little-known humor and generosity. Combining the gentle insight of Tom Kite''s A Fairway to Heaven (which recalls Kite''s golf education under Harvey Penick) with the sage perspective of Penick''s own Little Red Book, Vasquez''s tribute is funny, poignant, and full of advice for golfers of all levels.

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Book SynopsisA New York City firefighter's emotional and inspiring memoir of learning to run again after a debilitating accident, based on the wildly popular March 2009 piece in Runner's World.On 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 found the psychological consequences of the accident nearly as hard to process. He would no longer be able to compete at the highest level.In the 18 months before the accident, he had competed in more than 20 events including several triathlons and marathons and had qualified for running's most prestigious race, the Boston Marathon. After the accident, his doctor told him he'd be lucky if he could even walk without a cane.The Long Run is an emotional and incredibly honest story about Matt's determination to fight through fear, despair, loneliness, and intense physical and psychological pain to regain the life he once had. The book chronicles Matt's road to recovery as he teaches himself to walk again and, a mere three years later, to run in the 2008 New York City Marathon—a gimpy seven-and-a-half hour journey through the five boroughs. "Running saved my life," Matt says, and his embrace of the running community and insistence on competing in the marathon has inspired many, turning him into a symbol of hope and recovery for untold numbers of others.Trade Review“The book is open and honest--at times, almost painfully so--and readers will be horrified by Long's ordeal and inspired by his determination to get back as much of himself as he could.” —Booklist

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Book SynopsisDerrick Rose achieved an improbable childhood dream: being selected first overall in the NBA draft by his hometown Chicago Bulls. The point guard was a phenom, winning the Rookie of the Year award and electrifying fans around the world. In 2011, he became the youngest MVP in league history. Rarely had a bond between a player and fans been so strong, as the city wrapped its arms around the homegrown hero. Six years and four knee surgeries later, his career was seemingly on the brink of collapse. But Rose never believed his struggles on and off the court were anything other than temporary setbacks. I’ll Show You is an honest, intimate conversation with one of the world’s most popular athletes, a star whose on-court brilliance is matched only by his aversion to the spotlight. Rose opens himself up in a document that is as unflinching—and at times as uncomfortable—as a personal diary. Detailing his childhood spent in one of his city’s most dangerous neighborhoods; his relationships with both opponents and teammates; the pain and controversies surrounding his career-altering injuries; his complicated relationship to fame and fortune; and his rise, fall, and reemergence as the player LeBron James says is “still a superhero,” I’ll Show You is one of the most candid and surprising autobiographies of a modern-day superstar ever written.

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