The legendary sportswriter "details the grit of the gladiators and the psyche of the coaches . . . One of the best books ever written about pro football" ( The New York Times).Monday, November 27, 1989. After a ten-point loss to the San Francisco 49ers, the New York Giants return home. Thirty-four-year-old quarterback Phil Simms has reinjured his ankle. Linebacker Lawrence Taylor, the guts of the defense, is in great pain, supported by crutches. And while t...

Field of Dreams meets Back to the Future in this wondrous tale.He was the only man to hit a home run clean out of the original Yankee Stadium and the first to hit a home run into the Polo Grounds centerfield bleachers more than 500 feet away. He may have been the best power hitter in the history of baseball. Some called him the Black Babe Ruth. In the blue-collar world in which he played, they kne...

A celebration and memorial of the greatest era of heavyweight fighters from 1962 to 1997, as witnessed ringside by an International Boxing Hall of Fame sportswriter.Once upon a time, of all the memories made in ballparks and arenas from California to New York, there was nothing to rival that magic moment that could grab a heavyweight fight crowd by its collective jugular vein and trigger a tsunami of raw emotion before a single punch had even been thrown.Th...

When people think of baseball trailblazers, their minds immediately go to Jackie Robinson. He was the man who broke the color barrier, appearing in 1947 for the Brooklyn Dodgers, and would go on to a Hall of Fame career. His number 42 is retired throughout baseball, and every year MLB holds "Jackie Robinson Day" across the league.But he was far from the only trailblazer. That same year, a twenty-three-year-old Larry Doby appeared in a game for the Cleveland Indians. He is essential...

"After the Fire is a tour de force on love in a place and time that made love all but impossible. Jerry Izenberg takes us onto the mean streets of riot-scarred Newark. We meet heroes and fools, scheming politicians, Sinatra, Mafia bosses, and a beautiful Juliet with her All-American Romeo. More than once, Izenberg's story will leave you breathless." — Dave Kindred, author of Sound and Fury, a dual biography of Muhammad Ali and Howard CosellFrom an award-winning author comes a histo...

Jerry Izenberg has been a sports reporter and a columnist at the New Jersey Star-Ledger for over seventy years.One of only two daily newspaper columnists to have covered the first 53 Super Bowls, Izenberg also covered 54 consecutive Kentucky Derbies and the last five Triple Crown-winning horses. And no one has covered more of Muhammad Ali's fights than he, dating back to the 1960 Olympics. A recipient of the Red Smith Award for sportswriting, he has been named the New Jersey Sports...

Rozelle chronicles the life and times of the architect of the modern National Football League, Pete Rozelle, who transformed football into arguably the most successful sports league in the world. While he was never considered a serious candidate for the job of NFL commissioner early on, the position ultimately catapulted Rozelle into the role through which he transformed the NFL and became a trailblazer for all sports in the second half of the twentieth century. When he became com...

The NFL icon who first brought show business to sports shares his life lessons on fame, fatherhood, and football.Three days before the 1969 Super Bowl, Joe Namath promised the nation that he would lead the New York Jets to an 18-point underdog victory against the seemingly invincible Baltimore Colts. When the final whistle blew, that promise had been kept.Namath was instantly heralded as a gridiron god, while his rugged good looks, progressive views on race...

I Had a Hammer: The Hank Aaron Story is an intimate memoir by a baseball legend—and a fascinating social history of twentieth-century America.The Classic New York Times BestsellerThe man who shattered Babe Ruth's lifetime home run record, Henry "Hammering Hank" Aaron left his indelible mark on professional baseball and the world. But the world also left its mark on him.With courage and candor, Aaron's revelatory life ...

A New York Times bestseller: The "entertaining" memoir by the legendary American sportswriter (Chicago Tribune).Frank Deford joined Sports Illustrated in 1962, and over the following decades became one of the most beloved figures in sports journalism—renowned for everything from his NPR commentaries to his status as a Lite Beer All Star.From the Mad Men-like days of SI in the sixties, to the early NBA, to Deford's visit to apartheid South Africa with Arthur...

**Celebrate the unheralded people and stories that helped shape the game of baseball!Meet unsung pioneers,** like John “Bud” Fowler, William Edward White, and brothers Moses Fleetwood Walker and Weld Walker, four African Americans who integrated white teams decades before Jackie Robinson.Discover unforgettable moments, like the time a 17-year old girl named Jackie Mitchell struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.Marvel at records. Did y...

"One of the best baseball books ever written. It is probably one of the best American diaries as well." — New York TimesA timeless classic from baseball's golden era, legendary pitcher Jim Brosnan's witty and candid chronicle of the 1959 Major League Baseball season, which set the standard for all sports memoirs to follow.The Long Season was a revelation when it was first published in 1960. Here is an insider's perspective...