Pedro Gomez of ESPN was a beloved figure in baseball. His death from sudden cardiac arrest on Feb. 7, 2021, unleashed an outpouring of heartfelt tributes. He was 58, both a hard-nosed reporter and a smiling ambassador of the sport. These 62 personal essays soar beyond sports to delve into life lessons.Pedro, a proud Cuban American, was known for his dramatic reporting from Havana. Fully and fluidly bilingual, he did as much as anyone to bridge the wide gap that had...

ROBERTO DURAN is a sporting legend. Often called the greatest boxer of all time, he held world titles at four different weights and is the only professional in history to have fought in five different decades. His bouts with fellow greats like Sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns and Marvin Hagler have gone down in fistic folklore and his pro record of 104 wins, 69 by KO, in 120 fights puts him in an elite group of fighters. They called him Manos de Piedra: “Hands of Stone”.American jo...

Pelé—legendary footballer and humanitarian—explores the sport’s recent history and shares his most inspiring experiences, heartwarming stories, and hard-won wisdom.“I know in my heart that soccer was good to me, and great to the world....I saw, time and again, how the sport improved countless millions of lives, both on and off the field. For me, at least, that’s why soccer matters.”The world’s most popular sport goes by many names—soccer, football,...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The inside story of the Houston Astros, whose relentless innovation took them from the worst team in baseball to the World Series in 2017 and 2019“Reiter’s superb narrative of how the team got there provides powerful insights into how organizations—not just baseball clubs—work best.”—The Wall Street JournalAstroball picks up where Michael Lewis’s acclaimed Moneyball leaves off,...

The story of a poor boy from Brazil who became the greatest soccer player of all time and one of the most important athletes of the twentieth century!His parents may have named him Edson Arantes do Nascimento, but to the rest of the world, he was known as Pelé. The soccer forward stunned Brazil when he began playing for the Santos soccer club at age fifteen. He then went on to captivate the world when he joined his country's national soccer team and helped them win...

The Red Sox Hall of Famer and World Series MVP tells the story of his life and career in a sports memoir that "lives up to its 'no-holds-barred' billing" ( Washington Post).David "Big Papi" Ortiz is a baseball icon and one of the most popular figures ever to play the game. A star player with the Boston Red Sox for fifteen years, Ortiz helped to win three World Series, bringing back a storied franchise from "never wins" to "always wins." As he launched ball...

Discover the remarkable life of Roberto Clemente—one of the most accomplished—and beloved—baseball heroes of his generation from Pulitzer Prize winner David Maraniss.On New Year’s Eve 1972, following eighteen magnificent seasons in the major leagues, Roberto Clemente died a hero’s death, killed in a plane crash as he attempted to deliver food and medical supplies to Nicaragua after a devastating earthquake. David Maraniss now brings the great baseball player brilli...

**“A baseball book that reads like a spy novel—a story about cheaters and the cheated that has the power to forever change how we feel about the game.” —Brian Williams, MSNBC anchor and host of The 11th HourThe definitive insider story of one of the biggest cheating scandals to ever rock Major League Baseball, bringing down high-profile coaches and players, and exposing a long-rumored "sign-stealing" dark side of baseball**The ensuing scandal rivaled that of the 19...

The Detroit Tigers, an umpire, a pitcher, and a mistake—one of the "classic, human, baseball stories" (Ken Burns, creator of the PBS mini-series Baseball).The perfect game is one of the rarest accomplishments in sports. In nearly four hundred thousand contests in over 130 years, it has happened only twenty times. On June 2, 2010, Armando Galarraga threw baseball's twenty-first. Except that's not how it entered the record books. That's because Jim Joyce, vo...

Since 2004, two names have dominated men’s tennis: Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer. Each player is legendary in his own right. The Spanish Nadal is the winner of sixteen Grand Slam titles, including five consecutive French Open singles titles from 2010-2014, and is the only player ever to win a Grand Slam for ten straight years. Federer, from Switzerland, has spent over three hundred weeks of his career ranked as the number-one player in the world and has won twenty Grand Slam titles and tw...

The inspiring and dramatic story of Big Papi, from growing up poor to becoming one of the most popular and successful players in Major League Baseball.Raised in the Dominican Republic, signed by the Seattle Mariners, and released by the Minnesota Twins, David Ortiz landed in baseball-crazy Boston, of all places. Generally regarded as an underachiever to that point in his career, Ortiz blossomed into one of the most feared and adored sluggers in baseball while alter...

Since 2004, two names have dominated men's tennis: Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer. Each player is legendary in his own right. The Spanish Nadal is the winner of fourteen Grand Slam titles, including five consecutive French Open singles titles from 2010 to 2014, and is the only player ever to win a Grand Slam for ten straight years. Federer, from Switzerland, has spent over three hundred weeks of his career ranked as the number-one player in the world and has won seventeen Grand Slam titles...