Hall of Fame baseball writer Peter Gammons dives deep into his encounters over the last six decades with the best in the sport, revealing a trove of behind-the-scenes stories about the fascinating and inspiring individuals at the heart of our national pastime.Peter Gammons is the preeminent baseball writer of his generation. Born and raised in New England, Gammons was mentored by the revered basketball coach Dean Smith at the University of North Carolina. Smith tol...

This unique reference provides insider observations of the entire 2007 Championship season from Mr. Red Sox himself, Johnny Pesky. Starting with the unparalleled press conference introducing new Japanese pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka on December 14, 2006, and culminating with the final out of the World Series on October 28, 2007, with the Red Sox winning their second Championship in three years, this is the ultimate keepsake for any Red Sox fan. In Diary of a Red Sox Season, fans have...

In The Science of Baseball, sportswriter and injury expert Will Carroll shows how understanding the science behind the Great American Pastime helps fans appreciate its nuances and that it enhances, not detracts from the greatest game ever invented. Carroll, as well as several experts via interviews, covers topics like what makes the ball break, bounce, and fly; how material science and physics work together to make the bat function; how hitters use physics, geometry, and force to ...

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...

"Sports journalist Schwarz brings to the fore this intelligent, smartly researched and often hilarious look at the use of statistics in baseball." — Publishers WeeklyIn The Numbers Game, Alan Schwarz provides the first-ever history of baseball statistics, showing how baseball and its numbers have been inseparable ever since the pastime's birth in 1845. He tells the history of this obsession through the lives of the people who felt...

Hall of Fame baseball writer Peter Gammons dives deep into his encounters over the last six decades with the best in the sport, revealing a trove of behind-the-scenes stories about the fascinating and inspiring individuals at the heart of our national pastime.Peter Gammons is the preeminent baseball writer of his generation. Born and raised in New England, Gammons was mentored by the revered basketball coach Dean Smith at the University of North Carolina. Smith tol...

Predictably Irrational meets Moneyball in ESPN veteran writer and statistical analyst Keith Law’s iconoclastic look at the numbers game of baseball, proving why some of the most trusted stats are surprisingly wrong, explaining what numbers actually work, and exploring what the rise of Big Data means for the future of the sport.For decades, statistics such as batting average, saves recorded, and pitching won-lost records have been used to measure individual players’ and teams’ poten...

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,...

When Bill James published his original Historical Baseball Abstract in 1985, he produced an immediate classic, hailed by the Chicago Tribune as the “holy book of baseball.” Now, baseball's beloved “Sultan of Stats” (The Boston Globe) is back with a fully revised and updated edition for the new millennium.Like the original, The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract is really several books in one. The Game provides a century'...

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,...

Making advanced stats simple, practical, and fun for hockey fansAdvanced stats give hockey’s powerbrokers an edge, and now fans can get in on the action. Stat Shot is a fun and informative guide hockey fans can use to understand and enjoy what analytics says about team building, a player’s junior numbers, measuring faceoff success, recording save percentage, the most one-sided trades in history, and everything you ever wanted to know about shot-based metri...