Max Schumacher began working for the Indianapolis Indians Triple-A baseball team in 1958, and became the general manager in 1961. The Indians have been one of America’s premier minor league franchises ever since, presenting unforgettable stars and moments while playing in historic ballparks.In this unique retrospective, Schumacher recalls the upbringing in Indianapolis that inspired his love for baseball and shaped his working career, as well as stories that are unique to minor lea...

Author, Mark Montieth spent decades researching this book through extensive interviews and access to previously unseen internal documents regarding the formation and early seasons of the Indiana Pacers in 1967. He tells the dramatic story of the noble, city-wide effort to establish the franchise after a 14-year hiatus from professional basketball in Indianapolis, as well as the tumultuous and electrifying early seasons when the franchise that thrives today first took root.More than merely ...

Basketball, the only major world sport undeniably invented by a Canadian, has ironically failed to win Canadians’ hearts more than a century after its creation. James Naismith’s brainchild is a popular recreational pastime in his homeland, but players with bigger dreams had better take their talents south of the border. Canadian hoops has languished in the seemingly eternal shadow of hockey, with its cannibalization of air time, advertising dollars, and corporate capital.Faced with...

Learning and teaching basketball skills and tactics can be challenging. Executing them in competition can be troubling. Mastering them can be a career-long quest.Is it possible that a single book can provide all the instruction you need to conquer these basketball roadblocks? First you must know exactly how the skill or tactic is properly performed. Check! Then you need to attempt it again and again, with corrective advice through those trials until you get it right. Check! Next co...

What can the film Hoosiers teach us about the meaning of life? How can ancient Eastern wisdom traditions, such as Taoism and Zen Buddhism, improve our jump-shots? What can the "Zen Master" (Phil Jackson) and the "Big Aristotle" (Shaquille O'Neal) teach us about sustained excellence and success? Is women's basketball "better" basketball? How, ethically, should one deal with a strategic cheater in pickup basketball? With NBA and NCAA team rosters constantly changing, what does it mean to pla...

The inspiring story of Asian-American basketball player Jeremy Lin, who went from unknown underdog to rescuer of the New York Knicks in just a few weeks.

"It wasn't a team. It was a tent revival."So says Pat Summitt, the legendary coach whose Tennessee Lady Vols entered the 1997-98 season aiming for an almost unprecedented "three-peat" of NCAA championships. Raise the Roof takes you right inside the locker room of her amazing team, whose inspired mixture of gifted freshmen and seasoned stars produced a standard of play that would change the game of women's basketball forever.The 1997-98 season started innocently eno...

The subject of sports always triggers debate.Pick a player, celebrate a team or remember a championship moment, regardless of the sport, and I guarantee that a lively discussion will quickly follow.Animated, verbal altercations about any athlete and team embroil sports fans everywhere and foster what I believe is Best About Sports.In a relative’s living room, at a neighborhood bar or around the office water cooler, the mere mention of a certain player or te...

Every year when the major league baseball season hits off in April, millions of people around the world embark on a six month extravaganza of baseball betting. Some do it just for fun, some follow complex systems trying to win the elusive riches, some just blunder along happily. In nearly every instance, you, the bettor, will be losing money.Hopefully this guide helps you enjoy the season.

Almost a generation ago, a small school from the Northwest made its first noise in college basketball. For the first time, the Gonzaga Bulldogs won games in the NCAA tournament of 1999, going all the way to the Elite Eight. Then they validated their arrival with Sweet 16 appearances the next two years.Unlike other unheralded programs that have emerged to make national headlines, the Zags didn’t go away. They have stacked solid season upon solid season and as they enter 2016-17, the...

Twelve years before Kentucky and Texas Christian. Seven years after Jackie Robinson's first at-bat in the Majors. A color barrier in both sports and in America was shattered—by a team of teenage boys.The weight of a season and the weight of growing up are burdens enough. For a high school basketball team in Chicago in 1954, the weight of history joined them every time they stepped onto the court. "The Wonder Five" were from DuSable High School, a predominantly black...

Coach Tom Crean has brought the storied Indiana University Hoosiers basketball program back to national prominence by taking an unranked team at the beginning of the 2011 season all the way to the 2012 Sweet Sixteen.Indiana University coach since 2008, the story of Coach Crean's successful rebuilding is of interest to serious college basketball fans and coaches everywhere. The success of last year's team and a top ranked incoming class is sure to gain the keen interest of any Hoosi...