Robert Anasi's The Gloves offers a gritty, spirited inside look at the world of amateur boxing today.The Golden Gloves tournament is center stage in amateur boxing-a single-elimination contest in which young hopefuls square off in steamy gyms with the boxing elite looking on.Anasi took up boxing in his twenties to keep in shape, attract women, and sharpen his knuckles for the odd bar fight. He thought of entering "the Gloves," but put it off. Finally...

A firsthand account of the swift transformation of Williamsburg, from factory backwater to artists' district to trendy hub and high-rise colonyWilliamsburg, Brooklyn, is now so synonymous with hipster culture and the very idea of urban revitalization—so well-known from Chicago to Cambodia as the playground for the game of ironized status-seeking and lifestyle one-upmanship—that it's easy to forget how just a few years ago it was a very different neighborhoo...

A.J. Liebling's classic New Yorker pieces on the "sweet science of bruising" bring vividly to life the boxing world as it once was.The Sweet Science depicts the great events of boxing's American heyday: Sugar Ray Robinson's dramatic comeback, Rocky Marciano's rise to prominence, Joe Louis's unfortunate decline. Liebling never fails to find the human story behind the fight, and he evokes the atmosphere in the arena as distinctly as he does the goin...

Instant New York Times Bestseller"A masterwork. ... O'Connor answers every question, deftly and deeply, that we've had about the most controversial person in America's biggest game." —Peter KingFour-time New York Times bestselling sport biographer Ian O’Connor pulls back the curtain on four-time NFL MVP Aaron Rodgers, delivering the definitive portrait of the legendary yet mysterious quarterback who has astonished,...

The restaurants of the Latin Quarter and the city rooms of midtown Manhattan; the beachhead of Normandy and the boxing gyms of Times Square; the trackside haunts of bookmakers and the shadowy redoubts of Southern politicians--these are the places that A.J. Liebling shows to us in his unforgettable New Yorker articles, brought together here so that a new generation of readers might discover Liebling as if for the first time.Born a hundred years ago, Abbott Joseph "Joe" Liebl...

From Jack London to Joyce Carol Oates, The Hurt Business is the ultimate boxing book covering a century of the greatest fighter and the writers who have followed 'the sweet science'.Beginning with Jack London's account of the 1910 championship bout between Jack Johnson and James Jeffries (for which the Call of the Wildman called for and coined the term "The Great White Hope"), and ending with Carlo Rotella's 2002 homage to Larry Holmes ("Champion at Twilight"), The...

The first book ever to delve into the life of the legendary heavyweight boxing champion.Acclaimed sportswriter Phil Pepe explores the iconic boxer "Smokin' Joe" Frazier's early beginnings. From his dirt poor childhood and relationship with his father to his street fights and Olympic boxing championship, Pepe's book follows Frazier's rise, culminating in the "Fight of the Century" with Muhammad Ali. Pepe beat all other writers to the punch in his seminal work on the...

The story of the Lakers dynasty from 1996 through 2004, when Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal combined—and collided—to help bring the Lakers three straight championships and restore the franchise as a powerhouseIn the history of modern sport, there have never been two high-level teammates who loathed each other the way Shaquille O’Neal loathed Kobe Bryant, and Kobe Bryant loathed Shaquille O’Neal. From public sniping and sparring, to physical altercations and the r...

The bestselling author of Dream Team tells the interconnected stories of the twenty-first-century Golden State Warriors and the early-1970s Los Angeles Lakers, two extraordinary teams playing in extraordinary times and linked by one extraordinary man: Jerry West.“Full of juicy anecdotes and wagging fun . . . [Jack] McCallum holds legitimate claim for being the greatest NBA writer of all time.”—The Wall Street Journal

The Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist looks at the life and times of the Chicago Bulls superstar—"The best Jordan book so far" ( The Washington Post ).New York Times BestsellerOne of sport's biggest superstars, Michael Jordan is more than an internationally renowned athlete. As illuminated through David Halberstam's trademark balance of impeccable research and fascinating...

The New York Times bestselling author of Sweetness delivers the first all-encompassing account of the 1980s Los Angeles Lakers, one of professional sports’ most-revered—and dominant—dynasties.The Los Angeles Lakers of the 1980s personified the flamboyance and excess of the decade over which they reigned. Beginning with the arrival of Earvin “Magic” Johnson as the number-one overall pick of the 1979 draft, the Lake...

The New York Times bestseller about the legendary basketball star's impact on the sport during his team's championship seminal season. With a new introduction by Sam Smith, NBA Hall of Fame columnistA highly competitive force of nature, Michael Jordan's ambition and endurance drove him—and his Chicago Bulls teammates—to victory. After three years of consecutive losses to the "Bad Boys" Detroit Pistons in the playoffs, the Bulls defeated them in the 1991 Eas...