Sporting House

No sport has been more associated with America’s sense of itself, with its identity, than baseball. No sport has been so inextricably bound with America’s traditions—with its notions of democracy and fair play—than baseball. And no professional sport in America has been as dramatically connected to social change as Major League Baseball when it became racially integrated the moment Jackie Robinson took the field with the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947.

With heart-pounding descriptions of avalanches and treacherous ascents, Barry Blanchard chronicles his transformation from a poor Native American/white kid from the wrong side of the tracks to one of the most respected alpinists in the world. At 13 he learned to rappel when he joined the 1292 Lord Strathcone's Horse Army Cadets. Soon kicked out for insubordination, he was already hooked on climbing and saw alpinism as a way to make his single mother proud and end his family's cycle of poverty.

If a professional referee has a perfect match, nobody says a word about it. If they have a poor one, they immediately become everyone's object of hatred, solely responsible for everything. With these conditions on his shoulders, Jonas Eriksson walked out onto the biggest and most prestigious football pitches in the world time and time again. He portrays the enormous demands placed on the elite tier of referees, how they are ostracised if they don't maintain their weight or pass extreme physical tests. For eighteen years, Jonas Eriksson was one of FIFA's top referees.

The bestselling author of No Shortcuts to the Top and K2 chronicles his three attempts to climb the world's tenth-highest and statistically deadliest peak, Annapurna in the Himalaya, while exploring the dramatic and tragic history of others who have made -- or attempted – the ascent, and what these exploits teach us about facing life's greatest challenges.

From the New York Times baseball columnist, an enchanting, enthralling history of the national pastime as told through the craft of pitching, based on years of archival research and interviews with more than 300 people from Hall of Famers to the stars of today.

For the first time in depth and in public, Olympic soccer gold-medalist Christine Sinclair, the top international goal scorer of all time and one of Canada's greatest athletes, reflects on both her exhilarating successes and her heartbreaking failures. Playing the Long Game is a book of earned wisdom on the value of determination and team spirit, and on leadership that changed the landscape of women's sport.

An irreverent, hilarious insider's look at big-time NCAA basketball, through the eyes of the nation's most famous benchwarmer and author of the popular blog ClubTrillion.com (3.6m visits!). Mark Titus holds the Ohio State record for career wins, and made it to the 2007 national championship game. You would think Titus would be all over the highlight reels. You'd be wrong.

Legendary University of North Carolina basketball coach Dean Smith tells the full story of his fabled career and shares the life lessons taught and learned over 40 years of unparalleled success as a coach and mentor.

My wrestling coach taught me all there is to know about grappling. About getting another gay—I mean, guy—to submit. It’s why I’m the top wrestler on my college wrestling team. I guess you could say I’m pretty good at pinning guys. Coach Mason and I have gotten close lately. He’s proud of what I can do. Says he likes to pin guys too. I stay behind after practice because Coach says he wants to teach me some moves.Coach takes off his shirt, shorts and whistle, and instructs me to spar with him. I'd like to give it a try. Time to see how much of Coach Mason I can really take.

In A Nice Little Place on the North Side, leading columnist George Will returns to baseball with a deeply personal look at his hapless Chicago Cubs and their often beatified home, Wrigley Field, as it enters its second century. Baseball, Will argues, is full of metaphors for life, religion, and happiness, and Wrigley is considered one of its sacred spaces. But what is its true, hyperbole-free history?

Lost in the annals of boxing is the sport's true Cinderella story. James J. Braddock, dubbed "Cinderella Man" by Damon Runyon, was a once promising light heavyweight for whom a string of losses in the ring and a broken right hand happened to coincide with the Great Crash of 1929.

Christian Beamish, a former editor at The Surfer's Journal, envisioned a low-tech, self-reliant exploration for surf along the coast of North America, using primarily clothes and instruments available to his ancestors, and the 18-foot boat he would build by hand in his garage. How the vision met reality - and how the two came to shape each other - places The Voyage of the Cormorant in the great American tradition of tales of life at sea, and what it has to teach us.

The Kingdom of Shivas Irons is the enchanting story of Murphy's return to Scotland to investigate reports of further visitations by Shivas Irons and to answer questions about him and MacDuff that have haunted Murphy since his original trip to Burningbush some 31 years before. Murphy and his companion, Buck Hannigan, a skeptical physicist fascinated by Shivas's connections to metanormal events, embark on a magical quest for Irons and MacDuff - and their wisdom about golf and human potential.

A fourth-generation fisherman, Jake Anderson, grew up in the rich fishing environment of Anacortes, Washington. At age 17, Jake began salmon fishing in Bristol Bay, Alaska, and by the age of 25 he was crab fishing in the Bering Sea. Soon after, Jake became a deckhand on the F/V Northwestern and joined the popular television series Deadliest Catch. Aside from fishing, Jake has a harrowing story that has yet to be told. As an avid skateboarder, Jake aspired to become a professional until he was sidelined by injury, addiction, and homelessness.

Ryan Bingham's job as a Career Transition Counselor - he fires people - has kept him airborne for years. Although he has come to despise his line of work, he has come to love the culture of what he calls "Airworld" - finding contentment within pressurized cabins, anonymous hotel rooms, and a wardrobe of wrinkle-free slacks.

There was nobody like Casey before him and no one like him since. For more than 50 years, Casey Stengel lived baseball, first as a player (he was the only person in history to play for all the New York teams - the Dodgers, Giants, Yankees, and Mets) and then as a manager (for the Yankees and Mets, among others). He made his biggest mark on the game revolutionizing the role of manager while winning an astounding 10 pennants and seven World Series championships (including five straight!) with the Yankees.

He was one of the greatest figures of his generation and arguably the greatest baseball hitter of all time. But what made Ted Williams a legend and a lightning rod for controversy in life and in death? New York Times best-selling author Leigh Montville delivers an intimate, riveting account of this extraordinary life.

On September 2, 2013, at the age of 64, Diana Nyad emerged onto the sands of Key West after swimming 111 miles, nation to nation, Cuba to Florida, in an epic feat of both endurance and human will, in 53 hours. Diana carried three poignant messages on her way across this stretch of shark-infested waters, and she spoke them to the crowd in her moment of final triumph.

On my 23rd birthday, my father gave me an envelope which I figured would be a gift certificate for something outdoors. But to my surprise, it was an airline ticket to Atlanta! My confusion turned into huge excitement when he said, "We are going to hike the Appalachian Trail in less than 50 days. Get ready son." At first, I thought I should just write this book like a journal of what we did. But then my father suggested that I should write it like a guidebook that can help anyone from a beginner to an advanced hiker.

A gloriously funny, nostalgic memoir of a popular ESPN reporter who, in the summer of 1994, was a fresh-out-of-college intern for a minor league baseball team. Madness and charm ensue as Ryan McGee spends the season steeped in sweat, fertilizer, nacho cheese sauce, and pure, unadulterated joy in North Carolina with the Asheville Tourists.