Showing results for "MEN!" in History of Sports

No man has affected more runners in more ways than Bill Bowerman. During his 24-year tenure as track coach at the University of Oregon, he won four national team titles and his athletes set 13 world and 22 American records. He also ignited the jogging boom, invented the waffle-sole running shoe that helped establish Nike, and coached the US track and field team at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games.

In the wake of the Tour de France’s fallen heroes, the story of one of history’s most legendary cyclists provides a much-needed antidote. In 1907 the world’s most popular athlete was not Cy Young or Ty Cobb. Rather, he was a black bicycle racer named "Major” Taylor. In his day, Taylor became a spiritual and athletic idol. He was the fastest man in America and a champion who prevailed over unspeakable cruelty. The men who aided him were among the most colorful to emerge from the era.

In the 1970s the US military believed they could create a ‘super soldier’ - one who could use psychic powers to walk through walls, disarm the enemy through telepathy or kill a goat by staring at it. The brain behind these techniques was Michael Murphy, one of the founders of New Age spiritualism in the hippy enclaves of San Francisco. But Murphy’s primary goal was to use these powers in sport to create a supreme athlete capable of extraordinary feats.

Few sporting records capture the imagination quite like that of the highest individual score in Test cricket. It is the blue riband record of batting achievement, the ultimate statement of stamina and skill. From Charles Bannerman, who scored 165 for Australia against England in the inaugural Test match in 1877, to Brian Lara, who made 400 not out for West Indies against England in 2004, the record has changed hands 10 times.

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. With one good hand, Braddock was forced to labor on the docks of Hoboken. Only his...

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. With one good hand, Braddock was forced to labor on the docks of Hoboken. Only his...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist comes “the best Jordan book so far” (The Washington Post), the story of Michael Jordan’s legendary years with the Chicago Bulls, capped by the 1998 NBA Finals and the team’s second three-peat. From The Breaks of the...

After entertaining countless radio listeners around the world for decades, who better to convey the breathless drama of a Test match cliffhanger than Henry Blofeld? Now, in Ten to Win...and the Last Man In, he has personally selected 30 matches featuring unforgettable finishes and brought them vividly to life again in his own inimitable way. 

The last time Canada qualified for a men's World Cup was in 1986. For a generation afterwards, the Canadian national men's soccer team struggled in obscurity, an afterthought in a country that was not yet soccer-mad. The twenty-first century brought a wave of soccer passion and expertise to this frozen country—and a crop of new superstar players who lifted the forgotten team into the international spotlight.

Brought to you by Penguin. As lead presenter for Sky Sports Formula One live coverage, Simon Lazenby is at the centre of Grand Prix race-weekend action. In this book, he takes us off camera to give us exclusive, behind-the-scenes access to the people who power this multi-billion-pound sport...

Brought to you by Penguin. Hurling is Ireland’s national game – a source of fascination and pride, even to people who have never played it. Ciarán Murphy, a lifelong club footballer, used to be one of those people. Then he spent a summer trying to play hurling with a tiny club in the West...

Brought to you by Penguin. A GRIPPING AND SEARINGLY HONEST ACCOUNT OF A YEAR IN THE TURBULENT LIFE OF A PROFESSIONAL JOCKEY, FROM FOUR-TIME CHAMPION OISIN MURPHY. Born prematurely, weighing less than a bag of sugar, Oisin Murphy’s life has always been one of struggle. From a young age he found...

One year before Jackie Robinson broke the color line in major league baseball in 1947, four black players joined the Cleveland Browns and Los Angeles Rams to become the first professional football players of African-American descent in the modern era. While blacks had played on professional teams in the early days of pro football, none had joined a team since 1934.

The legends of the game and the magic of the times - an oral history of pro basketball's wonder years, by the author of the highly acclaimed Loose Balls. Using a lively oral history format, Terry Pluto provides the best look yet at the glory days of the NBA. Tall Tales is essential reading for any fan who understands that the history of the league does not begin and end with Michael Jordan.

Brought to you by Penguin. Intrigue, high-stakes machinations and adrenaline-fuelled track action – Growing Wings is the never-before-told inside story of how the grid’s most fascinating, swagger-rich and win-at-all-costs team competed their way to total domination and disrupted Formula...

Essential reading for every golfer from the sport’s most acclaimed course developer—a comprehensive, firsthand account of restoring the inherent satisfactions of this centuries-old game, from the beauty of natural courses to the joys of walking the course “Mike Keiser is the best thing...

The definitive biography of Steve Kerr, the championship-winning basketball player and head coach of the record-breaking Golden State Warriors Few individuals have had a career as storied, and improbable, as Steve Kerr. He has won eight NBA titles—five as a player and three as a coach—for...

Eddy Merckx. Fausto Coppi. Jacques Anquetil. Bernard Hinault. Beryl Burton. Marianne Vos. A sole cyclist battling over a pass high in the mountains is one of the most romantic of sporting images. In the past 150 years road cycling has been dominated by a series of iconic people who have...

Brought to you by Penguin. A provocative look at how grassroots GAA interacts with life in Ireland, from the wittiest Gaelic games pundit at work today The GAA is Ireland's largest civil society organisation, woven into the fabric of families and communities - and yet most books about Gaelic...

A cultural history of sneakers, tracing the footprint of one of our most iconic fashions across sports, business, pop culture, and American identity When the athletic shoe graduated from the beaches and croquet courts of the wealthy elite to streetwear ubiquity, its journey through the heart of...