Miscellaneous Books - Page 2

Sports Illustrated: The College Football Book

Editors of Sports Illustrated

Amazon Price: $18.03 List Price: $29.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Sports Illustrated Amazon Marketplace: 37 new & used starting at $18.02

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Reference -> Encyclopedias -> Sports
Subjects -> Reference -> Encyclopedias -> General
Subjects -> Reference -> Encyclopedias -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Continuing its series of spectacular coffee-table books for the holiday season, Sports Illustrated presents The College Football Book, the ultimate gift for America's most passionate fans.

SI launched this series in 2005 with The Football Book, devoted to the professional game. A New York Times best-seller that year, the book has taken root as a perennial, selling more than 200,000 copies to date. Now the editors of Sports Illustrated return to the gridiron, this time to serve the most avid football fans of all.

With the best words and pictures SI has to offer, The College Football Book, brings to life the game's unparalleled excitement and pageantry, its legendary players, historic teams and epic rivalries.

In 288 pages of the greatest photography and writing available anywhere, The College Football Book spans the sport's history, from its infancy in the 1800s right up to the postseason showdowns of 2008. The book is packed with stunning pictures, award-winning stories, original stats, decade-by-decade all-star teams and iconic artifacts photographed exclusively for this book at the College Football Hall of Fame--the same exciting mix of elements that makes each book in the SI series a must-have for sports fan.

Yankee Stadium: The Official Retrospective

Al Santasiere

Amazon Price: $31.50 List Price: $50.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Pocket Amazon Marketplace: 47 new & used starting at $25.40

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Arts & Photography -> Photography -> Subjects -> Sports
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> State & Local -> New York
Subjects -> Sports -> Baseball -> History

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 18 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

It's been eighty-five years since Yankee Stadium opened. Soon the Yankees will leave the field, fans will file out and the lights will fade. But the lights will never go out on the Stadium that has proudly worn the moniker "The House That Ruth Built."

Yankee Stadium: The Official Retrospective recounts the story of this extraordinary American landmark. It captures the creation of a home for the New York Yankees that began in 1923 and was driven by co-owner Jacob Ruppert, who envisioned a ballpark grander than any other conceived at the time. It takes the reader from the field to the dugout, from the press box to the clubhouse, from principal owner George Steinbrenner's office to Monument Park. Every corner of the stadium is revealed.

But Yankee Stadium is more than a ballpark. The most iconic moments in history have taken place within its walls: Lou Gehrig's poignant farewell to his team and the fans who would never forget him; epic heavy-weight fights, from Louis versus Schmeling to Ali versus Norton; the 1958 National Football League championship, christened the "Greatest Game Ever Played"; exciting college football games, including the one immortalized by Knute Rockne in which he asked Notre Dame to "win one for the Gipper"; and the unrivaled record-breaking successes of the New York Yankees, from the very first home run hit at the Stadium by Babe Ruth to Alex Rodriguez' 500th.

With the unprecedented cooperation of the New York Yankees organization, photographs have been culled from every conceivable source. More than 250 photographs - many never before published - will allow you to walk in the Stadium beside Mantle and Maris, witness the only perfect game in World Series history, and see the Stadium during the stirring 2001 World Series.

Yankee Stadium: The Official Retrospective is more than just photographs. It is also graced with firsthand accounts of what it was like to be there as history unfolded. Some of the contributors include: George Steinbrenner, Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, former Vice President Dan Quayle, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, Paul McCartney, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, Don Shula, Sugar Ray Leonard, Frank Gifford, Regis Philbin, Joe Torre, Derek Jeter, Don Mattingly, Roger Clemens, Alex Rodriguez, Yogi Berra, Phil Rizzuto, Reggie Jackson, and Cal Ripken Jr.

It has been said that the shaded outfield of Yankee Stadium houses the ghosts of long-gone Yankee greats - at least that's what the players swear they feel as the long days of summer wane into the heated race for the pennant. Or could it be the knowledge that, within those walls, they will always be measured against the titans who came before them? It is the power of the place that led Sports Illustrated to call Yankee Stadium the greatest venue of the twentieth century. And only here, within the pages of Yankee Stadium: The Official Retrospective, can you feel what they feel.

Men with Balls: The Professional Athlete's Handbook

Drew Magary

Amazon Price: $11.55 List Price: $16.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Little, Brown and Company Amazon Marketplace: 39 new & used starting at $8.48

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Humor -> Satire
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Humor -> Sports
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Humor -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

This will be the very last book you ever read. Because after you have read this book, you, Good Sir, will know how to be a pro athlete. And pro athletes don't need books. Or strong family bonds. Or any of that stupid crap. Not when they have ready access to millions of dollars and scores of smoking hot chicks with questionable judgment.

This book will be all you require to cast aside your boring life as some jackass who cruises around bookstores hoping to score grad-school trim. With Men with Balls, you will learn how to:

• Showboat using classical pantomime techniques
  
• Figure out whether or not a stripper actually fancies you
  
• Emotionally cope from the emotional fallout of rookie year hazing games
  
• Find out which free locker room amphetamines will give you a shot of energy, and which will cause you to run down terrified schoolchildren with your Escalade (NOTE: Some do both)
  
• Avoid media scrutiny by directing beat writers and columnists to the nearest hot buffet

So grab your balls, bookboy. You're about to become a home-run hitting, steroid-injecting, angry-orgy-having Turbostud. They're gonna need a whole ocean just to wash your jock.

The Best Game Ever: Giants vs. Colts, 1958, and the Birth of the Modern NFL

Mark Bowden

Amazon Price: $15.64 List Price: $23.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Atlantic Monthly Press Amazon Marketplace: 56 new & used starting at $7.35

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> State & Local -> New York
Subjects -> Sports -> Football (American) -> Professional
Subjects -> Sports -> Football (American) -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

On December 28, 1958, the New York Giants and Baltimore Colts met under the lights of Yankee Stadium for the NFL Championship game. Played in front of sixty-four thousand fans and millions of television viewers around the country, the game would be remembered as the greatest in football history. On the field and roaming the sidelines were seventeen future Hall of Famers, including Colts stars Johnny Unitas, Raymond Berry, and Gino Marchetti, and Giants greats Frank Gifford, Sam Huff, and assistant coaches Vince Lombardi and Tom Landry. An estimated forty-five million viewers—at that time the largest crowd to have ever watched a football game—tuned in to see what would become the first sudden-death contest in NFL history. It was a battle of the league's best offense—the Colts—versus its best defense—the Giants. And it was a contest between the blue-collar Baltimore team versus the glamour boys of the Giants squad. The Best Game Ever is a brilliant portrait of how a single game changed the history of American sport. Published to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the championship, it is destined to be a sports classic.

Baseball Prospectus 2009: The Essential Guide to the 2009 Baseball Season (Baseball Prospectus)

Amazon Price: $14.93 List Price: $21.95 Not yet published By: Plume

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Reference -> Almanacs & Yearbooks -> Yearbooks & Annuals
Subjects -> Sports -> Baseball -> Statistics
Subjects -> Sports -> Baseball -> General

Editorial Review:

The 2009 edition of the New York Times bestselling guide to major league baseball that is simply “the best book of its kind” (Rob Neyer)

Now in its fourteenth edition, the Baseball Prospectus annual is the industry leader among annual baseball guides and the rightful successor to Bill James’s legendary bestselling Baseball Abstracts. The 2009 edition contains critical essays on each of the thirty teams and player comments for some sixty players for each of those teams. Each player’s statistics are projected for the coming season using the groundbreaking PECOTA projection system, called “perhaps the game’s most accurate projection model” (Sports Illustrated). Baseball Prospectus 2009 also contains cutting-edge essays on performance analysis, the likes of which have inspired twenty-nine of the thirty major league teams to hire current and former Baseball Prospectus writers and analysts as consultants. The baseball bible for fantasy players and devoted fans, Baseball Prospectus can be relied upon to once again hit it out of the park.

The Downhill Lie: A Hacker's Return to a Ruinous Sport

Carl Hiaasen

Amazon Price: $19.77 List Price: $29.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Random House Audio Amazon Marketplace: 41 new & used starting at $11.49

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Memoirs
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 47 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Originally drawn to the game by his father, Carl Hiaasen wisely quit golfing in 1973. But some ambitions refuse to die, and as the years and memories of shanked 7-irons faded, it dawned on Carl that there might be one thing in life he could do better in middle age than he could as a youth. So gradually he ventured back to the dreaded driving range, this time as the father of a five-year-old son and also as a grandfather.  

What possesses a man to return in midlife to a game at which he d never excelled in his prime, and which in fact had dealt him mostly failure, angst and exasperation? Here s why I did it: I m one sick bastard. And thus we have Carl s foray into a world of baffling titanium technology, high-priced golf gurus, bizarre infomercial gimmicks and the mind-bending phenomenon of Tiger Woods; a maddening universe of hooks and slices where Carl ultimately and foolishly agrees to compete in a country-club tournament against players who can actually hit the ball. That s the secret of the sport s infernal seduction, he writes. It surrenders just enough good shots to let you talk yourself out of quitting.

Hiaasen s chronicle of his shaky return to this bedeviling pastime and the ensuing demolition of his self-esteem culminating with the savage 45-hole tournament will have you rolling with laughter. Yet the bittersweet memories of playing with his own father and the glow he feels when watching his own young son belt the ball down the fairway will also touch your heart. Forget Tiger, Phil and Ernie. If you want to understand the true lure of golf, turn to Carl Hiaasen, who offers an extraordinary audiobook for the ordinary hacker.

Ben Hogan's Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf

Ben Hogan

Amazon Price: $16.32 List Price: $24.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Booklegger Amazon Marketplace: 63 new & used starting at $10.97

Buy at Amazon.com

Features:

• BEN HOGAN
• Hard Cover

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Sports -> Golf -> General
Subjects -> Sports -> Golf -> General AAS
Subjects -> Sports -> Miscellaneous -> Reference

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 182 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

You can shoot in the 70's!

Ben Hogan has long believed that any golfer with average coordination can learn to break 80 if he applies himself intelligently -- and here, with Herbert Warren Wind, and artist Anthony Ravielli, he tells you, step by step, just how to go about it.

The greatest golfer of our generation has distilled his experience as teacher, player, and observer of golf into a series of richly illustrated "visual instructions" that not only can improve your game and lower your score, but also can help you get even more fun out of what many people already think is the most enjoyable game in the world.

Each chapter, each tested "fundamental" is explained and demonstrated with amazing detail and clarity. It's as though the master himself were right there at your elbow, giving you a personal lesson with the same thought and care that has gone into his lifetime of golf.

The Modern Fundamentals of Golf is no instant and easy shortcut. There is none. But with Ben Hogan as your pro, you can master these basic movements very quickly. And then you can go on to develop a correct, powerful swing that will repeat. As Ben Hogan says, it's only then that you'll "discover golf for the first time."

The Truth About Chuck Norris: 400 Facts About the World's Greatest Human

Ian Spector

Amazon Price: $9.60 List Price: $12.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Gotham Amazon Marketplace: 62 new & used starting at $4.92

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Humor -> Jokes & Riddles
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Humor -> Love, Sex & Marriage
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Humor -> Satire

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 53 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The lowdown on the toughest, sexiest, and beardiest man to ever stalk the earth

Since its emergence from the bowels of the internet, the Chuck Norris Fact has roundhouse kicked its way into the world’s consciousness with all the vim and verve of its namesake. Singing the praises of his unequaled toughness, his mighty kicking feet, his indestructible beard, his frightening virility, and his ability to stop time by thinking about pineapples, The Truth About Chuck Norris is the one book brave enough to go behind the beard and reveal the real Chuck.

Ian Spector, webmaster of the site which started the meme and survivor of a real-life encounter with Chuck himself, has selected the 400 most kick-ass facts from his library of thousands, as well as illustrations as awesome as the man himself. This death-defying volume includes such awe-inspiring observations as:
• A cobra once bit Chuck Norris’s leg. After five days of excruciating pain, the cobra died.
• Chuck Norris can charge a cell phone by rubbing it against his beard.
• When an episode of “Walker, Texas Ranger” aired in France, the French surrendered to Chuck Norris just to be on the safe side.

• Chuck Norris was the first person to tame a dinosaur.
• Chuck Norris once visited The Virgin Islands. Afterward, they were renamed The Islands.
• Every piece of furniture in Chuck Norris’s house is a Total Gym.

A must-have paean to the archetypical American male and a bible of all things Chuck, The Truth About Chuck Norris is easily the most important book of all time.

The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance

W. Timothy Gallwey

Amazon Price: $10.20 List Price: $15.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Random House Trade Paperbacks Amazon Marketplace: 79 new & used starting at $4.89

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Sports -> Miscellaneous -> Sports Psychology
Subjects -> Sports -> Racket Sports -> Tennis -> General
Subjects -> Sports -> Racket Sports -> Tennis -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 70 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

This book is a must read for every amateur and professional tennis player and tennis teacher 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Does it matter how and what we think about while we are playing tennis ? Yes, it matters so much that it affects our tennis performance significantly and could even affect our mental well being. W. Timothy Gallwey obviously understands both tennis and psychology very well and has written an excellent book that very clearly explains why it matters how we think about our tennis performance. As a long time tennis player I enjoyed reading the book and learned very much from it. I am eager to start applying Gallwey's advice as soon as possible. If you often scold yourself everytime you make a " mistake " and / or you are trying too hard but not quite achieving the performance you aim in tennis then you can not afford to not read this book. I read it twice and I recommend that everybody read it again and again every few months.

Many tennis instructors do not know the psychological aspect of the game that is so well explained in the book. Their ignorance is obvious from the incessant verbal instructions they give their students.

The harmful and correct ways of thinking explained in the book are not limited to tennis ; they can be applied to our self talk about anything and to any interaction between humans such as parenting, marriage, social, work and other relationships.

The types of scolding comments and even positive instructions and praise we make to ourselves either silently or aloud when we are playing tennis are self defeating ; they re- enforce the performance that we label unsatisfactory. Then the negative comments we make to ourselves about our tennis performance become self fulfilling prophecies.Timothy Gallwey demonstrates that it is no use to replace negative self talk with positive self talk neither. Because positive thinking is actually negative thinking in disguise ; it communicates the demand for good performance and is therefore manipulative. Thus positive self talk and manipulative self praise also have an unfavorable effect on our tennis performance although not as much as negative self talk. Any instructions we give ourselves such as : " tilt the face of the racket a little more " or " I hit it very well this time " also interfere with the natural method of learning which is much more effective. We have the potential to learn naturally which is possible only when we let go, that is when we shut up and stop criticizing or praising our performance, stop giving instructions to ourselves and stop trying too hard to correct our mistakes.

So what is the correct and effective method of improvement in tennis ? It is visualization in our mind of the desired strokes and consistent practice on the court. This practice must be without interference from the disruptive way of thinking and self talk. Gallwey does not propose that we do not pay attention to our tennis strokes. On the contrary, he says we must feel and be aware of our strokes without judgement i.e. without labelling our strokes as bad or good. If you think you are making mistakes eg : the ball keeps on getting caught in the net when you hit it, instead of saying to yourself things such as : " You loser ! you couldn't hit even one ball over the net ! " just observe how you play non - judgementally and visualize in your mind's eye the ball clearing the net and landing inside your opponent's court and continue to play. Do this consistently without giving yourself verbal instructions about how to hit the ball ( aloud or silent ), be patient and observe the eventual correction in your strokes.

He says that each human being has two selves ; Self 1 who continually makes judgements about the performance of Self 2 and scolds or praises it. In the meantime Self 2 is trying to play tennis under nagging and much less often praising from Self 1.Self 2 has the natural ability to learn and improve, like a toddler learns to walk naturally without any lessons nor comments from parents about how to walk. But Self 2 can not learn naturally nor effectively as long as Self 1 judges and comments negatively or positively about Self 2's tennis performance and rolls out instructions to it. What we need to do is to silence Self 1 , visualize in our mind the desired strokes, continue practicing on the court and trust our body and mind's natural ability to learn. The power of visualization in the mind with open or closed eyes ( with open eyes when you are playing of course ) of the desired performance to improve it in sports and other aspects of life is mentioned in many other psychology books too. As I mentioned above this principle is valid whatever we are learning and in our communication with other humans not just in tennis. In fact Gallwey says that Self 1 could be a critical parent and self 2 his / her child.

Achieving these will involve unlearning the bad habit of self judgement whether it is negative or positive. Gallwey says that if we fight the bad habit it will get stronger. Instead of fighting the existing bad habit, develop the new habit to replace it. In fact don't even see the bad habit as a habit. Like a toddler who promotes from crawling to walking does not see crawling as a bad habit to get rid of but rather as a stage in development.

I observe that in many cases in addition to the disruption from their Self 1s many children taking tennis lessons also have to cope with additional negative comments sometimes even insults, yelling and unproductive praises from their tennis teachers, in front of their parents who bring them to the tennis lessons. The parents think that the tennis teachers are doing the right thing when they scold and yell at their children everytime they make a mistake. The result ; the mistakes get worse instead of being corrected. I have observed the same destructive attitude in swimming, basketball, gymnastics and classrom teachers at schools. It is a pity that most parents, teachers and bosses at the workplace do not know the psychology in this book titled " The inner game of tennis ". Certainly there are tennis and other sports teachers, parents, bosses who are effective communicators but unfortunately they constitute the minority ; most teachers, parents and bosses are of the Self 1 type even if they have no bad intentions. Some of them are aware of the inefficacy of their methods and wish they could replace them with better methods but they can not help it. These teachers, parents bosses their students, children and employees would benefit greatly if the teachers, parents and bosses read and applied this book.

In the book the author also gives a detailed action plan about how you can become more aware of your various tennis strokes without thinking about them in the wrong way. Just observe various parts of your strokes non - judgementally, become aware of them, by feeling and hearing them as they are without labelling them as good or bad. If you decide there is a need for improvement visualize your desired correct strokes as you may have observed from competent players. Avoid Self 1 from giving instructions to Self 2 and let it happen. He also gives examples of how dogmas regarding the correct way of hitting various types of strokes have changed overtime ; tennis teachers were scolding their students about some " mistakes " until tennis pros challenged the dogmas and started playing like the long time believed mistakes. Only then did the non - traditional strokes become generally accepted.

Another very important issue the author talks about is the wrong and correct reasons for playing tennis ; if you play tennis because you like the game, want to be healthy and fit, want to make friends and at the same time you want to win from time to time etc. you are on the right track. But if the only reason you play tennis is to win, beat everyone else, prove to yourself and to everybody how great you are then you are playing tennis for the wrong reasons. Tennis is a very good stress reliever when played for the correct reasons. But it becomes a source of stress if played with such selfish motives. There is nothing wrong with wanting to win but if you are playing tennis only to prove your supremacy over other tennis players it is very likely that your motive is to compensate for low self esteem even if you are unaware of this.You may have low self esteem regarding your failures in other aspects of your life ; your social, work, marriage, parenting relationships or other feelings of inferiority. I know tennis players who play very well, but are very unpopular and annoying because they always brag about their tennis and are unhappy about other aspects of their lives. It is OK to want to win and improve in tennis provided that our self esteem does not depend solely on our tennis performance and we do not belittle other tennis players. If currently, knowingly or unknowingly we are relying only on tennis to bail us out of our low self esteem due to other problems in our lives, it makes sense to deal with our low self esteem by reading and applying a good self help book on the subject such as " The six pillars of self - esteem " written by a psychologist named Nathaniel Branden. If reading and applying that book is not sufficient to improve our self esteem we should seek professional help. Let's play tennis for the correct reasons, not to liberate us from our low self esteem.

Like any tennis player I am also pleased with myself when I win after a good game of tennis but I personally do not have the negative, the positive self talk nor the " I must be the greatest in tennis otherwise I am no good " attitude to the extent described in the book. Still, I found some mental and attitude corrections I need to make about my own tennis. I also realized that I am frocing my 10 year old son too much in tennis. I will ease the pressure on him. It would be nice if he won in the tournaments but not at the expense of his happiness.

To summarize I highly recommend that you read " The Inner Game of Tennis " by W. Timothy Gallwey.

Editorial Review:

The Inner Game of Tennis is a revolutionary program for overcoming the self-doubt, nervousness, and lapses of concentration that can keep a player from winning. Now available in a revised paperback edition, this classic bestseller can change the way the game of tennis is played.