Other books that might interest you

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  Electric October - Seven World...

  Kevin Cook

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  The 1947 World Series was "the most exciting ever" in the words of Joe DiMaggio, with a decade's worth of drama packed into seven games between the mighty New York Yankees and underdog Brooklyn Dodgers. It was Jackie Robinson's first Series, a postwar spectacle featuring Frank Sinatra, Ernest Hemingway, and President Harry Truman in supporting roles. It was also the first televised World Series—sportswriters called it "Electric October."But for all the star power on display, the outcome hinged on role players: Bill Bevens, a journeyman who knocked on the door of pitching immortality; Al Gionfriddo and Cookie Lavagetto, bench players at the center of the Series' iconic moments; Snuffy Stirnweiss, a wartime batting champion who never got any respect; and managers Bucky Harris and Burt Shotton, each an unlikely choice to run his team.Kevin Cook brings the '47 Series to life, introducing us to men whose past offered no hint they were destined for extraordinary things. For some, the Series was a memory to hold onto. For others, it would haunt them to the end of their days. And for us, Cook offers new insights—at once heartbreaking and uplifting—into what fame and glory truly mean.

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  Where the Trout Are All as Long...

  John Gierach

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  Brilliant, witty, perceptive essays about fly-fishing, the natural world, and life in general by the acknowledged master of fishing writers.Fly-fishing's finest scribe, John Gierach, takes us from a nameless stream on a nameless ranch in Montana to a secret pool off a secret creek where he caught a catfish as a five-year-old, to a brook full of rattlesnakes and a private pond where the trout are all as long as your leg. As Gierach says, "The secret places are the soul of fishing." Hearing about a new one never fails to entice us.And so Where the Trout Are All as Long as Your Leg transports the listener to the best of these places, where the fish are always bigger and the hatches last forever. After all, it's these magical places that Gierach so vividly evokes that remind us how precious—and precarious—are the unspoiled havens of the natural world.

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  At the Pond - Swimming at the...

  Margaret Drabble, Esther Freud,...

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  Tucked away along a shady path towards the north-east edge of Hampstead Heath is a sign: Women Only. This is the Kenwood Ladies' Bathing Pond.
  Floating in the Pond's silky waters, hidden by a canopy of trees, it's easy to forget that you are in the middle of London. On a hot day, thousands of swimmers from eight to eighty-plus can be found waiting to take a dip before sunbathing in the adjoining meadow. As summer turns to autumn and then winter, the Pond is still visited by a large number of hardy regulars in high-vis hats, many of whom have been swimming here for decades.
  In these essays we see the Pond from the perspectives of writers who have swum there. Esther Freud describes the life-affirming sensation of swimming through the seasons; Lou Stoppard pays tribute to the winter swimmers who break the ice; Margaret Drabble reflects on the golden Hampstead days of her youth; Sharlene Teo visits for the first time; and Nell Frizzell shares the view from her yellow lifeguard's canoe.
  Combining personal reminiscence with reflections on the history of the place over the years and through the changing seasons,At the Pond captures fourteen contemporary writers' impressions of this unique place.

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  The Endurance Diet - Discover...

  Matt Fitzgerald

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  Sports nutritionist Matt Fitzgerald has spent nearly twenty years studying the diets of top professional endurance athletes, who are among the fittest and healthiest people in the world. As a result, he has identified five core habits—most of which are contrary to what popular diets advise—that are essential to maximizing workout benefits. The Endurance Diet shares key strategies for optimal health and performance: eat everything, eat quality, eat carbohydrate, eat enough, and eat individually. Whether you want to lose weight, win a race, or look a little more like an elite athlete, this plan is for you.This audiobook includes a supplemental PDF with recipes and tables.

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  Bootlegger's Boy

  Barry Switzer

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  A riveting memoir by one of the most successful football coaches in America!As head coach of the Oklahoma Sooners, Barry Switzer was the fourth most successful coach in NCAA history. Both praised and reviled by the media as the "outlaw" of college football, Switzer was characterized as the "greatest rogue, pirate, hustler, and con man" ever to command a football team. As head coach for the Dallas Cowboys, he led America'             s team to victory in Superbowl XXX. In Bootlegger's Boy, Switzer gets the chance to tell it all from his point of view. He recounts the rough path he took from his youth—             in which his father served prison time for bootlegging and his mother committed suicide—             to his rare distinction as one of only three individuals to win national championships in college football and the NFL.

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  Fringes - Life on the Edge of...

  Ben Mercer

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  LONGLISTED FOR THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR PRIZE 2020 
  Sports books tend to detail extraordinary achievements, triumphs against the odds or commemorate World Cup winning captains. 
  This book does not do that. 
  For many, playing professional sport is the Dream Job. Few manage it, very few make it to the top and for the rest, life is very different. This is their story. 
  In Fringes, Ben Mercer invites you to witness life at the outer edges of professional rugby. This is a first hand account of what life is like as a journeyman professional athlete. You play, but to the wider public you don't exist. You earn but you don't drive a flash car. You sometimes pack out a stadium but sometimes, you play in a deserted park. This is the story for the majority of sports professionals. Only the minority taste the top, only one person gets to lift the cup or win the medal, only 15 get to play for England at any one time. For the rest, that’s not the case. 
  Ben Mercer is a former professional rugby player who after becoming disillusioned and uninspired plying his trade in the English Second Division, accepted an offer out of the blue to go to France and do something different - help an amateur team turn professional. This is a first hand account of what life is like in the lower reaches of professional sport - where your employment status is as precarious as your health and barely anyone will know your name. 
  If you've wanted to know what life is really like as a professional athlete, on the Fringes, away from the glitz and glamour of the international game then look no further.

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