Other books that might interest you

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  Sons of Baseball - Growing Up...

  Mark Braff

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  A rare glimpse of professional ballplayers, not as pitchers, hitters, managers, and coaches, but as dads and grandads.  
   
  Sons of major league baseball players grow up in a unique environment, not only because they are raised in part by professional athletes, but also because they are raised by the game itself. They come of age immersed in the distinct sounds and aromas of baseball. The locker rooms, the cinderblock-lined corridors beneath the stands, the dugouts, and the fields are the playgrounds of their youth.  
   
  In Sons of Baseball, Mark Braff interviews 18 men who share their exclusive stories, ballpark memories, and the challenges and rewards of having fathers whose talents enabled them to reach the pinnacle of their profession. Each chapter is devoted to one son talking about his experiences, from the poignancy of one son’s disclosure that his dad has not been able to acknowledge his son’s sexuality as a gay man, to the humor of another son absconding with the groundskeepers’ cart in Cleveland.  
   
  With a foreword by Hall of Famer Cal Ripken Jr. and interviews with the sons of beloved players such as Yogi Berra, Mariano Rivera, Roger Maris, Gil Hodges, and Larry Doby, Sons of Baseball provides a unique, well-rounded perspective on the lives of professional ballplayers and their families.

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  The Larchmont Disaster Off Block...

  Joseph P Soares, Janice Soares

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  On February 11, 1907, the steamship Larchmont collided with the schooner Harry Knowlton. Thrown from their bunks, passengers of the Larchmont panicked and ran onto the ship's deck. Haphazardly loaded lifeboats set out only partially full, and shrieks from those left behind were heard in the distance. Nearly 150 passengers were lost that night. The men and women of Block Island courageously aided those in need and dealt with the horrors that washed ashore. Controversy swirled around the conduct of the captain and crew of the Larchmont as investigators tried to determine who was responsible for the collision. Authors Joseph and Janice Soares chronicle one of the greatest disasters in New England's waters.

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  Mischief in Patagonia - An...

  H.W. Tilman

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  'So I began thinking again of those two white blanks on the map, of penguins and humming birds, of the pampas and of gauchos, in short, of Patagonia, a place where, one was told, the natives' heads steam when they eat marmalade.'
  So responded H. W. 'Bill' Tilman to his own realisation that the Himalaya were too high for a mountaineer now well into his fifties. He would trade extremes of altitude for the romance of the sea with, at his journey's end, mountains and glaciers at a smaller scale; and the less explored they were, the better he would like it. Within a couple of years he had progressed from sailing a 14-foot dinghy to his own 45-foot pilot cutter Mischief, readied for her deep-sea voyaging, and recruited a crew for his most ambitious of private expeditions.
  Well past her prime, Mischief carried Tilman, along with an ex-dairy farmer, two army officers and a retired civil servant, safely the length of the North and South Atlantic oceans, and through the notoriously difficult Magellan Strait, against strong prevailing winds, to their icy landfall in the far south of Chile.
  The shore party spent six weeks crossing the Patagonian ice cap, in both directions, returning to find that their vessel had suffered a broken propeller. Edging north under sail only, Mischief put into Valparaiso for repairs, and finally made it home to Lymington via the Panama Canal, for a total of 20,000 nautical miles sailed, in addition to a major exploration 'first' all here related with the skipper's characteristic modesty and bone-dry humour, and many photographs.

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  50 Knots You Need to Know -...

  Marty Allen

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  Essential rope-and-string tying advice for the nerdily inclined. Includes two lengths of rope to help you practice tying knots. Attention all nerds, put down that laptop and pick up this brilliant guide to tying 50 must-know knots. If you're unaware of the difference between a Cow Hitch and a Marlinspike Hoop or a Running Bowline and a Square Lashing, all will be revealed in "50 Knots You Need to Know." Packed with step-by-step instructions, discover how to tie knots to get you through any situation, whether it's nautical knots for sailing adventures or shanks and hitches for camping or climbing weekends. You will learn simple knot-making techniques that can be used for all your nerdly pursuits. And once you've graduated from the easy stuff you can move on to the more serious examples, such as a make-shift rope halter to you can use to tame a wild beast or strong knots for securing and tying things together. Also included are a couple of pieces of rope, so you can start tying knows right away. But be warned, it's VERY addictive!

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  Godforsaken Sea - Racing the...

  Derek Lundy

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  An electrifying account of human courage and endurance, this is the story of the 1996 Vendée Globe, the most dangerous of all sailing races, as experienced by the fourteen men and two women competitors.In November 1996, sixteen boats left France to circumnavigate the globe alone—without stopping and without assistance—through the world's most savage waters, the Southern Ocean. Over the next six months, each waged a solitary battle to stay alive against six-story waves, bone-chilling cold, ice-laden seas and their own physical and mental limitations.Derek Lundy's brilliant storytelling takes us not only into the maritime action, but also the sailors' spirits. Our hearts race with one competitor as she struggles with raging seas searching for a missing rival, and we mourn with another as his forlorn, crippled ship fades from sight. Told with the mastery of Conrad and the intensity of minute-to-minute survival, this gripping tale is sure to appeal to blue-water and armchair adventurers alike.

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  The Kentucky Thoroughbred

  Kent Hollingsworth

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  “Accounts of the sport’s greatest horses and most colorful characters . . . Hollingsworth gives a remarkably complete history of horse racing in America.” —Booklist 
   
  Kent Hollingsworth captures the flavor and atmosphere of the Sport of Kings in the dramatic account of the development of the Thoroughbred in Kentucky. Ranging from frontier days, when racing was conducted in open fields as horse-to-horse challenges between proud owners, to the present, when a potential Triple Crown champion may sell for millions of dollars, The Kentucky Thoroughbred considers ten outstanding stallions that dominated the shape of racing in their time as representing the many eras of Kentucky Thoroughbred breeding. No less colorful are his accounts of the owners, breeders, trainers, and jockeys associated with these Thoroughbreds, a group devoted to a sport filled with high adventure and great hazards. 
   
  First published in 1976, this popular Kentucky classic has been expanded and brought up to date in this new edition. 
   
  “Hollingsworth writes with authority and a good deal of polish about an exotic industry in which Kentucky has led the world for at least a century, and about equine feats that today’s horseplayers may find virtually incredible.” —Louisville Courier-Journal

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