Títulos en Ensayos y comentarios

No sport has gone through the seismic changes that rocked tennis when the game, long a holdout against professionalism and creeping commercialism, abandoned its roots as a genteel, amateurs-only enterprise and became a pro sport, vying for the heart of the public with rivals like soccer, NFL football, or NBA basketball. Peter Bodo, who has covered tennis since the dawn of this "Open" era as the chief writer for Tennis magazine, was there to witness this transition and what it promised, what it delivered. He has covered the game on every continent since the early 1970s.

In 1976 Roger Kahn spent an entire baseball season, from spring training through the World Series, with players of every stripe and competence. The result is this book,in which Kahn reports on a small college team’s successes and hopes, a young New England ball club, a failing major league franchise, and a group of heroes on the national stage.

In The Bases Were Loaded (and So Was I), sportswriter Tom Callahan brings to life the most fascinating - and often least understood - figures in the world of sports. This is the ultimate collection of Callahan’s sports profiles, with subjects ranging from Muhammad Ali to Pete Rose, and Joe Montana to Michael Jordan. Based on decades of sports reporting as well as featuring material original to this book, The Bases Were Loaded (and So Was I) takes athletes we thought we knew and reveals how wrong we often are. This is a rare and surprising work of reportage that will appeal to sports fans and non–sports fans alike.

Though he made his name and fortune as an author of Western novels, Zane Grey's best writing has to do with fishing. There, he was free from the conventions of the Western genre and the market's expectations, and was able to blend his talent for narrative with his keen eye for detail and sense of humor (much of it self-deprecating) into his books and articles.

Sam Moses, a motorsports writer for Sports Illustrated, was assigned to go racing and write about what happened. Fast Guys, Rich Guys, and Idiots is a personal odyssey that peers over the cliff of change and into the pit of obsession. From small-time races to glittery grands prix, it lays bare the greed, lust, and desperation of every driver for time behind the wheel and a faster car. It explains the perfectionism behind taking a turn at the limit and describes the intoxicating thrill of stealing down the Daytona backstraight at nearly 200 miles an hour.

This wonderful 1980 horse racing classic never loses its luster or charm. Author Bill Barich explores the day-to-day internal world of horse racing - from the backside to the backstretch. This entertaining story of the lives and tribulations of various racetrack personalities is sure to extract every human emotion. The author's summer adventure after a family tragedy finds him living the life many diehard racing enthusiasts wish they could.

Over Time: My Life as a Sportswriter is as unconventional and wide-ranging as Frank Deford's remarkable career, in which he has chronicled the heroes and the characters of just about every sport in nearly every medium. Deford joined Sports Illustrated in 1962, fresh, and fresh out of Princeton. In 1990, he was Editor-in-Chief of The National Sports Daily, one of the most ambitious and ill-fated projects in the history of American print journalism.

A collection of first-person insights, thoughts, and stories from successful women in the world of sports, including Mia Hamm; Gabrielle Reece; Marion Jones; Kerri Strug; Chris Evert; Nancy Lopez; Picabo Street and more...

In his late 30s, celebrated essayist, journalist, and author Bill McKibben - never much of an athlete - decided the time had come for him to really test his body. Cross-country skiing his challenge of choice, he lived the fantasy of many amateur athletes and trained - with the help of a coach/guru - nearly full-time, putting in hours and miles typical of an Olympic hopeful. For one vigorous year, which would culminate in a series of grueling, long-distance races, McKibben experienced his body's rhythms and possibilities as never before.

When Steve Friedman was a child growing up in the suburbs of St. Louis, the game of golf was, to him, mysterious and dark. His father’s passion for it caused friction in his marriage and eluded the interest of his youngest son, who was devoted instead to basketball. For that and many other reasons, the two failed to bond, ultimately leading to an awkward and unhappy relationship. But Friedman never forgot the love his father had for golf, and after many years, when he was in his 40s, he reached out and asked his dad to teach him the game.

Spanning the course of 39 frantic days, Josh Swade embarked on a fanatical journey that would take him across the country. His nearly religious obsession brought him face-to-face with NBA players Paul Pierce and Steve Nash, NBA greats Jerry West and Larry Brown, and many others who knew the importance of this relic. With multiple hurdles ahead of him, will Josh be able to find the money and support to purchase the rules before it's too late?

With an exuberant mix of passion, insight, instruction, and humor, best-selling author - and lifelong runner - Martin Dugard takes a journey through the world of running to illustrate how the sport helps us fulfill that universal desire to be the best possible version of ourselves each and every time we lace up our shoes. To Be a Runner represents a new way to write about running by bridging the chasm between the two categories of running books: how-to and personal narrative.

Roger Kahn's first major league hit was a grand slam: The Boys of Summer, his runaway best seller that immortalized the 1950s Brooklyn Dodgers. Now Kahn does the same for players whose moment in the sun has not yet arrived. Good Enough to Dream is the story of his year as owner of the Class A, very minor league, Utica Blue Sox. Most of the Blue Sox will never make it to the majors, but they all share the dream that links the small child in the sandlot with the bonus baby who has just smacked one out of the stadium.

Here is the story of a community - Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts - and a sporting event - the island's legendary Striped Bass & Bluefish Derby - that is rendered with the same depth, color, and emotional power of the best fiction. Among the characters we meet Dick Hathaway, a crotchety legend who once caught a bluefish from a helicopter and was ultimately banned for cheating; and Janet Messineo, a recovering alcoholic who says that striped bass saved her life.

A sweeping and revelatory history of basketball, drawing upon hundreds of hours of interviews with the greatest players, coaches, executives, and journalists in the history of the game. In an effort to tell the complete story of basketball in all its fascinating dimensions, acclaimed authors...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A world-class runner and four-time Olympian shares the life lessons he’s learned from each of the twenty-six marathons he’s run in his storied career. “An athlete whose wisdom and lessons aren’t just for runners.”—The Washington Post When Meb...

In these 65 original stories, we hear of the explosive introduction of World Series Cricket in 1977, which turned a genteel endeavour into a high-octane contest, and the clash of the titans as Packer and Murdoch squared off over the Super League war. We see Rugby Union become a battleground for race and the Olympics an arena for sublime acts of courage and achievement.

The bestselling autobiography of a league legend. Johnathan Thurston is widely regarded as rugby league's greatest player. This autobiography will follow Thurston's journey from a Brisbane kid who was written off as too skinny, too slow and too wild to play professionally, to his debut with the...

This is a story about young men who learned to play baseball during the 1930s and 1940s, and then went on to play for one of the most exciting major-league ball clubs ever fielded, the team that broke the color barrier with Jackie Robinson. It is a story by and about a sportswriter who grew up near Ebbets Field, and who had the good fortune in the 1950s to cover the Dodgers for the Herald Tribune. This is the story about what happened to the team when their glory days were behind them.

A philosophical musing on sports and play, this wholly inspiring and utterly charming reissue of Bart Giamatti's long-out-of-print final book, Take Time for Paradise, puts baseball in the context of American life and leisure. Giamatti begins with the conviction that our use of free time tells us something about who we are. He explores the concepts of leisure, American-style. And in baseball, the quintessential American game, he finds its ultimate expression.