Sports

Hardcover. NY, Simon & Schuster, 1st, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 420 pages, b&w illustrations. Draws on hundreds of new interviews and previously unpublished letters to present a comprehensive account of the life of the Hall of Fame ballplayer whose career was cut short by the disease now named for him, in a portrait that shares background details about his rivalry with Babe Ruth, the onset of his illness, and the final years of his life. Clean copy.

Hardcover. London, Country Life, 1st, 1926, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, green cloth stamped in gilt. Color frontispiece and 24 b&w plates by Lionel Edwards. Spine faded. No dust jacket.

Softcover. Jefferson NC, McFarland & Company, 1st, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 157 pages. In late 1922, Judge Emil Fuchs purchased the woebegone Boston Braves--primarily to bring his ailing friend, Christy Mathewson, back into the game he loved so much. A true fan, Judge Fuchs poured his fortune into the team, intent on giving Boston's long-suffering National League fans a winner. He introduced Ladies' Days, contracted to have Braves games broadcast on radio, and successfully campaigned to allow Sunday baseball in Boston. Moreover, he gave the fans a competitive team, climaxed by the Braves' dramatic pennant race with the New York Giants in 1933.

Hardcover. NY, McGraw-Hill, 2nd pr., 1987, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 212 pages. Small notation on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. NY, Charles Scribner's Sons, 3rd pr., 1979, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a nice dust jacket with light fading to spine, 216 pages. A view from behind the plate of baseball in the 50s, 60s,, and 70s. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. NY, Flatiron Books, 2nd pr., 2021, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 389 pages. Traces the story of the integration of the Cleveland Indians and their quest for a World Series title through four key participants-all members of Baseball's Hall of Fame. They were Bill Veeck, the eccentric and visionary owner of the team; Larry Doby, a soft-spoken hard-hitting pioneer who shattered stereotypes that many Americans had of black ballplayers; ace pitcher Bob Feller who set the template for the athlete as businessman; and Satchel Paige, legendary pitcher from the Negro Leagues too long excluded from professional baseball because of his skin color. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Harper & Row, 1st, 1963, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 310 pages. The former New York Giant quarterback's journey during the 1962 season. Clean copy.

Cleveland, World Publishing Company, 1st, 1965, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 240 pages, b&w illustrations. Clean, tight copy of this history of the professional football team from it's founding by taxicab magnet Arther McBride to the championship season of 1964.

Hardcover. NY, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, BC Ed., 1976, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 268 pages. Illustrated with a section of black-and-white photographs. "In the poised, outspoken style that typifies his career as one of baseball's fiercest competitors and a superstar of the modern era, Frank Robinson recounts in this book his remarkable and dramatic experience as the first black manager in the history of the major leagues. Written in collaboration with Dave Anderson, the renowned sports columnist of The New York Times, Frank is both the essence of baseball and a document that transcends sports: an intimate, superbly detailed record of the business of managing men on the playing field and a revelation of one man on a spot no one ever occupied before him." Copyright page states first edition but lack of price on dust jacket tells us it's a Book Club. Embossed stamp on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Softcover. Seoul Korea, Nanam Publications, 1st, 1985, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 219 pages, b&w illustrations. Essential for any serious martial artist and practitioners of Tae Kwon Do. Contains practical one-step fighting techniques arranged in the traditional format along with articles on the philosophy andlaguage of the Tae Kwon Do culture. Clean copy.

NY, Paul S. Eriksson, 1st, 1974, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket with light edgewear. 174 pages, b&w photos. One of the NBA's great all-time guards tells his life story from the streets of Bedford-Stuyvesant to coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, St. Martin's Press, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. A reminder of the time when America fell in love with a tall, lanky, curly-haired pitcher for the Detroit Tigers. For a time in the 1970s, the country was in thrall to Mark Fidrych, who came to be known as "The Bird" for his resemblance to Big Bird. Fidrych emerged in the summer of 1976 and became an unlikely but legitimate phenomenon. Wilson tells the Bird's story in this biography of the Massachusetts native whose antics included tending to his own pitching mound during games and allegedly talking to the baseball. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's, 1st, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket with light edgewear, 304 pages. The 1971-72 Los Angeles Lakers won 33 consecutive regular season games on their way to a championship. The team, built around future Hall-of-Famers Wilt Chamberlain and Jerry West, was coached by a third Hall member, Bill Sharman. Rosen, author of five novels and coauthor, with Phil Jackson, of More Than a Game (2001), traces the team from training camp through the start of the next season. His dual focal points are Sharman and Chamberlain. Sharman, who played with Bill Russell in Boston, convinced Chamberlain to play a more Russell-like style, emphasizing passing and teamwork. Rosen provides background for all the principals, context for games in the streak, as well as an account of the team's play-off run to the championship. This is wonderful reading for NBA history buffs, replete with anecdotes, humor, and revealing profiles. Mild soil, shelf wear, no markings.

Softcover. Charlottesville, University of Virginia Press, 1st pbk, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover. Illustrated with black and white photos.; A history of of the racially-charged integration of black players into baseball's southern minor leagues.

Softcover. Sunderland UK, Standard Golf Company, 13th Ed., 1909, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover. stapled light blue paper wrappers. Housed in mauve cloth covers with a clamshell card folder. Appears to be the original printing of the 1909 catalog with the small 4 lines of the printer on rear cover: Mawson, Swan & Morgan Limited, Newcastle upon Tyne. Near fine, 28 pages with b&w illustrations. All encased in a mauve cardboard slipcase with a reproduction of the cover pasted to front. Clean.

Hardcover. NY, Prentice-Hall, 1st, 1978, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn, unclipped dust jacket, 263 pages. A Seattle sports reporter follows the Seattle Supersonics through the tumultuous 1978-77 season, A team full of superstars, Bill Russell as coach and championship hopes, all go sour. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, St. Martin's Press, 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. The legendary Paul "Bear" Bryant is recognized nationwide as one of the greatest coaches ever. So why did he always cite his 1-9 A&M team of 1954 as his favorite? This is the story of a remarkable team - and the beginning of the legend. The Junction Boys tells the story of Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant's legendary training camp in the small town of Junction, Texas. In a move that many consider the salvation of the Texas A&M football program, Coach Bryant put 115 players through the most grueling practices ever imagined. Only a handful of players survived the entire 10 days, but they braved the intense heat of the Texas sun and the burning passion of their coach, and turned a floundering team into one of the nation's best. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Crown/Archetype, 1st, 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. To tell this story, acclaimed journalists Jackie MacMullan, Rafe Bartholomew and Dan Klores embarked on a groundbreaking mission to interview a staggering lineup of basketball trailblazers. For the first time hundreds of legends, from Kobe, Lebron and Steph Curry to Magic Johnson, Dr. J and Jerry West, spoke movingly about their greatest passion. Former NBA commissioner David Stern and iconic coaches like Phil Jackson and Coach K opened up like never before. Those who shattered glass ceilings, from Bill Russell and Yao Ming to Cheryl Miller and Lisa Leslie, explained what it really took to lay claim to their place in the game. At once a definitive oral history and something far more revelatory and life affirming, Basketball: A Love Story is the defining untold oral history of how basketball came to be, and what it means to those who love it. Clean, unmarked copy.

Softcover. Jefferson NC, Mcfarland & Co , 1st, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 174 pages. In early 1869, Harry Wright of the Cincinnati Base Ball Club made an announcement to the sporting press: the Red Stockings would be the first all-professional club in the history of the game. The outcry could be heard in nearly every town in which the sport was played. Wright, however, paid little heed to their protests and went about his business of signing players. By the start of the season he had inked ten players to contracts, with salaries ranging from $600 to $1,400 annually. By June of 1870, the Red Stockings had compiled a 90-game winning streak and were recognized as the finest team in the game. How the Red Stockings were formed, who the players were, and why things came to an end are all fully covered in this detailed history.

Hardcover. Exton PA, Schiffer Publishing, 1st, 1981, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket, 271 pages. Black and white and color photos throughout. A history and study of the making and use of duck decoys along the Mississippi flyway, looking at makers in regions such as Canada, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Mississippi and Louisiana.

Hardcover. Warwick UK, The Roundwood Press, 1st thus, 1979, Hardcover. # 91 of 500 copies, Signed by Richard Hamilton on title page, reprint of the French Edition of 1933, 395 pages including Index, illustrated with numerous reproductions of period prints, with fifteen plates, and also some photographed documents. Dark Blue Leatherette with gilt and red titles, top edge gilt, dust jacket, dark blue slipcase with gilt and red titles. A beautiful copy in like dust jacket and slipcase.

Hardcover. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1st, 1936, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, 218 pages. Hardcover. Previous owners names on front endpaper. Yellow highlighting of text throughout book. "Illustrated with Photographs from Moving-Picture Films - The "movie" illustrations are clippings from the reels of the ten-round bout between Philadelphia Jack O'Brien and Tommy Burns, the former heavyweight champion of the world." Darkening to endpapers, edges. Light wear.

Dallas, Taylor Publishing, 1st, 1989, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 228 pages, b&w illustrations. Includes appendix of player statistics. Recalls the record-breaking New York Yankees, the only team in baseball history to win five consecutive World Series, offering the remembrances of the greatest Bronx Bombers.

Hardcover. NY, Prentice-Hall, 2md pr., 1972, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 176 pages. A behind-the-scenes portrait of Hall-of-Famer Bench, b&w photos by George Kalinsky. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Boston, Little Brown, 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. Castel Di Sangro is a tiny town in the Abruzzo region of Italy, whose soccer team became an international sensation by winning promotion to the highest levels of national competition. For the team from this tiny village to be playing against the teams of Genoa and Venice was more than a dream come true, it was inconceivable. But the truth can be stranger than dreams, as Joe McGinniss discovered when he arrived in Castel Di Sangro. A recent convert to soccer, he wanted to experience life in a town turned upside down by the game. What he found was a cavalcade of euphoria, betrayal, grief, and euphoria again, an entire town living in an emotional frenzy unlike anything since the local battles of World War II. McGinniss lost himself totally to the team, a boisterous collection of characters whom readers will grow to love, and found a story whose depth and power enthralled him. Like Field of Dreams, Hoosiers, and The Secret of Santa Vittoria, this is a masterpiece of storytelling that transcends sports to embrace universal emotions. Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. NY, Harcourt, Brace & World, 1st, 1977, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 298 pages, Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Harper, 1st, 2013, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 431 pages, b&w and color illustrations. For most of his life, Julius Erving has been two men in one. There is Julius, the bright, inquisitive son of a Long Island domestic worker who has always wanted to be respected for more than just his athletic ability, and there is Dr. J, the cool, acrobatic showman whose flamboyant dunks sent him to the Hall of Fame and turned the act of jamming a basketball through a hoop into an art form. In many ways, Erving's life has been about the push and pull of Julius and The Doctor. It is Dr. J who has stories to tell of the wild days and nights of the ABA in the 1970s, and of being the seminal figure who transformed basketball from an earthbound and rigid game into the creative, free-flowing aerial display it is today. He has a long list of signature plays - he's famous for winning the first dunk contest in 1976 with a jam on which he lifted off from the foul line, and he made a miraculous layup against the Lakers on which he soared behind the backboard before reaching back in to flip the ball in on the other side, with one hand. He inspired a generation of dunkers, including Michael Jordan, to express their improvisational talents. But Julius wasn't always as graceful and in control as Dr. J. Erving had a pristine image throughout his career and early retirement, but he was far from a perfect man. Here he gives detailed accounts of some of the personal problems he faced -- or created -- behind the scenes, including the adulterous affair with sports writer Samantha Stephenson, which led to the birth of his daughter, professional tennis player Alexandra Stephenson.Though his marriage survived that infidelity, the death of Erving's 20-year-old son Cory in 2000 in a tragic accident proved too much for the union to bear. Erving paints a raw, heartbreaking picture of the dissolution of his marriage, as his wife Turquoise began to blame him for his refusal to be paralyzed by grief for as long as she was. Their intense arguments came to a head when Erving stepped out of the shower one day to find his wife holding a lamp in one hand and a vase in the other, ready for a physical confrontation. "I knew somebody was going to get hurt, and it wasn't going to be me," he says. He packed a suitcase and he and Turquoise never lived under the same roof again.

Hardcover. NY, Viking, 1st, 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 472 pages, b&w photos. Traces the landmark 1969 Supreme Court case between All-Star center fielder Curt Flood and Major League Baseball, documenting how he fought to play for the team of his choice at the cost of his career and placement in the Hall of Fame but paved the way for future players to become free agents. Clean copy.

Hardcover. New York , A. S. Barnes and Company, 1st, 1944, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: Fair, 138 pages. Red cloth cover, bumped corners, light wear. Dust jacket is price clipped, has wear and tearing to edges and corners. Front flyleaf is missing. Beautiful color and b&w illustrations throughout. Inside is very clean and bright. A nice copy.

Brattleboro VT, Stephen Greene Press, 2nd pr., 1982, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, price-clipped dust jacket. Essays on Boston's favorite athletes: Ted Williams, Bob Cousy, Carl Yastrzemski, Bobby Hull and others. 248 pages, b&w illustrations. Short inscription on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. NY, McGraw-Hill, 1st, 1987, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Hyperion, 1st, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Focusing on the 1999 Derby winner Charismatic, Mitchell traces this horse's amazing and ultimately tragic story, from the birth of the foal through its surprising rise to fame to its tragic death. Mitchell also follows the major players in Charismatic's life, including the family who bred him, the trainer, the owners, and the famed jockey Chris Antley, whose own tragic story matches that of his horse.

Hardcover. NY, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 4th pr., 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright. unclipped dust jacket, 340 pages. A compelling, up-close-and-personal portrait of basketball's most inimitable duo. It is also a rollicking ride through professional basketball's best times, the golden age of hoops for the boomer generation. This work tells the story of Magic and Larry from their vantage point and takes the reader inside their fascinating rivalry, with new insights and revealing details about two men who evolved from bitter competitors into lifelong friends. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Contemporary Books, 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 398 pages. From its inauspicious beginnings through its improbable Super Bowl victories and its ultimate demise, the American Football League had a colorful and sometimes bizarre ten-year history that will not soon be forgotten. Going Long takes you back to that thrilling decade with the men who made the AFL--and who made it great. In this unique oral history, 170 voices come together to tell the unbelievable story of that maverick league, a rollicking tale of eight teams that refused to die.In 1959, the NFL had just a dozen teams, with only two located west of the Mississippi River. For forty years, it had enjoyed total dominance over the gridiron, tackling rival franchises and knocking them out of the game. But a revolution was coming to American football, and it all began with a man named Lamar Hunt, the Texas millionaire who desperately wanted a league of his own. With a team of enthusiastic investors, Hunt fired what he later called "the first cannon shot in what turned out to be the pro football war." It was a war that would rage on for ten rough-and-tumble years.Flavored with wild (and often ribald) anecdotes, inside stories, personal interviews, and never-before-told material, Going Long brings the incredible story of the upstart AFL to life through the words of the players, coaches, owners, and others who lived it--including Joe Namath, Mike Ditka, Bubba Smith, Roger Staubach, Pat Summerall, Curt Gowdy, and many others. Hearkening back to a simpler time in sports, this behind-the-scenes true story reveals the origins of the modern game we know today and how it all began with a fight to the death for professional football supremacy.

NY, Random House, 1st, 1981, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. For Stanley Cohen, baseball is the prism through which he views the events of the last seventy years. His narrative spans four generations as he recounts in sparkling prose how, for his immigrant father, sports was a means of assimilation into life in the New World; the warmth of watching his son and, later, his grandson both fall heir to his devotion; and how the game of baseball has provided his life with its truest sense of continuity. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Abrams Press, 1st, 2022, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Illustrations, 470 pages with index. A groundbreaking, timely history of the largely unknown early days of Black basketball, bringing to life the trailblazers, entertainers, gangsters, and supremely talented athletes who made the game From the introduction of the game of basketball to Black communities in 1904 to the integration of the NBA in 1950, there was a full era in the development of the game. It was a time when Black players were discriminated against and opportunities were limited, but entrepreneurial men and women nurtured the game and breathed life into a sport they loved. This period was known as the Black Fives Era (teams at the time were often called "fives"), and was akin to the golden age of the Negro Leagues. But despite fierce rivalries between big-city clubs, innovative managers, and star players, this period is almost entirely unknown to basketball fans. Claude Johnson has made it his mission to change that. An advocate fiercely committed to our history, for more than two decades Johnson has conducted interviews, mined archives, collected artifacts, and helped to preserve an important, culturally rich era that otherwise would have been lost. The Black Fives is the result of his work, a landmark narrative history that will braid together the stories of these forgotten pioneers and rewrite our understanding of the story of basketball.

Hardcover. NY, Quadrangle/New York Times Book Co., 1st, 1975, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 292 pages. Tough and witty, SportsWorld is a well-known commentator's overview of the most significant form of mass culture in America n sports. It's a sweaty Oz that has grown in a century from a crucible for character to a complex of capitalism, a place where young people can find both self-fulfillment and cruel exploitation, where families can huddle in a sanctuary of entertainment and be force fed values and where cities and countries can be pillaged by greedy team owners and their paid-for politicians. But this book is not just a screed, it's a guided visit with such heroes of sports as Muhammad Ali, Billie Jean King, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Joe Namath, who the author knew well, and with some he met in passing, like Richard Nixon, who seemed never to have gotten over missing the cut in college varsity football, a major mark of manhood. We see how SportsWorld sensibilities help elect our politicians, judge our children, fight our wars, and oppress our minorities. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Greenwich, CT, New York Graphic Society Ltd. & Wallynn, Inc., 1st, 1973, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcovers, 2 volumes in slipcase, 224 pages (each volume), illustrated in b&w and color. Green covers with gilt lettering. Small tear to slipcase. Very clean, tight copies.

Hardcover. Shrewsbury UK, Quiller Press, 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, Profusely illustrated with color photographs of fox hunts. Detailing the best of hunting both in Britain and America. Clean, bright copy in an unclipped dust jacket. SIGNED/INSCRIBED on front fly leaf "With all best wishes from Jim Meads/03".

Hardcover. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1st, 1988, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 406 pages. Angell's absorbing collection traces the highs and lows of major-league baseball in the 1980s. Roger Angell once again journeys through five seasons of America's national pastime -- chronicling the larger-than-life narratives and on-field intricacies of baseball from 1982 to 1987. Angell's collected "New Yorker" essays, written in his unique voice as a fan and baseball aficionado, cover the development of the game both on the diamond and off. While diving into subjects such as Sparky Anderson's '84 Detroit Tigers, the legendary 1986 World Series and the Curse of the Bambino, and the increasingly pervasive issue of player drug use, Angell reveals the craft and technique of the game, and the unforgettable stories of those who played it. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Long Beach CA, Safari Press, reprint, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 294 pages, b&w illustrations. Originally published in 1904, it chronicles a hunting trip to several locations in Alaska, including sheep, bears, moose and more. Captain Radclyffe was an English gentleman-hunter who visited Alaska in 1903. He bagged Dall sheep on the Kenai Peninsula, back then a relatively new destination for sport hunting. He shot excellent brown bear and moose, one a 57-incher on Kussiloff Lake on the Alaska Peninsula. On his final bear hunt, a sow charged him and his native guide abandoned him. He was arrested for game law violations that prematurely ended his hunt for sheep, adding another interesting dimension to this well-written story. The charges against Radclyffe were later dismissed since he had an off-season permit to collect for the British Museum, but the authors partner was not so lucky. Radclyffe writes of how the judge enjoyed rubbing the dismissal into the face of the arresting marshal, and he paints a vivid picture of the interactions of the hunters, guides, and authorities. After all his troubles, he lost most of his trophies because of shipping problems related to the Russo-Japanese War. Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. Lyons Press, 1st, 2016, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 249 pages, b&w illustrations. William McGarvey "Bullet Bill" Dudley (December 24, 1921 - February 4, 2010) led a thrilling career as a professional American football player in the National Football League for the Pittsburgh Steelers, Detroit Lions, and Washington Redskins. With humble beginnings in Bluefield, Virginia he made the football team his junior year, and in 1938 he kicked a 35-yard field goal in the season's finale. Dudley was drafted in the 1942 NFL Draft with the first overall pick by the Pittsburgh Steelers. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1966 and the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame in 1972. During the 1942 season, he led the league in rushing with 696 yards on 162 carries and was then named to the All-Pro team. Steve Stinson revisits his father-in-law's journey from Bluefield, Virginia through his retirement from the NFL and shares everything he brought to communities in between each pivotal moment in Dudley's life. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Chicago, Masters Press, 3rd pr., 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 328 pages, b&w photos. Even without his masterful debut as coach of the 1997-1998 Indiana Pacers, Larry Bird's brilliant, gutsy career with the Boston Celtics--three NBA championship rings and a trio of Most Valuable Player trophies--cries out for celebration and reassessment. He was a dominant player, a thinking player who controlled the game as much with his leadership as his keen passing, tough "D," and the soft touch of his jumper. In Larry Legend, Shaw interweaves chapters of Bird's biography with chapters chronicling his Coach of the Year season to create a hybrid volume; rather than do both well, he does both adequately. Everything is here--Bird's French Lick, Indiana, childhood; why he left Bobby Knight and the Indiana University pressure cooker for lower profile Indiana State; the glory years with the Celtics; the rivalry with Magic Johnson; the back problems; and the ways he re-created the Pacers in his own court-burned image. Clean copy.

Softcover. Bath ME, Anderson & Sons Publishing, 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 140 pages, b&w illustrations. New England has been the birthplace of over 1100 major leaguers. In between the well-known and the unknown are several tiers of other ballplayers. This book pays tribute to those tiers closest to the top. Bright, clean copy.

Softcover. NY, W. W. Norton & Company, 1st US, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, Advance Reading Copy, 408 pages. The seven-foot Dirk Nowitzki is one of the greatest players in basketball history. The Dallas Maverick's legend revolutionized the sport, redefining the role of the big man in the modern game. Dirk moved differently: flexible and fast, confident and in control. He thought differently, too. On the court, his shots were masterful-none more venerated than his signature one-legged flamingo fadeaway, a move that lives on in the repertoire of today's most skilled NBA players. How did this lanky kid from the German suburbs become an all-time top ten scorer and NBA champion? How can a superstar stay so humble? Award-winning novelist and sportswriter Thomas Pletzinger spent over seven years traveling with Nowitzki. He witnessed Dirk's summer workouts, involving fingertip pushups and the study of the physics, and spent days discussing literature and philosophy with Holger Geschwindner, Dirk's enigmatic mentor and coach. Watching Nowitzki in empty gyms and in packed arenas with 30,000 fans, Pletzinger began to understand how Dirk and Holger's philosophical insights on performance, creativity, and freedom enabled his success and longevity. This proof edition lacks the photo section. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Random House , 2nd pr., 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 421 pages. Taylor offers a vivid account of the fledgling days of the National Basketball Association and the intense competition between two of its biggest early stars: Bill Russell (of the Boston Celtics) and Wilt Chamberlain (of the Philadelphia 76ers). While both players were dominant men who anchored their respective teams, their personalities differed greatly. The quiet, reflective Russell turned a serendipitous showing in front of a scout into a legendary career largely through willpower and hard work, while the outgoing Chamberlain was a much more naturally gifted athlete whose skills drew attention and offers while he was barely a teenager. Taylor highlights this distinction, asking, "[C]ould determination trump talent?" Along with examining the physical and psychological battles between the two, Taylor depicts the NBA's raucous nature in the 1950s and '60s, when fights between players were frequent, and the brash Celtics coach Red Auerbach was routinely pelted with rotten tomatoes, lit cigars and eggs. Looking at everything, from each player's private demons to the racially charged era in which they competed, Taylor's book is by turns an intimate profile and a spirited look at the foundation of modern professional basketball. Mild soiling to text block, no markings.

Hardcover. New York, Harper and Brothers, 2nd pr., 1919, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 267 pages, color frontispiece, 58 b&w photographic plates. Blue cloth covers with a pastedown photo of fish on front, top edge gilt. Publisher's code of I-T on copyright page indicating a September 1919 printing, 3 months after the June 1919 date on the same page. Spine has darkened and gilt faded so title is barely visible, but covers very good and interior of book is clean and tight.

NY, Rudolph Field, 1st, 1949, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket with light wear. Jimmy Powers was a famous Sports Columnist for the New York Daily News. Here are some of his stories about Feller, Berra, Hornsby, Paige, Ruth, Frisch, McGraw, Cobb, Rabbit Maranville, Lefty Gomez, Jackie Robinson, Ted Williams, Mathewson, Wagner and many more. Owner's stamp on front fly leaf, otherwise tight and clean.

Hardcover. New York, Villard Books, First Edition, 1991, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 290 pages. Hardcover. Blue & black cloth covers with gilt titles to cover & spine. Light marginal foxing to top edge. Black & white photographs throughout. Dust jacket in very good condition. Clean, unmarked text.