sports

Hardcover. New York, Robert M. McBride & Company, First Thus, 1946, 162 pages. Hardcover. Green cloth covers with gilt titles to spine, light scuffing to boards, toning throughout. Previous owner's bookplate to preliminary pages. Black & white illustrations and photographs. Clean unmarked copy.

Hardcover. NY, Bantam Books, 1st, 1991, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 305 pages, b&w illustrations. First Printing of the First Edition, with complete number row (0987654321) on the copyright page. Illustrated with 16 pages of photos. Appendix (career stats). Clean copy.

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.

Hardcover. Portsmouth NH, Dartmouth Outing Club/Peter Randall, 1st, 1993, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 253 pages, illustrated with b&w photographs. Foreword by David Bradley. INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR on the half title page.

Softcover. Valencia CA, Black Belt Communications, reprint, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 208 pages, b&w illustrations. Clean, bright copy.

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.

Softcover. Burlington VT, Thistle Books, reprint, 1987, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 28 pages. Pale green paper wrappers. Illustrated with b&w illustrations. This is a facsimile of the Standard Golf Company's catalogue for 1909, the thirteenth edition. Clean copy.

Hardcover. London, Ellesborough Press, Ltd., reprint, 1982, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 168 pages, illustrated. A look at early golf in the Aberdeen area, focusing on the history of the Aberdeen Golf Club. Facsimile edition of the original 1909 edition. original full dark green morocco, gilt-stamped vignette on front, raised spine bands, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. Unnumbered of 200 copies. SIGNED on the limitation page by J.S.R. Cruickshank, former Captain of The Royal Aberdeen Golf Club. Spine faded to brown otherwise a clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. NY, A Mountain Lion Book / Hearst Books, 3rd pr., 1984, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, b&w illustrations and photos, 223 pages. More than two hundred photographs comprehensively illustrate pitching technique from grip to follow through in a guide that details the Cy Young Award-winning pitcher's conditioning regimen and his ideas on mental preparedness. Includes contribution by Nolan Ryan, Steve Rogers, Steve Carlton, Mario Soto. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Baltimore, Racquet Sports Information Service, reprint, 1977, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, red cloth stamped in gold color in a matching slipcase. Number 550 out of 750. The second English edition of the work. Originally published in French in 1767 and translated into English by Catherine W. Leftwich in 1938. With a frontispiece and 5 plates to the rear. This work discusses how to make tennis rackets and talks about the sport itself. At the time of it's original creation, this work was considered to be one of the most detailed works on the game of tennis. Inscription on front fly leaf otherwise clean.

Hardcover. Dark Horse Books, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 216 pages. For 15 years Preston has been photographing cartoonists in their natural habitats, the studios in which they work. Revealing the faces behind the familiar drawings, Preston aims his lenses at artists engaged in virtually every realm of cartooning, including superhero comics (Alex Ross, Todd McFarlane); newspaper strips (Cathy Guisewite, Berke Breathed); alternative and underground comics (R. Crumb, the Hernandez brothers); and animation (Chuck Jones, Joseph Barbera). The best portraits capture the spirit of the subjects' work. Mad mainstay Sergio Aragones is surrounded by toy figurines. Loopy caricaturist Arnold Roth's mug sports a wacky grin. Art Spiegelman, known for his formal mastery of the comics medium, looks dead serious. The studio of gritty urban realist Frank Miller looks out on a brick wall. Most welcome are valedictory portraits of titans in the comics field who have passed on since Preston photographed them, including Will Eisner, Jack Kirby, and Carl Barks. Fans of cartooning and of photographic portraiture should enjoy Preston's evocative images of these often-reclusive figures in their working sanctums.

Hardcover. Champaign IL, Sagamore Publishing, 1st, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. 307 pages, b&w illustrations. SIGNED by all contributors on the front free endpaper - Kerry Keene, Raymond Sinibaldi, David Hickey, and Babe Ruth's granddaughter Linda Ruth Tosetti. The definitive work on his early years, The Babe in Red Stockings, represents not only a detailed study of his remarkable on-field achievements, but also delves into his happy-go-lucky, playful, and occasionally temperamental nature. Dozens of new pieces of information are added to further complete the portrait of one of America's most fascinating figures, the one and only Babe Ruth.

Hardcover. NY, Total Sports, 1st, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 296 pages, Foreword by Hank Aaron. In the crisp, evocative prose of Lawrence S. Ritter and in Mark Rucker's glorious selection of 350 rare photographs, this lavish gift book celebrates George Herman Ruth and the big-bang game he invented. Originally issued in 1988, this book created a new form of sports biography that has been widely imitated since, but never with such commercial success or critical acclaim. Includes unopened CD Rom game for Windows 95. (Will work on later Windows). DUE TO SIZE & WEIGHT, DOMESTIC SHIPPING ONLY.

Softcover. Los Angeles, Know Now Publishing, 1st, 1984, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 128 pages. B&w illustrations. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster, 1st, 2023, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. A magnum opus from acclaimed baseball writer Joe Posnanski, The Baseball 100 is an audacious, singular, and masterly book that took a lifetime to write. The entire story of baseball rings through a countdown of the 100 greatest players in history, with a foreword by George Will. Longer than Moby-Dick and nearly as ambitious, The Baseball 100 is a one-of-a-kind work by award-winning sportswriter and lifelong student of the game Joe Posnanski. In the book's introduction, Pulitzer Prize-winning commentator George F. Will marvels, "Posnanski must already have lived more than two hundred years. How else could he have acquired such a stock of illuminating facts and entertaining stories about the rich history of this endlessly fascinating sport?" Clean, bight copy.

Hardcover. NY, Rodale, 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. While The Big O: My Life, My Times, My Game will not disappoint basketball purists longing for Oscar Robertson's play-by-play of favorite games, the attraction of this autobiography is Robertson's perspective on the evolution of the sport and on the racial struggles that were the context of his formative years. Called by many basketball experts the greatest all-around player ever, Robertson earned an astonishing array of honors including an Olympic gold medal, 12 NBA All-Star appearances, the NBA Rookie of the Year award, and the 1964 NBA MVP award. Most remarkably, Robertson remains the only player in basketball history with a triple-double season (double-digit averages for scoring, rebounds, and assists).While Robertson could have easily candy-coated this impressive record for his retrospective, he devotes large sections of his book to the racial battles he faced off court, and his final chapters recount his controversial efforts as an NBA union leader to create free agency, a pension plan, and disability protection for players. In telling his life story, he lays bare the racism and mistreatment he suffered at the hands of individuals and institutions throughout his career, from the Mayor of Indianapolis and Cincinnati University to the NBA and CBS Sports. At times, his critiques can seem excessive (e.g. his discussions of the distortions in the film Hoosiers, while interesting, are repeated a bit too often), and some sections (like his attempts to compare himself to contemporary players) border on self-indulgence. Yet, he seems justified in arguing that his achievements--largely accomplished on second-rate teams, against a back-drop of unprecedented racial strife, and before the modern era of sports-media saturation--are easily underrepresented. In the end, The Big O offers a complex, human portrait to complement a spectacular sports career.

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, 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, Abrams Press, 1st, 2021, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 352 pages, b&w illustrations. The first full biography of the star Negro Leaguer and Hall of Famer James 'Cool Papa" Bell (1903-1991) was a legend in black baseball, a lightning fast switch hitter elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974. Bell's speed was extraordinary; as Satchel Paige famously quipped, he was so fast he could flip a light switch and be in bed before the room got dark. Wheeler recounts the life of this extraordinary player, a key member of some of the greatest Negro League teams in history. Born to sharecroppers in Mississippi, Bell was part of the Great Migration, and in St. Louis, baseball saved Bell from a life working in slaughterhouses. Wheeler charts Bell's ups and downs in life and in baseball, in the United States, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico, where he went to escape American racism and MLB's color line.

Hardcover. London, L. Upcott Gill , 1st thus, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 'A very complete book on late-nineteenth century angling methods (Hampton)'. Contains sections on Coarse Fish, Pike, Game Fish and Salt Water. 128, 92, 127, 108 pages respectively. With 4 full-page plates as frontispieces to each section and numerous text-drawings. Illustrated adverts. at beginning and end of text. Good plus with minor edgewear, small spot of discolration to cover, gilt bright.

Hardcover. NY, Harper & Row, 1st, 1972, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket ($8.95 on flap), Stated "first edition" on copyright page, with complete number line on Page 442. Author Roger Kahn follows the history of the Brooklyn Dodgers through their 1955 season, which took them to the World Series. A nice copy of this timeless favorite. Mild discoloration to covers, hidden by dust jacket.

Hardcover. Boston, Waverly House, 1st, 1948, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in an edgeworn and chipped dust jacket. Excellent history of the Boston Braves written after their '48 Pennant Year. 224 pages, clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Knopf, 1st, 1981, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Halberstam, a lifeling fan of the game, explores the world of professional basketball as he spends the 1979-80 season travelling with the Portland Trail Blazers. Light fading to dj spine, remainder stamp to bottom edge.

Hardcover. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1st, 1989, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. "...identifies the many economic pressures exerted on the game today and measures their effects both on the field and in the ticket office. He presents a detailed and original analysis of traditional baseball performance statistics from slugging to fielding and draws on a wealth of previously unpublished data divulged in recent collusion suits. At the heart of the controversy are the disparate claims of owners, who say they are loosing money and stay on only out of love for the game, and players, who insist they are being exploited by owner reaping huge profits."