Class a: Baseball in the Middle of Everywhere

An unforgettable chronicle of a year of minor-league baseball in a small Iowa town that follows not only the travails of the players of the Clinton LumberKings but also the lives of their dedicated fans and of the town itself.
Award-winning essayist Lucas Mann delivers a powerful debut in his telling of the story of the 2010 season of the Clinton LumberKings. Along the Mississippi River, in a Depression-era stadium, young prospects from all over the world compete for a chance to move up through the baseball ranks to the major leagues. Their coaches, some of whom have spent nearly half a century in the game, watch from the dugout. In the bleachers, local fans call out from the same seats they've occupied year after year. And in the distance, smoke rises from the largest remaining factory in a town that once had more millionaires per capita than any other in America.
Mann turns his eye on the players, the coaches, the fans, the radio announcer, the town, and finally on himself, a young man raised on baseball, driven to know what still draws him to the stadium. His voice is as fresh and funny as it is poignant, illuminating both the small triumphs and the harsh realities of minor-league ball. Part sports story, part cultural exploration, part memoir, "Class A" is a moving and unique study of why we play, why we watch, and why we remember.

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American Pastimes: The Very Best of Red Smith (the Library of America)

Walter Wellesley "Red" Smith was the most widely read sportswriter of the last century and the first to win the Pulitzer Prize for commentary. From the 1940s to the 1980s, his nationally syndicated columns for the "New York Herald Tribune" and later for "The New York Times" traversed the world of sports with literary panache and wry humor. "I've always had the notion," Smith once said, "that people go to spectator sports to have fun and then they grab the paper to read about it and have fun again." Now, writer and editor (and inventor of Rotisserie League Baseball) Daniel Okrent presents the best of Smith's inimitable columns--miniature masterpieces that remain the gold standard in sportswriting.
Here are Smith's indelible profiles of sports luminaries, which show his gift for distilling a career's essence in a single column. Unforgettable accounts of historic occasions--Bobby Thompson's Shot Heard 'Round the World, Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series, the first Ali-Frazier fight--are joined by more offbeat stories that display Smith's unmistakable wit, intelligence, and breadth of feeling. Here, too, are more personal glimpses into Smith's life and work, revealed in stories about his lifelong passion for fishing and in "My Press-Box Memoirs," a 1975 reminiscence for "Esquire" collected here for the first time.

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The Adrenaline Junkie's Bucket List: 100 Extreme Outdoor Adventures to Do Before You Die

Imagine kayaking the churning whitewater of Africa's wild and wet Zambezi River. Get barreled in a wave surfing Fiji's legendary Cloudbreak reef. Trek New Zealand's famed Milford Track through the lush, green fiords.
"The Adrenaline Junkie's Bucket List" is the ultimate guide for the outdoor and sports enthusiasts seeking out the world's most fantastic adventures. The book runs the gamut of water, mountain and hiking sports for all skill levels--from beginners to experts. Written by a veteran outdoor adventure expert, author and wilderness physician, it presents readers with one hundred amazing and challenging voyages all over the world. Organized by continent, the book offers fifteen to twenty-five trips of a wide variety in each section, and also covers local lore and history, hotel and restaurant recommendations, and other relevant services. Sidebars throughout contain practical advice for the adventure travel enthusiast on health, safety, and outdoor life. This is the perfect book for extreme athletes and armchair travelers looking for an adventurous read.
A heartstopping and essential guide to the best extreme outdoor adventures on every continent.

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Beyond the Vertical

Layton Kor is pre-eminent in American mountaineering. He is considered the best rock climber of his generation, and his list of first ascents of technically difficult rock climbs, both free and aid, is perhaps unmatched by any American climber. In this book Kor tells the story in his own words of these groundbreaking and suspenseful climbs.
Supplementing Kor's narrative are twenty-three accounts written by other leading climbers of the 1960s and 1970s, describing ascents they did with Kor: Royal Robbins, Fred Beckey, Pat Ament, Chris Bonington, Steve Roper, Huntley Ingalls, and many more share their perspectives.
Kor's climbs have become some of the most famous routes in the world--the "Naked Edge" in Eldorado Canyon, the "Diamond "on Longs Peak, the "Salathe Wall" on El Capitan in Yosemite, the "North Face" of the Eiger in the Alps...the list goes on. Written in a straighforward and engaging style, and accompanied by stunning, historical color photographs, "Beyond the Vertical "is a must-have for all rock climbers and armchair mountaineers alike.

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