Checkmate Tactics

Tactical play is the nitty-gritty of chess. It’s the stuff that players are trying to work out when they say to themselves, “If I go there and he goes there ... and then I check him with the knight ... now, what can he do ... etc.” At a social or weak club level, virtually 100% of games are decided for tactical reasons.

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Blowgun Techniques: The Definitive Guide to Modern and Traditional Blowgun Techniques

Blowgun Techniques is a complete introduction to one of the world's oldest weapons. It provides detailed explanations and instructions on all aspects of the blowgun's use—from grips and stances, to targets and trajectories, to how to construct your own blowgun. While shooting the blowgun may seem effortless, it actually requires not only power, but also intelligence, focus and good technique. This unique combination—simplicity of design yet complexity of technique—has caused the blowgun to undergo a dramatic rise in popularity in the modern world. This popularity makes Blowgun Techniques a timely guide for hunting enthusiasts and those interested in archery-style sports competitions.   Check Catalog

Football's Last Iron Men: 1934, Yale vs. Princeton, and One Stunning Upset

In November 1934, the Princeton football team—unbeaten in its last fifteen games—faced the 3–3 Yale Bulldogs, who gave new meaning to the term “underdogs.” As much a thrilling play-by-play account of college football at its finest as it is a fascinating work of sports history, this book chronicles the season that brought Princeton and Yale together in a game like no other since.

 

Football’s Last Iron Men follows the teams from the hiring of future Hall of Fame coaches Fritz Grisler and Greasy Neale through spring practice to their annual clash on November 17. The Yale Elis, it seemed, had no chance. How those eleven players—who never left the game—stunned Princeton 7–0 is a chapter in football history. It was an era of 165-pound linemen, quarterbacks who called their own plays, and student athletes who earned no special treatment. But the story of Yale’s Iron Men is also part of a larger history, for it took place during the Great Depression, when millions of struggling Americans found hope in the courage and grit of the team who wouldn’t quit.

 

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The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron

       The first definitive biography of Henry Aaron—baseball’s great home-run champion and one of its most enduring legends.
       As the steroid controversy has increasingly tarnished baseball’s image, Hank Aaron’s achievements have come to seem all the more remarkable: the first player to pass Babe Ruth in home runs, Aaron held that record for thirty-three years while shattering other records (RBIs, total bases, extra-base hits) and setting new ones (hitting at least thirty home runs per season fifteen times). But his achievements run much deeper than his stats. Chronicling the social up­heavals of the years during which Aaron played (1954 to 1976), Howard Bryant shows us how the dignity and determination with which he stood against racism—on and off the field, and as one of the first blacks in baseball’s upper management—helped transform the role and significance of the pro­fessional black athlete and turn Aaron into an national icon.
       Eloquently written, detailed, and penetrating, this is a revelatory portrait of both the great ballplayer and the complicated private man.

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Fifty Places to Hike Before You Die: Outdoor Experts Share the World's Greatest Destinations

Fifty Places to Hike Before You Die is the latest offering in the bestselling Fifty Places series. Chris Santella, along with top expedition leaders, explores the world’s greatest walking adventures. Some, such as the Lunana Snowman Trek in Bhutan and the Kangshung Valley Trek in Tibet, are grueling multiweek adventures at high altitudes. Others, such as Japan’s Nakesando Trail, move leisurely from village to village, allowing walkers to immerse themselves in the local culture. Whether it’s climbing the Rwandan mountains to view mountain gorillas or strolling through bistros along Italy’s Amalfi Coast, there’s a memorable hike at everyone’s level within these 50 chapters. With commentaries from expert trekkers and insider tips that lead the reader off the beaten path, Santella has again captured the special characteristics that make these must-visit destinations. 

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The Boys from Little Mexico: A Season Chasing the American Dream

Woodburn High’s Bulldogs, aka Los Perros, started their 2005 soccer season with eight undocumented students, a midfielder groomed to play for a pro Mexican team, a goalkeeper living in his third foster home, three boys who spoke almost no English, and an Irish-descended white coach desperate to lead all of them to success. Caught between a Mexico they barely remembered and an America they hardly knew, this band of brothers forged an unlikely family.
More than just riveting sports writing, this story is about the fight for the future of the next generation— and a hard, true look at boys dismissed as gangbangers, told to "go home." They played through the slurs of "pickers" from sideline crowds in lily-white Oregon. Off the field, they struggled to stay academically eligible, in a country where just over half of all Hispanic boys graduate.  

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Tales from the 5th Street Gym: Ali, the Dundees, and Miami's Golden Age of Boxing

Presents the history of the Miami boxing gym which during the 1950s and 1960s provided training for three champion fighters, Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, and Sugar Ray Leonard, as well as other notable boxers and was frequented by sport, music, and Hollywood celebrities.

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Field of Screams: Haunted Tales from the Baseball Diamond, the Locker Room, and Beyond

Baseball and ghost stories are as American as apple pie. Field of Screems combines both in this fun and freaky collection of otherworldly yarns. From the authors of the successful Haunted Baseball, this is an all-new collection of more, scarier, creepier stories collected from ballplayers, stadium personnel, umpires, front-office people, and fans, exploring the sometimes amusing and often spooky connection between baseball and the paranormal. 

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Winning Craps for the Serious Player

Updated and revised, this is the “bible” for both beginning and serious craps players—in essence, a complete course on how to play and win at craps. Readers learn how and when bets can be placed, the chances of these bets winning, and the odds and payoffs involved. More than 100 pages alone are dedicated to winning strategies for every type of player—conservative, aggressive and super-aggressive—as well as how to bet with and against the dice and for games offering one, two, three and even ten times odds! Packed with tables, charts, examples, anecdotes and insider tips on every aspect of winning

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Minus 148 Degrees: The First Winter Ascent of Mount McKinley

Minus 148 is one of the few true classics in the literature of mountaineering. It richly deserves a republication that will bring it a whole new generation of readers, hungry young climbers and armchair graybeards alike. It is an honor to salute the book's reappearance, and a pleasure to wish it well.

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