When the Red Sox Ruled: Baseball's First Dynasty, 1912-1918

In the years before the Curse of the Bambino descended on New England, the Boston Red Sox rode major league baseball like a colossus, capturing four World Series titles in seven seasons. Blessed with legendary players like Babe Ruth, Tris Speaker, Harry Hooper, and Smokey Joe Wood, and a brand new, thoroughly modern stadium, the Red Sox reigned as kings of the Deadball Era. Just in time for the centenary of baseball's hallowed Fenway Park and the dawn of the Red Sox dynasty, Thomas J. Whalen gracefully recounts the rise and fall of one of baseball's greatest teams.

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Woodall's North American Campground Directory (2011)

The 2011 Woodall's North American Campground Directory has been completely updated from the 2010 edition, with over 300,000 changes and updates. Plus, 2011 marks Woodall's 75th anniversary, and each copy of the North American Directory includes a commemorative edition mark and an entry form into Woodall's 75th Anniversary Sweepstakes. The 2011 Edition includes complete listing information for over 14,000 locations including both public and privately owned campgrounds and RV parks. Woodall's 2011 edition marks parks that meet our strict "green" criteria and now includes full color state and provincial maps for every state and province. Here's what's inside the 2011 edition: - Complete Green RVing information for campgrounds and RV parks- GPS coordinates and physical addresses for many campgrounds- Full color maps for every state and province- Over 14,000 locations- 75th Anniversary commemorative mark, plus an entry form to Woodall's 75th Anniversary sweepstakes!- Exclusive Woodall's "One-Tank Trips" editorial which features over 70 all-new RV trips for campers to enjoy- At-a-glance charts which tell if a campground welcomes big-rigs, is Internet-friendly (including wi-fi info) and allows pets - Privately-owned campgrounds are rated and inspected with Woodall's strict 5W-5W rating system- Rules of the road for every state and province, plus special information for RVers crossing into Canada- Over 2000 pages cover the U.S., Mexico and Canada Campground and RV park listings include facility and recreation descriptions, including driving directions, camping fees, seasonality, full campground contact information, pet restrictions, site RV capacity, handicap accessibility, internet access at sites, and much more. It is the Campground Directory most commonly sold in Bookstores and camping retailers around the United States and Canada.

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Stan Musial: An American Life

When baseball fans voted on the top twenty-five players of the twentieth century in 1999, Stan Musial didn't make the cut. This glaring omission--later rectified by a panel of experts--raised an important question: How could a first-ballot Hall of Famer, widely considered one of the greatest hitters in baseball history, still rank as the most underrated athlete of all time?
In "Stan Musial," veteran sports journalist George Vecsey finally gives this twenty-time All-Star and St. Louis Cardinals icon the kind of prestigious biographical treatment previously afforded to his more celebrated contemporaries Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio. More than just a chronological recounting of the events of Musial's life, this is the definitive portrait of one of the game's best-loved but most unappreciated legends, told through the remembrances of those who played beside, worked with, and covered "Stan the Man" over the course of his nearly seventy years in the national spotlight.
Stan Musial never married a starlet. He didn't die young, live too hard, or squander his talent. There were no legendary displays of temper or moodiness. He was merely the most consistent superstar of his era, a scarily gifted batsman who compiled 3,630 career hits (1,815 at home and 1,815 on the road), won three World Series titles, and retired in 1963 in possession of seventeen major-league records. Away from the diamond, he proved a savvy businessman and a model of humility and graciousness toward his many fans in St. Louis and around the world. From Keith Hernandez's boyhood memories of Musial leaving tickets for him when the Cardinals were in San Francisco to the little-known story of Musial's friendship with novelist James Michener--and their mutual association with Pope John Paul II--Vecsey weaves an intimate oral history around one of the great gentlemen of baseball's Greatest Generation.
There may never be another Stan the Man, a fact that future Hall of Famer Albert Pujols--reluctantly nicknamed "El Hombre" in Musial's honor--is quick to acknowledge. But thanks to this long-overdue reappraisal, even those who took his greatness for granted will learn to appreciate him all over again.

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No Shortage of Good Days

IN his new book about the delightful torture known as fly fishing, John Gierach again demonstrates the wit, eloquence, and insight that have become his trademarks.
Consider this observation about fishing: “From my own experience I can say that a bad back makes you hike slower, stove-up knees keep you from wading confidently, tendinitis of the elbow buggers your casting, and a dose of giardia can send you dashing into the bushes fifteen times in an afternoon, but although none of this is fun, it’s discernibly better than not fishing.”
Or this explanation for every fisherman’s fascination with small streams: “The idea is to fish obscure headwater creeks in hopes of eventually sniffing out an underappreciated little trout creek down an un-marked dirt road. Why is another question. I suppose it’s partly for the fishing itself and partly to satisfy your curiosity, but mostly to sustain the belief that such things are still out there to find for those willing to look.”
And perhaps the ultimate explanation for the fishing obsession: “I briefly wondered how much trouble a guy should go to in order to catch a few little trout, but then any fish becomes worth catching to the extent that you can’t catch it, so the answer was obvious: Once you decide to try, you go to as much trouble as it takes.”
In No Shortage of Good Days Gierach takes usfrom the Smokies in Tennessee to his home waters in Colorado, from the Canadian Maritimes to Mexico—saltwater or fresh, it’s all fishing and all irresistible. As always he writes perceptively about a wide range of subjects: the charm of familiar waters, the etiquette 27.99 of working with new fishing guides, night fishing when the trout and the mosquitoes are both biting, fishing while there is still slush on the river, fishing snobbery, and the delights of fresh fish cooked and eaten within sight of where it was caught. No Shortage of Good Days may be the next best thing to a day of fishing.

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The Natural Navigator: A Watchful Explorer 's Guide to a Nearly Forgotten Skill

Before GPS, before the compass, and even before cartography, humankind was navigating. A windswept tree, the depth of a puddle, or a trill of birdsong could point the way home--and, for the alert traveler, they still can.
Whether you go exploring in the mountains or on a lunch break, natural navigation will keep you on course and open your eyes to the small wonders of the natural world. Almost anything in our environment can help us find our way--if we know what to look for. Adventurer and navigation expert Tristan Gooley unlocks the directional clues hidden in:
the sun, moon, and stars - clouds - weather patterns - lengthening shadows - changing tides - plant growth - and the habits of local wildlife
Enriched by helpful illustrations, and filled with navigational anecdotes collected across centuries, continents, and cultures, "The Natural Navigator" proves that anyone with a curious mind can still find south by looking at the moon--and find adventure in their own backyard.

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Backgammon for Blood: A Guide for Those Who Like to Play But Love to Win (2ND ed.)

Backgammon is the ultimate head-to-head board game an action-packed race to the finish with an addictive mix of luck and skill. It's easy to pick up the basics, but this is a game that continually surprises there's always something new to learn, and the Internet has opened up a whole other world of gaming opportunities. In Backgammon for Blood, Chris Bray, top-ranked backgammon player, reveals the tips and tricks needed to help you play the game like a pro, whether you want to make serious money in online tournaments or just play for fun at a board with friends. While backgammon can be lost or won on the throw of the dice, tactical moves and game plans can help you adapt your play to deal with whatever comes your way. With chapters on opening rolls, mid-game strategies, and races and endings, his step-by-step suggestions, sample game illustrations, and easy-to-follow text have everything you need to come to grips with the game. The different ways to play backgammon from tournaments and chouettes to computer and online play are all covered, as are the secrets of making the doubling cube work in your favor. Insightful and informative, Backgammon for Blood: A Guide for Those Who Like to Play but Love to Win is the ideal introduction to this dynamic and challenging game.

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Under Pallor, Under Shadow: The 1920 American League Pennant Race That Rattled and Rebuilt Baseball

Babe Ruth, in his first season with the Yankees in 1920, was on pace to break the single-season home run record. In August Indians shortstop Ray Chapman was beaned by a pitch thrown by the Yankees' Carl Mays during a game in New York and died the next day. In September a grand jury convened in Chicago, and four White Sox players were called to testify about fixing the 1919 World Series.
Focusing on the Cleveland Indians, the Chicago White Sox, and the New York Yankees, this book takes us back to a pivotal season when baseball was shaken by tragedy and scandal and when power shifted irretrievably from the teams' owners to a single commissioner. The struggle for the soul of baseball, both on the field and off, is the story of how the entire American League structure changed. Following the fortunes of baseball's stars of 1920, "Under Pallor, Under Shadow" shows us how a unique opportunity for reform was squandered and how the result was the transfer of authority from one powerful dictator (Ban Johnson) to another (Judge K. M. Landis). The first book to tie together the disparate elements of the 1920 pennant race, "Under Pallor, Under Shadow" shows us America's pastime at a critical moment in the nation's cultural history.

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Knuckler: My Life with Baseball's Most Confounding Pitch

At forty-four years old, Tim Wakefield is the longest-serving member of one of baseball's most popular franchises. He is close to eclipsing the winning records of two of the greatest pitchers to have played the game, yet few realize the full measure of his success. That his career can be characterized by such words as "dependability" and "consistency" defies all odds because he has achieved this with baseball's most mercurial weapon--the knuckleball.
"Knuckler" is the story of how a struggling position player bet his future on a fickle pitch that would define his career. The pitch may drive hitters crazy, but how does the pitcher stay sane? The moment Wakefield adopted the knuckleball, his career sought to answer that question. With the Red Sox, Wakefield began to master his pitch only to find himself on the mound in 2003 for one of the worst post-season losses in history, followed the next year by one of the most vindicating of championships. Even now, as Wakefield battles, we see the twists and turns of a major league career pushed to its ultimate extreme.
A remarkable story of one player's success despite being the exception to every rule, "Knuckler" is also a lively meditation on the dancing pitch, its history, its mystique, and all the ironies it brings to bear.

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Baseball in the Garden of Eden: The Secret History of the Early Game

Think you know how the game of baseball began? Think again.
   Forget Abner Doubleday and Cooperstown. Forget Alexander Joy Cartwright and the New York Knickerbockers. Instead, meet Daniel Lucius Adams, William Rufus Wheaton, and Louis Fenn Wadsworth, each of whom has a stronger claim to baseball paternity than Doubleday or Cartwright.
   But did baseball even have a father—or did it just evolve from other bat-and-ball games? John Thorn, baseball’s preeminent historian, examines the creation story of the game and finds it all to be a gigantic lie, not only the Doubleday legend, so long recognized with a wink and a nudge. From its earliest days baseball was a vehicle for gambling (much like cricket, a far more popular game in early America), a proxy form of class warfare, infused with racism as was the larger society, invigorated if ultimately corrupted by gamblers, hustlers, and shady entrepreneurs. Thorn traces the rise of the New York version of the game over other variations popular in Massachusetts and Philadelphia. He shows how the sport’s increasing popularity in the early decades of the nineteenth century mirrored the migration of young men from farms and small towns to cities, especially New York. And he charts the rise of secret professionalism and the origin of the notorious “reserve clause,” essential innovations for gamblers and capitalists. No matter how much you know about the history of baseball, you will find something new in every chapter. Thorn also introduces us to a host of early baseball stars who helped to drive the tremendous popularity and growth of the game in the post–Civil War era: Jim Creighton, perhaps the first true professional player; Candy Cummings, the pitcher who claimed to have invented the curveball; Albert Spalding, the ballplayer who would grow rich from the game and shape its creation myth; Hall of Fame brothers George and Harry Wright; Cap Anson, the first man to record three thousand hits and a virulent racist; and many others. Add bluff, bluster, and bravado, and toss in an illicit romance, an unknown son, a lost ball club, an epidemic scare, and you have a baseball detective story like none ever written.
   Thorn shows how a small religious cult became instrumental in the commission that was established to determine the origins of the game and why the selection of Abner Doubleday as baseball’s father was as strangely logical as it was patently absurd. Entertaining from the first page to the last, Baseball in the Garden of Eden is a tale of good and evil, and the snake proves the most interesting character. It is full of heroes, scoundrels, and dupes; it contains more scandal by far than the 1919 Black Sox World Series fix. More than a history of the game, Baseball in the Garden of Eden tells the story of nineteenth-century America, a land of opportunity and limitation, of glory and greed—all present in the wondrous alloy that is our nation and its pastime.

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Play Their Hearts Out: A Coach, His Star Recruit, and the Youth Basketball Machine

Eight years of unfettered access, a keen sense of a story’s deepest truths, and a genuine compassion for his subject allow Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist George Dohrmann to take readers inside the machine that produces America’s basketball stars.  
    Hoop dreams aren’t just for players. The fever that grips college basketball prospects hoping to strike big-time NBA gold afflicts coaches, parents, and sneaker executives as well. Every one of them has a stake in keeping America’s wildly dysfunctional, incredibly lucrative youth basketball machine up and running—no matter the consequences.
    In Play Their Hearts Out, George Dohrmann offers an up-close and unforgettable look inside the maw of that machine. He shares what he learned from his years spent embedded with a group of talented young recruits from Southern California as they traveled the country playing in elite Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) events. It’s a cutthroat world where boys as young as eight or nine are subjected to a dizzying torrent of scrutiny and exploitation. Coaches vie to have them on their teams. Sneaker companies ply them with free shoes and gear. “All-star camps” are glorified cattle auctions, providing make-or-break opportunities to secure the promise of an elusive college scholarship.  
   At the book’s heart are the personal stories of two compelling figures: Joe Keller, an ambitious AAU coach with a master plan to find and promote “the next LeBron”—thereby paving his own path to power and riches; and Demetrius Walker, a fatherless latchkey kid who falls under Keller’s sway and struggles to live up to the unrealistic expectations his supposed benefactor has set for him. As their fortunes take shape and the pressure mounts—Demetrius finds himself profiled in Sports Illustrated at age fourteen, while Keller cultivates his business empire—Dohrmann weaves in the stories of numerous other parents, coaches, and players. Some of them see their prospects evaporate as a result of poor decisions and worse luck. Others learn how to thrive in a corrupt system by playing the right angles.
    Written with incomparable detail and insight, Play Their Hearts Out is a thoroughly unique narrative that reveals the inner workings of an American game, exposing the gritty reality that lies beneath so many dreams of fame and glory. 

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