Sports

This book is divided into multiple parts, with progressively more difficult questions in each new section. Along the way, you'll learn more about the great Rangers players and coaches of the past and present, from Mark Messier to Wayne Gretzky, Rod Gilbert, Bryan Hextall, Vic Hadfield, "Gump" Worsley, Ron Greschner, Andy Bathgate, Jean Ratelle, Eddie Giacomin, Adam Graves, Brad Park, Jaromir Jagr, Mike Richter, Brian Leetch, Henrik Lundqvist, and so many more. Some of the many questions that this book answers include:

- Who was the first draftee to actually play for the Blueshirts?
- The current Madison Square Garden hosted the first Rangers game on February 18, 1968. Did the Blueshirts win? Who'd they play?
- When was the only time an opposing goalie was robustly cheered from the opening faceoff to the end of the game?
- Who was the first player of Chinese descent to play in the NHL when he debuted for the Rangers in 1947?
- Which unlikely Ranger ended the longest shootout in NHL history?

This book makes the perfect gift for any fan of the Blueshirts!

Then, in 1967, a brash rookie manager named Dick Williams took charge of a hungry, but very young and inexperienced team that did not know how to win. A strict disciplinarian, Williams had no tolerance for nonsense, and he taught the Red Sox how to play the game right. Yet, when he predicted that the Red Sox would win more games than they'd lose in 1967, no one took him seriously. The Red Sox forged a 10-game, midseason winning streak. Adopting the theme song from the hit Broadway musical, Man of La Mancha, the 1967 Red Sox season became "The Impossible Dream." The fans grew excited again and started flocking to Fenway Park or tuning their radios to the broadcasts of the games. Over the season's final six weeks, the Red Sox never led or trailed by more than 1 1/2 games. Three teams were still in the pennant race during their final game. When that day was over, the Red Sox had become the first and only team in major-league history to rise from ninth place to league champion.

The Red Sox remain indebted to the 1967 champions, and they will be indebted forever. Rico Petrocelli, one of Boston's most beloved athletes and a twenty-four-year-old shortstop on that "Impossible Dream" team, recaptures the thrills of that improbable season through his unique anecdotes. In this re-release timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary that magical year, Rico chronicles both the nightmare that threatened to swallow an organization and the resurrection that would reinvigorate a team and a city that share the same heart

Fans of this indomitable team can capture the excitement from the 2014-2015 season and relive all the memories of the beloved franchise in this newly updated edition of Tales from the Chicago Blackhawks Locker Room. From the "Curse of Muldoon" to three championships in five years, the Hawks have a rich history. With all the charm and wit of a sportscaster who has been covering the Blackhawks for over sixty years, Harvey Wittenberg shares the greatest Hawks stories, including their 2010, 2012, and 2015 Stanley Cup title runs.

Straight from the source--players, coaches, and managers--Wittenberg offers an informative and entertaining look at the Chicago Blackhawks. Tales from the Chicago Blackhawks Locker Room is a riveting treasure trove of tales sure to delight any sports fan.

Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Sports Publishing imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in sports--books about baseball, pro football, college football, pro and college basketball, hockey, or soccer, we have a book about your sport or your team.

Whether you are a New York Yankees fan or hail from Red Sox nation; whether you are a die-hard Green Bay Packers or Dallas Cowboys fan; whether you root for the Kentucky Wildcats, Louisville Cardinals, UCLA Bruins, or Kansas Jayhawks; whether you route for the Boston Bruins, Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens, or Los Angeles Kings; we have a book for you. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to publishing books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked by other publishers and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

"A rousing celebration of a moment in history when college football was more than metaphor and entertainment, it was a gritty sidebar to real war." -- Robert Lipsyte, author of An Accidental Sportswriter

Navy's team was ranked number two, Army's number one and on the verge of becoming national champions. Everywhere, the war stopped as soldiers listened to the broadcast. Randy Roberts has interviewed the surviving players and coaches, bringing their stories to life. For three years, military upperclassmen graduated and joined the fight. For three hours, their alma mater gave them back one unforgettable performance.

"The story of Army's celebrated 1944 national championship team is a fascinating one, and its victory over Navy that year is remembered as one of college football's greatest games. But Randy Roberts's A Team for America tells an even greater story. It is a story of our country. Of a time when college football -- and this remarkable Army team -- helped rekindle hope and confidence throughout the land." -- Brigadier General Peter M. Dawkins, U.S. Army (Ret.), 1958 Heisman Trophy winner, West Point

"Roberts brings a historian's thoroughness to the subject . . . A fascinating time in American collegiate sports history." -- Kirkus Reviews

In this poignant memoir, Claudia Williams, the last surviving child of legendary Boston Red Sox great and Hall of Famer Ted Williams, tells her father's story, including never-before-told anecdotes about his life on and off the field that reveal the flesh and blood man behind "The Kid."

Born after her father retired from baseball, Claudia Williams grew up with little idea that her dad was one of the most revered sports figures of all time--until she finally saw him in uniform at Fenway Park, receiving the adulation of thousands of fans.

Now in this moving and surprising memoir, Claudia offers an unexpected look at Ted Williams, viewed from a unique and fresh perspective. Here she recalls her childhood growing up with a baseball legend after his heyday, capturing their loving yet tumultuous relationship, and shares the beloved stories he passed on to her. Reconciling his talent on the field with his life off of it, Claudia reveals the myriad passions--including baseball and much more--which shaped who he was. She also speaks candidly for the first time about his controversial choice to be cryogenically preserved after his death.

Complete with sixteen pages of never-before-seen color photographs, told with sincerity and heart, Claudia William's poignant memoir is a love letter to New England and one of its greatest sons--Ted Williams--the champion, the man, and most importantly, the father.

As unflinching, candid, and tough as the man himself, The Final Season is Bill Parcell's swan song as head coach in the NFL. During 1999, a grueling, difficult season, Parcell's found his resolve and coaching ability tested at every turn.

It wasn't supposed to be like that, though.

The two-time champion coach who had guided two different teams to the Super Bowl was expected by fans and pundits to drive the New York jets all the way. After all, they had reached the AFC Championship the year before. But fate would not allow it. In the preseason, respected and longtime owner Leon Hess died, casting a season-long pall of uncertainty over the organization. During training camp, two players were arrested after a bar fight. In the final game of the preseason, Wayne Chrebet one of their top receivers, was injured. Then a huge blow-in the season opener Vinny Testaverde, the Pro Bowl quarterback, ruptured his Achilles tendon and was out for the year. Things grew progressively worse-at one point Parcells had lost nine starters. He also endured personal suffering when his dear friend and agent Robert Fraley died in the same plane crash that killed Payne Stewart.

Parcells struggled to keep his team on track, trying to maintain their confidence in the face of enormous odds. "When you're losing, you coach better. You're on top of every detail. You scrutinize yourself, your coaches, your players, and the system you're using." He became his own fiercest critic: "No matter how long you have coached, no matter how many games you have won, no matter how many playoff games, conference championships, Super Bowls you've won, it's all irrelevant. You are not winning now and that's what counts. You think you suck. You are a loser as a coach."

Things hit rock bottom when the team went 1-6. But
Parcells the coaches, and the players would not lie down. "If you don't play to win, then you shouldn't play at all." Parcells called up every strategic and motivational ploy he could dream up, and through sheer force of will and a great amount of pride, the jets won seven of their last nine games.

In The Final Season, readers will not only get an unsparing look inside one of football's greatest minds and a champion's philosophy but also Parcells frank take on good owners; his battles with "owner-operators"; the greatest "warriors" he's coached for and against; the players who are "dogs"; the game's most challenging coaches; and his seasons with the Giants and the Patriots. Parcells also provides the reasons for retiring from coaching as well as his perspective on Bill Belichick's controversial resignation and eventual departure for New England.

A rare, behind-the-scenes football memoir, The Final Season brims with insights and revelations, a testament to a great competitor and future Hall of Famer.

Charlie Moore was married with two kids (and one on the way) when his Massachusetts bait-and-tackle shop sank without a trace. A skilled fisherman and a savvy entrepreneur trained in his father's cigar shop, Charlie decided to support his family by starring on his own TV fishing show.

After all, the ones playing on the TV in Charlie's shop all day had one thing in common: they were dull. As a rule, people called Charlie many things, but never, ever dull. In fact, when he told friends about his television idea, they called him crazy.

Today, everyone calls him the Mad Fisherman.

"The Mad Fisherman " is the incredible story of how Charlie cold-called his way into doing short spots for no money for a regional outdoors show while working odd jobs to pay for diapers. When the TV station refused to pay up once the show was a hit, he hooked show sponsors himself, turning "Charlie Moore Outdoors "into a profitable enterprise.

Charlie's success opened doors at ESPN and gave birth to the groundbreaking "Beat Charlie Moore," an entirely new kind of outdoors show on which Charlie goes mano y mano with pro fishermen and celebrities alike. Charlie's very competitive, but he still pays more attention to amusing his audience than beating his competitors. But he usually does both, anyway.

Guest fishermen on Charlie's boat have included NFL quarterback Drew Bledsoe, Massachusetts governor and presidential hopeful Mitt Romney (who waterskiied off the back of Charlie's boat), Rickey Medlocke of Lynyrd Skynyrd, UConn basketball coach Jim Calhoun, Ted Nugent, Adam West (TV's Batman), and Darryl McDaniels of Run-DMC. No matter how famous they are on dry land, they turn into ordinary guys when Charlie hands them a fishing pole. Well, except Ted Nugent.

With unflagging energy, a wild sense of humor, and a sheer love of the outdoors, Charlie Moore entertains and amuses a million and a half people every week.

Mike Matheny was just forty-one, without professional managerial experience and looking for a next step after a successful career as a Major League catcher, when he succeeded the legendary Tony La Russa as manager of the St. Louis Cardinals in 2012. While Matheny has enjoyed immediate success, leading the Cards to the postseason four times in his first four years-a Major League record-people have noticed something else about his life, something not measured in day-to-day results. Instead, it's based on a frankly worded letter he wrote to the parents of a Little League team he coached, a cry for change that became an Internet sensation and eventually a "manifesto."

The tough-love philosophy Matheny expressed in the letter contained his throwback beliefs that authority should be respected, discipline and hard work rewarded, spiritual faith cultivated, family made a priority, and humility considered a virtue. In The Matheny Manifesto, he builds on his original letter by first diagnosing the problem at the heart of youth sports-it starts with parents and coaches-and then by offering a hopeful path forward. Along the way, he uses stories from his small-town childhood as well as his career as a player, coach, and manager to explore eight keys to success: leadership, confidence, teamwork, faith, class, character, toughness, and humility.

From "The Coach Is Always Right, Even When He's Wrong" to "Let Your Catcher Call the Game," Matheny's old-school advice might not always be popular or politically correct, but it works. His entertaining and deeply inspirational book will not only resonate with parents, coaches, and athletes, it will also be a powerful reminder, from one of the most successful new managers in the game, of what sports can teach us all about winning on the field and in life.

On January 5, 1971, Sonny Liston was found dead in his home--of an apparent heroin overdose. But no one close to Liston believed that his death was acci-dental. Digging deep into a life that Liston tried hard to hide, investigative journalist Shaun Assael treats the boxer's death as a cold case. The result is a page-turning who-dunit that evokes a glorious and grimy era of Las Vegas.

Elvis Presley was playing two shows a night at the International. Howard Hughes was running his empire from the penthouse suite of the Desert Inn. And middle America was flocking to the Strip, transforming it from an exclusive playground for the mob to a mecca for corporate dollars. But the city was also rotting from within. Heroin was pouring over the border from Mexico, and the segregated Westside was on the cusp of a race war. The cops, brutally violent, were barely holding it together.

Driving through town with the top of his pink Cadillac down, Sonny Liston was the one celebrity who was unafraid to bridge the two sides of Las Vegas. Cashing in on his fading notoriety in the casinos, he was dealing drugs, working for a crime syndicate, and trying to break into Hollywood--all with a boxer's faith that he could duck any threat, slip any punch. Heroin addiction was the only knockout blow he didn't see coming.

The Murder of Sonny Liston takes a fresh look at the legendary boxer, the town he called home, and one of America's most enduring mysteries.

In 1968, two remarkable pitchers would dominate the game as well as the broadsheets. One was black, the other white. Bob Gibson, together with the St. Louis Cardinals, embodied an entire generation's hope for integration at a heated moment in American history. Denny McLain, his adversary, was a crass self-promoter who eschewed the team charter and his Detroit Tigers teammates to zip cross-country in his own plane. For one season, the nation watched as these two men and their teams swept their respective league championships to meet at the World Series. Gibson set a major league record that year with a 1.12 ERA. McLain won more than 30 games in 1968, a feat not achieved since 1934 and untouched since. Together, the two have come to stand as iconic symbols, giving the fans "The Year of the Pitcher" and changing the game. Evoking a nostalgic season and its incredible characters, this is the story of one of the great rivalries in sports and an indelible portrait of the national pastime during a turbulent year--and the two men who electrified fans from all walks of life.