In 1920, the University of Texas Longhorns ate their mascot at a postseason banquet. In 1940, Turk Edwards of the Washington Redskins suffered a career-ending knee injury during the pre-game coin toss. In 1969, Clive Rush was nearly electrocuted while being introduced as the new coach of the Boston Patriots. During the 1893 Army-Navy game, a general punched a heckling admiral and challenged him to a duel, which resulted in President Grover Cleveland suspending the game for six years. Football’s Most Wanted™ features the worst players, the most inept teams, the strangest plays, the most bizarre nicknames, the most fantastic finishes, the dirtiest players, the oddest injures, the greatest upsets, and the most boneheaded calls in both professional and college football. Many of these 700 anecdotes, arranged in 70 top-ten lists, are published here for the first time. Football’s Most Wanted™ features the worst players, the most inept teams, the strangest plays, the most bizarre nicknames, the most fantastic finishes, the dirtiest players, the oddest injures, the greatest upsets, and the most boneheaded calls in both professional and college football. Many of these 700 anecdotes, arranged in 70 top-ten lists, are published here for the first time.
In 1881, the scrappy, rough-and-tumble baseball team in a California mining town enlists the help of a quick-witted twelve-year-old orphan and the notorious outlaw Billy the Kid to win a big game against the National League Champion Chicago White Stockings. Prequel to: The boy who saved baseball.
For baseball's millions of fans, this ultimate reference to the national pastime features a listing of more than 800 memorable people, places, dates, events, terms, records, and statistics. From the game's origins in the 1840s to the present day, The Book of Baseball Literacy presents complete details on the great sport in one lively, fascinating treasury.
Baseball has so many stars and scrubs, quotables and notables - so many that one book just isn’t enough to cover them all. Enter Baseball's Most Wanted™ II. Starting where Baseball's Most Wanted™ left off, version 2.0 introduces even more colorful characters, inept fielders and hitters, and forgotten stars as well as all the teams, fans, managers, and even announcers who are a vibrant part of baseball’s past, present, and future. You’ll read top-ten lists of the best and worst hitters and pitchers, the most unique memorabilia, and the most obsessed fans. Learn which president vowed to never play the game again after he got shelled in a semipro game. Find out if Tony Suck lived up to his name or rose above it. Discover the secret lure of the no-hitter and how even usually inept pitchers can catch lightning in a bottle and reach Nirvana. You’ll read about these as well as hundreds of other people, places, and events. With more than sixty lists of trivia to amuse and amaze, Baseball's Most Wanted™ II is a wonderful celebration of America’s love of baseball, warts and all.
All-American George Glamack was known as the "Blind Bomber" because his eyesight was so poor that he couldn’t see the basket. Bobby Bailey once fouled out of a game in three minutes. The first professional basketball player, Fred Cooper, earned sixteen dollars per game. Swedish player Mats Wermelin scored all 272 points in a game. Boston Celtics coach Red Auerbach punched out the owner of the St. Louis Hawks prior to a game. Dennis Rodman dressed like a bride for his book signing. Wilt Chamberlain, who scored 100 points in an NBA game, claimed to have had 20,000 lovers. The 1936 Olympic basketball gold medal game was played on a muddy court during a driving rainstorm. Former vice president Al Gore played college basketball at Harvard. Basketball's Most Wanted™ chronicles 700 of the most outlandish players, coaches, and fans in basketball history. Its seventy lists describe in humorous detail basketball’s top-ten worst shooters, strangest plays, bizarre nicknames, politicians who played, little-known records, unlikely NBA teams, and more.
This incredible gathering of first-hand remembrances brings a fascinating and enlightening new perspective to the period of baseball's greatest peak and ultimate turning point--when bigotry and exploitation still ran rampant among the clubs and the sport was irrevocably being changed into a business. 100 photos.
Former Major League Baseball commissioner Fay Vincent brings together a stellar roster of ballplayers from the 1950s and 1960s in this wonderful new history of the game. Whitey Ford, Duke Snider, Carl Erskine, Bill Rigney, and Ralph Branca tell stories about baseball in New York when the Yankees dominated and seemed to play either the Dodgers or the Giants in every World Series. By the end of the fifties, the two National League teams had relocated to California, as baseball expanded across the country. Hall of Fame pitcher Robin Roberts, Braves mainstay Lew Burdette, home-run king Harmon Killebrew, Cubs slugger Billy Williams, and Hall of Famers Brooks Robinson and Frank Robinson share great stories about milestone events, from Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier on the field to Frank Robinson doing the same in the dugout. They remember the teammates and opponents they admired, including Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Warren Spahn, Don Newcombe, and Ernie Banks. For anyone who grew up watching baseball in the 1950s and 1960s, or for anyone who wonders what it was like in the days when ballplayers negotiated their own contracts and worked real jobs in the off-season, this is a book to cherish.
Celebrate the 100th anniversary of the first World Series with The World Series Most Wanted M/i>. You'll find fascinating facts, oddball tales, and record-breaking achievements from that initial World Series between the Boston Americans and the Pittsburgh Pirates all the way up to the 2003 World Series. The next in a long line of vaunted Most Wanted books from Potomac. THE The World Series Most Wanted tells the tale of October glory and heartbreak, of heroes and goats, and of the thin line between success and failure on baseball's grandest stage. With a hopping sixty top-ten lists.
A celebration of the photographic art of Charles Conlon features more than two hundred images (selected from the photographer's eight thousand negatives) of such legendary figures as Ty Cobb, Joe DiMaggio, Honus Wagner, Shoeless Joe Jackson, and others.