Showing results by publisher "Simon & Schuster Audio" in Sports & Outdoors

Coaches search for it. Parents dream of it. Fans love it. Athletes want it. The Playmaker on any sports team possesses it: an elusive, intangible quality combining anticipation, perception, and decision-making skills. This quality raises their game above the competition and allows them to pass when no one else can, anticipate the movement of opponents, and avoid costly mental mistakes, thus holding the team together. Using today's technology and tools, it is now possible to understand, assess, and train this sixth sense rather than just hope it magically appears.

The 1951 regular season was as good as over. The Brooklyn Dodgers led the New York Giants by three runs with just three outs to go in their third and final playoff game. And not once in Major League Baseball's 278 preceding playoff and World Series games had a team overcome a three-run deficit in the ninth inning. But New York rallied, and at 3:58 p.m. on October 3, 1951, Bobby Thomson hit a home run off Ralph Branca. The Giants won the pennant.

Was the popularity of this program due to the luck of the Irish or the talent of Frank McCourt? Listen to what the critics are calling "a hard-nosed but lyrical conclusion to the story begun in Angela's Ashes" and "a refreshing Frank McCourt." Also available in unabridged version.

Taking unexpected risks, daring to do what no one has done before, that's the reality of Amy Dumas, the remarkable woman behind WWE's Lita. Amy found trainers who saw her determination and her heart. Among them were the two local North Carolina stars who had just signed with WWE, Matt and Jeff Hardy. Amy formed an instant bond with the dynamic Hardy Boyz, whose spectacular style and high-flying bravado inspired her own bold in-ring style.

The athletes competing in the 1960 Rome Olympics included some of the most honored in Olympic history: decathlete Rafer Johnson, sprinter Wilma Rudolph, Ethiopian marathoner Abebe Bikila, and Louisville boxer Cassius Clay, who at 18 seized the world stage for the first time, four years before he became Muhammad Ali.

In This Book Has Balls, Rapaport uses his signature smack-talk style and in-your-face humor to discuss everything from why LeBron will never be like Mike to how Tiger needs the ladies to get his golf game back and how he once thought Mary Lou Retton was his true love. And, of course, why next year will be the year the New York Knicks win the championship. This book is a series of rants - some controversial, some affectionate, but all incredibly hilarious.

Comeback Season is the uplifting, unlikely, and inspirational true story of the friendships formed between Cam Perron - a white, baseball-obsessed teenager from Boston - and hundreds of former professional Negro League players, who were still awaiting the recognition and compensation that they deserved from Major League Baseball more than 50 years after their playing days were over.

Golden State Warriors insider and best-selling author Marcus Thompson delivers the definitive biography of one of the most extraordinary basketball players in NBA history - Kevin Durant.

Every path to adulthood is strewn with missteps, epiphanies, and hard-earned lessons. Only Reggie Love's, however, went through the White House by way of Duke University's Cameron Indoor Stadium. Mentored by both Coach Krzyzewski and President Obama, Love shares universal insights learned in unique circumstances, an education in how sports, politics, and life can define who you are, what you believe in, and what it takes to make a difference.

"The climate crisis may at times appear to be happening slowly, but in fact it is happening very quickly - and has become a true planetary emergency....[I]nconvenient truths do not go away just because they are not seen. Indeed, when they are not responded to, their significance doesn't diminish; it grows." -Al Gore

In this debut, Carton invites the listener to join him as he recounts tales from his suburban youth, defends his long-held love affair with the New York Jets, reminisces about the shenanigans of some of the highest paid and most celebrated athletes playing today, and reflects on his work as one of radio's craftiest, most hilarious personalities ever to get behind the microphone.

From finding common ground with warlords, introducing the Taliban to change, and working with NFL greats such as Marshawn Lynch, this uplifting and inspirational memoir from coach and personal development expert Tareq Azim will help you build a relationship with fear and embrace your own power.

From burning crosses set on the Robinsons’s lawn to a Pennsylvania small town on fire with praise and parades when the athletes return from Berlin, Olympic Pride, American Prejudice is full of emotion, grit, political upheaval, and the American dream. Capturing a powerful and untold chapter of history, the narrative is also a celebration of the courage, commitment, and accomplishments of these talented athletes and their impact on race, sports and inclusion around the world.

For fans of Michael Lewis, the astounding untold story of how professional sports transformed, in the span of a single generation, from a cottage industry into a massive global business. In the cash-soaked world of contemporary sports, where every season brings news of higher salaries, endorsement deals, and television contracts, it is mind-boggling to remember that as recently as the 1970s elite athletes earned so little money that many were forced to work second jobs in the off-season to make ends meet.

Author Brin-Jonathan Butler was granted unique access to the two-and-half-week tournament (the World Chess Championship) and watched every move. In The Grandmaster, he aims to do for Magnus Carlsen what Norman Mailer did for Muhammed Ali in The Fight, John McPhee did for Arthur Ashe in Levels of the Game, and David Foster Wallace did for Roger Federer in his famous New York Times Magazine profile. Butler captures one of the world’s greatest sportsmen at the height of his powers and attempts to decipher the secret to that greatness.

There has never been an athlete like Serena Williams. She has dominated women’s tennis for two decades, changed the way the game is played, and - by inspiring Naomi Osaka, Coco Gauff, and others - changed, too, the racial makeup of the pro game. But Williams’s influence has not been confined to the tennis court. As a powerful Black woman who struggled to achieve and sustain success, she has emerged as a cultural icon, figuring in conversations about body image, working mothers, and more.

The beloved host of the NBC hit show American Ninja Warrior draws inspiration from both the fierce competitors on his show and his own unlikely path to success to outline the essential steps to achieving your goals and becoming a modern-day ninja. Akbar Gbajabiamila did not have an easy path to success. One of seven children by Nigerian immigrant parents, he grew up in the Crenshaw district of South Central Los Angeles during the 1980s and ’90s.

This riveting and uplifting memoir by Vanessa O’Brien, record-breaking American-British explorer, takes you on an unexpected journey to the top of the world’s highest mountains. Long before she became the first American woman to summit K2 and the first British woman to return from its summit alive, Vanessa O’Brien was a feisty suburban Detroit teenager forced to reinvent her world in the wake of a devastating loss that destroyed her family.

From the ruins of Persepolis to lawless outposts of the crumbling Ottoman Empire, The Mesopotamian Riddle whisks you on a wild adventure through the golden age of archaeology in an epic quest to understand our past.

Phiona Mutesi sleeps in a decrepit shack with her mother and four siblings and struggles to find a single meal each day. Phiona Mutesi is also one of the best chess players in the world. One day in 2005, while searching for food, nine-year-old Phiona followed her brother to a dusty veranda where she met Robert Katende, another child of the Ugandan slums, who works for an American organization that offers relief and religion through sports. Robert introduced Phiona to the game of chess and soon recognized her immense talent.