Sports History

There is No Finish introduces the exploding world of the Backyard Ultra. Birthed from the high school musings of Lazarus Lake, renowned for the Barkley Marathons, the running event has spread globally—to over eighty countries— with sky-rocketing numbers.

Francis Ouimet and Harry Vardon came from different worlds and different generations, but their passion for golf set them on parallel paths that would collide in the greatest match....

Best-selling surf writer Tim Baker tells this implausible story in an irresistible series of ripping yarns, offering rich life lessons, a maverick business primer and a wild ride of adventure, good times and outlandish ambitions spectacularly realised....

Test cricket is on the cusp of its 150th anniversary. For the first time, Test Cricket: A History tells the full, gripping story of the players and stories that have shaped the game's evolution since 1877....

Ballyhoo! The Roughhousers, Con Artists, and Wildmen Who Invented Professional Wrestling is a history of professional wrestling’s formative period in the U.S., from roughly 1874 to 1941, and the contested interplay of wrestlers and promoters who built the “sport” as we know it.

In Sport, the term 'good bloke' doesn't mean what it says. Like 'fun run', it in fact often means the exact opposite....

Australia enjoys a rich sporting heritage. Our small population has yielded a disproportionate number of champions....

In the tradition of Seabiscuit, critically acclaimed author Neal Bascomb reaches back to the golden age of sport and crafts an utterly captivating narrative....

Emma Gatewood told her family she was going on a walk and left her small Ohio hometown with a change of clothes and less than $200....

Immerse yourself in the drama and excitement of the Rugby World Cup - including clips from the iconic "World in Union" theme song (by Hayley Westenra) and supporting sound effects from rugby’s greatest stage....

Experience 50 years of wrestling history through the iconic voice of Jim Ross.

In the most famous scandal of sports history, eight Chicago White Sox players - including Shoeless Joe Jackson - agreed to throw the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds....

This is the story of Barbara and Larry Savage's sometimes dangerous, often zany, but ultimately rewarding 23,000-mile global bicycle odyssey, which took them through 25 countries in two years. Miles from Nowhere is an adventure not to be missed....

This wide-ranging history synthesizes scholarship and media sources to give the listener an inside view of the television contracts, labor issues, and other off-the-field forces....

Most batters just do their best, yet the top players create art. It is physically impossible to face an 80mph delivery and track it with your eyes, yet the greatest batters do more than just watch the ball, they can see into the future.

Born prematurely, weighing less than a bag of sugar, Oisin Murphy’s life has always been one of struggle. From a young age he found communion with horses. Mesmerised by their power, their spirit, he discovered a gift for the saddle.

In the four biggest American sports leagues, 124 franchises vie for the crown of greatest of all. Only one can sit atop the throne. Now for the first time ever, Got Your Legends ranks all of the franchises and explains which teams are legendary, or unique, or exciting, or tragic . . . or laughable.

From Klopp to Slot, from pressing to precision, Liverpool Football Club: Premier League Winning Formula 2024/25 charts the Reds' triumphant return to the top. A NEW ERA BEGINS WITH ARNE SLOT. Slot didn’t try to replace Jurgen Klopp’s legacy. He refined it.

Is the face of American baseball throughout the world that of goodwill ambassador or ugly American? Has baseball crafted its own image or instead been at the mercy of broader forces shaping our society and the globe.....

Baseball explores the history of organized baseball during the mid-twentieth century, examining the sport on and off the field and contextualizing its development as both sport and business....

A little over 100 years ago, East Africa was terra incognita to most whites....

The definitive biography of Steve Kerr, the championship-winning basketball player and head coach of the record-breaking Golden State Warriors....

The 1988 Seoul Olympics played host to what has been described by some as the dirtiest race of all time, by others as the greatest. Ben Johnson's world-record time of 9.79 seconds – as thrilling as it was – was the beginning rather than the end of the story.

As lead presenter for Sky Sports Formula One live coverage, Simon Lazenby is at the centre of Grand Prix race-weekend action. In this book, he takes us off camera to give us exclusive, behind-the-scenes access to the people who power this multi-billion-pound sport.

Girls Don't Play Sport is a fierce manifesto advocating for female athletes at all levels. It explores how we got to this point and asks where we need to go next to embrace the untapped potential of women's sport....

Born prematurely, weighing less than a bag of sugar, Oisin Murphy’s life has always been one of struggle. From a young age he found communion with horses. Mesmerised by their power, their spirit, he discovered a gift for the saddle. Oisin quickly established himself as one of horseracing’s most prodigious talents. But reaching the pinnacle of the sport required a high-wire dance that pushed his body and mind to their breaking point. Despite a three-year streak as champion jockey, alcohol addiction lurked beneath the surface, and a string of misdemeanours saw him banned for over a year.

In the tradition of The Boys of Summer and The Bronx Is Burning, New York Times sports columnist Harvey Araton delivers a fascinating look at the 1970s New York Knicks—part autobiography, part sports history, part epic, set against the tumultuous era when Walt Frazier, Willis Reed, and Bill Bradley reigned supreme in the world of basketball.

The story of Jackie Robinson valiantly breaking baseball’s color barrier in 1947 is one that most Americans know. But less recognized is the fact that some seventy years earlier, following the Civil War, baseball was tenuously biracial and had the potential for a truly open game. How, then, did the game become so firmly segregated that it required a trailblazer like Robinson? The answer, Ryan A. Swanson suggests, has everything to do with the politics of “reconciliation” and a wish to avoid the issues of race that an integrated game necessarily raised.

Is there a sports team more synonymous with winning than the New York Yankees? The team of Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Berra, Ford, Mantle, Jackson, Mattingly? Of Torre, Jeter, and Rivera? Of forty American League pennants, twenty-seven World Championships, and nearly forty Hall of Famers? Like so many great American institutions, the Yankees began humbly, on the muddy, uneven grass of Hilltop Park. Eighteen years later the little second-class franchise won its first pennant. Today, the Yankees are worth more than a billion dollars.

The Junction Boys tells the story of Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant's legendary training camp in the small town of Junction, Texas. In a move that many consider the salvation of the Texas A&M football program, Coach Bryant put 115 players through the most grueling practices ever imagined. Only a handful of players survived the entire 10 days, but they braved the intense heat of the Texas sun and the burning passion of their coach, and turned a floundering team into one of the nation's best.