Introduces baseball, including the equipment used, the basics of play, and how to score in a game.

Greg Larson was a starry-eyed fan when he hurtled headfirst into professional baseball. As the new clubhouse attendant for the Aberdeen IronBirds, a Minor League affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles, Larson assumed he’d entered a familiar world. He thought wrong. He quickly discovered the bizarre rituals of life in the Minors: fights between players, teammates quitting in the middle of the games, doomed relationships, and a negligent parent organization. All the while, Larson, fresh out of college, harbored a secret wish. Despite the team’s struggles and his own lack of baseball talent, he yearned to join the exclusive fraternity of professional ballplayers. Instead, Larson fell deeper into his madcap venture as the scheming clubbie. He moved into the clubhouse equipment closet, his headquarters to swing deals involving memorabilia, booze, and loads of cash. By his second season, Larson had transformed into a deceptive, dip-spitting veteran, now fully part of a system that exploited players he considered friends. Like most Minor Leaguers, the gravitational pull of baseball was still too strong for Larson—even if chasing his private dream might cost him his girlfriend, his future, and, ultimately, his love of the game. That is, until an unlikely shot at a championship gives Larson and the IronBirds one final swing at redemption. Clubbie is a hilarious behind-the-scenes tale of two seasons in the mysterious world of Minor League Baseball. With cinematic detail and a colorful cast of characters, Larson spins an unforgettable true story for baseball fans and nonfans alike. An unflinching look at the harsh experience of professional sports, Clubbie will be a touchstone in baseball literature for years to come.

The NFL champion whose life inspired the hit movie The Blind Side is back with an inspiring and motivating book on overcoming any obstacle, no matter how tough the odds Millions of people became part of Michael Oher’s story when they watched a version of him on the big screen; read his memoir, I Beat the Odds; or cheered him on from the stands. After speaking to so many of them over the years, Oher knows that more than anything, people want to believe great things can happen, even when the situation looks bleak. His story of overcoming the toughest of odds serves as their hope. Oher’s life has had a lot of unexpected highs: a college degree; four beautiful, healthy children and a happy marriage; drafted in the first round; a Super Bowl victory; and a second chance to play in the “big game.” He’s also run up against quite a few walls: poverty, hunger, homelessness, struggles in school, bullying, job loss, brain injury, anxiety, and depression. What he knows now is that your wall can be your opportunity. In When Your Back’s Against the Wall, he offers encouragement and shows readers how to get back up—again, and again, and again.

This first-ever volume focusing on sports pulp fiction devoted to America's two most popular pastimes of the 1935-1957 era--baseball and football--provides extensive detail on authors, along with examination of key plots, themes, trends and categories. Commentary relates the works to real-life baseball and football of the period. The history of the genre is traced, beginning with the debut of Dime Sport (later renamed Dime Sports), the first magazine from a major publisher to provide competition for Street & Smith's long-established Sport Story Magazine. Complementing the text is a complete catalog of fiction from the six major publishers who competed with S&S, also noting the cover themes for 1,054 issues.

From a distance, soccer may seem like a tough sport to understand. Once you get to the pitch and get running, though, it’s easy to see why it’s so much fun! Readers explore “the beautiful game” in this exciting title full of soccer terms and facts. From an easy explanation of offside rules to the history of red and yellow cards, colorful photos and graphics make soccer history and tactical concepts easy to understand, bringing a new generation to the world’s most popular sport.

Basketball is a game of numbers. Scoring points is one thing, but readers might not know that each position in basketball has a number, too! It’s just one of the many fun facts about basketball a reader needs to know to sound like a pro. Full-color photographs and graphic organizers explain concepts like the difference between a small forward and a power forward while introducing new terminology that helps readers get their heads in the game and ready to take the floor.

Can you put the biscuit in the basket? If you don’t know your hockey lingo, that might be a hard question to answer. After reading this book full of colorful graphics and photos explaining the finer points of hockey jargon, readers will be sure to take a shot on net and try scoring a goal for themselves. From technical terms for hockey equipment to explanations of hockey rules and positions, this book has everything readers need to lace up the skates and hit the ice with confidence.