Provides descriptions, synopsis of rules, historical evolution, notable players, events and records pertaining to each sport or game.

The specialized jargon of some sports can be quite esoteric. Non-Americans, for example, are likely puzzled by baseball terms such as bunt, cut-off man, and safety squeeze, while the non-British may pause over cricket's Chinaman, doosra, golden duck, off-break, popping crease, and yorker. This new dictionary gives the definitions of more than 8,000 terms used in sports and games from around the world, including mainstream sports like basketball and billiards alongside the more obscure netball and snooker. Entries cover sports equipment, strategies, venues, qualifying categories, awards, and administrative bodies, while a comprehensive system of cross-references offers assistance and clarification when needed. An appendix lists standard abbreviations of sports ruling bodies and administrative organizations.

The sport of tennis has been played in one form or another for more than 800 years. It can trace its roots to games played by monks in the 12th century. Through the years the game has evolved from one in which the ball was struck with the hands to the modern game in which rackets are used to propel the ball in excess of 150 miles per hour. From the sport of the elite to the sport played by elite athletes, tennis has grown immensely in the past 135 years and it remains one of the few sporting pastimes thatis played extensively by people of all ages and all nationalities. The Historical Dictionary of Tennis presents a comprehensive history of the game through a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, photos, and over 500 cross-referenceddictionary entries on places, teams, terminology, and people, including Arthur Ashe, Björn Borg, Don Budge, Chris Evert, Roger Federer, Billie Jean King, Rod Laver, Suzanne Lenglen, John McEnroe, Rafael Nadal, Martina Navratilova, and Bill Tilden. Appendixes of the members of the International Tennis Hall of Fame, the Major Championships of Tennis, and the Olympic games are included. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about tennis.

Golf has been called the greatest of all games, but it has also been derided by none other than Mark Twain as nothing more than a good walk spoiled. Traditional teaching holds that golf originated in Scotland around the 15th century. However, there is historical evidence of games similar to golf being played in the low countries of Europe back in the 13th century. Over the many centuries of golf's evolution, the balls used have changed greatly, as have the clubs, the holes, the courses, and the entire game itself. The Historical Dictionary of Golf presents a comprehensive history of the game through a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, photos, and over 300 cross-referenced dictionary entries on places, teams, terminology, and people, including Arnold Palmer, Greg Norman, Lee Trevino, Jack Nicklaus, Annika Sörenstam, Lorena Ochoa, Phil Mickelson, and, of course, Tiger Woods. Appendixes of the members of the World Golf Hall of Fame, the Major Championships of Golf, the International Team Events, and the Professional Tour Awards are also included.

The Oxford Dictionary of Sports Science and Medicine provides comprehensive and authoritative definitions of nearly 8000 sports science and sports medicine terms. All major areas are covered, including exercise psychology, sports nutrition, biomechanics, anatomy, sports sociology, training principles and techniques and sports injury and rehabilitation The dictionary will be an invaluable aid to students, coaches, athletes and anyone wanting instant access to the scientific principles, anatomical structures, and physiological, sociological and psychological processes that affect sporting performance. It will also be of interest to the general reader interested in sports science and medicine terminology.

Figure skating is the most popular televised sport at the Olympic Winter Games and is the oldest of the winter sports, having first been contested at the Games of the fourth Olympiad in London in 1908. No other sport creates such a perfect balance between athleticism and artistry, and the athletes—many of them household names like Oksana Baiul, Brian Boitano, Nancy Kerrigan, Evan Lysacek, Katarina Witt, and Kristi Yamaguchi—spend years in training to make it look effortless. The Historical Dictionary of Figure Skating relates the history of the sport through a chronology, an introductory essay, an extensive bibliography, appendixes, and over 800 cross-referenced dictionary entries on hundreds of skaters, past and present, but also on skating countries, governing bodies, skating disciplines, technical elements, skating styles, and many other subjects. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the history of figure skating.

From the author of the bestselling Special Events, comes a new dictionary that special event professionals and students alike will refer to repeatedly. The Dictionary of Event Management defines and clarifies numerous terms for professionals and anyone interested in all components of modern event management. With this invaluable resource, the reader will gain added confidence in his or her own managerial vocabulary.

This work shows how to capture the business of mid-sized companies - from the basic concepts of foreign exhange to prospecting the corporate client. The author shows the finer points of foreign exchange regimes recognized by the IMF and that exchange rates are a matter of government restrictions

Upon first consideration, sport and art seem to occupy separate, even opposing, realms--sport, associated with physical prowess, and art, with the highest reaches of the human mind. But because sport is such a powerful metaphor for so many human experiences, it has found its way into artistic traditions all over the world. Part One of this book provides a basic understanding of sport as symbol. Part Two gives attention to animals as adversaries and traces the origins of sporting art back to the hunt. Part Three considers humans competing against humans in combat sports, ball games, stick-and-ball games, and racquet sports, as well as in warfare. Part Four concentrates on contesting with oneself in races and sports of grace and beauty such as gymnastics, figure skating and ice dancing. The book concludes with a discussion of the athlete's relationships to society.

Since the earliest days of the silent era, American filmmakers have been drawn to the visual spectacle of sports and their compelling narratives of conflict, triumph, and individual achievement. In Contesting Identities Aaron Baker examines how these cinematic representations of sports and athletes have evolved over time--from The Pinch Hitter and Buster Keaton's College to White Men Can't Jump, Jerry Maguire, and Girlfight. He focuses on how identities have been constructed and transcended in American society since the early twentieth century. Whether depicting team or individual sports, these films return to that most American of themes, the master narrative of self-reliance. Baker shows that even as sports films tackle socially constructed identities like class, race, ethnicity, sexuality, and gender, they ultimately underscore transcendence of these identities through self-reliance. Looking at films from almost every sporting genre--with a particular focus on movies about boxing, baseball, basketball, and football--Contesting Identities maps the complex cultural landscape depicted in American sports films and the ways in which stories about "subaltern" groups winning acceptance by the mainstream majority can serve to reinforce the values of that majority. In addition to discussing the genre's recurring dramatic tropes, from the populist prizefighter to the hot-headed rebel to the "manly" female athlete, Baker also looks at the social and cinematic impacts of real-life sports figures from Jackie Robinson and Babe Didrikson Zaharias to Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan.