Sports & Recreation

There is a truth in the world of hand-to-hand combat that too many martial artists aren’t aware of or refuse to believe. Every time you discover a sure technique, one that makes all your training partners groan and writhe in agony, there exists out there in the mean streets a host of people who won’t feel it. People like these:

• Attackers with large muscle bulk or large fat bulk
• Attackers intoxicated on alcohol
• Attackers under the influence of drugs
• Attackers out of control with rage
• Attackers who are mentally deranged
• Attackers who feel pain but like it

Loren W. Christensen draws on decades of martial arts training and law enforcement experience, giving you techniques to survive the worst-case scenario. This book isn’t about working out with a training partner. It’s about surviving a desperate street attack against a nightmare adversary who doesn’t acknowledge what you thought was your best shot.

This book is the only comprehensive guide to the Flat Tops Wilderness.

The Flat Tops Wilderness Area is unique, a high plateau at 11,000 feet. Its nearly flat surface is covered with woodlands and alpine meadows, pockmarked with hundreds of lakes and drained by mountain streams. The wilderness is accessed by a network of trails for hikers and horseback riders alike. A visitor could spend an entire season here and not see all of this magnificent wilderness.

The Hiking and Camping Guide to the Flat Tops Wilderness gives detailed directions to each trailhead and describes what you will find along the many trails. You will discover the many wonders of the Flat Tops; its geologic history from the episodes of mountain building and subsistence, and inundation by warm seas; the periods of volcanism and succeeding ice ages; and the first visitors to this remarkable land. The wildlife of the region, the flora and fauna, the weather, and seasons are all described. You will also learn common sense ways to protect wilderness environment as well as yourself on a visit to this incomparable land.

Arthur Carhart was said to have been so inspired by the area that it sparked the ideas fundamental to the Wilderness Act of 1964. Known as “the Cradle of Wilderness” the area, and this book, includes infamous trails like the stunning Devil’s Causeway and lesser known trails like Wall Lake Trail. Readers will find detailed maps, history and flora and fauna, regulations and hazards, as well as tips on how to avoid altitude sickness in the book.

Author Al Marlowe has backpacked, hiked, fished, and camped in the Flat Tops for over 50 years and shares his insider knowledge with adventurers in this book. Co-author Karen Rae Christopherson is a geophysicist by education and training and shares her expertise, as well, rounding out this guide as a complete resource for travelers seeking to explore the area.

True and intimate short stories of a modern fisherman's life of luck and loss.

Written in chronological order, fisherman Brad Matsen gives a realistic look of frightening weather, good fishing, terrible fishing, great days, and sweet living in Alaskan waters from the decks of crabbers, trawlers, longliners, trollers, and gillnetters.

This book and others inspired film crews to trek to Alaska and cover the crabbing seasons for reality TV shows. Commercial fishing's home ports—Dutch Harbor, Kodiak, Naknek, Cordova, Petersburg, Sitka, and Seattle—are classic fishing towns, where docks, bars, and even quiet living merge in colorful portraits about life on the last frontier.

Included in this second edition are new stories and updates from the super-heated days when fishing fleets turned king crab into fortunes, to the annual circus of Bristol Bay's monster salmon runs, to the bucolic life of the open ocean trawler.

A sensitive retelling of events that shaped a childhood, a career, and an evolving philosophy on what it means to love something—and for that love to be enough.

“Following a passionate path usually isn’t easy,” writes horsewoman Chelsea Canedy in this uninhibited and deeply thoughtful memoir tracing her experiences in the horse world and how they have impacted her development as a competitor, a teacher, a wife, and a mother. From a gate left open and a herd of horses galloping desperately down a busy road to a sage-burning “clearing space” in a barn; from falls, poor rides, and heart-wrenching divorce to connection, opportunity, and transformative friendships, Canedy digs deep to identify themes that not only tell her unique story but speak to the reader’s own. Writing with the same natural feel she found at an early age in the saddle, Canedy coaxes us to grasp the broader truths that working with horses can so often unveil.

 Reminiscences, both tender and painful, prove a catalyst for deeper exploration of what it is we are really looking for when we pursue a passion—and what it is to be human at every stage of that journey. Canedy’s sensitive retelling of the events that molded her are hewn from the barn and arena, but her perceptive questions about existence, both in its most general sense and its most nuanced, offer any reader valuable lessons in true and lasting personal growth. Canedy bravely shares the painful mistakes she has made with both horses and people, the intense guilt that has accompanied these transgressions, and how learning to accept setbacks and starting over “the best way you know how” is sometimes, maybe, what gets you where you want to go.

 Offering distinct lessons in how to be compassionate, curious, flexible, tenacious, open, aware, and ready to roll with the punches, Canedy’s book is for every reader with a passion they feel driven to pursue, while perhaps questioning its value as the years unfold. “Knowing what it is that ‘fills you up,’” writes Canedy, “in this life, that is enough.”

A lingering, long-haul collection of writing about sailing for readers of Julietta Singh and Kyo Maclear.

In Relative to Wind, Phoebe Wang delivers a poetic rendering of her decade-long journey of learning to sail and a deep dive into what it means to be a newcomer to an old tradition. From working along­side crewmates in tempestuous conditions to becoming an avid racer and organizer to drafting a wistful love letter to a Wayfarer dinghy—while examining the loose tether between sailing and a creative life—Wang delivers a book for sailors and would-be sailors that is thoughtful and surprising at every tack.

"A thoughtful, illuminating look at life away from land."—Kirkus

Roger Angell meets Hanif Abdurraqib meets Bull Durham in this sharp new collection of baseball writing by Andrew Forbes

Baseball is a sport, a pastime, an obsession, a dream—and for some, it’s also a day job. A poetic survey of baseball’s rich history, Field Work shines a light on the people who make the game happen, from major-league stars and little-league coaches to gamblers, ballpark operators, and minor leaguers forging lives outside the dugout.

With sharp-eyed observations and beautiful digressions, these essays portray the complex relationship between work and play—both on and off the field—to demonstrate how baseball is more than just a game.

From the front office to the family room, sabermetrics has dramatically changed the way baseball players are assessed and valued by fans and managers alike. Rocketed to popularity by the 2003 bestseller Moneyball and the film of the same name, the use of sabermetrics to analyze player performance has appeared to be a David to the Goliath of systemically advantaged richer teams that could be toppled only by creative statistical analysis. The story has been so compelling that, over the past decade, team after team has integrated statistical analysis into its front office. But how accurately can crunching numbers quantify a player's ability? Do sabermetrics truly level the playing field for financially disadvantaged teams? How much of the baseball analytic trend is fad and how much fact?

The Sabermetric Revolution sets the record straight on the role of analytics in baseball. Former Mets sabermetrician Benjamin Baumer and leading sports economist Andrew Zimbalist correct common misinterpretations and develop new methods to assess the effectiveness of sabermetrics on team performance. Tracing the growth of front office dependence on sabermetrics and the breadth of its use today, they explore how Major League Baseball and the field of sports analytics have changed since the 2002 season. Their conclusion is optimistic, but the authors also caution that sabermetric insights will be more difficult to come by in the future. The Sabermetric Revolution offers more than a fascinating case study of the use of statistics by general managers and front office executives: for fans and fantasy leagues, this book will provide an accessible primer on the real math behind moneyball as well as new insight into the changing business of baseball.

When Rube Foster was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981, his rightful place alongside baseball's greatest black heroes was at last firmly established. A world-class pitcher, a formidable manager, and a brilliant administrator, Rube Foster was arguably more influential in breaking down the color barrier in major league baseball than the venerable Jackie Robinson.
Born in 1879, Rube Foster pitched for the legendary black baseball teamsthe Cuban X-Giants and the Philadelphia Giants before becoming player-manager of the Leland Giants and the Chicago American Giants. Long a central figure in black baseball, he founded baseball's first black leaguethe Negro National League in 1920. From its inception, the Negro League served as a vehicle through which many of the finest black players could showcase their considerable talents. Challenging racial discrimination and stereotypes, it ultimately set the stage for future efforts to contest Jim Crow.
Despite the long-standing success of the Negro National League as an influential black institution, Rube Foster was deeply embittered by organized baseball's unmitigated refusal to lift the color barrier. He died a broken man in 1930.
The Best Pitcher in Baseball is the story of a man of unparalleled vision and organizational acumen whose passion for justice changed the face of baseball forever. It is a moving tribute to a man and his dream.

Data and analytics have the potential to provide sports organizations with a competitive advantage both on and off the field. Yet even as the use of analytics in sports has become commonplace, teams regularly find themselves making big investments without significant payoff.

This book is a practical, nontechnical guide to incorporating sports data into decision making, giving leaders the knowledge they need to maximize their organization’s investment in analytics. Benjamin C. Alamar—a leading expert who has built high-performing analytics groups—surveys the current state of the use of data in sports, including both specifics around the tools and how to deploy them most effectively. Sports Analytics offers a clear, easily digestible overview of data management, statistical models, and information systems and a detailed understanding of their vast possibilities. It walks readers through the essentials of understanding the value of different types of data and strategies for building and managing an analytics team. Throughout, Alamar illustrates the value of analytics with real-world examples and case studies from both the sports and business sides.

Sports Analytics has guided a range of sports professionals to success since its original publication in 2013. This second edition adds examples and strategies that focus on using data on the business side of a sports organization, provides concrete strategies for incorporating different types of data into decision making, and updates all discussions for the rapid technological developments of the last decade.