Sports/games/ches

In 1937, the Great Depression was still lingering, but at baseball parks across the country there was a sense of optimism. Major League attendance was on a sharp rise. Tickets to an Indians game at League Park on Lexington and East 66th were $1.60 for box seats, $1.35 for reserve seats, and $.55 for the bleachers. Cleveland fans were particularly upbeat--Bob Feller, the teenage phenomenon, was a farm boy with a blistering fast ball. Night games were an exciting development. Better days were ahead.

But there were mounting issues facing the Indians. For one thing, it was rumored that the team had illegally signed Feller. Baseball Commissioner Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis was looking into that matter and one other. Issues with an alcoholic catcher, dugout fights, bats thrown into stands, injuries, and a player revolt kept things lively.

In Bad Boys, Bad Times: The Cleveland Indians and Baseball in the Prewar Years, 1937-1941--the follow-up to his No Money, No Beer, No Pennants: The Cleveland Indians and Baseball in the Great Depression--baseball historian Scott H. Longert writes about an exciting period for the team, with details and anecdotes that will please fans all over.

Bananagrams is on a roll. Now introducing Bananagrams! The On-the-Go Edition, a Bananagrams! book in the bestselling chunky 4 by 6-inch format.

It's an appealing puzzle-book format that's perfect for on-the-go play--to be pulled out of a purse, messenger bag, or knapsack. And just like crosswords, Sudoku, and word searches, Bananagrams! are the kind of puzzles best for when commuting or in the waiting room, or to play before bed--whenever there are a few minutes to challenge and stretch the brain.

On-the-Go offers a total of 575 original puzzles in three levels of difficulty and sixteen lively and varied puzzle types, including two created exclusively for this book. Plus there are Weords (weird words that are fun to play), lists of common two- and three-letter words to improve your game, fun facts about bananas and monkeys, and (of course!) an answer key.

From The New York Times baseball columnist, an enchanting, enthralling history of the national pastime as told through the craft of pitching, based on years of archival research and interviews with more than three hundred people from Hall of Famers to the stars of today.

The baseball is an amazing plaything. We can grip it and hold it so many different ways, and even the slightest calibration can turn an ordinary pitch into a weapon to thwart the greatest hitters in the world. Each pitch has its own history, evolving through the decades as the masters pass it down to the next generation. From the earliest days of the game, when Candy Cummings dreamed up the curveball while flinging clamshells on a Brooklyn beach, pitchers have never stopped innovating.

In K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches, Tyler Kepner traces the colorful stories and fascinating folklore behind the ten major pitches. Each chapter highlights a different pitch, from the blazing fastball to the fluttering knuckleball to the slippery spitball. Infusing every page with infectious passion for the game, Kepner brings readers inside the minds of combatants sixty feet, six inches apart.

Filled with priceless insights from many of the best pitchers in baseball history--from Bob Gibson, Steve Carlton, and Nolan Ryan to Greg Maddux, Mariano Rivera, and Clayton Kershaw--K will be the definitive book on pitching and join such works as The Glory of Their Times and Moneyball as a classic of the genre.

Perhaps no NBA player today is as exciting and yet enigmatic as Kyrie Irving. Martin Gitlin's biography chronicles Irving's brilliance on the court as a devastating one-on-one talent, examines the influence of his father, the untimely death of his mother, his growth as a basketball player in high school and college, and his journey in the NBA.

Nicknamed the "Isolation Assassin," Irving has earned the distinction as the most incredible isolation player in the league, outperforming rivals such as Stephen Curry and Russell Westbrook with his crossover dribble, drives to the basket, stop-and-go moves, and smooth, feathery jumpers, a distinction borne out, moreover, by his championship-clinching shot against Curry's Golden State Warriors in 2016. Yet while he speaks of maximizing his talent, he has shown reluctance to maximize the production of his teammates by passing the ball, as well as his overall defense. Irving expresses his desire to win championships yet demanded a trade away from the franchise best suited to deliver him a second.

Off the court there is no one like Irving either. An educated individual who claims that the earth could be flat and that dinosaurs perhaps never existed, Irving is a man of puzzling contradictions who seeks self-actualization and contentment through a variety of pursuits, including reflection, music, and acting. Gitlin, a veteran writer who has followed Irving's career from the beginning, has much to tell about one of the most mysterious and sensational athletes of our time whose appeal transcends his sport.

For over a century the Boy Scouts of America has provided millions of American boys with the outdoor adventures of Scouting. At Scout camps across the nation, from early encampments to well-established Scout Reservations, summer camp has been the highlight building character while creating life-long memories. As America evolved so did the Boy Scouts and when the nation was at its best so was Scouting. Primitive Paradise is the story of Scout Camping, its evolution in the United States and impact on society as it unfolded in one community, Cleveland, Ohio. How out of the dreams of men and adventuring of boys a primitive paradise, Beaumont Scout Reservation came to be. How the powers of strong community built it and divided society facilitated its demise.

INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER
NEW YORK TIMES MONTHLY BESTSELLER
One of the 10 Best Books of March, Paste Magazine

A deeply reported insider perspective of Alex Honnold's historic achievement and the culture and history of climbing.

"One of the most compelling accounts of a climb and the climbing ethos that I've ever read."--Sebastian Junger

In Mark Synnott's unique window on the ethos of climbing, his friend Alex Honnold's astonishing free solo ascent of El Capitan's 3,000 feet of sheer granite is the central act. When Honnold topped out at 9:28 A.M. on June 3, 2017, having spent fewer than four hours on his historic ascent, the world gave a collective gasp. The New York Times described it as "one of the great athletic feats of any kind, ever." Synnott's personal history of his own obsession with climbing since he was a teenager--through professional climbing triumphs and defeats, and the dilemmas they render--makes this a deeply reported, enchanting revelation about living life to the fullest. What are we doing if not an impossible climb?

Synnott delves into a raggedy culture that emerged decades earlier during Yosemite's Golden Age, when pioneering climbers like Royal Robbins and Warren Harding invented the sport that Honnold would turn on its ear. Painting an authentic, wry portrait of climbing history and profiling Yosemite heroes and the harlequin tribes of climbers known as the Stonemasters and the Stone Monkeys, Synnott weaves in his own experiences with poignant insight and wit: tensions burst on the mile-high northwest face of Pakistan's Great Trango Tower; fellow climber Jimmy Chin miraculously persuades an official in the Borneo jungle to allow Honnold's first foreign expedition, led by Synnott, to continue; armed bandits accost the same trio at the foot of a tower in the Chad desert . . .

The Impossible Climb is an emotional drama driven by people exploring the limits of human potential and seeking a perfect, choreographed dance with nature. Honnold dared far beyond the ordinary, beyond any climber in history. But this story of sublime heights is really about all of us. Who doesn't need to face down fear and make the most of the time we have?