Sports Science

Those who have been lured by the sound of skate blades slicing into fresh ice and everything-or-nothing attitude of the game know that hockey can seem like its own world. Yet in another light, that tight community can turn insular; the values of teamwork and humility can manifest as collective silence in the face of abuse and discrimination. In Game Misconduct, reporters Evan Moore and Jashvina Shah reveal hockey's toxic undercurrent which has permeated the sport throughout the junior, college, and professional levels.

In November 1934 as the United States and Japan drifted toward war, a team of American League all-stars that included Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, future secret agent Moe Berg, and Connie Mack barnstormed across the Land of the Rising Sun. Hundreds of thousands of fans, many waving Japanese and American flags, welcomed the team with shouts of Banzai! Banzai Babe Ruth! The all-stars stayed for a month, playing 18 games, spawning professional baseball in Japan.

In recent years "recovery" has become a sports and fitness buzzword. Anyone who works out or competes at any level is bombarded with the latest recovery products and services: from drinks and shakes to compression sleeves, foam rollers, electrical muscle stimulators, and sleep trackers. In Good to Go, acclaimed FiveThirtyEight science writer Christie Aschwanden takes listeners on an entertaining and enlightening tour through this strange world.

Following a game warden’s adventures from the woods of Maine to the swamps of New Orleans as he and his canine companions investigate murder, search for missing persons, and rescue survivors from natural disasters, this is a memoir that reads like a true crime novel. A Good Man with a Dog explores Roger Guay’s life as he and his canine partners are exposed to terrible events, from tracking down hostile poachers to searching for victims of violent crimes,

When the Detroit Red Wings were rebooting their franchise after more than two decades of relative futility, they knew the best place to find world-class players who could turn things around more quickly were conscripted servants behind the Iron Curtain. All they had to do to get them was make history by drafting them and then figure out how to get them out of the Soviet Union.

Legendary 17th century swordsman Miyamoto Musashi’s exposition of sword fighting, strategy and Zen philosophy. Required reading for any martial artist, business person or student of strategy. Includes the one hour Zen inspired soundtrack The Mysterious Sound of Wind in the Bamboo. Performed on authentic Japanese instruments.

Dr. Mark Cucuzzella explains the simple mechanics of how our bodies have evolved and adapted to run. Despite our natural ability and our human need to run, each year more than half of all runners suffer injuries. Pain and discouragement inevitably follow. Cucuzzella's book outlines the proven, practical techniques to avoid injury and reach the goal of personal fitness and overall health.

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately.” And so it began. Henry David Thoreau, at 27, built a tiny, one-room cabin in the woods — on land owned by his friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson — and began his two-year experiment in frugality on the shore of Walden Pond. He wasn’t seeking isolation so much as simplicity, to “live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.”

Unlock the world of mind-blowing facts and embark on a journey of discovery in this book packed with wonders about science, animals, space, inventions, and more! Do you find it hard to spark curiosity in young minds without turning to screens?

Decried as “human cockfighting” by Senator John McCain and dismissed by the New York Times as a “pay-per-view prism” onto the decline of Western civilization, the UFC seemed by 2000 to be bleeding out. The cage fighting promotion had been banned in thirty-six states and was struggling to cover production costs for its next event.

Have you ever gotten bored when the weather is too bad to go outside for recess? Bored students and bad weather inspired James Naismith to invent the game of basketball in the late 19th century. Using a soccer ball and peach baskets, Professor Naismith worked out the rules of the new sport at the local YMCA.

Meet Mei, a mythical mermaid midfielder on the lookout for a new teammate! She scouts Megan, a human who’s got the skills on land. With a helpful magical tail (and a little practice), Megan swims onto the field. Will she become the next undersea soccer star?

Conventional wisdom about running is passed down like folklore (and sometimes contradicts itself). In Running Smart, Mariska van Sprundel, a science journalist and recreational runner who has had her fair share of injuries, sets out to explore the science behind such claims.

Tales of adventures on the high seas captivate both sailors and those who stand on the shore and gaze out across the oceans. In this original collection of sea stories, edited by veteran writer Dick Durham, the gamut of human experience is mirrored in a world of tragic shipwrecks and sea monsters, epic races and brave rescues, tall ships and tiny dinghies.

An NFL tight end for the New Orleans Saints and a widely read and followed commentator on social media, Watson has taken the Internet by storm with his remarkable insights about some of the most sensitive and charged topics of our day. Now, in Under Our Skin, Watson draws from his own life, his family legacy, and his role as a father to sensitively and honestly examine both sides of the race debate and appeal to the power and possibility of faith as a step toward healing.

For more than twenty-five years, paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould wrote a column called "The View of Life" for Natural History magazine. More than thirty entries from that column comprise this collection, which covers topics from dinosaurs to baseball and nearly everything in between related to natural history and evolution.

A world-leading sport ecologist, Madeleine interviews athletes, coaches, politicians and thought-leaders to learn more about the inevitable consequences for this trillion-dollar industry. From the front lines of climate change, Warming Up takes listeners through a play-by-play of how global warming is already impacting sport, and how the sports world can fight back.

The Playmaker on any team makes the right decision at the right time, almost every time. Despite the constraints of time, tactics, and rules, the best players combine their vision and skills with razor-sharp decision accuracy for an unstoppable competitive advantage. As a follow-up to The Playmaker’s Advantage, their best-selling guide for athletes, coaches, and parents, Daniel Peterson and Dr. Leonard Zaichkowsky now focus on the split-second decision-making process that produces both clutch plays and mental mistakes.

Eye of the Albatross takes us soaring to locales where whales, sea turtles, penguins, and shearwaters flourish in their own quotidian rhythms. Carl Safina’s guide and inspiration is an albatross he calls Amelia, whose life and far-flung flights he describes in fascinating detail. Interwoven with recollections of whalers and famous explorers, Eye of the Albatross probes the unmistakable environmental impact of the encounters between man and marine life.

For readers and viewers of The Perfect Storm, opening this long-awaited work by Sebastian Junger will be like stepping off the deck of the Andrea Gail and into the inferno of a fire burning out of control in the steep canyons of Idaho. Here is the same meticulous prose brought to bear on the inner workings of a terrifying elemental force; here is a cast of characters risking everything in an effort to bring that force under control.