The United States men's national soccer team has a rich history dating back to the early twentieth century. The team, along with the sport, toiled in obscurity for decades but found its breakthrough moment in 1989 when the United States qualified for its first World Cup in 40 years. In A History of the U.S. Men's National Soccer Team, Clemente A. Lisi recounts the team's significant achievements and history-making moments, including its decisive...

"Ballyhoo! The Roughhousers, Con Artists, and Wildmen Who Invented Professional Wrestling is a history of professional wrestling’s formative period in the U.S., from roughly 1874 to 1941, and the contested interplay of wrestlers and promoters who built the “sport” as we know it. During this period, the major conventions that would define wrestling to the present day were perfected and codified, as wrestling morphed from a rough sport practiced...

"In this in-depth look at the heated debates over paying college athletes, Ronald A. Smith starts at the beginning: the first intercollegiate athletics competition--a crew regatta between Harvard and Yale--in 1852, when both teams received an all-expenses-paid vacation from a railroad magnate. This striking opening sets Smith on the path of a story filled with paradoxes and hypocrisies that plays out on the field, in meeting rooms, and in courtrooms--and...

"This book contextualizes the latest rise in athlete activism against racial inequality by surveying the history of protest in American sports. Steele reveals that the platform sports stardom affords has always come with the responsibility to speak out against injustice even if not all athletes have answered that call"--

After the 1969 season, the St. Louis Cardinals traded their star center fielder, Curt Flood, to the Philadelphia Phillies, setting off a chain of events that would change professional sports forever. At the time there were no free agents, no no-trade clauses. When a player was traded, he had to report to his new team or retire. Unwilling to leave St. Louis and influenced by the civil rights movement, Flood chose to sue Major League Baseball for his...

"This fully illustrated history tells the story of women's first "league of their own," the All-American Girl's Professional Baseball League (1943-1954), as told through the engaging voices of the people who knew it best: the players! Author Anika Orrock has collected a range of funny, charming, wince-worthy and heart-warming vignettes as told by the players themselves from their various experiences playing in the AAGBPL, from the very first tryouts...

In 2016, amid an epidemic of police shootings of African Americans, the celebrated NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick began a series of quiet protests on the field, refusing to stand during the U.S. national anthem. By “taking a knee,” Kaepernick bravely joined a long tradition of American athletes making powerful political statements. This time, however, Kaepernick’s simple act spread like wildfire throughout American society, becoming the preeminent...

The professional basketball player and 2016 Olympic gold medalist shares her inspirational story of overcoming the challenges of competitive sports through balancing hard work and the support of family.

Ana & Andrew are finally old enough to play team sports! Andrew tries out for the baseball team. When he is nervous before his first game, Papa tells him to think of Jackie Robinson, the first African American to play modern Major League Baseball.

Marvin Miller changed major league baseball and the business of sports. Drawing on research and interviews with Miller and others, Marvin Miller, Baseball Revolutionary offers the first biography covering the pivotal labor leader's entire life and career. Baseball historian Robert F. Burk follows Miller's formative encounters with Depression-era hard times, racial and religious bigotry, and bare-knuckle Washington politics to a successful career in...