Books, Sports, Miscellaneous, Sociology of Sports

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Franklin Foer
How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization
by Harper Perennial (Paperback) (Release Date: 2005-07-05)

Lisa P. Masteralexis, Carol Barr, Mary Hums
Principles And Practice Of Sport Management
by Jones & Bartlett Pub (Paperback)

Updated and expanded, Principles and Practice of Sport Management, Third Edition offers a comprehensive introduction to the sport management industry. From the basic knowledge and skill sets of a sport manager to the current trends and issues of the sport management industry, this best-selling text provides the foundation for students as they study and prepare for a variety of sport management careers. The authors, all well-known sport industry professionals, show students how to apply their new knowledge and skills to any segment in the sport industry from high school to the international arena. Students gain a solid understanding of sport management structures and learn to apply principles such as sport ethics to the many segments and support systems of the industry.

Mark Fainaru-Wada, Lance Williams
Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal that Rocked Professional Sports
by Gotham (Hardcover)

The complete inside story of the shocking steroids scandal that turned the sports world upside down For years, in the shadowy reaches of the world of sport, there were rumors that some of our nation’s greatest athletes were using steroids, human growth hormone, and other drugs to run faster, jump higher, and hit harder. But as track stars like Marion Jones blazed their way to Olympic medals and sluggers such as Mark McGwire brought fans back to baseball with stratospheric home runs, sports officials, the media, and fans looked past the rumors and cheered on the stars to ever-higher levels of performance. Then, in December 2004, after more than fifteen months of relentless reporting, San Francisco Chronicle reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams broke the story of the Bay Area Lab Co-operative, a tiny nutritional supplement company that according to sworn testimony was supplying elite athletes, including baseball MVP Jason Giambi, with banned ...

Liz Clarke
One Helluva Ride: How NASCAR Swept the Nation
by Villard (Hardcover) (Release Date: 2008-02-12)

From its raw beginnings on Southern dirt tracks, NASCAR smacked of a slightly depraved spectacle, as if nothing but trouble could come from the unbridled locomotion of a V8 engine. By the time NASCAR roared into the twenty-first century, it had grown into a billion-dollar sports and marketing colossus, its races attended by hundreds of thousands of fans on any given weekend from mid-February through mid-November, watched on television by the second-largest viewing audience in sports, and bankrolled by the marketing largesse of the Fortune 500’s elite.One Helluva Ride, a full-throttle account of the rise and reign of NASCAR nation, is award-winning motorsports reporter Liz Clarke’s chronicle of how stock car racing exploded from regional obsession to national phenomenon. In covering the sport for more than fifteen years, Clarke has developed a strong rapport with NASCAR’s drivers, team owners, and hard-core fans. Through her reporting and analysis, we get to know the public ...

Will Leitch
God Save the Fan: How Steroid Hypocrites, Soul-Sucking Suits, and a Worldwide Leader Not Named Bush Have Taken the Fun Out of Sports
by Harper Paperbacks (Paperback) (Release Date: 2009-02-03)

Arch and unrepentant, Will Leitch, founding editor of Deadspin.com, is the mouthpiece for all the frustrated fans who just want their games back from big money, bloated egos, and blathering sportscasters. Always a fan first and a sportswriter second, Leitch considers the perfection of fantasy leagues and the meaninglessness of the steroids debate as he exposes Olympic fetishes, parses Shaq's rap attack on Kobe, shares a brew with John Rocker and his surprising girlfriend, and reveals what ESPN and the beer companies really think about you. If you or a fan you love is suffering from a sense of listless dissatisfaction brought on by the leagues and networks, God Save the Fan is your new manifesto.

Stephen Altrogge
Game Day for the Glory of God: A Guide for Athletes, Fans, and Wannabes
by Crossway Books (Paperback)

This book gives biblical guidance on playing, watching, and discussing sports in a God-glorifying manner, helping believers grow in both their love for God and their passion for holiness. Scripture calls Christians to do everything for the glory of God. That means every thought, every word, and every deed are to be done in a way that brings pleasure and honor to him. Believe it or not, this includes playing, watching, and talking sports! But most of us fail to recognize how sports fit into the big picture of a God-glorifying life, unable to imagine that the God who created the universe might actually care about Little League games and Monday Night Football. So how do we play, watch, and talk sports for God’s glory? Game Day for the Glory of God seeks to answer that question from a biblical perspective. Sports fan Stephen Altrogge aims to help readers enjoy sports as a gift from God and to see sports as a means of growing in godliness.

William C. Rhoden
Forty Million Dollar Slaves: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Black Athlete
by Three Rivers Press (Paperback) (Release Date: 2007-07-24)

From Jackie Robinson to Muhammad Ali and Arthur Ashe, African American athletes have been at the center of modern culture, their on-the-field heroics admired and stratospheric earnings envied. But for all their money, fame, and achievement, says New York Times columnist William C. Rhoden, black athletes still find themselves on the periphery of true power in the multibillion-dollar industry their talent built.Provocative and controversial, Rhoden’s $40 Million Slaves weaves a compelling narrative of black athletes in the United States, from the plantation to their beginnings in nineteenth-century boxing rings and at the first Kentucky Derby to the history-making accomplishments of notable figures such as Jesse Owens, Althea Gibson, and Willie Mays. Rhoden makes the cogent argument that black athletes’ “evolution” has merely been a journey from literal plantations—where sports were introduced as diversions to quell revolutionary stirrings—to today’s figurative ones, ...

Michael A. Leeds, Peter von Allmen
Economics of Sports, The (3rd Edition) (The Addison-Wesley Series in Economics)
by Addison Wesley (Hardcover)

Many economists find the sports industry to be the ideal paradigm to illustrate a range of economic concepts, which explains why the Economics of Sports course continues to grow in popularity. Now in the Third Edition, The Economics of Sports explores economic concepts and theory—industrial organization, public finance, and labor economics—in the context of applications from American and international sports. Introduction and Review of Economic Concepts: Introduction; Review of the Economist's Arsenal. The Industrial Organization of Sports: Sports Franchises as Profit-Maximizing Firms; Monopoly and Antitrust; Competitive Balance. The Public Finance of Sports: The Public Finance of Sports: The Market for Sports Franchises; The Costs and Benefits of a Franchise to a City. The Labor Economics of Sports: An Introduction to Labor Markets in Professional Sports; Labor Unions and Labor Relations; Discrimination; The Economics of Amateurism and College Sports. For all ...

Tom Farrey
Game On: The All-American Race to Make Champions of Our Children
by ESPN (Hardcover) (Release Date: 2008-05-06)

A first-of-its-kind investigative book on the least examined and most important topic in sports today. Youth sports isn't just orange slices and all-star trophies anymore. It's 14-year-olds who enter high school with a decade of football experience, 9-year-olds competing for national baseball championships, 5-year-old golfers who shoot par, and toddlers made from sperm donated (for a fee) by elite college athletes. It's a year-round "travel team" in every community--and parents who fear that not making the cut in grade school will cost their kid the chance to play in high school. In short, a landscape in which performance often matters more than participation, all the way down to peewee basketball.Much as Fast Food Nation challenged our eating habits and Silent Spring rewired how we think about the environment, Tom Farrey's Game On will forever change the way we look at this desperate culture besotted by the example of Tiger Woods. An Emmy award-winning reporter, Farrey examines ...

John Foot
Winning at All Costs: A Scandalous History of Italian Soccer
by Nation Books (Paperback)

The 2006 World Cup final between Italy and France was a down-and-dirty game, marred by French superstar Zidane's head-butting of Italian defender Materazzi. But viewers were also exposed to the poetry, force, and excellence of the Italian game; as operatic as Verdi and as cunning as Machiavelli, it seemed to open a window into the Italian soul. John Foot's epic history shows what makes Italian soccer so unique. Mixing serious analysis and comic storytelling, Foot describes its humble origins in northern Italy in the 1890s to its present day incarnation where soccer is the national civic religion. A story that is reminiscent of Gangs of New York and A Clockwork Orange, Foot shows how the Italian game — like its political culture — has been overshadowed by big business, violence, conspiracy, and tragedy, how demagogues like Benito Mussolini and Silvio Berlusconi have used the game to further their own political ambitions. But Winning at All Costs also celebrates the sweet ...

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