October 2021 marks the 35th anniversary of the 86 Mets’ World Series win. ESPN recently aired a multi-part "30 for 30" documentary series on the subject, which was produced by ESPN Films, Jimmy Kimmel, Cousin Sal Iacono and Major League Baseball and directed by Nick Davis. The show features never-before-seen footage, as well as remembrances from almost all of the key players. This tie-in book is an oral history with new contributions from Keith Hernandez, Darryl Strawberry, Dwight Gooden, Lenny Dykstra and many others. Also included are unique photographs of the team and the era. A foreword by Kimmel, discussing what the Mets and their triumph means to him, rounds out this fantastic package.

The New York Yankees are unprecedented. With more than twice as many World Series titles as their closest competitor, the most MVPs and the most Hall of Fame inductees, there's never been anything quite like the franchise's storied history. Then the 2020 season took place, and the greatest team in American sports found out what "unprecedented" really means. THE BRONX ZOOM provides an intimate and engaging look behind the scenes of a year unlike any other. Veteran reporter Bryan Hoch guides readers through dizzying twists and turns as the Yankees navigate a season amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, historic movements for equality and social justice, and a bitterly contested presidential election.

It's 1969, and the greatest basketball player of all time --- Bill Russell --- and his juggernaut Boston Celtics squeak through one more playoff run and land in the NBA Finals again. Russell’s opponent is the fearsome seven-foot, one-inch next-generation superstar, Wilt Chamberlain, recently traded to the Los Angeles Lakers to form the league’s first dream team. Covering this epic series is a wide-eyed young sportswriter named Leigh Montville, who would go on to become an award-winning legend himself at The Boston Globe and Sports Illustrated, and who is sent to L.A. (for the first time!) to write about his luminous heroes, the biggest of big men. What follows is a raucous, colorful, joyous account of one of the greatest seven-game series in NBA history.

As back-to-back No. 1 draft picks for the New York Yankees, Ron Blomberg and Thurman Munson made for an odd couple. One was a good-looking, gregarious kid from Atlanta who cheerfully talked anyone’s ear off at the slightest provocation; the other was a dumpy, grumpy dude from the Midwest rust belt who was about as fond of making idle chit-chat as he was of shaving. Despite the surface differences, the two men would form a close attachment as they ignited a youth movement with the 1970s Yankees. Now, over 40 years after Munson's shocking death in a plane crash at age 32, Blomberg opens up to author Dan Epstein about the beloved Yankees captain in an extraordinary memoir that reaches far beyond baseball. 

By the fall of 2019, most teams in Major League Baseball suspected that the Houston Astros, winners of the 2017 World Series, had been stealing signs for several years. Deconstructing exactly what happened in this explosive story, award-winning sports reporter and analyst Andy Martino reveals how otherwise good people like Astros manager A. J. Hinch, bench coach Alex Cora and veteran leader Carlos Beltrán found themselves on the wrong side of clear ethical lines. Along the way, Martino explores the colorful history of cheating in baseball, from notorious episodes like the 1919 “Black Sox” fiasco all the way to the modern steroid era. But as Martino deftly shows, the Astros scandal became one of the most significant that the game has ever seen.

In THE TWELVE LIVES OF ALFRED HITCHCOCK, Edward White explores the Hitchcock phenomenon --- what defines it, how it was invented, what it reveals about the man at its core, and how its legacy continues to shape our cultural world. The book’s 12 chapters illuminate different aspects of Hitchcock’s life and work: “The Boy Who Couldn’t Grow Up”; “The Murderer”; “The Auteur”; “The Womanizer”; “The Fat Man”; “The Dandy”; “The Family Man”; “The Voyeur”; “The Entertainer”; “The Pioneer”; “The Londoner”; “The Man of God.” Each of these angles reveals something fundamental about the man he was and the mythological creature he has become, presenting not just the life Hitchcock lived but also the various versions of himself that he projected, and those projected on his behalf.

OUR TEAM traces the story of the integration of the Cleveland Indians and their quest for a World Series title through four key participants: Bill Veeck, an eccentric and visionary owner adept at exploding fireworks on and off the field; Larry Doby, a soft-spoken, hard-hitting pioneer whose major-league breakthrough shattered stereotypes that so much of white America held about Black ballplayers; Bob Feller, a pitching prodigy from the Iowa cornfields who set the template for the athlete as businessman; and Satchel Paige, a legendary pitcher from the Negro Leagues whose belated entry into the majors whipped baseball fans across the country into a frenzy.

In SO MANY WAYS TO LOSE, author and lifelong Mets fan Devin Gordon sifts through the detritus of Queens for a baseball history like no other. Remember the time the Mets lost an All-Star after he got charged by a wild boar? Or the time they blew a six-run ninth-inning lead at the peak of a pennant race? Or the time they fired their manager before he ever managed a game? Sure you do. It was only two years ago, and it was all in the same season. The Mets have an unrivaled gift for getting it backward, doing the impossible, snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, and then snatching defeat right back again.

He was called Tom Terrific for a reason. Tom Seaver was one of the most talented and popular players in the history of baseball. He is one of only two pitchers with 300 wins, 3,000 strikeouts and an ERA under 3.00. He was a three-time Cy Young Award winner, 12-time All Star, and was elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame with the highest percentage ever at the time. Popular among players and fans, Seaver was fiercely competitive but always put team success ahead of personal glory. Drawing in part on their long relationship, New York Daily News baseball columnist Bill Madden offers a deeply personal and fascinating portrait of one of the greatest and most admired players of all time.

David Wright played his entire Major League Baseball career for the New York Mets. A quick fan favorite from Virginia who then earned his stripes in New York, Wright came back time and again from injury and demonstrated the power of hard work, total commitment and an infinite love of the game. Wright’s stats are one thing. He was a seven-time All-Star, a two-time Gold Glove Award winner, and a two-time Silver Slugger Award winner. He holds many Mets franchise records and was nicknamed "Captain America" after his performance in the 2013 World Baseball Classic. But there is more: The walk-offs. The Barehand. The Subway Series and World Series home runs. And the electricity that swept through Shea Stadium and then Citi Field whenever number 5, “the Captain,” was in the game.