Golf: Four Decades of Sports Illustrated's Finest Writing on the Game of Golf (Sports Illustrated Collector's Library)

Sports & Outdoors

Rick Reilly

Frank Deford

Herbert Warren Wind

Sarah Ballard

Dan Jenkins

Golf

Time, Inc.

Bliss, Remembered

Overlook Press

Alexandra Deford, a precious and precocious girl, was just eight years old when she died in 1980 following a battle against the debilitating effects of cystic fibrosis, the number-one genetic killer of children. Her poignant and uplifting story has touched the hearts of millions. This edition contains previously unpublished photographs and a new postscript revealing how the Desford family came to terms with the loss of a child and sister.

Alex the Life of a Child

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

Rutledge Hill Press

America's finest sportswriter tells the story of how Christy Mathewson and John McGraw helped bring baseball into the modern era. Because of their wonderful odd-couple association, the Giants ascended into legend and baseball bloomed.  Available only in Nonfiction 4

The Old Ball Game: How John Mcgraw, Christy Mathewson, And The New York Giants Created Modern Baseball

Thorndike Press

Set in the nostalgic year of 1955, this touching novel reveals a unique kind of love between kindred spirit
Set in the nostalgic year of 1955, this touching novel reveals a unique kind of love between kindred spirits. It is told through the voice of 14-year-old Christy Banister, a sweet, slightly naïve young boy in need of guidance as he makes his way through adolescence. He has moved to Baltimore with his father, and as the new kid on the block in an isolated new neighborhood, Christy has few opportunities to make new friends.
 At the start of the summer, Christy meets 23-year-old Kathryn Slade. Once a beautiful young woman, Kathryn is now a quadriplegic after a battle with polio that nearly cost her life when she was 17. However, despite Kathryn's physical limitations, she and Christy develop a strong and intimate friendship. 
As Christy struggles to grow up, he must learn to deal with the problems that usually beset a much older boy as he also confronts issues of sex and familial betrayal. Yet the friendship, wisdom and vitality bestowed by Kathryn serves as a guiding light. At the same time, Christy helps to give Kathryn new joy and six weeks of hope. Their summer ends with the ultimate victory of lives lived and loved.s. It is told through the voice of 14-year-old Christy Banister, a sweet, slightly naïve young boy in need of guidance as he makes his way through adolescence. He has moved to Baltimore with his father, and as the new kid on the block in an isolated new neighborhood, Christy has few opportunities to make new friends. At the start of the summer, Christy meets 23-year-old Kathryn Slade. Once a beautiful young woman, Kathryn is now a quadriplegic after a battle with polio that nearly cost her life when she was 17. However, despite Kathryn's physical limitations, she and Christy develop a strong and intimate friendship. 
As Christy struggles to grow up, he must learn to deal with the problems that usually beset a much older boy as he also confronts issues of sex and familial betrayal. Yet the friendship, wisdom and vitality bestowed by Kathryn serves as a guiding light. At the same time, Christy helps to give Kathryn new joy and six weeks of hope. Their summer ends with the ultimate victory of lives lived and loved.

An American Summer: A Novel

Literature & Fiction

Literary

Sourcebooks Landmark

With Bliss, Remembered, the celebrated Frank Deford has produced a work of literature that ranks with the best of his many novels, including Everybody's All American, which Sports Illustrated ranked as one of the twenty-five best sports books of all time. In Bliss, Remembered, Deford explores new territory as he tells two love stories from the perspective of a beautiful should-have-been Olympic champion named Sydney Stringfellow. At the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Sydney begins an intense love affair with a German, but the affair abruptly ends when political forces tear them apart. Back in the U.S., Sydney--daring, vulnerable, and memorable--is left healing her broken heart when a striking American begins to pursue her. In Deford's tender novel, the simplicity and honesty of choices of the heart clash with a brutal time--a time when choices seemed so dire in the enveloping shadows of a changing world.

United States

Blackstone Audiobooks

The classic biography of America’s first tennis star. When he stepped onto the Wimbledon grass in 1920, Bill Tilden was poised to become the world’s greatest tennis star. Throughout the 1920's he dominated the sport, winning championship after championship with his trademark grace, power, and intelligence. He owned the game more completely than Babe Ruth ruled baseball, making his name, for more than a decade, synonymous with tennis. Phenomenally intelligent—he completed his first book on tennis in the three weeks before his first Wimbledon triumph—Tilden’s success came with a dark side. This classic biography, by legendary sports writer Frank Deford, tells of Tilden’s dominance, which was unlike anything the sport had ever seen—and the big man’s tragic fall.

Big Bill Tilden

Audible Studios on Brilliance Audio

In The Old Ball Game, Frank Deford, NPR sports commentator and Sports Illustrated journalist retells the story of an unusual friendship between two towering figures in baseball history.At the turn of the twentieth century, Christy Mathewson was one of baseball's first superstars. Over six feet tall, clean cut, and college educated, he didn't pitch on the Sabbath and rarely spoke an ill word about anyone. He also had one of the most devastating arms in all of baseball. New York Giants manager John McGraw, by contrast, was ferocious. The pugnacious tough guy was already a star infielder who, with the Baltimore Orioles, helped develop a new, scrappy style of baseball, with plays like the hit-and-run, the Baltimore chop, and the squeeze play. When McGraw joined the Giants in 1902, the Giants were coming off their worst season ever. Yet within three years, Mathewson clinched New York City's first World Series for McGraw's team by throwing three straight shutouts in only six days, an incredible feat that is invariably called the greatest World Series performance ever. Because of their wonderful odd-couple association, baseball had its first superstar, the Giants ascended into legend, and baseball as a national pastime bloomed.

Old Ball Game, The

Baseball

Alexandra Deford, a precious and precocious girl, was just eight years old when she died in 1980 following a battle against the debilitating effects of cystic fibrosis, the number-one genetic killer of children. Her poignant and uplifting story touched the hearts of millions when it was first published and then made into a memorable television movie. A new introduction contains information on the latest cystic fibrosis research, and a touching postcript reveals how the Deford family came to terms with the loss of Alex.
Whenever he speaks, sportswriter Frank Deford knows people will bring articles for him to sign. But what makes him happiest is when someone attends a sports-oriented lecture and brings a copy of Alex: The Life of a Child for him to sign. "Invariably, and happily, there's usually someone at each appearance who either brings that book or wants to talk about their connection to cystic fibrosis." Deford says. "It's tremendously gratifying to me. Rarely does a week go by that I don't get a letter about that book. People leave things at her grave. They really do. I have people tell me that she changed their lives. It's terribly dramatic, but they literally say that. I heard from a woman who became a pediatric nurse after reading the book. Hearing from people like that means more to me than anything."

Alex–The Life of a Child: A Father Recalls His Daughter's Courageous Struggle with Cystic Fibrosis

Parenting & Relationships

Thomas Nelson

Big Bill Tilden: The Triumphs and the Tragedy

Total Sports

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Books by Frank Deford