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Soccernomics

Simon Kuper, Stefan Szymanski · back to the book

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24 books with the same feel

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❤️

Scorecasting: The Hidden Influences Behind How Sports Are Played and Games Are Won

Tobias J. Moskowitz, L. Jon Wertheim · 278 pages

In Scorecasting, University of Chicago behavioral economist Tobias Moskowitz teams up with veteran Sports Illustrated writer L. Jon Wertheim to overturn some of the most cherished truisms of sports, and reveal the hidden forces that shape how basketball, baseball, football, and hockey games are played, won and lost. Drawing from Moskowitz's original research, as well as studies from fellow economi

SportsEconomicsSports HistoryNonfiction
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The Numbers Game: Why Everything You Know About Soccer Is Wrong

Chris Anderson, David Sally · 392 pages

Moneyball meets Freakonomics in this myth-busting guide to understanding and winning the most popular sport on the planet. Innovation is coming to soccer, and at the center of it all are the numbers -- a way of thinking about the game that ignores the obvious in favor of how things actually are. In The Numbers Game, Chris Anderson, a former professional goalkeeper turned soccer statistics guru, te

SportsSports HistoryEconomicsNonfiction
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Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner · 320 pages

*A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything* Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? How much do parents really matter? How did the legalization of abortion affect the rate of violent crime? These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But

EconomicsSportsNonfictionDry Humor
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Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer: A Road Trip into the Heart of Fan Mania

Warren St. John · 288 pages

Author's first person account of events occuring during a season of Alabama football focusing on travel, game day tailgating, and post-game celebrations or mourning. Focuses on the fans of the team, why they follow the team, and why they choose to attend games.

SportsSports HistoryNonfictionSociology
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The System: The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football

Jeff Benedict, Armen Keteyian · 432 pages

A revelatory account based on the authors' unprecedented access to the NCAA's highest-level programs throughout the 2012 season describes its high-powered system of billion-dollar television deals, high-priced coaches, football "hostessing," castoff athlete-students and paid test takers.

SportsSports HistoryNonfictionSociology
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SportsSports HistoryNonfictionSociology
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Fever Pitch

Nick Hornby · 247 pages

In America, it is soccer. But in Great Britain, it is the real football. No pads, no prayers, no prisoners. And that's before the players even take the field. Nick Hornby has been a football fan since the moment he was conceived. Call it predestiny. Or call it preschool. Fever Pitch is his tribute to a lifelong obsession. Part autobiography, part comedy, part incisive analysis of insanity, Horn

SportsSports HistoryNonfictionDry Humor
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SportsSports HistoryNonfictionPop Culture
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Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

Christopher McDougall · 287 pages

Full of incredible characters, amazing athletic achievements, cutting-edge science, and, most of all, pure inspiration, Born to Run is an epic adventure that began with one simple question: Why does my foot hurt? In search of an answer, Christopher McDougall sets off to find a tribe of the world's greatest distance runners and learn their secrets, and in the process shows us that everything we tho

SportsSports HistoryNonfictionPopular Science
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How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization

Franklin Foer · 261 pages

Soccer is much more than a game, or even a way of life. It is a perfect window into the cross-currents of today's world, with all its joys and its sorrows. In this remarkably insightful, wide-ranging work of reportage, Franklin Foer takes us on a surprising tour through the world of soccer, shining a spotlight on the clash of civilizations, the international economy, and just about everything in b

SportsSports HistoryNonfictionSociology
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The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game

Michael Lewis · 345 pages

Follows one young man from his impoverished childhood with a crack-addicted mother, through his discovery of the sport of football, to his rise to become one of the most successful, highly-paid players in the NFL.

SportsSports HistoryNonfictionSociology
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Outliers: The Story of Success

Malcolm Gladwell · 320 pages

In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"--the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different? His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their

EconomicsSportsNonfictionPopular Science
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Paper Lion

George Plimpton · 368 pages

George Plimpton was perhaps best known for PAPER LION, the book that set the bar for participatory sports journalism. With his characteristic wit, Plimpton recounts his experiences in talking his way into training camp with the Detroit Lions, practicing with the team, and taking snaps behind center. His breezy style captures the pressures and tensions rookies confront, the hijinks that pervade whe

SportsSports HistoryNonfictionFunny
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SportsSports HistoryNonfictionFunny
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Joe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life

Richard Ben Cramer · 553 pages

"In this biography, Richard Ben Cramer presents a stunning, often shocking portrait of the hero nobody knew. It is a story that sweeps through the twentieth century, bringing to light along the way not just America's national game, but her movie stars, mobsters, pols, writers...the birth (and the price) of modern national celebrity.". "This is the story Joe DiMaggio never wanted to tell - and nev

SportsSports HistoryNonfictionPop Culture
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Seasons in Hell: With Billy Martin, Whitey Herzog and "The Worst Baseball Team in History" - The 1973-1975 Texas Rangers

Mike Shropshire · 250 pages

“Even before the start of spring training, Herzog had said, ‘If Rich Billings is the starting catcher again, we’re in deep trouble.’ When that evaluation was passed along to Billings, he simply nodded and said, ‘Whitey, obviously, has seen me play.’” In early 1973, gonzo sportswriter Mike Shropshire agreed to cover the Texas Rangers for the Fort-Worth Star-Telegram, not realizing that the Rangers

SportsSports HistoryNonfictionFunny
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WWE Encyclopedia

Brian Shields · 363 pages

SportsSports HistoryNonfictionPop Culture
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You Gotta Have Wa

Robert Whiting · 339 pages

A hilarious, informative, and riveting account of Japanese baseball and the cultural clashes that ensued when Americans began playing there professionally. In Japan, baseball is a way of life. It is a philosophy. It is besuboru. Its most important element is wa—group harmony—embodied in the proverb "The nail that sticks up shall be hammered down." In this witty and incisive book, Robert Whiting

SportsSports HistoryNonfictionFunny
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Sports Illustrated: Hate Mail from Cheerleaders and Other Adventures from the Life of Reilly

Rick Reilly · 319 pages

Gathers one hundred pieces written by the "Sports Illustrated" writer over the past six years, covering such topics as rants against high-profile athletic programs, profiles of sports greats, and personal reminiscences.

SportsSports HistoryNonfictionFunny
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One Shot at Forever: A Small Town, an Unlikely Coach, and a Magical Baseball Season

Chris Ballard · 271 pages

viii, 254 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, map ; 25 cm1000L Lexile

SportsSports HistoryNonfiction
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Fantasyland: True Tales from America's Most Compulsive Fantasy Baseball League

Sam Walker · 361 pages

Every spring, millions of Americans prepare to take part in one of the oddest, most obsessive, and most engrossing rituals in the sports pantheon: Rotisserie baseball, a fantasy game where armchair fans match wits by building their own teams. In 2004, Sam Walker, a sports columnist for the Wall Street Journal, decided to explore this phenomenon by talking his way into Tout Wars, a league reserved

SportsSports HistoryNonfictionFunny
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Dream Team: How Michael, Magic, Larry, Charles, and the Greatest Team of All Time Conquered the World and Changed the Game of Basketball Forever

Jack McCallum · 352 pages

"They were the Beatles of basketball, the Mercury Seven in sneakers. In Dream Team, acclaimed sports journalist Jack McCallum delivers the untold story of the greatest team ever assembled: the 1992 U.S. Olympic Men's Basketball Team that captivated the world, kindled the hoop dreams of countless children around the planet, and remade the NBA into a global sensation. As a senior staff writer for

SportsSports HistoryNonfictionPop Culture
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Drive: The Story of My Life

Larry Bird, Bob Ryan · 259 pages

SportsSports HistoryNonfiction

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