The Cup They Couldn't Lose


Book Description

The definitive story of the Ryder Cup—the event that pits the best golfers from America against the best from Europe—exploring the modern history of the tournament that led to the showdown at Whistling Straits in 2021. The task facing Steve Stricker at the 2021 Ryder Cup was enormous. It was his job, as the American captain, to stare down almost 40 years of Ryder Cup history, break a pattern of home losses that had persisted almost as long, and reverse the tide of European dominance in one of golf's most tense and emotional events. This was the epitome of a must-win, but it was also something more—in the entire 93-year history of the event, no American side had ever faced this kind of pressure. Starting on the morning of September 24, those 12 players competed not just for a Cup, or for pride, but to save the reputation of the U.S. team itself. The great mystery of the Ryder Cup is that America loses despite having superior individual talent. The European renaissance began in the 1980s, led by the brilliant Tony Jacklin and Seve Ballesteros, and since then, the U.S. has suffered a slew of embarrassing defeats abroad and at home. The signs in 2021 weren’t good: Tiger Woods was out after his horrific car crash, Patrick Reed (“Captain America,” to his supporters) was hospitalized with double pneumonia weeks before the event, and America had to rely on its rising stars—including Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka, who spent most of the year immersed in an escalating feud—to prove their mettle. Meanwhile, the European team had a few major stars of its own, like Jon Rahm, the world no. 1 and the first Spanish player ever to win the U.S. Open, and Rory McIlroy, the four-time major winner. Throw in the complications of a global pandemic, and the stage was set for one of the strangest Ryder Cups ever. Following the drama in Wisconsin while deconstructing the rich history of the tournament, The Cup They Couldn't Lose tells the story of how the U.S. defeated Europe in record fashion, restored their status as golf’s global superpower, and transformed their entire way of thinking in order to truly understand the nature of the Ryder Cup. **The Sports Librarian’s Best of 2022 – Sports Books**




The Team That Couldn't Lose


Book Description

A young, inexperienced football team discovers that its beginner's luck is due to a series of mysterious but successful plays anonymously sent to the coach.




So Many Ways to Lose


Book Description

“This is a weird, wonderful, and essential book about both America and its pastime. It’s about a place as vast as New York City and as intimate as the human heart. Fred Exley meets Richard Ben Cramer—a funny, wild, heartfelt, and keenly observed portrait of yearning itself.”—Wright Thompson, New York Times bestselling author of The Cost of These Dreams “Mr. Gordon’s ability to explain the Sisyphean plight of all Mets fans is truly remarkable. Bravo!”—Ron Darling, New York Times bestselling author of Game 7, 1986 The Mets lose when they should win. They win when they should lose. And when it comes to being the worst, no team in sports has ever done it better than the Mets. 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 Yoenis Céspedes 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. And yet, just ask any Mets fan: Amazing and/or miraculous postseason runs are as much a part of our team's identity as losing 120 games in 1962. The DNA of seasons like 1969, the original Miracle Mets, and the 1973 “Ya Gotta Believe” Mets, who went from last place to Game 7 of the World Series in two months, and the powerhouse 1986 Mets, has encoded in us this hapless instinct that a reversal of fortune is always possible. It’s happened before. It’s kind of our thing. And now we've got Steve Cohen's hedge-fund billions to play with! What could go wrong? In this hilarious history of the Mets and love letter to the art of disaster, Devin Gordon presents baseball the way it really is, not in the wistful sepia tones we've come to expect from other sportswriters. Along the way, he explains the difference between being bad and being gifted at losing, and why this distinction holds the key to understanding the true amazin’ magic of the New York Mets.




Love Me Slender


Book Description

Based on cutting-edge research with more than 1,000 married couples, this “revolutionary book” (Harville Hendrix, PhD, coauthor of Making Marriage Simple) shows you how to bolster your resolve by strengthening your relationship, offering a fresh approach to weight loss that will turn your spouse from diet saboteur into your most loyal health ally. First comes love, then comes marriage…then comes a larger pant size? Many couples find themselves gaining weight as they settle into a relationship, but some couples manage to buck this trend. They exercise (together or separately), they support each other’s healthy eating habits, and their relationships are stronger as a result. What are their secrets? It turns out that many of us are ignoring the most powerful tool we have to help us get healthier and stay healthier—our spouse or significant other. For more than twenty years, Drs. Thomas Bradbury and Benjamin Karney, codirectors of the Relationship Institute at UCLA, have been studying how couples communicate around these issues, witnessing firsthand how partners can help (and hinder) one another’s progress toward better health. In Love Me Slender, they identify the specific principles that successful couples use in their quest to improve their health. Love Me Slender offers new solutions based on a remarkable insight: The powerful connection we share with our mate can influence what we eat, how much we exercise, how well we age, and ultimately how long we live. Strengthening this connection, and using it to influence our daily habits, holds the key to better health. Featuring self-assessments and case studies from real couples working to stay healthy together, Love Me Slender is an eye-opening, uplifting guide to changing the dynamic of your relationship and improving your health—and the health of those you love most.




Learning to Lose


Book Description

It is Sylvia’s sixteenth birthday, and her life as an adult is about to begin—not with the party she had been planning, but with a car accident and a broken leg. Behind the wheel is a talented young soccer player, just arrived from Buenos Aires and set for stardom on and off the field. As their destinies collide and a young romance is set in motion, across town, Sylvia’s father and grandfather are finding their own lives suddenly derailed by a violent murder and a secret affair with a prostitute. Set against the maze of Madrid’s congested and contested streets, Learning to Lose follows these four individuals as they swerve off course in unexpected directions. Each of them is dodging guilt and the fear of failure, but their shared search for happiness, love, purity, redemption, and, above all, a way to survive, forms a taut narrative web that binds the characters together. From one of Spain’s most celebrated contemporary writers, Learning to Lose is a lucid and gripping view into the complexities of lives overturned and into the capriciousness of modern life, with its intoxicating highs and devastating lows.




Built to Lose


Book Description

"From front offices to college campuses, Jake Fischer takes you on an engrossing tour of the NBA in its latest golden age, when some of the most captivating teams won by losing." —Lee Jenkins, former Sports Illustrated NBA writer An insider account of modern NBA team-building, based on hundreds of exclusive interviews A single transcendent talent?can change the fortunes of an NBA franchise. One only has to recall the frenzy surrounding recent top pick Zion Williamson to recognize teams' willingness to lose games now for the sake of winning championships later. It's a story that weaves its way behind closed doors to reveal intricate machinations normally hidden from public view. Backed by extensive reporting and hundreds of interviews with top players, coaches, and executives, Jake Fischer chronicles secret pre-draft workouts, feuding between player agents and executives, surprising trade negotiations, interpersonal conflicts, organizational power struggles, and infamous public relations fiascos, making for a fascinating look at the NBA. The definitive account of the NBA's tanking era, when teams raced to the bottom in the hope of eventually winning a championship.




Refuse to Lose


Book Description

The inspiring and motivational inside story of 1996 UMass Minutemen coach John Calipari details his winning philosophy, "Refuse to Lose," which led the team, for the first time in their history, to the Final Four and resulted in professional and personal victory.




Team Jake Maddox Sports Stories: Jake Maddox: Win or Lose


Book Description

Wildcats center PJ Harris is the tallest player on the team. Everyone expects him to be a natural on the court. He's an all-star, except for one thing. He's horrible at free throws. When a game comes down to PJ's free throws making the difference between win or lose, he freaks! Can he solve his problem in time to earn back the respect of his coach and teammates and himself?




Shut Out


Book Description

The battle of the sexes is on. Most high school sports teams have rivalries with other schools. At Hamilton High, it's a civil war: the football team versus the soccer team. And for her part,Lissa is sick of it. Her quarterback boyfriend, Randy, is always ditching her to go pick a fight with the soccer team or to prank their locker room. And on three separate occasions Randy's car has been egged while he and Lissa were inside, making out. She is done competing with a bunch of sweaty boys for her own boyfriend's attention. Lissa decides to end the rivalry once and for all: She and the other players' girlfriends go on a hookup strike. The boys won't get any action from them until the football and soccer teams make peace. What they don't count on is a new sort of rivalry: an impossible girls-against-boys showdown that hinges on who will cave to their libidos first. And Lissa never sees her own sexual tension with the leader of the boys, Cash Sterling, coming.




If Winning Isn't Everything, Why Do I Hate to Lose?


Book Description

Kelsey is a young basketball star who will do whatever it takes to win. Unfortunately, her poor sportsmanship hurts her team and her relationships. Can anyone - her coach or her mom- teach Kelsey how to have fun and play fair, win or lose?