Best Baseball Coaching

The New York Times Bestseller With inside access and reporting, Sports Illustrated senior baseball writer and FOX Sports analyst Tom Verducci reveals how Theo Epstein and Joe Maddon built, led, and inspired the Chicago Cubs team that broke the longest championship drought in sports, chronicling their epic journey to become World Series champions. Tom Verducci, twice named National Sportswriter of the Year and co-writer of The Yankee Years with Joe Torre, will have full access to team president Theo Epstein, manager Joe Maddon, and the players to tell the story of the Cubs' transformation from perennial underachievers to the best team in baseball. Those dual qualities make him the perfect guy to not only capture the experience of what the Cubs at long last achieved, but to explain the thinking and planning that led to last Fall's crescendo of emotions.” —Bob Costas. "Verducci, a longtime baseball writer for Sports Illustrated, is perhaps the perfect scribe to tell this definitive tale, a generational talent who can talk numbers and remain awed at the game’s beauties. “In Mr. Verducci’s entertaining book, he notes that the ‘construction of a championship team is granular’ and the ‘final picture is a Seurat painting’ with ‘many tiny dots of color’ and ‘millions of reasons and thousands of cascading events.’ He’s right: The artistic brush containing the power of positivity helped make the Chicago Cubs winners once more.” — The Washington Times.

St. Louis Cardinals manager Mike Matheny's New York Times bestselling manifesto about what parents, coaches, and athletes get wrong about sports; what we can do better; and how sports can teach eight keys to success in sports and life. By teaching the importance of respect, character, and a team-first approach, Mike Matheny gives our kids, and those who set an example for them, a positive outlook on healthy competition—and demonstrates how the most powerful lessons of baseball apply to their futures beyond the diamond.” —Joe Torre “Readers agree there are ‘must read ‘ books. After you read it, you ‘must consider’ and then ‘must act’ on its core principles—principles that benefit coaches, parents, success seekers, and especially young players.” —Tony La Russa. Mike approaches the game as the ultimate competitor, but totally with class and dignity.” —Orel Hershiser, Los Angleles Dodgers broadcaster, 18-year big league pitcher, Cy Young Award winner, World Series champion “ The Matheny Manifesto is mandatory reading for coaches, parents, and athletes of every age. A powerful read!”. — Pat Williams, Orlando Magic co-founder and senior vice president. —Mike Francesa "A must read for parents, coaches, teachers all who work with young people" —Jim Harbaugh. [The Matheny Manifesto] should be read by every parent of every youth league player in this country.

“Baseball’s last .400 hitter share[s] his secrets in this primer still used at all levels of the game.” —Paul Dickson, author of Bill Veeck: Baseball’s. Greatest Maverick Now fully revised with new illustrations and diagrams, the classic—and still the greatest—book on hitting from the last baseball player to break the magic .400 barrier, Ted Williams. Williams's first commandment is "Get a good pitch to hit," and, in one of baseball's most dramatic teaching tools--a photograph that divides his strike zone into 77 baseballs, seven wide by 11 high--Williams projects what he would hit at each pitch location, from .230 on the low-outside strike to .400 in what he called his "happy zone," the heart of the plate belt high.

In the seven years since the publication of his first book, Functional Training for Sports, new understanding of functional anatomy created a shift in strength coaching. With this new material, Coach Boyle presents the continued evolution of functional training as seen by a leader in the strength and conditioning field. Mike Boyle is the Godfather of performance training, and he's influenced countless others to become efficient and effective strength and conditioning coaches over the decades.

From one of the co-founders of Pixar Animation Studios—the Academy Award–winning studio behind Coco, Inside Out, and Toy Story —comes an incisive book about creativity in business and leadership for readers of Daniel Pink, Tom Peters, and Chip and Dan Heath. NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER | NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Huffington Post • Financial Times • Success • Inc. • Library Journal “[ Creativity, Inc. ]. just might be the most thoughtful management book ever.”— Fast Company Creativity, Inc. is a book for managers who want to lead their employees to new heights, a manual for anyone who strives for originality, and the first-ever, all-access trip into the nerve center of Pixar Animation—into the meetings, postmortems, and “Braintrust” sessions where some of the most successful films in history are made. It is, at heart, a book about how to build a creative culture—but it is also, as Pixar co-founder and president Ed Catmull writes, “an expression of the ideas that I believe make the best in us possible.”. Praise for Creativity, Inc. “Over more than thirty years, Ed Catmull has developed methods to root out and destroy the barriers to creativity, to marry creativity to the pursuit of excellence, and, most impressive, to sustain a culture of disciplined creativity during setbacks and success.” —Jim Collins, co-author of Built to Last and author of Good to Great “Too often, we seek to keep the status quo working. Any reader of Creativity, Inc., Catmull’s new book on the art of running creative companies, will have to agree. Catmull, president of both Pixar and Walt Disney Animation, has written what just might be the most thoughtful management book ever.” — Fast Company “It’s one thing to be creative; it’s entirely another—and much more rare—to build a great and creative culture. Over more than thirty years, Ed Catmull has developed methods to root out and destroy the barriers to creativity, to marry creativity to the pursuit of excellence, and, most impressive, to sustain a culture of disciplined creativity during setbacks and success. Catmull’s book is quickly becoming the latest bible for the show business crowd.” —The New York Times “The most practical and deep book ever written by a practitioner on the topic of innovation.” —Prof. [Catmull] uses Pixar’s triumphs and near-disasters to outline a system for managing people in creative businesses—one in which candid criticism is delivered sensitively, while individuality and autonomy are not strangled by a robotic corporate culture.” — Financial Times “A wonderful new book . An immensely readable and rewarding book that will challenge and inspire readers to make their workplaces hotbeds of creativity.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Punctuated with surprising tales of how the company’s films were developed and the company’s financial struggles, Catmull shares insights about harnessing talent, creating teams, protecting the creative process, candid communications, organizational structures, alignment, and the importance of storytelling. [ Creativity, Inc. ] will delight and inspire creative individuals and their managers, as well as anyone who wants to work ‘in an environment that fosters creativity and problem solving.’” — Publishers Weekly (starred review) “For anyone managing anything, and particularly those trying to manage creative teams, Catmull is like a kind, smart godfather guiding us toward managing wisely, without losing our souls, and in a way that works toward greatness. What Ed Catmull shares instead is his astute experience that creativity isn’t strictly a well of ideas, but an alchemy of people. In Creativity, Inc. Ed reveals, with commonsense specificity and honesty, examples of how not to get in your own way and how to realize a creative coalescence of art, business, and innovation.” —George Lucas “This is the best book ever written on what it takes to build a creative organization.

Remarkable lessons in leadership and teambuilding from one of the greatest college football coaches of our time In only thirteen years as a head football coach, first at Bowling Green and then at Utah, Florida, and Ohio State, Urban Meyer has established himself as one of the elite coaches in the annals of his sport, with three national championships and a cumulative record of 142 wins and only 26 losses. In Above the Line , Urban Meyer shares with readers OSU’s groundbreaking game plan—the game plan he followed every day in the Buckeyes’ historic 2014 season—for creating a culture of success that engages and inspires the people around them. A student of psychology long before he became a coach, Meyer believes that trust is the bedrock of great achievements and healthy relationships, and explains how to build it, step by step—whether in a team, a family, or a Fortune 500 company. Urban Meyer is the head football coach of the Ohio State Buckeyes.

Filled with insightful stories about golf, Dr. Bob Rotella’s delightful book will improve the game of even the most casual weekend player. Golfers will improve their golf game and have more fun playing. Filled with delightful and insightful stories about golf and the golfers Rotella works with, Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect will improve the game of even the most casual weekend player. Dr. Bob Rotella, a noted sports psychologist and performance consultant, roots around the golfer's mind to expose--and analyze--the doubts, the fears, and the frustrations that haunt anyone who's ever picked up a club and swung it.

The Inner Game of Tennis is a revolutionary program for overcoming the self-doubt, nervousness, and lapses of concentration that can keep a player from winning. Instead of serving up technique, it concentrated on the fact that, as Gallwey wrote, "Every game is composed of two parts, an outer game and an inner game." The Inner Game of Tennis still does much to keep that idea in play.

Since their founding in 1926, the Hawks have won six Stanley Cup championships and produced dozens of standout stars, from Hall of Fame goaltender Mike Karakas in the ’30s to Bobby “The Golden Jet” Hull in the ’60s to current team captain Jonathan Toews. The Chicago Tribune , founded in 1847, is the flagship newspaper of the Chicago Tribune Media Group.

Like having an X-ray for each exercise, the anatomical depictions show both superficial and deep layers and detail how various setup positions affect muscle recruitment and emphasize underlying structures. Delavier lives in Paris, France.

Most of these children quit because our youth sports culture has taken the ‘play’ out of ‘play ball.’ A shift in values, the rise of expensive youth sports models, and the myth of abundant athletic scholarships has led parents and coaches to focus on wins instead of enjoyment, and trophies at the expense of development. In Changing the Game , John O’Sullivan draws upon three decades of high level playing and coaching experience to take us behind the scenes of competitive youth sports, and demonstrates how they have changed from being a fun pastime to an ultra competitive, adult centered enterprise that is failing our children. By following seven actionable principles of high performance, parents can give their children a competitive edge, while at the same time making youth sports a positive experience for their family, their community, and their country. Changing the Game serves as a powerful guide for both parents and coaches who want kids to have fun, enjoyable, and meaningful youth sporting experiences. Any parent who wants their children to gain the physical, psychological, emotional, and social benefits of what sport has to offer (and isn’t that every parent!). It will make you a better sports parent, and it will ensure that your children get all the good stuff and avoid most of the bad stuff from participating in sports. I firmly believe that the youth sport experience for a child is shaped as powerfully by their parents or guardians involvement. In this book John gives practical and helpful guidance to elevating the experience of the children in youth sports by directly addressing the role of the parent or guardian. Changing the Game is a wonderful resource for parents to help their young athletes succeed in sports and life, and I can’t recommend it enough --- Brian Baxter, director, Sport Psychology Institute Northwest, and author of The Sports Mindset Gameplan: An Athlete’s Guide to Building and Maintaining Confidence. Changing the Game offers invaluable insights into the reality of the youth sports world and the critical impact that parents have to make or break their kids’ experience in sports. With such a changing climate of youth sports today, this book provides a guide for parents that brings the focus back on what is truly important for a child participating in sports. Changing the Game should be required for all youth sports parents.

Many people all over the world have used the simple biological principle of stress/recovery/adaptation on which this method is based to improve their performance, their appearance, and their long-term health. With over 150,000 copies in print in three editions, Starting Strength is the most important method available to learn the most effective way to train with barbells -- the most important way to improve your strength, your health, and your life. -- How the human body adapts to stress through recovery, and why this is the foundation of the development of strength and lifetime health. Mark Rippetoe is the author of Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training, Practical Programming for Strength Training 2nd edition, Strong Enough?, Mean Ol' Mr.