Take out the trash with Reggie Miller, ride the bus with Jerome Bettis, and get to first base with Mark Grace: some of the bestand funniestinterviews from ESPN's favorite sports authority Dan Patrick is never at a loss for words. Whether he's offering his own brand of irascible commentary on SportsCenter or taking on today's superstars in his enormously popular column in ESPN The Magazine, he always manages to offer refreshing insight that's as outrageous and entertaining as the world of sports itself. This hilarious collection of never before published "Outtakes" from his popular column features 25 interviews with some of today's most famous sports personalities, such as Mark McGwire, Wayne Gretzky, and Barry Sanders, each preceded with new and colorful introductions that offer Patrick's uncensored reflections. Dan Patrick's no-holds-barred approach to interviewing captures the players like no one can, and in this collection of new and greatest hits he is certain to win more fans than ever before.

The Cooperstown Casebook by Jay Jaffe provides a definitive guide to the greatest players in baseball history, and the Hall of Fame.

UNDERBELLY HOOPS covers Carson Cunningham's final season in the storied and now defunct Continental Basketball Association (CBA). In the process, it takes a sober look at minor league professional basketball, as Cunningham tries to navigate a poor relationship with his coach and yet finish his career on his own terms by playing a final season and winning a championship. As UNDERBELLY HOOPS shows, the CBA was a realm where hopeful players desperately hung on and crusty motels might very well have no clocks. It was a place where a trainer could be ordered to fill the visiting team's cooler with warm shower water and a coach might tell a player (namely, Cunningham) that he was focusing too much on his marriage and child rather than basketball. It was also a place where entire hotel wings could become saturated with the pungent smell of marijuana. And yet, even as it chipped away at your dignity and made little economic sense to remain, the CBA drew you in with the allure of action and the prospect of an NBA call-up. And it could inspire, like when you and your teammates caught a rhythm that made you remember why basketball is such a beautiful game, or when you saw guys continue to strive, to persevere, even if their dreams weren't fully realized. "The hoops answer to Ball Four. By turns funny and poignant—and always self aware—this book allows fans into the locker room and huddle, yes, but also into the cortex of a professional basketball player. If Carson Cunningham could have jumped, run and created his shot off the dribble as masterfully as he writes and observes, he'd be starring in the NBA." —L. Jon Wertheim, Senior Writer for SPORTS ILLUSTRATED

Celebrated sports commentator Dan Patrick and comedy writer Joel H. Cohen team up with some of America’s greatest* comedy writers to tell you everything and nothing about America’s sport!** *“greatest” is actually just a bad type-o for “mediocre” **No, not darts, we mean pro football. (book on professional darts coming never) Did you know . . . Tom Brady is a very good quarterback. (True, but only according to statistics and accomplishments.) The formation of the NFL took place in an auto dealership. The founders started an institution and also were convinced to buy rust-proofing for it. (Half true.) The Carolina Panthers originated as a book club but turned to football when they couldn’t agree on which John Grisham novel to read. (Maybe true. Research isn’t our thing.) The Occasionally Accurate Annals of Football is a love letter to America’s favorite game, full of highlights, history, great plays and players, scandals, Super Bowls, and a series of lies, idiotic theories, baseless conspiracies, a diet that may kill you and, of course, a poorly-written haiku. The book takes the credibility Dan Patrick has built up over a stellar broadcast career (ESPN, NBC Sports, something called “Peacock”) and risks it all with these falsehoods, half-truths, and even some quarter-truths. This parade of inanity is co-written by Joel H. Cohen (3 Emmys, several cavities due to poor flossing) and includes contributions from certifiably hilarious people, such as: Andy Richter (Late Night with Conan O’Brien) Brian Kelley (The Simpsons, Saturday Night Live) Chuck Tatham (Modern Family, Arrested Development, How I Met Your Mother) Mike Price (The Simpsons, F is for Family) Donick Cary (Silicon Valley, New Girl) Christine Nangle (Inside Amy Schumer, Saturday Night Live) Broti Gupta (The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Simpsons) Rob Cohen (Saturday Night Live, Big Bang Theory) Illustrated in two colors (black and white are colors, right?) The Occasionally Accurate Annals of Football informs (a little), entertains (a lot), and is the perfect gift to taunt the Jets fans in your life.

In the exclusive behind the scenes look, sports fans can unlock the fascinating history of the channel that changed the way people watch and interact with their favorite teams. It began, in 1979, as a mad idea of starting a cable channel to televise local sporting events throughout the state of Connecticut. Today, ESPN is arguably the most successful network in modern television history, spanning eight channels in the Unites States and around the world. But the inside story of its rise has never been fully told-until now. Drawing upon over 500 interviews with the greatest names in ESPN's history and an All-Star collection of some of the world's finest athletes, bestselling authors James Miller and Tom Shales take us behind the cameras. Now, in their own words, the men and women who made ESPN great reveal the secrets behind its success-as well as the many scandals, rivalries, off-screen battles and triumphs that have accompanied that ascent. From the unknown producers and business visionaries to the most famous faces on television, it's all here.

ESPN is the largest cable network in the U.S., reaching 72 percent of American television households, and "SportsCenter" is ESPN's most popular show. As co-anchors for the show, Keith Olbermann and Dan Patrick have become two of the most recognizable faces on TV. In "The Big Show", Keith and Dan reveal the facts behind their successful program. 50 photos.