The early 1950's saw the sport of boxing develop into one of the most popular spectator sports in America. The medium of television provided the opportunity for fans to tune in each week, to watch the best fighters in the world battle on Gillette's Friday Night Fights. This decade so rich in culture was the backdrop for creating some of the most legendary champions of all time. Rocky Marciano, Sugar Ray Robinson, Kid Galivan, Jake LaMotta, Gene Fullmer, and a tough guy from Canastota, New York, Carmen Basilo. On September 23, 1957, Carmen Basilo defeated Sugar Ray Robinson to win the middleweight championship of the world. His remarkable career is a story of survival and perseverance during a fascinating time in boxing history. Basilo's story celebrates the power of the human spirit to triumph over pain and self-doubt. A man of great integrity, Carmen Basilo would move up in weight class for the opportunity to challenge the great Ray Robinson for his title. His belief in himself and his insistence on being treated fairly is a testament to his core value of living an honorable life, one in which he refused to compromise his principles. His story and that of the other great champions of this 'Golden Era of Boxing, ' is a fascinating look back at one of the most magical periods in sports history.

This soulful play takes a raw, poetic look at the plight of onion farmers on the edge in the 1935 Oklahoma Dust Bowl. The Tidwell brothers and the Bumpinmeyer sisters explore young love, hard times and loss of family as the sky turns black and the onions die. When the sisters leave for Californee, a shocking truth hits the Tidwell farm and the boys are left with the relentless dust. Devastated, they follow the girls to the "land of milk an' honey" where, months later in a migrant camp in the grip of the Great Depression, they find the sisters buried in poverty and prostitution. The black secret of the Bumpinmeyer family is discovered. Skins are peeled in layers to reveal the sweet and the sour. Tragically, the dirt on these onion pickers never comes clean; the "land of plenty" grows nothing but the cries of dead hearts and broken Okies. Meanwhile, the devil sits in his shack, laughing. Winner of the 1999 American College Theatre Festival.

The definitive work on the language of baseball—one of the “Five Best Baseball Books” (Wall Street Journal). Hailed as “a staggering piece of scholarship” (Wall Street Journal) and “an indispensable guide to the language of baseball” (San Diego Union-Tribune), The Dickson Baseball Dictionary has become an invaluable resource for those who love the game. Drawing on dozens of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century periodicals, as well as contemporary sources, Dickson’s brilliant, illuminating definitions trace the earliest appearances of terms both well known and obscure. This edition includes more than 10,000 terms with 18,000 individual entries, and more than 250 photos. This “impressively comprehensive” (The Nation) book will delight everyone from the youngest fan to the hard-core aficionado.

This groundbreaking classic is now available in a special anniversary edition with bonus content. Winner of the Newbery Medal as well as the National Book Award, HOLES is a New York Times bestseller and one of the strongest-selling middle-grade books to ever hit shelves! Stanley Yelnats is under a curse. A curse that began with his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather and has since followed generations of Yelnatses. Now Stanley has been unjustly sent to a boys' detention center, Camp Green Lake, where the boys build character by spending all day, every day digging holes exactly five feet wide and five feet deep. There is no lake at Camp Green Lake. But there are an awful lot of holes. It doesn't take long for Stanley to realize there's more than character improvement going on at Camp Green Lake. The boys are digging holes because the warden is looking for something. But what could be buried under a dried-up lake? Stanley tries to dig up the truth in this inventive and darkly humorous tale of crime and punishment —and redemption. Special anniversary edition bonus content includes: A New Note From the Author!; "Ten Things You May Not Know About HOLES" by Louis Sachar; and more!

Sugar Ray Robinson was one of the most iconic figures in sports and possibly the greatest boxer of all time. His legendary career spanned nearly 26 years, including his titles as the middleweight and welterweight champion of the world and close to 200 professional bouts. This illuminating biography grounds the spectacular story of Robinson's rise to greatness within the context of the fighter's life and times. Born Walker Smith Jr. in 1921, Robinson's early childhood was marked by the seething racial tensions and explosive race riots that infected the Midwest throughout the 1920s and 1930s. After his mother moved their family to Harlem, he came of age in the post-Renaissance years. Recounting his local and national fame, this deeply researched and honest account depicts Robinson as an eccentric and glamorous--yet powerful and controversial--celebrity, athlete, and cultural symbol. From Robinson's gruesome six-bout war with Jake "Raging Bull" LaMotta and his lethal meeting with Jimmy Doyle to his Harlem nightclub years and thwarted showbiz dreams, Haygood brings the champion's story to life.