Most Popular Books by Sports Illustrated

America''s favorite sports almanac, now in its 19th year, is as fact-filled and fun as ever. Packed with stats, standings, and historical data from SPORTS ILLUSTRATED''s award-winning staff, this is the essential reference book for every fan. Includes the 2009 baseball playoffs and World Series. 88-page pro football section incudes year-by-year NFL standings back to 1920 as well as game recaps for Super Bowls I to XLIII. Year-in-review calendar revisits the highlights and low points of 2009. Annual results from many professional and amateur sports, including Little League baseball, lacrosse, volleyball, and many more. Year-by-year and 2009 results from NASCAR, IRL, and Formula One. AND MUCH MORE

Providing a complete review of the year in sports, this authoritative reference provides statistical reports, photographs, histories, previews, and special features on the world''s major sports.

For more than half a century Sports Illustrated has put its best face forward every week with one iconic image-the cover. The work of some of the world''s greatest photographers and illustrators, there are now nearly 3,000 examples of this magazine art, all curated here in book form for the first time. The greatest moments in sports history are celebrated, as they happened: Ali''s defeat of Liston, the Miracle on Ice, Dwight Clark''s Catch, Doug Flutie''s Hail Mary, Mark Spitz''s golds and then Michael Phelps''s. Virtually every important athlete in the world-from Roger Bannister in 1955, to Roger Maris in ''61, to Roger Staubach in ''78 and Roger Federer in 2009-has appeared there, and those are just the Rogers. It''s the one arena in which Michael Jordan, Muhammad Ali and Jack Nicklaus have all competed together, for the distinction of having the most SI covers. These images are now unique cultural artifacts, and taken together they add up to a delightful and entertaining chronicle of the sporting scene like no other.

Along with stunning photography--including every one of the magazine''s covers since 1954--and the great writing that has appeared in "Sports Illustrated''s" pages, this invaluable volume is chock-full of facts and figures spanning a half-century of American sports. 300+ photos.

Hockey: Then to WOW! shows readers how the cool sport has evolved from the early days of its 19th century origins to the game as it is today. Using NHL action photographs, illustrations, stories, and trivia, the book is a journey through time both for hockey fans and those new to the game. Kids will learn how basic equipment has changed from a ball to a puck and how the evolution of game strategy has transformed the sport, players, and equipment. Players throughout history are stacked up against each other in every position so fans can dream up the perfect fantasy team with Wayne Gretzky playing alongside Patrick Roy and Stan Mikita. A fun-filled section of the book explores everything fan culture—from the best ice rinks, to the iconic hockey sweater and the hockey haircut along with key aspects of the toughest sport around.

Star athletes who shine off the field tell you, in their own words, about their outside interests.

America''s favorite sports almanac since its introduction 20 years ago, the Sports Illustrated Almanac now has 2010 covered, from football to fencing, hockey to handball, and everything in between. The Sports Illustrated Almanac features essays by top Sports Illustrated writers; all-time stats and records; and ticketing and venue information for pro baseball, basketball, football and hockey. The Sports Illustrated Almanac 2011 is the ultimate guide to the year in sports.

This is the book to end all arguments-and to start many others. Who''s the greatest quarterback of all time, Joe Montana or Tom Brady? Brett Favre? Who was the most dominate linebacker, Lawrence Taylor or Dick Butkus? Was Deion Sanders better than Ronnie Lott? Are the Packers of Steelers the greatest franchise ever? Sports Illustrated has polled its pro football experts to determine the Top 10 in more than 20 categories. The rankings appear alongside stirring photography and classic stories from SI''s archives. This is the best of the NFL''s best, or more simply, FOOTBALL''S GREATEST.

The history of college basketball is a tale of giants (Mikan, Russell, Alcindor), mammoth personalities (Wooden, Knight, Krzyzewski) and larger-than-life moments (N.C. State''s upset in 1983, Laettner''s shot in 1992 and, just last year, Butler''s near-miss at a championship miracle). With over a half-century of experience covering the game, Sports Illustrated is uniquely positioned to tell that story, and in 256 super-sized pages, continuing in the tradition of its annual sport-specific coffee-table series, it has found just the right format to capture the enormously entertaining wonder of it all. Hall of Fame writers, including Frank Deford, Curry Kirkpatrick, Alexander Wolff and Gary Smith, have covered all the great back-door plays, morality plays and passion plays of perhaps our most emotional sport. They were there for North Carolina''s triple overtime takedown of Wilt Chamberlain and Kansas in 1957, for Texas Western''s historic upset of Kentucky in 1966 and for Villanova''s brilliant upending of Georgetown in 1985. Having chronicled all the madness from the fall (Midnight) through the spring (March) year after year, SI''s award-winning photographers have captured the indelible images of buzzer-beating shots, of court-storming celebrations and of some of the world''s largest men bawling over heartbreaking defeats. Those memorable stories and pictures are presented here as never before in this magnificent, must-have book for any college hoops fan.

Sports Illustrated Kids reveals the coolest and most rarely seen parts of the sports world in ALL ACCESS. Kids get an inside look at state-of-the-art locker rooms, star athletes'' houses, and their amazing collections. Readers will be awed by how a stadium transforms from a baseball diamond to an ice rink, as well as how a football starts as a piece of hide to becoming game-ready. Sports fans of all ages will love the lift-and-look features that allow them to literally peel back the layers for behind-the-scenes access that only SI Kids can provide.

As Fenway Park gets set to mark its centennial anniversary in 2012, Sports Illustrated celebrates America''s oldest and perhaps most-storied ballpark on the occasion of its 100th birthday. In beautiful photography and stirring prose from SI''s finest writers, the book tells the story of Fenway from its birth on a winter''s day in Kenmore Square to its current handsome incarnation. Readers will travel from the early days of Babe Ruth, through the years of Ted Williams and Carl Yastrzemskiand right up to the 2000s, when the hometown Red Sox won not one but two championships with stunning Fenway Park shining as it rarely has. The book explores the incomparable features that define Fenway: See Manny Ramirez peer out of the green door by the manual scoreboard and Dwight Evans reach to pluck a would-be home run out of Williamsburg. See a ball glance off Pesky''s Pole and members of Red Sox Nation seated atop the great Green Monster as dusk falls behind the Citgo Sign. In these dazzling oversized pages ballplayers like Williams and Johnny Pesky and Jim Rice will come alive, but the book''s exquisite images and fresh words go beyond the Red Sox to honor the park itself. Here, games of pro soccer and football have been played since the1930s. This was the sporting home of another Babe, quarterback Babe Parilli and his Boston Patriots in the 1960s. FDR spoke at Fenway. The Rolling Stones lit up a night. The NHL unveiled its 2010 Winter Classic before a soldout crowd. Soon Fenway Park will be officially designated a National Historic Landmark, but truly it has been that for decades-the baseball field that no fan should miss, a park that has been at the heart not only of a great American city but also of American sports and sports culture.

Everything You Need to Become a Hardball Know-It-All The next book in the Fanbook series from Sports Illustrated Kids, The Baseball Fanbook has all the nerdy-cool insider knowledge that fans ready for next-level, in-depth stats need to know to impress their friends, family, coaches, and any season ticket holders they may meet. Tailor-made for baseball fanatics ages 8 and up who know the basics of the sport they love, may play it, and are looking to become super fans, this new fanbook is filled with fun trivia, unique lingo, and illustrated behind-the-skills how-to''s. Chapters include Team Tidbits (salient baseball facts about every MLB team), Think Like a Manager (essential strategies to understand), He Reminds Me Of (compares current players to legendary greats of America’s favorite pastime), and much more!

Covering individual teams (Hello, 1972 Miami Dolphins!) but also the best eras in famous teams’ history, such as the Patriots of the ’00s and the Steelers of the late 1970s, the editors at Sports Illustrated Kids dissect the best of the gridiron to show the whys and hows of team building, brilliant strategy, player combinations, and that special magic that the greatest teams have and which owners can’t buy—even if there weren’t a salary cap. Player profiles, stats and records, and thrilling narratives show the march to the Super Bowl and into history of America’s favorite spectator sport. Amazing photos, insider stories, and fun facts capture the cultural phenomenon that is football in the U.S.! The SI Kids editors won’t forget college ball! Picture the 2001 Miami Hurricanes cruising to the national title with a perfect season that was fun and full of swagger, displaying an absurd level of talent with six first-team All-Americans leading the way.