Amazon is offering four Weekend Deals – a book, an instant video rental, an MP3 download and a game download. The prices are good through 11:59pm Pacific Time, Sunday. You can vote on what will be the deals next weekend when you click on the link above.
The Hidden Language of Baseball ($1.99 e-book) Baseball is set apart from other sports by many things, but few are more distinctive than the intricate systems of coded language that govern action on the field and give baseball its unique appeal. Baseball historian Paul Dickson examines for the first time the rich legacy of baseball’s hidden language, offering fans everywhere a smorgasbord of history and anecdote.
Erin Brockovich ($1.99 instant video rental) An unemployed single mother becomes a legal assistant and almost single-handedly brings down a California power company accused of polluting a city’s water supply. Rated R.
Nirvana ($5.00 MP3 download) Includes You Know You’re Right, About a Girl, and Lithium. 49 minutes; no rating.
Rollercoaster Tycoon 3: Platinum ($4.99 game download) RCT3 Platinum combines the excitement and roller coaster, theme park fun of the Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 with included expansion packs Soaked! and Wild! Now enjoy more options than ever. Build your own water slide or create your own safari with real animals. Watch guest reactions to your ultimate theme park!
In John Lyons’ twenty-nine years of experience in horse trainer-instructing, he has become recognized as “America’s Most Trusted Horseman.” Each year for the past thirteen years, nearly 10,000 horse handlers from all over the world flock to Lyons’ horse-training clinics to learn from the man whose step-by-step methods have reared some of the most talented trainers, clinicians, and teachers.
Lyons on Horses is the book version of these sought-after clinics; in it, Lyons leaves no stone unturned on the path toward understanding your horse. From his philosophy on horses to facing fear, and from saddling and arena work to trail work, leading, and trailer loading, Lyons guides trainers of all skill-levels and riding styles through his trusted lessons. You can purchase Mr. Lyons wisdom for only 99 cents today.
At age thirteen, Dayton Hyde, a spirited beanpole of a boy, ran away from home in Michigan to Yamsi, his uncle’s ranch in eastern Oregon. This was in the 1930s, and Yamsi was one of the last great cattle ranches of the West. Soon the boy, nicknamed “Hawk,” was riding a horse, soaking up ranch life from the hired hands, and winning the cowboys’ respect.
A natural bronco buster, he eventually became a rodeo rider, bull fighter, clown, and photographer, working all over the West with the likes of Slim Pickens, Rex Allen, and Mel Lambert—all of whom went on to careers in Hollywood—and selling pictures to Life magazine. After the Second World War, he took over the reins at Yamsi, ensuring its survival in changing times. Now, half a century later, he gives us his valedictory ode to that last great period of the Old West.
Full of humor, rollicking stories, and love of the land, Hyde pays homage to the cowboys, Indians, and great horses that made the West the legend it is today. For every one who has dreamed of the life of the rodeo cowboy, you can buy this memoir of the rodeo today for only 99 cents.
The untold story of Babe Ruth’s Yankees, John McGraw’s Giants, and the extraordinary baseball season of 1923.
Before the 27 World Series titles–before Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, and Derek Jeter-the Yankees were New York’s shadow franchise. They hadn’t won a championship, and they didn’t even have their own field, renting the Polo Grounds from their cross-town rivals the New York Giants. In 1921 and 1922, they lost to the Giants when it mattered most: in October.
But in 1923, the Yankees played their first season on their own field, the newly-built, state of the art baseball palace in the Bronx called “the Yankee Stadium.” The stadium was a gamble, erected in relative outerborough 
obscurity, and Babe Ruth was coming off the most disappointing season of his career, a season that saw his struggles on and off the field threaten his standing as a bona fide superstar.
It only took Ruth two at-bats to signal a new era. He stepped up to the plate in the 1923 season opener and cracked a home run to deep right field, the first homer in his park, and a sign of what lay ahead. It was the initial blow in a season that saw the new stadium christened “The House That Ruth Built,” signaled the triumph of the power game, and established the Yankees as New York’s-and the sport’s-team to beat.
From that first home run of 1923 to the storybook World Series matchup that pitted the Yankees against their nemesis from across the Harlem River-one so acrimonious that John McGraw forced his Giants to get to the Bronx in uniform rather than suit up at the Stadium-Robert Weintraub vividly illuminates the singular year that built a classic stadium, catalyzed a franchise, cemented Ruth’s legend, and forever changed the sport of baseball. You can purchase this book for $3.99 today.
Please read the comment posted by Linda.
In the tradition of such films as Hoosiers, Breaking Away, and Rocky, here is an inspiring story about the rundown town of Willow Creek, Montana, and the handful of people who live there with a sense of fateful resignation. One of them, high school English teacher Sam Pickett, is the coach of the school’s basketball team, which has an abysmal record of zero wins and ninety-three losses.
But the sudden arrival of two potential hoops stars gives both the town and the team something to believe in. This tale of misfits brought together through the determination of a man struggling to bury his past is fueled by page-turning on-the-court action, characters you won’t want to let go of, and a story you won’t soon forget.
And the story behind the novel is almost as inspiring as the tale of the small town and its dogged team. Over time, this self-published book earned a devoted following, thanks to the perseverance of its author. Sure to capture the hearts of a vast number of new readers, Blind Your Ponies is a classic tale of overcoming adversity told with humor and compassion. Buy the novel for $2.51 today.
Click here to purchase Blind Your Ponies
Meet John Richardson. A typical weekend golfer who enjoyed the game but couldn’t break 100. Married. One seven-year-old daughter. Full-time job. But he differed from the average 24-handicapper in one crucial way: He was determined to break par within a year at the local golf course, while working a demanding full-time job and trying his best to remain a good husband and father.
Virtually everyone he came across told him that it wasn’t possible. Famed Scottish golfer/commentator Sam Torrance advised John to “dream on,” and PGA Tour pro Darren Clarke told him that three years would be a more realistic time frame. Add to the mix a range of golfing injuries, family responsibilities, and a rigorous work schedule, and you can understand why there were so many doubters.
Dream On is the hilarious and inspiring story of how John achieved the seemingly impossible—from how the initial challenge took shape and the methods he used to dramatically improve his game, to that glorious day, less than one year later, when he broke par and played the best round of his life. You can buy this story of determination for only $1.99 today.
Last Days of Summer is the story of Joey Margolis, neighborhood punching bag, growing up goofy and mostly fatherless in Brooklyn in the early 1940s. A boy looking for a hero, Joey decides to latch on to Charlie Banks, the all-star third baseman for the New York Giants. But Joey’s chosen champion doesn’t exactly welcome the extreme attention of a persistent young fan with an overactive imagination. Then again, this strange, needy kid might be exactly what Banks needs.
You can purchase this sports fiction for only $1.99 today.
The baseball season is well underway. The players are off to setting records and the fans are eating hot dogs and peanuts. The baseball books are still selling for supercheap prices, too. You can buy this book about the rowdy 1986 New York Mets for only $1.99 today.
Once upon a time, twenty-four grown men would play baseball together, eat together, carouse together, and brawl together. Alas, those hard-partying warriors have been replaced by GameBoy-obsessed, laptop-carrying, corporate soldiers who would rather punch a clock than a drinking buddy. But it wasn’t always this way …
In The Bad Guys Won, award-winning former Sports Illustrated baseball writer Jeff Pearlman returns to an innocent time when a city worshipped a man named Mookie and the Yankess were the second-best team in New York. So it was in 1986, when the New York Mets — the last of baseball’s live-like-rock-star teams — won the World Series and captured the hearts of fans everywhere.
But their greatness on the field was nearly eclipsed by how bad they were off it. Led by the indomitable Keith Hernandez and the young dynamic duo of Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry, along with the gallant Scum Bunch, while leaving a wide trail of wreckage in their wake, most famously Bill Buckner and the eternally cursed Boston Red Sox.
With an unforgettable cast of characters, The Bad Guys Won immortalizes baseball’s last great wild bunch of explores what could have been, what should have been, and thanks to a tragic dismantling of the club, what never was. Buy the book for $1.99.
A fascinating chronicle of New York basketball, from the concrete courts of the city’s parks to the bright lights of Madison Square Garden
The New York Knickerbockers, one of the NBA’s charter franchises, played professionally for twenty-four years before winning their first championship in 1970, defeating the Los Angeles Lakers in a thrilling seven-game series. Those Knicks, who won again in 1973, became legends, and captivated a city that has basketball in its blood.
But this book is more than a history of the championship Knicks. It is an exploration of what basketball means to New York—not just to the stars who compete nightly in the garden, but to the young men who spend their nights and weekends perfecting their skills on the concrete courts of the city’s parks. Basketball is a city game, and New York is the king of cities.
You can buy this book today for only $1.99.
Here’s what former Chicago White Sox owner Bill Veeck had to say about baseball: “This is a game to be savored, not gulped. There’s time to discuss everything between pitches or between innings.” That’s just one of the thousands of quotes gathered in this gigantic collection, and they include some of the wisest, wittiest comments made on America’s national pastime.
Edited by Wayne Stewart, a sports writer with almost 30 years of experience and 20 books to his name, and with a Foreword by Roger Kahn, who wrote the seminal book on baseball, The Boys of Summer, this anthology includes observations from players, managers, owners, writers, fans, and more. Among the greats whose thoughts are here to savor: Hank Aaron, Satchel Paige, Babe Ruth, Sandy Koufax, Willie Mays, Derek Jeter, Don Zimmer, Roger Angell, Red Barber, George Will, and countless others. This is a great gift book for any baseball fan!
You can download this book for only $3.99 today.
Click here to purchase The Gigantic Book of Baseball Quotations
