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Toxic: Tackling 'Razor' and Finding the Real Me
by Neil Ruddock'Neil's book has given me a new-found appreciation of how he used the "Razor" alter ego to mask what he was going through. The recent turnaround in him, both physical and mental, is a revelation.' ALAN SHEARER'Love Neil Ruddock. One of the old school. He's honest and funny as f**k. A beautiful read and a strong bit of memoir. Well done son.' DANNY DYER'You think you know "Razor" Ruddock? Well, think again. This is a courageous and fascinating autobiography by my ex-teammate, a book which will inspire so many others to confront their past and change their life.' ROBBIE FOWLER'Neil has always been the life and soul of the party but I can't tell you how much Toxic has given me a more rounded picture of him. To have the strength and determination to transform his life is a special thing.' ROBBIE WILLIAMS'Neil's book blew my mind. Now I understand my friend's journey to finally being comfortable in his own skin.' IAN WRIGHTNeil 'Razor' Ruddock tells the inspiring and uplifting story of how he faced the battle of his life: to become a different person.In this inspiring and uplifting memoir, Neil Ruddock charts his toxic journey of self-destruction, a path littered with food addiction, plummeting self-confidence and a dangerous relationship with drink which took him to the brink of death.'Razor' was his caricature of the larger-than-life football hardman, a persona which turned from a natural extension of Ruddock's character to a comfort blanket to smother every mood, every emotion. When his front door closed, the laughter stopped. He was depressed and despairing. Football had institutionalised him. Talking about his inner feelings wasn't an option, owning up to mental health issues was an absolute no-no.In a remarkable series of confessions, and with his trademark humour and brutal honesty, Ruddock recounts how he spiralled so far out of control that he lost sight of who he really was. No matter how he was feeling, he reached for the same old answer - the mask of 'Razor' and a big night out.Following the fitting of a pacemaker and drastic stomach surgery, Ruddock has lost nine stones, firmly pressed the reset button on his life, and found the strength to free himself of the shackles of the bloke he thought he needed to be in order to become the man he always knew he was.Toxic tells the story of how Ruddock faced the battle of his life: to become a different person. No longer does he feel the need to be anything but his true self. As he now says: I'm half the man I used to be, but twice the man I used to be.'
Toxic: Tackling 'Razor' and Finding the Real Me
by Neil Ruddock'Neil's book has given me a new-found appreciation of how he used the "Razor" alter ego to mask what he was going through. The recent turnaround in him, both physical and mental, is a revelation.' ALAN SHEARER'Love Neil Ruddock. One of the old school. He's honest and funny as f**k. A beautiful read and a strong bit of memoir. Well done son.' DANNY DYER'You think you know "Razor" Ruddock? Well, think again. This is a courageous and fascinating autobiography by my ex-teammate, a book which will inspire so many others to confront their past and change their life.' ROBBIE FOWLER'Neil has always been the life and soul of the party but I can't tell you how much Toxic has given me a more rounded picture of him. To have the strength and determination to transform his life is a special thing.' ROBBIE WILLIAMS'Neil's book blew my mind. Now I understand my friend's journey to finally being comfortable in his own skin.' IAN WRIGHTNeil 'Razor' Ruddock tells the inspiring and uplifting story of how he faced the battle of his life: to become a different person.In this inspiring and uplifting memoir, Neil Ruddock charts his toxic journey of self-destruction, a path littered with food addiction, plummeting self-confidence and a dangerous relationship with drink which took him to the brink of death.'Razor' was his caricature of the larger-than-life football hardman, a persona which turned from a natural extension of Ruddock's character to a comfort blanket to smother every mood, every emotion. When his front door closed, the laughter stopped. He was depressed and despairing. Football had institutionalised him. Talking about his inner feelings wasn't an option, owning up to mental health issues was an absolute no-no.In a remarkable series of confessions, and with his trademark humour and brutal honesty, Ruddock recounts how he spiralled so far out of control that he lost sight of who he really was. No matter how he was feeling, he reached for the same old answer - the mask of 'Razor' and a big night out.Following the fitting of a pacemaker and drastic stomach surgery, Ruddock has lost nine stones, firmly pressed the reset button on his life, and found the strength to free himself of the shackles of the bloke he thought he needed to be in order to become the man he always knew he was.Toxic tells the story of how Ruddock faced the battle of his life: to become a different person. No longer does he feel the need to be anything but his true self. As he now says: I'm half the man I used to be, but twice the man I used to be.'
Toy Fights: A Boyhood
by Don Paterson“It’s wonderful, aggressively wise, and always—especially at its most serious—devastatingly funny.” —Geoff Dyer For readers of Douglas Stuart and Nick Hornby comes an uproarious, tenderhearted memoir of growing up in working-class Dundee in the 1970s and 1980s. Don Paterson is one of our most acclaimed contemporary poets, possessed of “an infinite sensitivity to the world” (Zadie Smith). But his current standing gives few hints of his hilariously misspent youth. An indifferent student prone to obsessions (with girls at school and . . . origami), Paterson nevertheless made clear early on his immense gift for observation. In Toy Fights, he vividly re-creates the customs of the Scottish working class, from the titular childhood game (“basically twenty minutes of extreme violence without pretext”) to the virtues of the sugary sweet known as tablet. When American pop culture arrived, Paterson fell hard for the so-called outlaw sound; by his teens, he was traveling with his father, a Stetson-wearing “country” musician, and becoming guitar-mad himself. A memoir of family, music, and highly inventive profanity, Toy Fights is an unforgettable account of the years we all spend in rehearsal for real life.
Toynbee Hall and Social Reform, 1880-1914: The Search for Community
by Standish MeachamToynbee Hall, founded in the slums of London's East End in 1884 by the Rev. Samuel Barnett, was the first settlement house established in England or America and remains one of the best known. This book traces the history of the Toynbee Hall ethos of community. Meacham focuses first on the roots of the ethos in Oxford Idealism. He then analyzes the ethos of Toynbee Hall during its first 25 years. By 1900 the philosophical assumptions of the hall were being challenged by socialists and centralists who argued for greater intervention by the state to solve social problems.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi: Leadership, Strategy, Conflict
by Stephen TurnbullArguably the greatest military commander in the history of the samurai, Toyotomi Hideyoshi rose from the ranks of the peasantry to rule over all Japan. A student of the great unifier Oda Nobunaga, Hideyoshi would later avenge the murder of his master at the battle of Yamazaki.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi: The Background, Strategies, Tactics and Battlefield Experiences of the Greatest Commanders of History
by Stephen Turnbull Giuseppe RavaArguably the greatest military commander in the history of the samurai, Toyotomi Hideyoshi rose from the ranks of the peasantry to rule over all Japan. A student of the great unifier Oda Nobunaga, Hideyoshi would later avenge the murder of his master at the battle of Yamazaki. After consolidating his position, Hideyoshi went on the offensive, conquering the southern island of Kyushu in 1587 and defeating the Hojo in 1590. By 1591, he had accomplished the reunification of Japan. This book looks at the complete story of Hideyoshi's military accomplishments, from his days as a tactical leader to his domination of the Japanese nation.
Toypurina: Japchivit Leader, Medicine Woman, Tongva Rebel
by Glenda Armand Cheyenne M. StoneTired of being subjected to Spanish colonization, medicine woman Toypurina led a revolt against the San Gabriel mission in California on October 25, 1785. This bold picture book highlights an important, lesser-known leader in Indigenous history. Lushly illustrated by Tongva artist Katie Dorame. Includes educational back matter to enhance the reader's experience.Toypurina grew up in the village of Japchivit, where everyone had a role to play. She loved to gather elderberries from the woods, weave baskets, and listen to her grandmother tells stories. But all that changed when the Spanish came.As Toypurina grew and became medicine woman of her tribe, she learned about the harsh conditions of the San Gabriel mission. Tongva people who lived there were renamed and no longer allowed to speak their native tongue. They were forbidden to perform their dances and ceremonies. They were whipped and mistreated.Toypurina knew she had to act, so she organized an uprising against the Spanish rule to fight for her people and their way of life. This book, lushly illustrated by Tongva artist Katie Dorame, marks an important event in Indigenous people's resistance to European colonization and is a testament to Toypurina's bravery.
Tracers in the Dark: The Global Hunt for the Crime Lords of Cryptocurrency
by Andy GreenbergFrom the award-winning author of Sandworm comes the propulsive story of a new breed of investigators who have cracked the Bitcoin blockchain, exposing once-anonymous realms of money, drugs, and violence. &“I love the book… It reads like a thriller… These stories are amazing.&” (Michael Lewis)Over the last decade, a single innovation has massively fueled digital black markets: cryptocurrency. Crime lords inhabiting lawless corners of the internet have operated more freely—whether in drug dealing, money laundering, or human trafficking—than their analog counterparts could have ever dreamed of. By transacting not in dollars or pounds but in currencies with anonymous ledgers, overseen by no government, beholden to no bankers, these black marketeers have sought to rob law enforcement of their chief method of cracking down on illicit finance: following the money.But what if the centerpiece of this dark economy held a secret, fatal flaw? What if their currency wasn&’t so cryptic after all? An investigator using the right mixture of technical wizardry, financial forensics, and old-fashioned persistence could uncover an entire world of wrongdoing.Tracers in the Dark is a story of crime and pursuit unlike any other. With unprecedented access to the major players in federal law enforcement and private industry, veteran cybersecurity reporter Andy Greenberg tells an astonishing saga of criminal empires built and destroyed. He introduces an IRS agent with a defiant streak, a Bitcoin-tracing Danish entrepreneur, and a colorful ensemble of hardboiled agents and prosecutors as they delve deep into the crypto-underworld. The result is a thrilling, globe-spanning story of dirty cops, drug bazaars, trafficking rings, and the biggest takedown of an online narcotics market in the history of the Internet.Utterly of our time, Tracers in the Dark is a cat-and-mouse story and a tale of a technological one-upmanship. Filled with canny maneuvering and shocking twists, it answers a provocative question: How would some of the world&’s most brazen criminals behave if they were sure they could never get caught?
Traces of a Jewish Artist: The Lost Life and Work of Rahel Szalit (Dimyonot)
by Kerry WallachGraphic artist, illustrator, painter, and cartoonist Rahel Szalit (1888–1942) was among the best-known Jewish women artists in Weimar Berlin. But after she was arrested by the French police and then murdered by the Nazis at Auschwitz, she was all but lost to history, and most of her paintings have been destroyed or gone missing. Drawing on a range of primary and secondary sources, this biography recovers Szalit’s life and presents a stunning collection of her art.Szalit was a sought-after artist. Highly regarded by art historians and critics of her day, she made a name for herself with soulful, sometimes humorous illustrations of Jewish and world literature by Sholem Aleichem, Heinrich Heine, Leo Tolstoy, Charles Dickens, and others. She published her work in the mainstream German and Jewish press, and she ran in artists’ and queer circles in Weimar Berlin and in 1930s Paris. Szalit’s fascinating life demonstrates how women artists gained access to Jewish and avant-garde movements by experimenting with different media and genres.This engaging and deeply moving biography explores the life, work, and cultural contexts of an exceptional Jewish woman artist. Complementing studies such as Michael Brenner’s The Renaissance of Jewish Culture in Weimar Germany, this book brings Rahel Szalit into the larger conversation about Jewish artists, Expressionism, and modern art.
Traci Lords: Underneath It All
by Traci Elizabeth LordsThe moving, gripping, and tell–all autobiography of Traci Elizabeth Lords, a former child porn queen, electronica maven, and cult movie and TV star.At 14, Nora Kuzma ran away from home and ended up on the dirty streets of Hollywood. She fell in with a fast crowd, and her dreams of modelling soon landed her a spectacular centrefold in Penthouse Magazine, where at 15 she became internationally known as TRACI LORDS. From there she appeared in numerous adult films and magazines, denying her past and battling a deep addiction to cocaine and men. Three years later she got out. This is her memoir–a tale of loss, redemption, and ultimate survival as Traci Elizabeth Lords takes you into her secretive past, faces her demons, and shares her extraordinary journey of personal growth.
Tracing Florida Journeys: Explorers, Travelers, and Landscapes Then and Now (Co-published with Florida Humanities)
by Leslie Kemp PooleDiscover Florida’s unique places across time through writings from history How has Florida’s land changed across five centuries? What has stayed the same, and what remains only in memory? In Tracing Florida Journeys, Leslie Poole delves into the stories of well-known explorers and travelers who came to the peninsula and wrote about their experiences, looking at their words and the paths they took from the perspective of today. In these pages, John Muir and Harriet Beecher Stowe write about their visits to Florida, reflecting their expectations of a place that was touted to be “paradise.” John James Audubon finds riches of bird life in the Keys. Zora Neale Hurston travels to turpentine camps and sawmills documenting the stories and music of workers and residents. Jonathan Dickinson and Stephen Crane recount shipwrecks along a sparsely populated coastline. Members of Hernando de Soto’s violent 1539 expedition of conquest describe their struggles with dense swamps, forests, and rivers, and resistance from the Native people they exploited. Using journals and articles by these and other authors that date back to the early European exploration of the region, Poole retraces their steps. The land they write about is often hard to imagine in today’s Florida, a top destination for tourists filled with almost 22 million residents. These stories show the evolving history of the state and the richness of its natural resources. Poole’s comparisons also point to the people who have been displaced and the ecosystems that have been dramatically altered by exploration and development. Highlighting the Florida that was and the Florida that exists now, Poole brings together historical research, interviews with experts, and her personal experiences to tell a revealing story of the state’s natural history. Funding for this publication was provided through a grant from Florida Humanities with funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent those of Florida Humanities or the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Tracing Inca Trails: An Adventure in the Andes
by Eddy AncinasEddy Ancinas and her friends set out on on a seven-day horseback trip that takes them over Peru&’s rugged terrain to 20,574-foot-high Mt. Salcantay, along an ancient Inca route, and then down into the jungle. During this journey, these fifty-something travelers are challenged by events they never imagined possible: a fall from a horse that results in serious injuries, a train strike that leaves them stranded in a remote village, an eight-hour trek on railroad tracks along the Urubamba River, and a moonlight ride in the back of a truck with questionable brakes on a dirt road over a 14,000-foot pass, among others. It is a journey full of mishaps—and yet Eddy is enchanted by the culture and places she experiences along the way. As she and her fellow travelers explore Lima, Cusco, and the markets, villages, and ruins of the Urubamba Valley, they are deeply touched by the people they meet, fascinated by the clues to an ancient civilization they learn to respect and admire, and enthralled by the spectacular setting where it all takes place: Andean Peru.
Tracing the Horse: A Suburban Bestiary (New Poets of America #43)
by Diana Marie DelgadoSet in Southern California's San Gabriel Valley, Diana Marie Delgado’s debut poetry collection follows the coming-of-age of a young Mexican-American woman trying to make sense of who she is amidst a family and community weighted by violence and addiction. With bracing vulnerability, the collection chronicles the effects of her father’s drug use and her brother’s incarceration, asking the reader to consider reclamation and the power of the self.
Tracings of Gerald Le Dain's Life in the Law
by G. Blaine Baker Richard JandaGerald Le Dain (1924–2007) was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada in 1984. This collectively written biography traces fifty years of his steady, creative, and conciliatory involvement with military service, the legal academy, legislative reform, university administration, and judicial decision-making. This book assembles contributions from the in-house historian of the law firm where Le Dain first practised, from students and colleagues in the law schools where he taught, from a research associate in his Commission of Inquiry into the non-medical use of drugs, from two of his successors on the Federal Court of Appeal, and from three judicial clerks to Le Dain at the Supreme Court of Canada. Also reproduced here is a transcript of a recent CBC documentary about his 1988 forced resignation from the Supreme Court following a short-term depressive illness, with commentary from Le Dain’s family and co-workers. Gerald Le Dain was a tireless worker and a highly respected judge. In a series of essays that cover the different periods and dimensions of his career, Tracings of Gerald Le Dain’s Life in the Law is an important and compassionate account of one man's commitment to the law in Canada. Contributors include Harry W. Arthurs, G. Blaine Baker, Bonnie Brown, Rosemary Cairns-Way, John M. Evans, Melvyn Green, Bernard J. Hibbitts, Peter W. Hogg, Richard A. Janda, C. Ian Kyer, Andree Lajoie, Gerald E. Le Dain, Allen M. Linden, Roderick A. Macdonald, Louise Rolland, and Stephen A. Scott.
Track & Trace
by Seth Zachariah WellsThe poems in Zachariah Wells's second collection range from childhood to dimly foreseen events in the future; they idle on all three of Canada's coasts, travel the open road, take walks in the city and pause on the banks of country streams and ponds.
Tracking Desire: A Journey After Swallow-tailed Kites
by Susan Cerulean"My memory is etched with a clear image of how that bird swung into view and hung over me, suspended like an angel, so starkly black and white, with its wide-scissored split of a tail." It took just one sighting of a swallow-tailed kite to dispatch Susan Cerulean on a pilgrimage through its fragmented and ever-shrinking habitats. In Tracking Desire, Cerulean immerses us in the natural history and biology of Elanoides forficatus. At the same time, she sifts through her past--as a child, student, biologist, parent, and activist--to muse on a lifelong absorption with nature. Once at home throughout much of the eastern United States, the swallow-tailed kite is now seldom seen. With ornithologist Ken Meyer, and then on her own, Cerulean roams the kite's much-reduced homelands, gaining knowledge about the bird and the grave threats to its breeding grounds and migration patterns. Her quest takes her to the muddy banks of the Mississippi, to an enormous and vulnerable roost on corporate ranchlands in southwest Florida, and to the remnant pinelands of Everglades National Park. In seeking the bird, Cerulean comes to question her own place in our consumerist society. "My journeys after kites have led me to understand that the power of our longings is placing the integrity of life on our tender emerald planet so greatly at risk," she writes. "What are the fractured places in our hearts and minds and spirits that have allowed us to stand by and watch, and even to participate in, the destruction of so much of life?"
Tracking the Caribou Queen: Memoir of a Settler Girlhood
by Margaret MacphersonIn this challenging memoir about her formative years in Yellowknife in the ’60s and ’70s, author Margaret Macpherson lays bare her own white privilege, her multitude of unexamined microaggressions, and how her childhood was shaped by the colonialism and systemic racism that continues today. Macpherson’s father, first a principal and later a federal government administrator, oversaw education in the NWT, including the high school Margaret attended with its attached hostel: a residential facility mostly housing Indigenous children.Ringing with damning and painful truths, this bittersweet telling invites white readers to examine their own personal histories in order to begin to right relations with the Indigenous Peoples on whose land they live. Tracking the Caribou Queen is beautifully crafted to a purpose: poetic language and narrative threads dissect the trope that persisted through her girlhood, that of the Caribou Queen, a woman who seemed to embody extreme and contradictory stereotypes of Indigeneity. Here, Macpherson is not striving for a tidy ideal of “reconciliation”; what she is working towards is much messier, more complex and ambivalent and, ultimately, more equitable.
Tracks Along the Left Coast: Jaime de Angulo & Pacific Coast Culture
by Andrew Schelling“Tracks Along the Left Coast more than accomplishes its self–appointed task of celebrating de Angulo’s legacy.” —Rain Taxi“Schelling’s biography of Jaime de Angulo—'cattle puncher, medical doctor, bohemian, buckeroo,' among other things—presents a fascinating, full–bodied portrait of a man and an era, as well as delving deep into California’s Native history. De Angulo’s isn't a household name, but in Schelling's work the man called by Ezra Pound the 'American Ovid' comes blazing to life in all his singular brilliance.” —Stephen Sparks, Literary HubCalifornia, with its scores of native languages, contains a wealth of old–time stories—a bedrock of the literature of North America. Jaime de Angulo's linguistic and ethnographic work, his writings, as well as the legends that cloak the Old Coyote himself, vividly reflect the particulars of the Pacific Coast. In each retelling, through each storyteller, stories are continually revivified, and that is precisely what Andrew Schelling has done in Tracks Along the Left Coast, weaving together the story of de Angulo's life with the story of the land and the people, languages, and cultures with whom it is so closely tied.
Tracks: One Woman's Journey Across 1,700 Miles of Australian Outback (Vintage Departures Ser.)
by Robyn DavidsonThe incredible true story of one woman&’s solo adventure across the Australian outback, accompanied by her faithful dog and four unpredictable camels.I arrived in the Alice at five a.m. with a dog, six dollars and a small suitcase full of inappropriate clothes. . . . There are some moments in life that are like pivots around which your existence turns. For Robyn Davidson, one of these moments comes at age twenty-seven in Alice Springs, a dodgy town at the frontier of the vast Australian desert. Davidson is intent on walking the 1,700 miles of desolate landscape between Alice Springs and the Indian Ocean, a personal pilgrimage with her dog—and four camels. Tracks is the beautifully written, compelling true story of the author&’s journey and the love/hate relationships she develops along the way: with the Red Centre of Australia; with aboriginal culture; with a handsome photographer; and especially with her lovable and cranky camels, Bub, Dookie, Goliath, and Zeleika. Adapted into a critically acclaimed film starring Mia Wasikowska and Adam Driver, Tracks is an unforgettable story that proves that anything is possible. Perfect for fans of Cheryl Strayed&’s Wild.
Tracy and Hepburn: An Intimate Memoir
by Garson KaninA biography of Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn, and their lives.
Trade Off
by Alfy SmithHow does a young basketball star become the close friend and trainer for world-class boxer, Roy Jones Jr.? Through compassion for others, a spirit of integrity, and the willingness to make trade-offs.At the tender age of seven, Alfy Smith found his purpose in life. Gifted with phenomenal athletic skill, he was bound for the NBA until a small injury in college inflicted huge consequences. But he persevered and traded one dream for another. "The trade-off leads to the payoff,&” he says. A chance meeting with Roy Jones Jr. led to a coaching opportunity, access to celebrities, and travels around the world. Most of all, it inspired a deep friendship with a man who became closer than a brother. Trade-Off shares exhilarating stories of triumph and heart wrenching tales of defeat. Its pages hold timeless lessons of love, loss, and leadership from one-of-a-kind character, &“Big Al.&”
Trade, Politics, and Revolution: South Carolina and Britain's Atlantic Commerce, 1730–1790 (Carolina Lowcountry and the Atlantic World)
by Huw DavidThis study of early transatlantic trade in colonial South Carolina exposes the social and political divisions that led to the American Revolution.London’s “Carolina traders,” a group of transatlantic merchants, played a pivotal but historically neglected role in the rise of tensions between Britain and the South Carolina lowcountry. Beginning in the 1730s, these traders used their political connections to prosper in the colonial South before returning to London to act as absentee owners of property, plantations, and slaves. Drawing on correspondence, business records, newspapers, and other sources, Huw David delves into the lives of these men and explores their influence on commerce and politics in the years before and after the American Revolution. Until the 1760s these traders stabilized relations by lobbying for colonial interests. But as the British Empire imposed laws such as the so-called Intolerable Acts, rebellious South Carolinians came to see them as instruments of imperial oppression.Trade, Politics, and Revolution sheds new light on early trade in South Carolina and the shifting climate that led to the American Revolution. It also explores the reconstruction of trade routes between the newly founded United States and Great Britain. By focusing on one segment of transatlantic trade, David provides a new interpretive approach to imperialism and exposes the complex, deeply personal rift that divided the Carolina traders from their homeland and broke the colonies from the mother country.
Trading Bases
by Joe PetaAn ex-Wall Street trader improved on Moneyball's famed sabermetrics and beat the Vegas odds with his own betting methods. Here is the story of how Joe Peta turned fantasy baseball into a dream come true. Joe Peta turned his back on his Wall Street trading career to pursue an ingenious--and incredibly risky--dream. He would apply his risk-analysis skills to Major League Baseball, and treat the sport like the S&P 500. In Trading Bases, Peta takes us on his journey from the ballpark in San Francisco to the trading floors and baseball bars of New York and the sportsbooks of Las Vegas, telling the story of how he created a baseball "hedge fund" with an astounding 41 percent return in his first year. And he explains the unique methods he developed. Along the way, Peta provides insight into the Wall Street crisis he managed to escape: the fragility of the midnineties investment model; the disgraced former CEO of Lehman Brothers, who recruited Peta; and the high-adrenaline atmosphere where million-dollar sports-betting pools were common.
Trading Bases
by Joe PetaAn ex-Wall Street trader improved on Moneyball's famed sabermetrics and beat the Vegas odds with his own betting methods. Here is the story of how Joe Peta turned fantasy baseball into a dream come true. Joe Peta turned his back on his Wall Street trading career to pursue an ingenious--and incredibly risky--dream. He would apply his risk-analysis skills to Major League Baseball, and treat the sport like the S&P 500. In Trading Bases, Peta takes us on his journey from the ballpark in San Francisco to the trading floors and baseball bars of New York and the sportsbooks of Las Vegas, telling the story of how he created a baseball "hedge fund" with an astounding 41 percent return in his first year. And he explains the unique methods he developed. Along the way, Peta provides insight into the Wall Street crisis he managed to escape: the fragility of the midnineties investment model; the disgraced former CEO of Lehman Brothers, who recruited Peta; and the high-adrenaline atmosphere where million-dollar sports-betting pools were common.