Bøger af Tom Clavin

Revised and updated, this in-depth look recounts The Ryder Cup's rich history and venerated place in sports, its champions and its characters, and its status as golf's greatest grudge match. From its humble origins in 1927 to its place today as golf's most gentlemanly battleand a multi-million-dollar international sports eventThe Ryder Cup has cemented its place in both its legacy and lore. Golf journalist Tom Clavin and golf commentator Bob Bubka have now made current their seminal work on the tournament, exploring the history and the rivalries, the extraordinary triumphs and devastating defeats, and the U.S. and the European contingents who have made this contest so remarkable. The names are legendary for any fan of golf: Palmer, Nicklaus, Jacklin, Floyd, Mickelson, Ballesteros, Faldo, Hogan, Nelson, Watson, Strange, Sarazen, Crenshaw, Woods, Montgomeriethe list goes on, as do their pitched battles for dominance and accomplishments on the greens. This up-close and personal look at The Ryder Cup is a must-read for golf fans, especially in preparation for the landmark 40th Anniversary tournament in Gleneagles, Scotland, in 2014.

The definitive account of the Dalton Gang and the most brazen bank heist in history, by the multiple New York Times bestselling author. The Last Outlaws is the thrilling true story of the last of one of the greatest outlaw gangs. The dreaded Dalton Gang consisted of three brothers and their rotating cast of colorful accomplices who saw themselves as descended from the legendary James brothers. They soon became legends themselves, beginning their career as common horse thieves before graduating to robbing banks and trains. On October 5, 1892, the Dalton Gang attempted their boldest and bloodiest raid yet: robbing two banks in broad daylight in Coffeyville, Kansas, simultaneously. As Grat, Bob, and Emmett Dalton and Bill Power and Dick Broadwell crossed the plaza to enter the two buildings, the outlaws were recognized by townspeople, who raised the alarm. Citizens armed themselves with shotguns and six-shooters from nearby hardware stores and were locked and loaded when the thieves emerged from the banks. The ensuing gun battle was a lead-filled firefight of epic proportions. As the smoke cleared, eight men lay dead--including four of the five members of the doomed Dalton Gang. For the first time ever, the full story of the Dalton Gang's life of crime, culminating in one of the Wild West's most violent events, are chronicled in detail--a last gruesome gasp of the age of gunfights.

"From multiple New York Times bestselling author Tom Clavin comes the thrilling true story of the most infamous hangout for bandits, thieves and murderers of all time-and the lawmen tasked with rooting them out. Robbers Roost, Brown's Hole, and Hole in the Wall were three hideouts that collectively were known to outlaws as "Bandit Heaven." During the 1880s and '90s these remote locations in Wyoming and Utah harbored hundreds of train and bank robbers, horse and cattle thieves, the occasional killer, and anyone else with a price on his head. Clavin's Bandit Heaven is the entertaining story of these tumultuous times and the colorful characters who rode the Outlaw Trail through the frigid mountain passes and throat-parching deserts that connected the three hideouts-well-guarded enclaves no sensible lawman would enter. There are the "star" residents like gregarious Butch Cassidy and his mostly silent sidekick the Sundance Kid, and an array of fascinating supporting players like the cold-blooded Kid Curry, the gang leader, and "Black Jack" Ketchum (who had the dubious distinction of being decapitated during a hanging), among others. Most of the hard-riding action takes place in the mid- to late-1890s when Bandit Heaven came to be one of the few safe places left as the law closed in on the dwindling number of active outlaws. Most were dead by the beginning of the 20th century, gunned down by a galvanized law-enforcement system seeking rewards and glory. Ultimately, only Cassidy and Sundance escaped . . . to meet their fate 6000 miles away, becoming legends when they died in a fusillade of lead. Bandit Heaven is a thrilling read, filled with action, indelible characters, and some poignance for the true end of the Wild West outlaw"--

"Promise" is a collection of essays and observations by New York Times best-selling author Tom Clavin. As he has recently said: "I have had the great good fortune to spend most of my life as a journalist, newspaper editor, and author of books. Those million-plus words were devoted to other people and events - some contemporary, many in other decades and centuries. Especially in recent years I have time-traveled and visited places I have never been and inhabited the minds of people I have never met. Telling stories of others has been thrilling and satisfying and I have managed to make a living doing it. In that part of my life, there are very few stones left un-turned. But there is territory closer to home that has mostly gone unexplored." This book contains a great deal of that material that is "closer to home."

"It is the early 19th century, and the land recently purchased by President Thomas Jefferson stretches west for thousands of miles. Who inhabits this vast new garden of Eden? What strange beasts and natural formations can be found? Thus was the birth of Manifest Destiny and the resulting bloody battles with Indigenous tribes encountered by white explorers. Also in this volatile mix are the grizzled fur trappers and mountain men, waging war against the Native American tribes whose lands they traverse. This is the setting of [this book], and the guide to this epic narrative is arguably America's greatest yet most unsung pathfinder, Jedediah Smith. His explorations into the forested frontiers on both sides of the Rocky Mountains and all the way to the West Coast would become the stuff of legend. Thanks to painstaking research and riveting writing, the story of the making of modern America is told through the eyes of both the ordinary and memorable men and women, settlers and Indigenous, who witnessed it"--

"On October 5, 1892, the Dalton Gang attempted the most brazen heist of that era: robbing two banks in broad daylight in Coffeyville, Kansas, simultaneously. As the gang crossed the plaza to enter the two banks, the Daltons were recognized by townspeople. Citizens armed themselves with weapons from nearby hardware stores and were ready for the gang when they tried to leave the banks. The ensuing gun battle was a firefight of epic proportions. For the first time ever, the full story of the Dalton Gang's life of crime, culminating in this violent heist, are chronicled in detail"--

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERTom Clavin's Follow Me to Hell is the explosive true story of how legendary Ranger Leander McNelly and his men brought justice to a lawless Texan frontier.In turbulent 1870s Texas, the revered and fearless Ranger Leander McNelly led his men in one dramatic campaign after another, apprehending cattle thieves, desperadoes, border ruffians, and other dangerous criminals and throwing them in jail or, if that's how they wanted it, six feet under. They would stop at nothing in pursuit of justice, even sending twenty-six Rangers across the border to retrieve stolen cattle-taking on hundreds of Mexican troops with nothing but their Sharps rifles and six-guns. The nation came to call them "McNelly's Rangers." Set against the backdrop of 200 years of thrilling Texas Rangers history, this page-turner details the tough life along the Texas border that was tamed by a courageous, yet doomed, captain and his team of fearless men. New York Times bestselling author Tom Clavin takes readers deep into the heart of Texas and beyond in this thrilling true account of some of the most legendary frontier lawmen of all time.

Tom Clavin's Follow Me to Hell is the explosive true story of how legendary Ranger Leander McNelly and his men brought justice to a lawless Texan frontier. In turbulent 1870s Texas, the revered and fearless Ranger Leander McNelly led his men in one dramatic campaign after another, throwing cattle thieves, desperadoes, border ruffians, and other dangerous criminals into jail or, if that's how they wanted it, six feet under. They would stop at nothing in pursuit of justice, even sending 26 Rangers across the border to retrieve stolen cattle--taking on hundreds of Mexican troops with nothing but their Sharps rifles and six-guns. The nation came to call them "McNelly's Rangers." Set against the backdrop of 200 years of thrilling Texas Rangers history, this page-turner takes readers into the tough life along the Texas border that was tamed by a courageous, yet doomed, captain and his team of fearless men. It was one hell of a ride!

An American fighter pilot doomed to die in Buchenwald but determined to survive.On August 13, 1944, Joe Moser set off on his forty-fourth combat mission over occupied France. Soon, he would join almost 170 other Allied airmen as prisoners in Buchenwald, one of the most notorious and deadly of Nazi concentration camps. Tom Clavin's Lightning Down tells this largely untold and riveting true story.Moser was just twenty-two years old, a farm boy from Washington State who fell in love with flying. During the War he realized his dream of piloting a P-38 Lightning, one of the most effective weapons the Army Air Corps had against the powerful German Luftwaffe. But on that hot August morning he had to bail out of his damaged, burning plane. Captured immediately, Moser's journey into hell began.Moser and his courageous comrades from England, Canada, New Zealand, and elsewhere endured the most horrific conditions during their imprisonment... until the day the orders were issued by Hitler himself to execute them. Only a most desperate plan would save them.The page-turning momentum of Lightning Down is like that of a thriller, but the stories of imprisoned and brutalized airmen are true and told in unforgettable detail, led by the distinctly American voice of Joe Moser, who prays every day to be reunited with his family.Lightning Down is a can't-put-it-down inspiring saga of brave men confronting great evil and great odds against survival.

The definitive account of the Dalton Gang and the most brazen bank heist in history, by the multiple New York Times bestselling author. The Last Outlaws is the thrilling true story of the last of one of the greatest outlaw gang. The dreaded Dalton Gang consisted of three brothers and their rotating cast of colorful accomplices who saw themselves as descended from the legendary James brothers. They soon became legends themselves, beginning their career as common horse thieves before graduating to robbing banks and trains. On October 5, 1892, the Dalton Gang attempted their boldest and bloodiest raid yet: robbing two banks in broad daylight in Coffeyville, Kansas, simultaneously. As Grat, Bob, and Emmett Dalton and Bill Power and Dick Broadwell crossed the plaza to enter the two buildings, the outlaws were recognized by townspeople, who raised the alarm. Citizens armed themselves with shotguns and six-shooters from nearby hardware stores and were locked and loaded when the thieves emerged from the banks. The ensuing gun battle was a lead-filled firefight of epic proportions. As the smoke cleared, eight men lay dead--including four of the five members of the doomed Dalton Gang. For the first time ever, the full story of the Dalton Gang's life of crime, culminating in one of the Wild West's most violent events, are chronicled in detail--a last gruesome gasp of the age of gunfights.

Winner of the Gold Medal for Memoir/Biography from the Military Writers Society of AmericaA New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice?A whale of a tale, told clearly and quickly. I read the entire book in almost one sitting.??Thomas E. Ricks, New York Times Book ReviewThe incredible story of the first African American military pilot, who went on to become a Paris nightclub impresario, a spy in the French Resistance and an American civil rights pioneerEugene Bullard lived one of the most fascinating lives of the twentieth century. The son of a former slave and an indigenous Creek woman, Bullard fled home at the age of eleven to escape the racial hostility of his Georgia community. When his journey led him to Europe, he garnered worldwide fame as a boxer, and later as the first African American fighter pilot in history.After the war, Bullard returned to Paris a celebrated hero. But little did he know that the dramatic, globe-spanning arc of his life had just begun.All Blood Runs Red is the inspiring untold story of an American hero, a thought-provoking chronicle of the twentieth century and a portrait of a man who came from nothing and by his own courage, determination, gumption, intelligence and luck forged a legendary life.

The definitive true story of Wild Bill, the first lawman of the Wild West, by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Dodge City.In July 1865, "Wild Bill" Hickok shot and killed Davis Tutt in Springfield, MO-the first quick-draw duel on the frontier. Thus began the reputation that made him a marked man to every gunslinger in the Wild West.James Butler Hickock was known across the frontier as a soldier, Union spy, scout, lawman, gunfighter, gambler, showman, and actor. He crossed paths with General Custer and Buffalo Bill Cody, as well as Ben Thompson and other young toughs gunning for the sheriff with the quickest draw west of the Mississippi.Wild Bill also fell in love-multiple times-before marrying the true love of his life, Agnes Lake, the impresario of a traveling circus. He would be buried however, next to fabled frontierswoman Calamity Jane.Even before his death, Wild Bill became a legend, with fiction sometimes supplanting fact in the stories that surfaced. Once, in a bar in Nebraska, he was confronted by four men, three of whom he killed in the ensuing gunfight. A famous Harper's Magazine article credited Hickok with slaying 10 men that day; by the 1870s, his career-long kill count was up to 100. The legend of Wild Bill has only grown since his death in 1876, when cowardly Jack McCall famously put a bullet through the back of his head during a card game. Bestselling author Tom Clavin has sifted through years of western lore to bring Hickock fully to life in this rip-roaring, spellbinding true story.

The untold Great American Story of three brothers—Joltin' Joe, Dom, and Vince DiMaggio—and the Great American Game, baseball, that would consume their livesMore than 350 sets of brothers have played in the major leagues since the 1870s. But few have had the skill, the charisma, or the success of the DiMaggio brothers. Joe DiMaggio, "The Yankee Clipper," is an American icon and one of the greatest athletes of the twentieth century. Even his chief rival, Ted Williams, called him the greatest all-around player he ever saw.But two of Joe's brothers, also center fielders, were dynamic players in their own right. Dominic, affectionately known as "The Little Professor," was a seven-time All-Star who played for the Boston Red Sox from 1940 through 1953. He hit better than .300 five times in his career, finished with a .298 average, and like his big brother, rarely struck out. And Vince DiMaggio, the eldest, made two All-Star teams and in 1941 smacked 21 home runs and drove in 100 RBIs while playing for the Pittsburgh Pirates.In The DiMaggios, journalist Tom Clavin draws on a wealth of source materials, interviews with family members and teammates, and in-depth reporting to reveal how three kids from an immigrant family of eleven found their way to the upper echelons of American sports and popular culture. A vivid portrait of a family and the ways in which their shifting fortunes and status shaped their relationships, it is also a transporting exploration of an era and a culture, using baseball as a lens to view and understand American society in the twentieth century.

During the Golden Age of Sports in the 1920s, Walter Hagen was to golf what Babe Ruth was to baseball. The first professional golfer to make his living playing the game rather than teaching it, Hagen won eleven major professional tournaments over his long career -- two U.S. Opens, four British Opens, and five PGA Championships (including an amazing streak of four consecutive PGA wins) -- a record surpassed only by Jack Nicklaus. Hagen was also influential in helping to found the Ryder Cup and was the first American golfer to top $1 million in career earnings -- a figure equivalent to over $40 million today. Award-winning sportswriter Tom Clavin has penned a thrilling biography that vividly recalls Hagen's dazzling achievements and the qualities that made him a star. Energetic, witty, and one of the best putters ever to walk the green, Hagen was a man who loved to party, was extraordinarily generous to his friends, and golfed the world over, giving exhibitions. He preferred to travel by limousine, and if he intended to stay awhile he'd bring a second limo just to transport his clothes, which were nothing but the finest. On his many trips across the Atlantic to compete in the Ryder Cup or British Open, Hagen was known to throw parties that lasted days, ending only when the ship reached the shore. He was also the first professional golfer to admit to playing not only for the love of the game, but also for the love of the winner's purse. Walter Hagen, forerunner of today's sports superstars, is as dynamic a character as can be found in American sports history. Bringing Hagen to life with incredible detail and countless anecdotes, Sir Walter is the authoritative biography of the man who helped create professional golf as it's known today.

A “thrilling narrative of bravery, bravado, and loss” (Kirkus Reviews) that tells the “gripping story of a handful of marines who formed the last body of Americans to leave Saigon on April 30, 1975” (Booklist). In a gripping, moment-by-moment narrative based on a wealth of recently declassified documents and in-depth interviews, Bob Drury and Tom Clavin tell the remarkable drama that unfolded over the final, heroic hours of the Vietnam War. This closing chapter of the war would become the largest-scale evacuation ever carried out, as improvised by a small unit of Marines, a vast fleet of helicopter pilots flying nonstop missions beyond regulation, and a Marine general who vowed to arrest any officer who ordered his choppers grounded while his men were still on the ground. Drury and Clavin focus on the story of the eleven young Marines who were the last men to leave, rescued from the U.S. Embassy roof just moments before capture, having voted to make an Alamo-like last stand. As politicians in Washington struggled to put the best face on disaster and the American ambassador refused to acknowledge that the end had come, these courageous men held their ground and helped save thousands of lives. Drury and Clavin deliver a taut and stirring account of a turning point in American history that unfolds with the heart-stopping urgency of the best thrillers—a riveting true story finally told, in full, by those who lived it.

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERTom Clavin's Follow Me to Hell is the explosive true story of how legendary Ranger Leander McNelly and his men brought justice to a lawless Texan frontier.In turbulent 1870s Texas, the revered and fearless Ranger Leander McNelly led his men in one dramatic campaign after another, apprehending cattle thieves, desperadoes, border ruffians, and other dangerous criminals and throwing them in jail or, if that's how they wanted it, six feet under. They would stop at nothing in pursuit of justice, even sending twenty-six Rangers across the border to retrieve stolen cattle-taking on hundreds of Mexican troops with nothing but their Sharps rifles and six-guns. The nation came to call them "McNelly's Rangers." Set against the backdrop of 200 years of thrilling Texas Rangers history, this page-turner details the tough life along the Texas border that was tamed by a courageous, yet doomed, captain and his team of fearless men. New York Times bestselling author Tom Clavin takes readers deep into the heart of Texas and beyond in this thrilling true account of some of the most legendary frontier lawmen of all time.

An American fighter pilot doomed to die in Buchenwald but determined to survive.On August 13, 1944, Joe Moser set off on his forty-fourth combat mission over occupied France. Soon, he would join almost 170 other Allied airmen as prisoners in Buchenwald, one of the most notorious and deadly of Nazi concentration camps. Tom Clavin's Lightning Down tells this largely untold and riveting true story.Moser was just twenty-two years old, a farm boy from Washington State who fell in love with flying. During the War he realized his dream of piloting a P-38 Lightning, one of the most effective weapons the Army Air Corps had against the powerful German Luftwaffe. But on that hot August morning he had to bail out of his damaged, burning plane. Captured immediately, Moser's journey into hell began.Moser and his courageous comrades from England, Canada, New Zealand, and elsewhere endured the most horrific conditions during their imprisonment... until the day the orders were issued by Hitler himself to execute them. Only a most desperate plan would save them.The page-turning momentum of Lightning Down is like that of a thriller, but the stories of imprisoned and brutalized airmen are true and told in unforgettable detail, led by the distinctly American voice of Joe Moser, who prays every day to be reunited with his family.Lightning Down is a can't-put-it-down inspiring saga of brave men confronting great evil and great odds against survival.

A legend during the Golden Era of the 1950s, Brooklyn Dodgers baseball player and New York Mets manager Gil Hodges is at the center of this masterful sports biography, which delves into the life, achievements, and sterling character of one of baseball’s most overlooked stars.Gil Hodges was the Brooklyn Dodgers’ powerful first baseman who, alongside Jackie Robinson, helped drive his team to six pennants and a thrilling World Series victory in 1955.Dutifully following the Dodgers to Los Angeles in 1958, Hodges longed to return to New York City, and in 1962, joined the original Mets. He took over the manager’s spot on their bench in 1968 and transformed the team from a joke to World Champions in 1969—thus creating the Miracle Mets. Yet behind his stoic demeanor lay a man prone to anxiety and scarred by combat during World War II. His sudden death in 1972 shocked his friends and family and left a void in the hearts of baseball fans everywhere.Acclaimed authors Tom Clavin and Danny Peary deliver a thoroughly researched and poignant view of  one of baseball’s hidden treasures, shedding light on a fascinating life and career that even his most ardent fans never knew.

Tom Clavin and Danny Peary chronicle the life and career of baseball’s “natural home run king” in the first definitive biography of Roger Maris—including a brand-new chapter to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of his record breaking season.Roger Maris may be the greatest ballplayer no one really knows. In 1961, the soft-spoken man from the frozen plains of North Dakota enjoyed one of the most amazing seasons in baseball history, when he outslugged his teammate Mickey Mantle to become the game’s natural home-run king. It was Mantle himself who said, “Roger was as good a man and as good a ballplayer as there ever was.” Yet Maris was vilified by fans and the press and has never received his due from biographers—until now. Tom Clavin and Danny Peary trace the dramatic arc of Maris’s life, from his boyhood in Fargo through his early pro career in the Cleveland Indians farm program, to his World Series championship years in New York and beyond. At the center is the exciting story of the 1961 season and the ordeal Maris endured as an outsider in Yankee pinstripes, unloved by fans who compared him unfavorably to their heroes Ruth and Mantle, relentlessly attacked by an aggressive press corps who found him cold and inaccessible, and treated miserably by the organization. After the tremendous challenge of breaking Ruth’s record was behind him, Maris ultimately regained his love of baseball as a member of the world champion St. Louis Cardinals. And over time, he gained redemption in the eyes of the Yankee faithful. With research drawn from more than 130 interviews with Maris’s teammates, opponents, family, and friends, as well as sixteen pages of photos, some of which have never before been seen, this timely and poignant biography sheds light on an iconic figure from baseball’s golden era—and establishes the importance of his role in the game’s history.

An American fighter pilot doomed to die in Buchenwald but determined to survive.On August 13, 1944, Joe Moser set off on his forty-fourth combat mission over occupied France. Soon, he would join almost 170 other Allied airmen as prisoners in Buchenwald, one of the most notorious and deadly of Nazi concentration camps. Tom Clavin's Lightning Down tells this largely untold and riveting true story.Moser was just twenty-two years old, a farm boy from Washington State who fell in love with flying. During the War he realized his dream of piloting a P-38 Lightning, one of the most effective weapons the Army Air Corps had against the powerful German Luftwaffe. But on that hot August morning he had to bail out of his damaged, burning plane. Captured immediately, Moser's journey into hell began.Moser and his courageous comrades from England, Canada, New Zealand, and elsewhere endured the most horrific conditions during their imprisonment... until the day the orders were issued by Hitler himself to execute them. Only a most desperate plan would save them.The page-turning momentum of Lightning Down is like that of a thriller, but the stories of imprisoned and brutalized airmen are true and told in unforgettable detail, led by the distinctly American voice of Joe Moser, who prays every day to be reunited with his family.Lightning Down is a can't-put-it-down inspiring saga of brave men confronting great evil and great odds against survival.

The great American story of three brothers?Joltin' Joe, Dom, and Vince Dimaggio?and the great American game, baseball, that would consume their livesMore than three hundred fifty sets of brothers have played in the major leagues since the 1870s. But few have had the skill, the charisma, or the success of the DiMaggio brothers. In The DiMaggios, journalist Tom Clavin draws on a wealth of source materials, interviews with family members and teammates, and in-depth reporting to reveal how three kids from an immigrant family of eleven found their way to the upper echelons of American sports and popular culture. A vivid portrait of a family and the ways in which their shifting fortunes and status shaped their relationships, it is also a transporting exploration of an era and a culture, using our national pastime, baseball, as a lens to view and understand American society in the twentieth century.

In 1948, New Orleans veteran trumpeter and singer Louis Prima stumbled into a young girl named Keely Smith. She was barely a performer at all, almost half his age, destined for a relatively quiet life; their encounter was pure coincidence. But they went on to invent "The Wildest," the most exciting and successful lounge act Las Vegas has ever seen, an act that became one of the hottest in the U.S. in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Their records were hugely popular, and they were courted by Frank Sinatra, Ed Sullivan, Robert Mitchum, and other well-known entertainers of the day. Their professional success helped bring about the rise of Las Vegas as a mecca of American entertainment. Their love story ended soon after they helped usher in John F. Kennedy's presidency--singing "That Old Black Magic" for him at his inauguration--but their influence is still evident. And Keely still draws SRO audiences to her nightclub appearances. Now, on the occasion of Louis Prima's 100th birthday, comes the first book on this duo, illustrating not only one of show business's greatest love stories but also the Vegas milieu in which they reached the pinnacle of their success.

The Pelican was being pushed once more onto its port side, and Eddie knew with sad certainty that this time it was not stopping. When Captain Eddie Carroll put to sea on Labor Day weekend 1951, he didn't know how many passengers were aboard his overloaded boat. He didn't know that an unpredicted storm would descend from a cloudless sky.