Ben Franklin  got things done. In the days before American Revolution, Franklin was a super-achiever with his inventions, the businesses he operated, and his endless thoughts that he published in various publications. One thing that Benjamin Franklin seemed to obsess about in particular was self-improvement. In the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin we get a first hand account of some of Franklin’s self-help lessons.
Franklin’s Autobiography is one of the most loved and read books of all-time. It is often included in collections like the Harvard Classics and Everyman’s Library.

Franklin’s wrote things down. That was important. Franklin had this idea that he needed help in creating virtuous habits of behavior. He decided that he needed to focus his effort on individual habits of virtue until those stuck. He created charts with a number of virtues on them. He would focus on one virtue at a time and each night he would grade himself on that virtue, but also look at how he did for all the virtues on his list. Our authors liked Franklin’s ideas so much that at Sporting Chance Press they are using them in our new series for young people.

In Papa Bear and the Chicago Bears Winning Ways  by Patrick McCaskey, he identified principles or virtues that were successfully used by his grandfather George “Papa Bear” Halas throughout his football life. In Baseball’s Winning Ways, author J. D. Thorne identified principles used for generations in baseball training and play. We developed and created special charts that are used in both books for young readers to use for their own self-help purposes, to create habits of virtue.

Papa Bear and the Chicago Bears’ Winning Ways by Patrick McCaskey tells the dramatic story of George Halas and his crucial role in professional football–all written for middle grades and young adult readers. Papa Bear’s leadership took professional football from its beginning into the modern age. In Papa Bear and the Chicago Bears’ Winning Ways, highlights of history are presented with vintage photographs so readers are not only  exposed to story of football, but they get  American history as well. Halas’s important words of wisdom, his winning ways, are also explored and are tied into Ben Franklin’s self-help methods for young people.

Baseball’s Winning Ways is written for enjoyment, inspiration, and information by the author of The 10 Commandments of Baseball, J. D. Thorne. Baseball’s Winning Ways examines baseball eras and their backgrounds, along with profiles of great current and past players. The drama of the game, its history, baseball superstitions, statistics, and the story of trading cards are presented clearly for readers from age 12 on up. The central theme of the book is baseball’s principles that are essential to the best baseball programs. The author points out that baseball promotes certain virtues that are so important today. These are the values that parents, grandparents, teachers, and coaches want to pass down to the next generation—as important now as ever.