Ten Great Sports Books

Well, it’s the lazy days of summer and nothing much is happening in the sports world these days.

Well, except the World Cup qualifiers.

And the College World Series.

And the upcoming Tour de France.

And the never-ending Major League Baseball season.

Let me try that again—it's summer, and it's a great time to read.

Please allow me to present 10 great sports books.

Note, these are not my ten favorite sports books of all-time, nor are they an attempt to list the ten best sports books ever.

These are simply ten sports books I've read and enjoyed over the years, in no particular order.

Whether you’re at the pool, the beach, the park, or bored at a Pirates game, sports books are a great time-killer, and they are often times quick, light reads.

Please enjoy responsibly.

Playing for Keeps: Michael Jordan and the World He Made, by David Halberstam

There are plenty of Jordan books out there, from Sam Smith’s "The Jordan Rules" to Michael Leahy's "When Nothing Else Matters."

For my money, this is the best one and probably the most comprehensive.

The author is legendary journalist David Halberstam, who also wrote "Summer of ’49," about Joe Dimaggio’s Yankees, and "Breaks of the Game," about the ’79 Portland Trailblazers.

In this effort, he tackles everything from Jordan’s suffocating worldwide fame to his insane competitiveness to his unprecedented commercial appeal.

There is also some truly fascinating stuff in here about Dean Smith, Phil Jackson (whose career path is pretty bizarre), Scottie Pippen (a truly elite sidekick), Larry Bird, and David Falk (Jordan’s power-wielding agent).

The chapters about Dennis Rodman and the ’96 Bulls are top-quality stuff as well.

Jordan himself declined to be interviewed for the book, which kind of makes it better.

It was published in 1999, just after Jordan's second retirement, when he was almost universally revered.

Babe: The Legend Comes to Life, by Robert Creamer

Much like Michael Jordan, it is likely no one will ever know the real story of Babe Ruth. But, this book, which includes interviews with tons of people who knew the Babe, is probably as close as anyone will get.

It was written in the ‘70s by Robert Creamer, one of the original writers for Sports Illustrated. Although he can be a bit folksy at times, he nails down every side of the Babe's story.

Ruth comes across as somewhat of a tragic figure, a fun-loving superhuman who never had a real family and was shunned from baseball when he retired.

People say sometimes, “There will never be another (fill in the blank).” I think Ruth was the first sports figure you could say this about.

Also notable: Leigh Montville basically rewrote this book, gave it a new name (The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth), and published it a couple of years ago.

The Fight, by Norman Mailer

Novelist Norman Mailer traveled to Zaire (now the D.R.C.) to cover the legendary 1974 fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, known as the Rumble in the Jungle.

Mailer writes exquisitely of his time in Africa. While abroad, he spends significant amounts of time with the two fighters and their respective entourages.

He also piles around with fellow writers George Plimpton (covering the fight for Sports Illustrated) and Hunter S. Thompson (covering the fight for Rolling Stone).

The documentary about this fight, When We Were Kings, is equally superb. The book is worth it just for the description of the actual fight, but there is plenty of other great stuff in there to keep you interested.

Can I Keep My Jersey?: 11 Teams, Five Countries, and Four Years of My Life As A Basketball Vagabond, by Paul Shirley

Shirley is a popular blogger for the Worldwide Leader, and this book is basically a diary of his basketball experiences in his first few years out of college.

As you can tell from the title, he played for 11 teams, including stops in Greece, Russia, Spain, and North Dakota.

He briefly played for the Atlanta Hawks and Chicago Bulls before landing a spot as the 12th man on the 2005 Phoenix Suns.

Shirley covers nearly everything about the pro basketball experience, and he’s a really funny writer.

It’s one of only a few books that were actually written by a professional athlete—no ghostwriters needed.

The Mad Dog 100: The Greatest Sports Arguments of All Time, by Chris Russo

Chris Russo, better known as the Mad Dog, once represented half of the best sports talk radio program on the East Coast.

Mike and the Mad Dog ran daily on New York’s WFAN from 1989 until last summer.

Anyway, Russo breaks down some key sports arguments here with Mad Dog-like surliness.

What is the best NBA team of all-time?

(Hint: the ’96 Bulls didn’t make the top five.)

What is the most impressive record in all of sports?

(A 56 game hitting streak is up there.)

Is Sox-Yankees or North Carolina-Duke a better rivalry?

Although he somehow left out the “Barry Sanders vs. Emmitt Smith” argument, I would still highly recommend this book.

Fever Pitch, by Nick Hornby

All you need to know about this one is that it's the best soccer book of all-time, and it's nothing like the awful Jimmy Fallon movie from a couple of years ago.

Hornby—who also wrote "High Fidelity" and "About A Boy"—is a soccer-obsessed lunatic who explains why, in meticulous detail, exactly he is a soccer-obsessed lunatic.

It helps to read this one in a British accent.

Fab Five: Basketball, Trash Talk, the American Dream, by Mitch Albom

Whatever you may think of the squirrely Mitch Albom, few can argue with the idea that he’s a fine writer when he wants to be.

My advice is to skip his schmaltzy books, like "Tuesdays With Morrie" and "The Five People You Meet In Heaven" and read this book about one of the most famous college basketball teams that never won a championship.

Albom covers the two years when the Fab Five came of age, and there’s plenty of interesting stuff about Chris Webber, Jalen Rose, and the rest of the baggy shorts & black socks crew.

One of the better sub-plots is the tragic story of Michael Talley, a high school star in Michigan who started for the Wolverines but lost his spot when the freshmen arrived.

He also lost his confidence, never made it to the NBA, and—rumor has it—was the culprit who signaled for time-out from the bench just before Webber infamously signaled for it on the court in the waning seconds of the ’93 championship game.

The Professional, by W.C.Heinz

I gotta admit it:

I picked up this book last summer only because it was a point of contention in the hilarious, and now infamous, tirade by author Buzz Bissinger (pictured) on HBO’s Costas Now.

Also, this was the book that Ernest Hemingway famously commented on, calling it "the only good novel about a fighter I've ever read."

Anyway, W.C. Heinz seems like one of the last old-time sports writers in the mold of Grantland Rice or Red Smith.

This book is right down that alley—a simple, no nonsense story about a pro boxer and the training he goes through leading up to a title bout.

It almost makes you wish you were alive in the 1950s.

Ball Four, by Jim Bouton

Do you like drinking, foul language, baseball, sex, and the late 1960s?

Then this book is for you.

There’s a reason this is one of the best sports books of all-time, and it’s probably this:

Bouton, while reporting his days as a pitcher for the expansion Seattle Pilots, lets us in on all the dirty little secrets about baseball that no one was ever allowed to tell.

For his troubles, he was famously banned from Old Timers Day at Yankee Stadium until 1998, even though he won two World Series games for the Yanks in the mid-1960s.

Former teammate Mickey Mantle refused to speak to Bouton after this book came out; they finally reconciled shortly before Mantle died.

Love Me, Hate Me: Barry Bonds and the Making of an Antihero, by Jeff Pearlman

Pearlman spares nothing in this scathing biography of Mr. Balco Bonds.

I mean Barry Balco.

I mean Barry Bonds.

The author interviewed something like 500 people, and the picture that comes into focus is pretty clear—Bonds is a jerk.

Also, in case you didn't know, he did steroids.

There are some great stories in here, like when he threw a whole pizza at Pirates outfielder and former teammate R.J. Reynolds, or when he got into a brawl with Giants 2B Jeff Kent in the dugout.

But the best story, possibly apocryphal, is how Bonds refused to listen to Andy Van Slyke’s advice to shade to the left when Francisco Cabrera singled in the bottom of the ninth to send the Braves to the World Series in 1992.

I guess that’s why Barry’s throw was a little off-line.