best sports biographies

There's a new book out about Secretariat called "The Horse God Built." It's by Lawrence Scanlan, a Canadian writer. Anyone know anything about this book, ie. how well it stands up next to "Making of a Champion"?

 

i've reviewed two sports books in my entire career, and both were last summer. Big Bam by Montville, which was terrific. And Love Me Hate Me by Jeff Pearlman (about Bonds), which was also great. Really want to read the Gehrig book--just haven't had a chance

 

Loved Clemente. Did not love "Clemente."

 

"Foul," the Connie Hawkins story. Amazing just for the description of the NYC playground legends who never made it to college or The Show.

 

'King of the World', david remnick on ali.

 

Not a biography. Gets him to 22. Even the "Ali" movie got him to 32.

 

Mr K,

KOTW = Biography. The definition says nothing about a biography having to be a cradle-to-grave account of a life.

1. a written account of another person's life: the biography of Byron by Marchand.
2. an account in biographical form of an organization, society, theater, animal, etc.
3. such writings collectively.
4. the writing of biography as an occupation or field of endeavor.

Remnick's notion is that what made Ali was sum of events leading up to Liston and that era. That all that came after was foreordained by such. Fact is, KOTW succeeds because it brings Ali to life more vividly than other works that would pass for biography. By your measure, say, the first volume of Caro's Johnson study isn't biography either because LBJ isn't even vice-president yet. BTW: If it's not biography, what is it? Other than the best book about Ali.

YHS, etc

 

That Crosby bio from a few years back was pretty good but I can't remember who wrote it.

 

By your measure, a reasonable one if not mine, the best Ali biography came before he was Ali: "Black is Best: The Riddle of Cassius Clay," by Jack Olsen. Amazing stuff there.

I read KOTW as the residue of an intended cradle-to-grave, perhaps even a Caro or Guralnick first volume of the life, that was aborted by Tina Brown's decapitation and Remnick's unexpected ascension to the NYr throne.

 

What didn't you like?

 

You beat me to it, Joe. This book came out in the early '70s, I think, and it's been at least 25 years since I read it, but I've always remembered it.

 

Sting Like A Bee by Jose Torres is a pretty good Ali bio.