Your five favorite sports books

Growing up, The Mick and My Favorite Summer 1956 were my favorite non-Judy Blume books, hands down. I have no idea how they'd hold up, but when I was 10 they were golden.

 

Koufax by Jane Leavy

 

I really liked Feinstein's book on the ACC (A March to Madness? maybe) ... I guess I didn't like it enough to remember the title, but I think that's it.

A Season on the Brink (duh) and The Blind Side are also terrific.

 

The Baseball Business: Pursuing Pennants and Profits in Baltimore by James Edward Miller. This is a must-read for anyone to truly understand the economics of baseball and how things changed from 1950s through the 1980s. Because of the way the Browns then Orioles were owned, there was a lot of documents that were public records that shed light on the changing economic environment as TV money came into the sport then free agency.

The League: The Rise and Decline of the NFL by David Harris. Another great book on the business side of sports. A little dated as it was published in the 1980s but still a must-read if you want to understand the NFL business.

 

Favorites:

"A March To Madness" - John Feinstein (correct, chilidog)
"Friday Night Lights" - Bissinger
"The Jordan Rules" - Sam Smith
"Four Corners" - Joe Menzer
"Ball Four" - Jim Bouton

 

The Halberstam sports books are all great. Too bad he never got to finish the book on the Greatest Game.

One more:
After the Sixth Game by Peter Gammons. Probably aimed more for Sox fans but it does a great job in telling how teams, in this case the Red Sox, struggled in dealing with the advent of free agency as well as the ownership problems after Tom Yawkey died. Honestly, it's not a top five but once you expand the list, this should eventually pop up.

 

Another that should be mentioned -- I inexplicably haven't read it yet, but learned a lot about it while reading Maraniss' Lombardi book:

W.C. Heinz, "Run to Daylight."

 

Season on the Brink

Loose Balls

The Bronx Zoo

Ball Four

If I Ever Get Back to Georgia, I'm Gonna Nail My Feet to the Ground by Lewis Grizzard.

This was the book that inspired me to go into sportswriting. No, he didn't coach, or play, but Grizzard loved sports (especially his Georgia Bulldogs) and stayed around that world the way many of us did: by writing about it.

I read every word and wanted his experiences working for the Athens Daily News and the Journal-Constitution for myself. I felt his loneliness when he told of his time working for the Chicago Sun-Times, and his joy regarding working in a profession he deeply loved and for those within that profession he came to befriend and respect.

 

Off the top of my head...

Season on the Brink
When Pride Still Mattered
When Nothing Else Matters (Michael Leahy Jordan book)
Friday Night Lights
Big Red Confidential
Under the Tarnished Dome
Raw Recruits

 

Yes - a good read. In fact last year bought a used copy through Amazon as my treasured original got misplaced.

Another in same vain - Seven Days Till Sunday

 

:-[ Sorry.

 

Huh I thought so and to think you got so made at me last summer when I accused you of absconding with RTD.

I am going to have to make my list 7 books because I forgot Instant Replay.