My list of books is not the 10 greatest sports books of all time, I
haven’t read every sports book ever written and would be unable to write that
list. My list of books is the 10
greatest sports books I have written and an explanation on why they are and why
you should read them, there will be books that I will read later that will be
better and there will be books that are worse.
So without further ado my top 10 sports books are:
Under no circumstances can I defend putting this book on the list based
on content or quality of writing. The
book reads like it was written by a 5th grader and even that at
times seems like a stretch. Guess what
though this is one of the most important books in the history of baseball and
changed the sport forever. Before Juiced everyone knew that there was a
steroids problem in baseball but I don’t think anyone understood how deeply
rooted the problem was and how heavily the sport relied on them. The man is an idiot, a buffoon with a hysterical
twitter account, a misplace sense of self-importance and unlike anyone else in
the steroid era, completely honest. Read
this book, laugh at the writing style but understand one thing everything that
happens in the book is completely true, the man isn’t smart enough to make
anything up. Remember this for all
aspiring writers Jose Canseco wrote a groundbreaking and crushing book on a
multiple billion dollar industry, anyone can do it.
Moneyball 2.0, current
Grantland writer Jonah Keri takes you behind the scenes of the Tampa Bay Rays,
and what might be the best front office in sports. This book where Wall Street goes to baseball
shows how teams have taken what the A’s used in Moneyball and how it has really evolved from there. If you are using the concepts of Moneyball then you are behind then you
are behind the 8 ball and are many steps behind the best organizations. Keri makes you feel sympathetic towards the
Tampa Bay Rays and how really the franchise has just been screwed over from day
1 and any chance of baseball or financial success was next to impossible. Then it shows you the people that are making
that possible, in the Rays front office of Wall Street executives and quirky
but effective manager Joe Maddon.
You can read most of my thoughts on the book here, but overall great
book on a fascinating team.
Want to know who the real Michael Jordan is? Well if so and go ahead
and read The Jordan Rules. This book doesn’t tell you about the Jordan who
you see in commercials or in interviews, but what arguably the greatest athlete
and greatest competitor in sports history was like on a day to day basis. The book isn’t all nice and cheery about Jordan
and what he gave to the team, but it wasn’t this scandalous book that Jordan
saw it as that was just trying to destroy his reputation. Personally I came out more impressed by
Jordan than anything from it and even more impressed by Phil Jackson, the Zen
Master, who took the greatest athlete in the sport and turned him into a
champion. The book isn’t the best
written of the bunch but it was fascinating to read about the greatest player
and the greatest coach of their generation and what they were like.
This book is not about a sports figure or a team, but a business, the thing
is that this business has shaped the world of sports unlike any other, that is Those Guys Have All the Fun is the oral
history of ESPN. Hearing the story of
how a small sports station that nobody thought would succeed turned into an
extremely profitable and successful news source is fascinating. Reading about the small quarrels between
coworkers that we all know and how they made the decisions they did to turn
into such a successful organization is extremely interesting. The book though at times gets pretty dry for
runs, and in a long book like it is, that is to be expected.
BOBBY KNIGHT! The man is one of a kind, like no other and a real son of
bitch. He is man of contradictions but extremely
straight forward, and you get the full image of the real Bobby Knight saint and
sinner in A Season on the Brink. The book while centered around Indiana
Basketball was really a book about one man and one man only, the enigma that is
Bobby Knight. Feinstein gives you a
connection with Knight that is fascinating in that he makes you understand who
the person is but by not being either to passionately on his side or against
the man. He tells you who the man is and
what he does and leaves it up to you to come up with your thoughts. Knight is a giant and one of sport’s ultimate
legends, someone who despite his insane flaws having a Paterno like scandal
would be more shocking, but wasn’t held on as high a level. Anytime you can get a look into a fascinating
figure like Bobby Knight then you have to read the book.
The most emotionally jarring and probably shocking book on this list is
Friday Night Lights, inspiration of
the hit television show and movie. To
anyone who has seen either I would say this they don’t at all exaggerate how
seriously Texas takes high school football, if anything after reading this book
I don’t know if they emphasize how important football was/is enough. Reading this was literally insane as you get
an in depth look at the dark side of football, fallen idols and what building
your town around high school athletes can do.
It was uplifting and heart wrenching, but extremely thoroughly researched
and you can notice Bissinger’s emotional connection with the team. He truly cared about the players and the
people of the town in this fascinating study into the heart of Texas,
football.
Without a question the most fun and entertaining read of any book on
this list is The Book of Basketball
by my favorite sportswriter Bill Simmons.
The book is way too long, makes way too many dated pop culture
references and was way too personal, but I loved every second of it. It was so entertaining to read that despite
its length I was able to finish extremely quickly just trying to absorb
everything I could along the way.
Simmons is just a fun, and interesting writer and I just couldn’t put
the book down the entire time. This is
all without getting to the insanely thoroughly researched and well thought out
nature of the book. Be it his pyramid
style player ranking system, his player comparisions, his history of the
sports, “The Secret”, or really anything the book is extremely impressive. If someone knew nothing about professional
basketball and then decided to read this book they would become a basketball
expert with a great understanding of the history of the game who could win any
argument.
The book Moneyball very well
could be the most important sports book of all time. This book legitimized the sabermetric
movement in baseball and brought analytics into the idea of the use of
analytics in sports in general to the mainstream. The reason though the book was so widely
successful is that it was just a fascinating and extremely interesting
book. It was able to combine the use of
anecdotes and statistics to inform the reader of what the entire movement in
baseball represented and where it was coming from. The book was fascinating and gives you a true
appreciation for the statistical and unseen world of professional sports. It changed me personally in how I look at
sports and really how I look at life and my future.
When I began thinking of this list from the start there was no question
what book was going to be number 1. David
Halberstam’s account of the 1979-1980 Portland Trailblazers and the NBA as a
whole is by far the greatest sports book I have ever read and what might
actually be the greatest book I have ever read.
I am a pretty quick reader who likes to get done with books as quickly
as I can, but reading this book I found it impossible to accomplish that. I was literally hanging on every word waiting
on what he was going to write trying to understand exactly what was going on
every second. It completely engrossed me
and is truly at a higher level than every other book on this list. It takes the concept of following a team
around for a season than writing a book about it to another level
entirely. You really get in depth
understandings of different players on the team, different coaches, the NBA as
a whole, and the direction the league was going in. If you consider yourself a sports fan, or
really a fan of literature in general than I wouldn’t recommend I would demand
that you read this book.
No comments:
Post a Comment