5 Best Sports Books
Sports books are written and released at a pretty quick rate these days, and as a result many of them wind up going unnoticed. To some extent, this is also a result of questionable quality; a lot of sports book authors are playing to certain audiences or capitalizing on very specific topics, which sometimes means hasty writing and less focus on crafting a book that could be enjoyed by the masses. But that doesn't mean there aren't gems that rise to the top of the genre.
Already in the 2010s (if that's how we're referring to the current decade), we've seen some truly wonderful sports books exploring their respective topics in ways that could capture any reader. The best sports books contextualize sports stories in culture and/or history to give the reader a true sense of what it may have been like to witness the events being discussed, or why the events are so significant. For those interested, these are five of the books that have done it best in the past five or six years.
Boys Among Men by Jonathan Abrams
The full title of this book is "Boys Among Men: How The Prep-to-Pro Generation Redefined The NBA And Sparked A Basketball Revolution," and that about tells the story of what's contained therein. This is the story of a generation of basketball players from 1995 to 2005 who decided to skip college and jump straight to the NBA before the league imposed a rule forbidding that leap. Incidentally, this is the same era of basketball during which the sport became particularly popular in China and among Chinese Americans; Kobe Bryant has become an icon among Chinese fans, and prep-to-pro phenom Tracy MacGrady also became a popular figure due to being teammates with Yao Ming for a few years. But specific interests aside, this is a fascinating story featuring tons of interviews and first-hand accounts of what the prep-to-pro era did for the NBA's history. "Boys Among Men" was published earlier this year and has a five-star rating at Barnes and Noble.
Pete Rose: An American Dilemma by Kostya Kennedy
Once mentioned as the best sports book of 2014 in Fortune, "Pete Rose: An American Dilemma" is a unique look at one of professional sports' most controversial figures. Pete Rose, statistically, is the greatest hitter in baseball history. And yet he's also one of the league's most disgraced figures, because he was banned by the MLB for gambling on his own games. Rose is a polarizing figure among baseball fans, and Kennedy's book does a wonderful job of assessing him from all angles, focusing on both his incredible accomplishments and his foolish misdeeds. It's ultimately an analysis of Rose, but beyond the player, the book almost makes you think about the nature of a professional athlete (and how we judge such figures) in a different way.
The Sport Of Kings by C.E. Morgan
Horse racing seems to many like a little bit of a dated sport, though in reality it remains quite popular. Major professional horse races still draw huge crowds and strong television viewership, and there are even a few games based on horse racing featured on Gala Casino's platform. Given that sites like those tend to design their slots and arcades around whatever will attract gamers, it stands to reason there's still a market for this sport. And perhaps that's one reason why C.E. Morgan's "The Sport Of Kings" managed to stand out in 2015 against the usual overflow of books about basketball, baseball, and football. Unlike the other books on this list, this is a work of fiction that succeeds in bringing the drama and passion of horse racing to life. It's not merely some underdog story or an account of a fictional competition, but rather a deep and lively story that conveys the historical significance of the sport and how closely its fans and participants are tied to the animals. Regardless of the lingering popularity of the sport, this is a fascinating read for anybody.
The Legends Club by John Feinstein
This book comes a little bit closer to blending in with the crowd of niche sports books, but it does have a greater significance to a pretty widespread fan base. College basketball is something of a religion to a lot of people in different parts of the United States, and this book takes an in-depth look at some of the sport's most iconic figures when they happened to have a three-way rivalry between them. Specifically, it's North Carolina State's Jim Valvano, North Carolina's Dean Smith, and Duke's Mike Krzyzewski who make up the core focus of Feinstein's book. For fans of these three men and their programs, the book will have a clear appeal, but it's also one of the most intimate looks at college basketball and major sports rivalries in general that you could imagine. Feinstein, who himself attended Duke in the years just before Krzyzewski was hired, has a uniquely close perspective on the events he writes about. As a result, this book doesn't just function as an outside observation, and instead provides a fascinating account of what goes into a major sports rivalry.
The Victor's Crown by David Potter
It feels only appropriate to mention this book, not only because it's a fascinating and unique sports book, but because we're on the cusp of the Rio Olympics. It's widely known that the Olympics can be traced back to ancient Greece, and that certain sports like the marathon and some forms of wrestling were actually practiced even back then. But before this book, it was hard to truly get a feel for what sports culture might have been like in the ancient world. That's not to say David Potter necessarily paints a complete picture. Any account of the world so long ago must be designed with some level of assumption and guesswork. But Potter nevertheless paints an incredible picture, and makes some wonderful parallels to our own times. After reading this book you can get the idea that we're related to the ancient Greeks more than we tend to assume, at least in terms of our enthusiasm for sport.
