Best Sports Books

About three years ago, Sports Illustrated published its list of the One Hundred Greatest Sports Books. Aside from the fact that everybody who ever worked at SI and wrote a book was represented on it, it was a pretty good list. It's a slow news day. Notre Dame has a bye, Ohio State actually found some offense today, and even though I've got Florida v. Georgia on in the background, I really can't get excited about "The World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party." All of which provides me with an excuse to give you my own list of the top 10 sports books. Here they are (SI's ranking is in parentheses, if SI ranked the book).

1. The Glory of Their Times, Lawrence Ritter (SI #57) -- Sports Illustrated really blew it on this one. I can't believe this wasn't in the top 10. For me, it is really hard to imagine a more interesting book about baseball than this one. It isn't just a compelling read, it is an invaluable history of the game, obtained just in the nick of time, by NYU professor Lawrence Ritter. Ritter travelled the nation during the early 1960s to get the stories of ballplayers from the early part of the 20th Century, before they all passed away. You've heard of some of these guys, but not all of them, and I guarantee that you don't know their stories.

2. When Pride Still Mattered, David Maraniss (SI #26) -- This biography of Vince Lombardi is a masterpiece, and the single best sports biography I've every read.

3. I Never Played the Game, Howard Cosell -- SI rated one of Howard's other books, Cosell, #67 on its list. This one's more autobiographical than that one, but still mostly consists of opinions about everyone and everything. Hey, I don't care if you like Howard or not--get your own damn blog! I think Cosell is without a doubt the most arrogant, egotistical, obnoxious and unpleasant sportscaster who ever lived. He is also unquestionably the best, and the only sportscaster in history who made an event bigger because he was broadcasting it. Wanna argue about that? I got three words for you: "Down goes Frazier!"

4. The Best American Sports Writing of the Century, David Halberstam, ed. -- It is what it says: everything from Heywood Broun's account of the Dempsey v. Carpentier fight ("Fate gets us all in the clinches...the tragedy of life is not that man loses but that he almost wins.") to Updike's "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu," ("Though we thumped, wept, and chanted "We want Ted" for minutes after he hid in the dugout, he did not come back...Gods do not answer letters."), to Hunter S. Thompson's incomparable "The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved" ("'Why in the hell do you think we left the restaurant so fast?' 'I thought it was because of the Mace,' he said. 'What Mace?' He grinned. 'When you shot it at the headwaiter, don't you remember?'"). If you don't own it, buy it.

5. Ball Four, Jim Bouton (SI #3) -- All sports writing can be divided into two categories: things written before Ball Four and things written after Ball Four. Funny, honest, and completely lacking in discretion, Bouton's book blew the lid off the carefully cultivated "see no evil, print no evil" world of sports writing.

6. Instant Replay, Jerry Kramer (SI #20) -- I read this book as a kid, and still think highly of it. It is Jerry Kramer's diary of Vince Lombardi's last season as coach of The Green Bay Packers, from training camp to the Super Bowl. It's just a very compelling, if undoubtedly sanitized, portrait of a season with the best professional football team of the 1960s, told by one of its great players.

7. Babe: The Legend Comes to Life, Robert Creamer (SI #27) -- I suspect this might be Vinny's #1 choice. The definitive Babe Ruth biography, and a close second to Maraniss' Lombardi book in my mind.

8. A Season on the Brink, John Feinstein (SI #6) -- Feinstein's famous (or infamous) account of the 1986 Indiana basketball team, but really an extended portrait of one man: Bob Knight. I know that Feinstein's book was criticized for trashing Knight, but frankly, I think it's one of the best portraits of a complex person I've read. I liked Bobby Knight before I read the book, and I liked him more after I read it. Then again, I also like to pull the wings off flys and steal candy from children.

9. The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, Bill James (SI #44) -- I DEFY you to put this book down. James explores, decade by decade from 1870 on, how baseball was played, where it was played and who played it. He writes about uniforms, which players were the fastest, slowest, best looking and ugliest (he got help from his wife with that). But that's only the first half of the book. He then ranks the 100 best players at every position in baseball history, and includes at least a paragraph of detail on each guy--sometimes segueing into a discussion of why this person is better than another player who is typically more highly regarded.

10. When All the World Was Browns Town, Terry Pluto -- I subscribe to the Beacon-Journal because Terry Pluto writes for it. He is an excellent sportswriter, and I sometimes wonder whether people in Northeast Ohio realize just how good he really is. Sports Illustrated ranked one of his other books, Loose Balls, a light-hearted look at the history of the ABA, 13th on its list. I haven't read it, so I can't comment. When All the World Was Browns Town is the story of the 1964 Cleveland Browns. Terry Pluto tells you why you should read it with his first sentence: "They were Cleveland's last championship team." The book is a really compelling portrait of that team and that season, and the seasons that led up to it. This is one that should be on any Browns fan's bookshelf.

What's missing? Most notably, The Boys of Summer (SI #2) because it is grossly overrated. More on that later. Also, books like Shoeless Joe, The Natural and A Fan's Notes, because they're fiction, which deserves to be considered separately. More on that later, too. Another reason that I've overlooked some of the books on SI's list is that I simply haven't read them.