Also by Bissinger is Three Nights In August, which tells the story of a three-game series between the Cardinals and the Cubs from the point of view of Cards manager Tony La Russa. It reads like a novel, with characters and suspense and subplots and flashbacks and tragedy and comedy.
The best baseball books I have read are:
– It’s What You Learn After You Know It All That Counts, Earl Weaver (with Berry Stainback). Full of salty opinions and terrific anecdotes about Weaver’s own life, the great Baltimore teams he managed and their opponents.
– Pitching in a Pinch, Christy Mathewson (ghostwritten by John Wheeler). A very accessible inside look at baseball in the early 20th century and an excellent complement to Charles Alexander’s John McGraw. (Also a very good book, IMHO.)
– The Long Season, Jim Brosnan. As good a book as **Ball Four ** is, one must acknowledge that Jim Bouton was simply doing the same thing that Brosnan did very well a decade earlier. Both are very good looks at baseball through the eyes and minds of pitchers, although at very different points in their careers. And as Bill James has noted, **The Long Season ** is the only sports book that actually was written by the athlete whose name appears on the cover.
I’m not sure if any of these is in print, but they’re all well worth seeking out.
I think the two sports with the most books written about them (at least in English) are Baseball and cricket. Someone said it’s because of the gentle pace of the bat-and-ball games, occasionally broken up by moments of sheer elation. I have read a couple of Roger Khan baseball books and enjoyed them.
If you want to try some interesting cricket books, I would recommend anything by Jack Fingleton (Australian cricketer from the 1930s who became a journalist so he knows how to write) - his book on Bodyline Cricket Crisis is still the best cricket book I’ve read. Neville Cardus is an English writer who defined the ‘gentle knock of leather on willow in an English village’ style.
I don’t recommend the books written by current active players (often the team captain) that come out after a Test series (such as the recent Ashes series - the first couple should be available for Dad’s Christmas presents) - these tend to be boring and full of ‘the boys gave 110%’ locker-room anecdotes.
Best (Australian) current writer is probably Gideon Haigh.
I enjoyed The Natural by Bernard Malamud when I read it a zillion years ago. I’m surprised it hasn’t been mentioned yet. This thread made realize that I haven’t read many sports themed books. Moneyball was a good a read, but as noted above, routinely misunderstood.
First Down and a Billion: The Funny Business of Pro Football, by Gene Klein and David Fisher was one I really enjoyed.
From this side of the Atlantic (and I don’t know how easy it would be to get a copy in the US), I’ll offer:
My Father and Other Working Class Football Heroes by Gary Imlach.
His father, Stewart Imlach, was indeed a Working Class Football Hero, even representing Scotland three or four times, and the book relates his father’s story, and the stories of his peers, in an era when (Association) Football was essential feudal in nature, and the actual players were treated like serfs and paid barely a living wage. I loved the book, and I don’t even like football.
j
That’s true … if you aren’t aware that other countries play sports.
And hat’s off to @Wallaby for casting a stone in defiance.
From the reference library on the topic of cricket:
Days in the Sun - Neville Cardus
Beyond a Boundary - CLR James
Concerning Cricket - John Arlott
The Summer Game - Gideon Haigh
The Unquiet Ones - Osman Samiuddin
Rain Men - Marcus Berkmann
The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O’Neil’s America by Joe Posnanski. Written by Posnanski when he was still at the Kansas City Star, it covers roughly a year that he spent tagging along with Buck O’Neil as he traveled around the country promoting the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.