Your five favorite sports books

And much like Rick Bragg, he'll tell you.

 

Canadian Version

1.Ball Four

Then everybody else way back...

The Game by Ken Dryden
Facing Ali by Stephen Brunt
Net Worth (Investigating Alan Eagleson) by Alison Griffiths and David Cruise
Third Down and a War to go by Terry Frei
Only in America, the Lifes and Crimes of Don King by Jack Newfield

From a Canadian author-journalists who has only written crappy books

 

Too many big words for you then, eh?

 

Not at all - more like too much arrogance from a guy who strikes me as wanting to be the smartest guy in the room looking down upon everyone else.

Can't put my finger on it but his writing always seems to take on an arrogant I'm better than you tone.

 

Another Canuck entry: The Game Of Our Lives by Peter Gzowski.

 

I'll throw another hoops book into the pot: The Game They Played, by Stanley Cohen.

For boxing, try McIvanney on Boxing, a best-of by the great UK sports writer Hugh McIvanney. It's one of those you fly through, then revist in a week to savour all the good lines.

For something off the beaten track, take a peek at The Hurricane, a biography of colourful billiards player Alex ``Hurricane'' Higgins. It's written by UK Guardian contributor Bill Borrows.

And while I'm here I'll plug William Nack's My Turf as my favourite anthology.

 

I haven't read the McIlvanney book but if it has Onward Virgin Soldier, his story on Johnny Owen's ill-fated flight with Lupe Pintor, it's a must read. That might be the best boxing story I've ever read.

 

All of them are even. In no particular order....

1. "Let Me Tell You a Story" - Feinstein struck gold here, cause I always wondered what it would be like to listen to Red Auerbach's stories from over the years.

2. "Twelve Mighty Orphans" - Jim Dent's latest about a once-famous Texas high school football team composed of orphans.

3. "Sound and Fury" - Dave Kindred's look at Ali and Cosell was sooo much fun to read.

4. "Education of a Coach" - It's Halberstam. End of subject. His other book "Firehouse" is jaw-dropping.

5. "My Losing Season" - Pat Conroy. Got it when it first came out. For me, Conroy (along with Cormac McCarthy) is simply a brilliant writer.

 

The Cohen book is terrific. It's just not for everybody.

And in terms of Sexy, Billy Nack was indeed America's Bard.

 

His first book, too. Oddly, I was having a conversation with a high school English teacher last week and I mentioned another early McPhee book, The Headmaster, because that's what the English teacher says he wants to be someday, and he'd never heard of McPhee. I didn't want to be rude, but I was astonished. I rattled off half a dozen of his books that I've read. He asked me how to spell the name. OK, M-C-P-H-E-E. When I got home I looked him up: 27 books, a Pulitzer Prize just 10 years ago, decades on The New Yorker. How an English teacher never heard of him ... cripes. McPhee's Alaska book was my introduction to him, when it came out in 1977. As a matter of fact, I was taking high school English when I read it, or maybe I was a college freshman. I think the Bill Bradley book, A Sense of Where You Are, was next for me.

 

Bought it on remainder for a buck.

You have to bleed green . . . as Red's ego just wears you out.

 

Ball Four.
When Pride Still Mattered.
All those books about the turbulent Yankees.
Zimmer's book, a great read about 50 years in baseball.
I Am Third, by Gale Sayers.