Sports Shutdown: No Games to Watch? Here Are 10 of My Favorite Sports Books

Former pitcher Jim Bouton's game-changing "Ball Four" tops my list

No games to attend. None on TV. You’ve got time on your hands and your favorite outlet has been shut down. I guess it really is the end of the world as we know it. For now, anyway.

Seriously, here's an alternative: Read a book.

About sports, if you need the fix.

As a public service, I offer you a list from which you will find a good read. I’m not putting this out there as a list of the “greatest” sports books of all-time, simply 10 of my favorites. 

(Click here for Jake's top 10 sports books.)

Here goes:

1. BALL FOUR (by Jim Bouton): This may not be the greatest sports book ever written, but it ranks as perhaps the most important. Also one of the funniest. I’ve had my copy a long time, as you can tell my the $1.75 price tag in the upper left corner. In a nutshell, it changed everything. Suddenly, there was no sacred ground. Bouton chronicles his 1969 season with the Seattle Pilots, telling clubhouse tales that were off-limits for decades. Every baseball player hated him, and every baseball fan with a sense of humor was ready to “go pound some Budweiser.“

2. LOOSE BALLS: THE SHORT, WILD LIFE OF THE AMERICAN BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION (by Terry Pluto): An oral history of glorious the ABA, which brought us the red, white and blue basketball, the 3-point shot and the dunk contest. The book is a wonderful collection of first-person stories of some of the game’s greatest players . . . and characters. From young stars like Dr. Julius, George McGinnis and George Gervin to troubled souls including John Brisker and Marvin Barnes, every one of these guys is a compelling read.

3. SHOELESS JOE (by W.P. Kinsella): If you like the movie “Field of Dreams,” do yourself a favor and read “Shoeless Joe,” which inspired the film. I like the movie enough — I couldn’t put the book down. In the book, lead character Ray Kinsella is seeking to find reclusive writer J.D. Salinger, not the fictitious Terrence Mann. The book is beautifully written, as is another of Kinsella’s baseball novels, “The Iowa Baseball Confederacy.” If our shelter-in-place existence runs into the summer, check out both of them.

4. THE PERFECT MILE (by Neal Bascomb): This is a must for any track and field fan. It’s the story of the chase for the first sub-4-minute mile, a competition in the early 1950s primarily among three runners from three continents. Most people know that Great Britain’s Roger Bannister got there first, but how it all unfolded is a story I’d never read until an old friend sent me this book a decade ago. Great stuff.

5. SUMMER OF ’49 (by David Halberstam): These days, anyone who doesn’t live on the East Coast is pretty much sick of all things related to the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry. This is primarily the fault of ESPN. But in 1949, the drama involving the two teams was heightened by the larger-than-life presence of superstars Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams. Halberstam, who won a Pulitzer prize for his coverage of the Vietnam War, provides fascinating historical context while the the rivalry on the field goes to the final day of the season.

6. SEABISCUIT (by Laura Hillenbrand): Written six decades after Seabiscuit became an iconic underdog, I remember resisting the public clamor over this book when it first was released. I have no particular interest — or knowledge — of horse racing. How good could it be? Well, it was terrific. I may never read another book about horse racing. Doesn’t matter. I’ve read the best one.

7. CLEMENTE (by David Maraniss): Growing up in the Bay Area, my favorite player was Willie McCovey. But a close second was Roberto Clemente, who spent his career 2,500 miles away in Pittsburgh. Clemente was graceful but ferocious, simple but complicated. In this 2006 biography, Maraniss tells his story wonderfully, showing us how Clemente became almost a Jackie Robinson figure for Hispanic ballplayers and how his drive to help others led to his tragic death.

8. FOUL! THE CONNIE HAWKINS STORY (by David Wolf): Before Julius Erving and Michael Jordan defied gravity on the basketball court, Connie Hawkins was airborne above the asphalt courts in Brooklyn. Hawkins attended Iowa, where he was mistakenly implicated in a point-shaving scheme that cost him his college eligibility and got him banned for years from the NBA. The story is heartbreaking, but Hawkins is finally exonerated and gets a brief chance on the big stage to show just how great he was.

9. WILT 1962: THE NIGHT OF 100 POINTS AND THE DAWN OF A NEW ERA (by Gary Pomerantz): Has there ever been a single-game performance more mythical than Wilt Chamberlain scoring 100 points? He did it virtually in a vacuum, at Hershey, Pennsylvania, without TV there to preserve the history. Pomerantz brings us back to that night with amazing detail about the game, but places it within the bigger picture by introducing us to the players on teams involved and a suddenly changing NBA.

10. PISTOL: THE LIFE OF PETE MARAVICH (by Mark Kriegel): Jake Curtis and I often have argued about Pistol Pete. He insists Maravich is one of the game’s most overrated players, an inefficient gunner who never won anything. I counter that he was a player whose flamboyant style and ability to entertain was years ahead of its time. “Pistol” unveils the story of Maravich’s drive to be extraordinary and the role his demanding father played in what was never a fully satisfying life.