The Top 100 Sports Books of All Time

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26	When Pride Still Mattered
	By David Maraniss (1999)
Pulitzer Prize winner Maraniss turns his attention to pro football's most acclaimed coach, Vince Lombardi, and skillfully reveals the complex man behind the legend. SI's review said it "may be the best sports biography ever published."
27	Babe: The Legend Comes to Life
	By Robert Creamer (1974)
This biography, which broke new ground with its voluminous research and unsentimental gaze at an American folk hero, is still considered the final word when it comes to separating Ruth fact from fiction, such as his alleged called shot in the 1932 World Series.
28	The Golf Omnibus
	By P.G. Wodehouse (1973)
Wodehouse's status as golf's Shakespeare, its master comedian and tragedian, is borne out by this collection of short stories in which golf and love are the two constants. "I doubt if golfers should fall in love," says one character. "I have known it to cost men 10 shots per medal round."
29	About Three Bricks Shy of a Load
	By Roy Blount Jr. (1974)
Blount spent the '73 season following (and drinking with) the predynasty Steelers. (As the subtitle says, they were "Super but Missed the Bowl.") The stars are all here, but it's colorful second-stringers such as Moon Mullins and Craig Hanneman that make this an unforgettable romp.
30	A Fan's Notes
	By Frederick Exley (1968)
The protagonist of this sad but stirring fictional memoir finds refuge from his troubled life by focusing on his football hero, Frank Gifford. A Newsday reviewer called the tale of demons and Giants "the best novel written in the English language since The Great Gatsby."
31	Joe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life
	By Richard Ben Cramer (2000)
Cramer takes DiMaggio from his boyhood in San Francisco to the hospital room in Florida where, as he lies dying, a trusted adviser slips the 1936 World Series ring from his finger. Brilliant, stylish and a riveting study in the degrading effects of adulation.
32	The Game They Played
	By Stanley Cohen (1977)
An engrossing morality tale about the 1949-50 City College basketball team ("five street kids from the City of New York -- three Jews and two blacks") that won the NIT and NCAA titles, and the point-shaving scandal that doomed its players to infamy.
33	Veeck as in Wreck
	By Bill Veeck and Ed Linn (1962)
Baseball is a lot less fun without promo-meister Veeck, who recounts the eureka moments behind the exploding scoreboard, the pinch-hitting midget and the contortionist first base coach. He always gave fans what they wanted, even if that was, in one case, a fire-eating pelican.
34	Ben Hogan's Five Lessons
	By Ben Hogan and Herbert Warren Wind (1957)
Originally serialized in SI in 1957, Hogan's lessons proved to be an enduring hit. Tremendously detailed, down to how to waggle the club properly, this is the definitive primer on the sport from its hardest-working perfectionist.
35	The Worst Journey in the World
	By Apsley Cherry-Garrard (1922)
"Polar exploration is AT once the cleanest and most isolated way of having a bad time which has been devised," writes Cherry-Garrard, who recounts his experiences on Robert Falcon Scott's tragic 1910 Antarctic expedition with eloquence and objectivity.
36	Beyond a Boundary
	By C.L.R. James (1963)
The Trinidadian Marxist's cricket-drenched memoir is equal parts sports, history and philosophy. American readers will need to bone up on the game (the 1983 U.S. edition has a four-page primer), but James' musings on culture and colonialism are worth the effort.
37	A False Spring
	By Pat Jordan (1975)
An honest and deeply affecting memoir by a now established journalist describing his brief, bittersweet pitching career, starting in 1959 as a $50,000 bonus baby with the Milwaukee Braves and ending after four mostly dismal minor league seasons.
38	Life on the Run
	By Bill Bradley (1976)
What's the big deal about three weeks in the life of the New York Knicks as chronicled by their star forward? Plenty, when the author is a Princeton grad, a Rhodes scholar and a future U.S. senator who writes with uncommon candor and intelligence.
39	The Red Smith Reader
	By Red Smith (1982)
These columns by the man The New York Times said "was to sports what Homer was to war" offer Smith on Willie Mays, Vince Lombardi and Leon Trotsky. On the Shot Heard Round the World: "Only the utterly impossible, the inexpressibly fantastic, can ever be plausible again."
40	An Outside Chance: Essays on Sport
	By Thomas McGuane (1980)
The contemplative hunting essay "The Heart of the Game" is the highlight of this collection of off-center pieces so packed with vivid ironies as to choke you up when you're not laughing out loud. A shrewd, eccentric book about hunting and fishing and poaching golf balls from water hazards.
41	The Unforgettable Season
	By Gordon H. Fleming (1981)
A literature professor re-creates the scintillating 1908 Cubs-Giants-Pirates pennant race (of Merkle's Boner fame) entirely through excerpts of the era's florid sportswriting -- which means runners aren't merely thrown out at the plate, they're "massacred at the fourth bag."
42	The Celebrant
	By Eric Rolfe Greenberg (1983)
An oft-overlooked novel that blends fact and fiction to create a charming turn-of-the-century tale about the intertwined lives of New York Giants pitcher Christy Mathewson and the family of a young Jewish immigrant who makes his World Series rings.
43	Big Red of Meadow Stable
	By William Nack (1975)
The breathtaking description of Secretariat's 31-length Belmont victory is the highlight here, but Nack's book (reissued as Secretariat: The Making of a Champion) is also memorable for the way it traces the great horse's bloodlines through racing history.
44	The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract
	By Bill James (1985)
James, recently hired by the Red Sox as a senior adviser, weaves together thoughtful essays and lists, often turning traditional wisdom on its ear with analysis that goes far beyond the numbers -- and all without taking himself (or the game) too seriously.
45	End Zone
	By Don DeLillo (1972)
This shrewd and funny novel, set against a Cold War backdrop, explores the football-as-war metaphor through the life of a college running back. "I reject the notion of football as warfare," one angst-ridden character says. "We don't need substitutes because we've got the real thing."
46	Foul! The Connie Hawkins Story
	By David Wolf (1972)
Wolf's understated prose is equal to his fascinating subject: a Brooklyn playground legend expelled from the University of Iowa for allegedly conspiring with gamblers. The charges were disproved, but the great Hawk didn't reach the NBA until he was 27 and hobbled by bad knees.
47	Shoeless Joe
	By W.P. Kinsella (1982)
The same richness as Field of Dreams, the movie it inspired, but on a wider canvas. The novel has plot twists and fascinating characters not in the screenplay, most notably author J.D. Salinger and Eddie (Kid) Scissons, who claims to be the oldest living Cub.
48	Into Thin Air
	By Jon Krakauer (1997)
An accomplished climber, the author was sent to Mount Everest by Outside magazine to report on the growing commercialization of the world's most famous peak. What he came back with was a suspenseful account of a catastrophic season in which 12 climbers were killed.
49	Eight Men Out
	By Eliot Asinof (1963)
The final word on the controversial 1919 Black Sox scandal, a critical event in sports history. Former minor leaguer Asinof persuasively argues that the only participant worthy of exoneration is not Shoeless Joe Jackson but third baseman Buck Weaver.
50	Baseball's Great Experiment
	By Jules Tygiel (1983)
In what The New York Times called a "rich, intelligent cultural history," Tygiel portrays not only Jackie Robinson's breakthrough 1947 season with the Dodgers but also the arduous 12-year march toward integration by all teams in the major leagues.

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