The Top 100 Sports Books of All Time

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76	Whatever Happened to Gorgeous George?
	By Joe Jares (1974)
An affectionate depiction of pro wrestling in the 1940s, '50s and '60s, when the sport had a more benign, vaudevillian flavor. Jares does a terrific riff on the masked men, ersatz Indian chiefs, "leaping lords" and other baddies who routinely smuggled "foreign objects" in their trunks.
77	Annapurna
	By Maurice Herzog (1951)
Before Everest, there was Annapurna. Frenchman Herzog led the first summitting of an 8,000-meter peak, dictating his story because he had lost all his fingers to frostbite. National Geographic Adventure called this "the most influential mountaineering book of all time."
78	The Great American Novel
	By Philip Roth (1973)
Considering their players -- a one-legged catcher, a one-armed centerfielder, a 14-year-old second baseman and a dwarf relief pitcher -- perhaps it's not so surprising that the 1943 Patriot League team at the heart of this ribald satirical novel finishes 34-120.
79	Soccer in Sun and Shadow
	By Eduardo Galeano (1998)
The Uruguayan writer's meditation is part lyrical ode ("I've finally learned to accept myself for who I am: a beggar for good soccer"), part political screed. The 211 short chapters are so breezily written that even the Marxist medicine goes down smoothly.
80	The Story of American Golf
	By Herbert Warren Wind (1948)
The longtime New Yorker writer chronicles the game (this "frappé of pleasure and pain") from its first appearance in the U.S. in 1888 through the outbreak of World War II, colorfully recounting each of the significant championships of that era.
81	Inside Edge
	By Christine Brennan (1996)
This insider's tour of Olympic-level figure skating serves up the intrigue behind the Lutzes and Salchows, the pushy parents and the skating officials who ham-handedly dealt with the effects of AIDS on the sport's athletes, coaches and choreographers.
82	Farewell to Sport
	By Paul Gallico (1938)
Gallico left the New York Daily News after 13 years spent covering a golden age of sports; this is his valedictory. His tales of Ruth and Dempsey ring with you-are-there immediacy, and his participatory journalism (golf with Bobby Jones) inspired George Plimpton.
83	Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times
	By Thomas Hauser (1991)
An oral history with more than 150 voices, some requisite (Angelo Dundee, Ferdie Pacheco) and some not (Jimmy Carter, Cheryl Tiegs). The interviews with Ali's father and with Joe Martin, the cop who introduced Ali to boxing, are particularly illuminating.
84	Can't Anybody Here Play This Game?
	By Jimmy Breslin (1963)
The hard-bitten newspaper man found himself charmed by the lovable bumblers known as the '62 Mets -- "three 20-game losers, an Opening Day outfield that held the all-time major league record for fathering children (19), a defensive catcher who couldn't catch."
85	The Complete Book of Running
	By James Fixx (1977)
When Fixx took up running, he weighed 214 pounds and smoked two packs a day. When he wrote this cry to "change your life" (which spent 11 weeks at No. 1 on the best-seller list) in strong, clear prose, he was 60 pounds lighter, smoke-free and an inspiration to millions.
86	The Science of Hitting
	By Ted Williams And John Underwood(1970)
The Splendid Splinter may not extol batters ("The ball isn't dead, the hitters are, from the neck up") or hurlers (who "as a breed are dumb and hardheaded"), but no one has more eloquently explicated the act of squarely hitting a round ball with a round bat.
87	Only a Game
	By Robert Daley (1967)
Running back Duke Craig has turned 31, his body is aching, and his love life's a mess. This dark novel by the author of Prince of the City rings with authenticity, and no wonder: Daley spent six seasons as publicity director for the glory-days New York Giants.
88	The Joy of Sports
	By Michael Novak (1976)
The catholic theologian, author of Belief and Unbelief and a Notre Dame football fan, muses on the religious underpinnings of sports, praising the "holy trinity" of baseball, football and basketball over "the illusory, misleading, false world" of work, politics and history.
89	The Lords of the Rings
	By Vyv Simson and Andrew Jennings (1992)
An exposé of rampant corruption in the Olympics that takes on former IOC chief Juan Antonio Samaranch's Fascist past, the temptations dangled by aspiring host cities, the extravagant demands for "perks" by IOC members and the widespread cover-up of athletes' drug use.
90	Road Swing
	By Steve Rushin (1998)
SI's Rushin logged 23,658 miles in a rented Nissan Pathfinder for this hilarious travelogue of sports destinations high (the Masters) and low (the Las Vegas restaurant that displays Andre Agassi's ponytail). A ball-sy Kerouac-ian journey, minus the mind-altering drugs.
91	Golf in the Kingdom
	By Michael Murphy (1972)
The enchanting first half of the book recounts Murphy's golf- and life-altering round with Scottish "philosopher-poet" Shivas Irons. The second half, in which Murphy floats his loopy metaphysical insights, will have some readers begging for a mulligan.
92	Game Misconduct
	By Russ Conway (1995)
Dogged reporting by small-town sports editor Conway brought down Alan Eagleson, once hockey's most powerful man. The author's legwork uncovered how Eagleson, working as both an agent and as head of the players' union, cheated players out of a small fortune.
93	No Cheering in the Press Box
	By Jerome Holtzman (1973)
This oral history of 18 golden-age sportswriters shows that greats such as Cannon, Gallico and Smith could talk it as well as they wrote it. Cannon sums up their philosophy: "Sportswriting has survived because of the guys who don't cheer. They're the truth-tellers. Lies die."
94	Beer and Circus
	By Murray Sperber (2000)
The author is the IU professor and Bobby Knight critic who took a leave due to threats from the general's loyalists, but this indictment of "Big-time U's" is Sperber's rightful legacy. He argues that large universities use sports to numb students to increasingly shoddy academics.
95	The Harder They Fall
	By Budd Schulberg (1947)
This hard-boiled novel is loosely based on the gangster-driven rise and inevitable fall of the massive but glass-jawed heavyweight Primo Carnera, with Toro Molina (Giant of the Andes) in the title role. The shady promoter and press flack are the real stars.
96	The Tumult and the Shouting
	By Grantland Rice (1954)
The last of the estimated 67 million words written by Rice; he completed this autobiography three weeks before his death. The book is showing its age, but it also displays the poetry ("Outlined against the blue-gray October sky") that made Rice king of his profession.
97	SportsWorld
	By Robert Lipsyte (1975)
This angry screed is Lipsyte at his combative best as he rips the lazy sportswriters, establishment nabobs, team owners and TV executives who he says have hoodwinked the public into believing that big-time sports are a "positive force on our national psyche."
98	The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings
	By William Brashler (1973)
Rather than accept a shoddy contract from the Louisville Ebony Aces, star catcher Bingo Long forms his own team and hits the barnstorming road. Brashler befriended former Negro leagues stars while doing research, and he repays them with a warm portrayal of their humor and heartbreak.
99	The Miracle of Castel di Sangro
	By Joe McGinniss (1999)
The author of Fatal Vision spent a year in a tiny mountain hamlet 85 miles east of Rome covering the local soccer team, which had, improbably, qualified for Italy's Serie B league. The season ends with a twist that will shock readers as much as it did McGinniss.
100	Little Girls in Pretty Boxes
	By Joan Ryan (1995)
You'll never look at a pixie gymnast the same way again. This powerful book by a San Francisco Chronicle sportswriter reveals in excruciating detail the physical toll -- including anorexia, osteoporosis and delayed menstruation -- on competitors in figure skating and elite gymnastics.

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