35 books like Dr. Z

David Halberstam, who died in an auto accident in 2007 while doing research for a book about the 1958 NFL championship game, wrote with clarity and perpetual curiosity about all sports. This posthumous anthology highlights his diverse mix of stories. For example, horse racing in Warsaw in the 1960s, American slugger Reggie Smith’s experience as a pro baseball player in Japan in the 1980s, a character study of NBA coaching great Pat Riley in the 1990s, fishing with pals in Argentina as a septuagenarian in the 21st century. And Halberstam’s probing search for the soul of sports is underlined in the “Anatomy of a Champion,” detailed reportage on American fencers and their quest for Olympic glory. This book's mesmerizing range of sporting topics and the author's incredible eye for details captured my attention from start to finish.

John Schulian, one of the premier American sports journalists from the 1970s to the present, has recommended The Red Smith Reader with unsparing enthusiasm: “Quite simply the most thorough collection ever of the master’s work... a joy to everyone who picks it up.” A compilation of 131 Smith columns published in 1982, the year of his death, the book showcases his literary prose, which elevated the profession. The biggest games (Don Larsen’s perfect game in the 1956 World Series, Reggie Jackson’s three home runs on three consecutive at-bats in the 1977 Fall Classic) and individuals (Babe Ruth, Muhammad Ali, Secretariat) are the foundation of Smith’s invaluable contributions to the understanding and appreciation of sports culture. His profiles of boxing and horse racing trainers are also exceptionally astute portraits.

Red Smith was a deadline artist, crafting timeless columns. As a fan of good writing and an admirer of his literary… show more.

Published in 1979, Anderson’s collection of columns preserves seminal sports moments, primarily from that decade. Anderson’s on-deadline work for The New York Times revisits Hank Aaron’s 715th MLB home run, which broke Babe Ruth’s all-time record. He was in the right place at the right time for an interview with Negro Leagues pitching legend Satchel Paige in 1976, a column in which the old fireballer praised Slim Jones, Bob Feller, and Dizzy Dean as the “best pitches I ever saw.” Jimmy Connors, Joe Namath, Gordie Howe, Julius Erving, and Muhammad Ali are among the icons that Anderson highlights with exceptional portraiture, capturing Howe’s career as he approaches his 50th birthday. Anderson also produces a splendid profile of Wilt Chamberlain playing volleyball.

Like many of the premier sports journalists of the post-World War II era, Anderson traveled widely and covered prominent events throughout the United States and around the… show more.

In this dual biography about the nexus of Muhammad Ali and Howard Cosell’s cultural significance and friendship, the backdrop of their seemingly omnipresent place on the American and global media landscape in the 1960s and ‘70s is explored with great detail in the paths they forged, individually and collectively. Kindred does his homework in finding rich anecdotes from the boxer and broadcaster’s upbringings in Louisville and New York City, respectively. What’s more, there are recurring details about their interactions before, during, and after many of Ali’s biggest fights. It’s a fascinating character study of larger-than-life personalities with massive egos, as well as Cosell’s support of Ali’s right to oppose the Vietnam War. The alternating focus on Ali and Cosell gives Kindred a flexible format to deliver a literary knockout.

It is a rare gift to have the ability to tell the life stories of two iconic figures in the same… show more.

As a teenager, I read Roy MacGregor’s profiles of players such as Bryan Trottier, Borje Salming, and Bobby Clarke in The Canadian magazine and it made me want to become a writer. Since then, he’s written many great hockey books, including The Home Team, A Loonie for Luck and the Screech Owl series for young readers. Wayne Gretzky’s Ghost—the title refers to when MacGregor ghostwrote Gretzky’s newspaper column—is a collection of some of his best pieces from 1976 to 2011. Read them and I’m sure you’ll agree MacGregor is the game’s best writer.

I’m not a sports fan. My good friend, Ryan Harty (author of one of my favorite short story compilations: “Bring me your saddest Arizona”) recommended this book to me many years ago. I’m not a sports fan but he assured me it had very little if anything to do with sports. He was right about that! I gave it a shot and was immediately transported into the narrative. It’s still in my top 5 all-time favorite book list. Ford’s ability to communicate existential crises in deeper but simple ways is so, so good. Frank Bascombe, the protagonist is detached in a way that is both beautiful and unsettling.

One of the most profound attempts to capture grief in prose is due to the British experimental novelist B. S. Johnson. Published in 1969, The Unfortunates is a book in a box: twenty-seven booklets to be read in any order, except for “First” and “Last.” Its narrator is a journalist returning to a city he last knew seven years ago, visiting an old friend, Tony, who later died of metastatic cancer. The visit triggers memories that arrive in random order, scattered through the day’s events as chance dictates. Grief has no narrative order, the book in a box seems to warn; and any closure is temporary. Grief can be opened and reshuffled again and again. 

This book is genuinely unique because David Harris is an investigative reporter, not a sportswriter.

He used his investigative skills to look at the inner workings of the National Football League from the 1960s into the early 1980s. Instead of the standard “great teams, great games, great coaches, great players” approach, Harris studied the infighting, the conflicts, and the compromises among owners that took place behind the scenes to help shape the modern NFL.

Obviously, this book is a biography, not a history. But, because it’s the biography of Joe F. Carr, who was the president of the National Football League from 1921 to 1939, it’s also the history of the league during those formative years.

Under Carr’s guidance, the NFL grew from a loose collection of mostly small-town teams into a well-organized league of teams in big cities, with the sole exception of the Green Bay Packers.

The book that started it all (for me, at least): I read this book just before the 2007 season, when my beloved Wake Forest Demon Deacons were the reigning conference champs, when Alabama was about to start the Nick Saban Era.

It was a fall of unusual hope after a summer of deaths and distances. From The Last Coach I not only learned a lot about the legendary Bear Bryant, and about America in the American Century, but also felt like I got a pep talk from Bryant himself.

Soon after I finished reading this I met a beautiful woman. When I learned she was an Alabama fan I told her I’d just read this and asked if she had. She told me to check the dedication page: The author’s her uncle.