The most recommended sports biographies

While I am a Cleveland Indians fan, my favorite national league team to root for as a child was the New York Mets - especially the flamboyant and talented 1986 team that partied their way to a World Series trophy. 

In The Bad Guys Won, famed columnist and bestselling author Jeff Pearlman manages to weave all of the craziness of that ‘86 team into a wonderful memoir of a team that had the talent to have been a dynasty in Major League Baseball for years to come. Unfortunately for the Mets, and due to many of the behaviors of the colorful characters chronicled in the book, that dynasty never came to fruition.

Love with a Chance of Drowning had been recommended to me for a while, but I only recently dove in.

One of the reasons was the high price for the eBook, undoubtedly because this is a traditionally published memoir. And, what can I say? I adored this well-crafted love story set on a small sailboat crossing the Pacific Ocean, sprinkled with fearful and heartfelt incidents.

Torre is a fabulous writer, who pulls you into the narrative. She is witty, sarcastic, smart, straightforward, and doesn’t shy away from sharing personal insights, flaws, and brutal honesty, a touted aspect of my book as well.

The author used the present tense to impart a sense of urgency (it’s a wonderful tool to keep you turning the pages) and focused on the connection, strength, and commitment that is needed to rescue her relationship. This is one of the most skillfully written and compelling… show more.

Peter Beard settled in Kenya in the late 1950s and became obsessed with the plight of wildlife in Africa. The book is full of evocative photos that he took over a period of some 20 years – some of them absolutely tragic. It is not a book for the faint-hearted; but it tells with truth the stories of explorers, entrepreneurs, big game hunters, and missionaries.

It has been published in several editions and formats. The copy I have is a large paperback that dates from 1989, but there are editions that were produced before that time and many that have been published since.

This book is certainly not an attempt to be gently persuasive, and the author’s position can be summed up in these words that he wrote:

When I first escaped to East Africa in August 1955…it was one of the heaviest wildlife areas…in the world…No one then could… show more.

The reason I like this book is the same reason I like any other book on golf — it is simple, basic, understandable — no psychobabble and no crazy swing gymnastics. I mean you and I, average golfers, can understand this and immediately put Harvey’s thinking and suggestions to use.

An example: Harvey admonishes the player to “Take Dead Aim.” Sounds simple enough, but a lot of players don’t do it. They look at the pin, set up, and think they are aiming at it, but in reality, they are aiming at all kinds of strange places other than at the pin.

Jack Nicklaus concurs with Harvey when he says that our alignment (i.e., aiming at the pin) is 50 percent of the battle in hitting a good shot. I would add that if you are aimed wrong, you have to swing wrong to get the ball where it is… show more.

A few books exist that while reading you think a librarian made a mistake in placing a work of fiction in the nonfiction section. This is such a book, a story so unique it is hard to believe.

Benuzzi’s memoir of World War II is the most unique I have ever read. An Italian soldier in Africa captured by the British and held prisoner during the war, Benuzzi and his men escape into the wilds of Africa not for freedom but to attempt to summit Mount Keyna.

From clandestinely manufacturing alpine climbing equipment from tins of beans, to dodging rhinoceros and lions to reach the base of the mountain, this is a true tale of devotion to an ideal and to each other. 

I find gripping real-life adventures like this irresistible. Especially first-person accounts.

I hung on every word of Tanya’s story of her solo voyage around the world, some of it literally death-defying, especially while she was still mastering navigation and, later, traversing busy shipping zones populated by vessels much larger than hers.

It was reminiscent of another favourite, Robert Manry’s Tinkerbelle, a great sea-faring tale. Tania is so honest and transparent about her limitations and challenges. I enjoy reading about exploits I would never be brave enough to tackle myself.

Watching this teen-aged girl test her mettle while transforming herself into a responsible, capable young woman, I wondered how I would have managed in her place. Poorly, I expect. Better to live vicariously through the adventures of others, such as Tanya, I think.  

One of the many benefits of sports fandom I researched is its use in international affairs, nation-building, and the peace process. There is no better example of this than what has been called the “South African Miracle,” and in this great book, veteran English journalist Carlin, who was in the country for years covering its politics, shows how the late great Nelson Mandela, Nobel Peace Prize winner and South Africa’s first black President, used the intense fandom behind the nation’s beloved spectator sport, rugby, to ease the transition from apartheid to democracy and prevent an almost inevitable Civil War. The book was later the basis for the Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon movie Invictus.

Twenty years ago, I read Buzz Bissinger's high school football classic Friday Night Lights, and I've read everything he's published ever since.

At first, it appeared The Mosquito Bowl, the name refers to a game played between two Marine units on Guadalcanal at the end of 1944, would be another sports rouser with WWII as the backdrop. 

I quickly realized I had it backward. It's the story of young men at war: the families and dreams they left behind and the suffering they endured before, for far too many, death came for them, suddenly, painfully, senselessly.

Ultimately, it's not a sports book or even a WWII book. It's a profound meditation on the short lives of young men who go to war at any time. The cruelty of so many lives cut short was unfathomable. It hurt to read.

I loved this book because Kelly gives his uncensored look behind the scenes at the way players view the game.

The other books in this list are told from the perspective of management, so this is the perfect complement to give you the full view at the state of baseball in the 2020s. Kelly tells you what he loves about the game, and what he thinks of the direction it has gone.

This is an unlikely story, yet it is also a true one. Harry de Leyer, a Dutch immigrant, saved a horse named Snowman from the slaughterhouse. Harry trained Snowman to become a show-jumping champion. This is a story about an incredible long shot and about a man who believed in his horse. What’s not to love?

I am a third-generation horsewoman, and I grew up hearing stories about the “great horses.” I remember my mother sharing the tale of Snowman and Harry de Leyer with me. For the most part, equestrian stars are incredibly expensive, pedigreed animals. Snowman, in contrast, pulled a plow. The story of Snowman makes it seem possible that we can also find or encounter our own magical plow horse who can carry us to the rarified air of the top of the equestrian world.