If you’re looking for good sports books to read this year, you’re in luck. There are plenty to choose from that are hitting the shelves, so make room for some of the more interesting ones, including:
DiMag & Mick: Sibling Rivals, Yankee Blood Brothers by Tony Castro is due out in March and examines the Yankee glory days and the bond, and possibly animosity, between two of the most famous names to play the game.
Another baseball book to hit the shelves in March and seems like a great read this year is The Selling of the Babe: The Deal That Changed Baseball, by award-winning baseball historian Glenn Stout. Stout has new information on the most controversial deal in baseball.
As a Mets fan, it was tough to watch Lenny Dykstra’s fall from a successful baseball career to his time in the slammer for bankruptcy fraud. I’m putting his book, Lennyball: A Memoir of Life on the Edge, which tells it all from his perspective on my summer reading list.
Earnhardt Nation: The Full-Throttle Saga of NASCAR’s First Family by Jay Busbee is about the car racing family legacy and this book covers the family’s deep roots in the sport and their struggle with celebrity. Due out in just a few weeks and, with grandson Bobby Earnhardt entering the ranks this year with his own NASCAR dreams and a reality show that will document his journey, it makes it an even more interesting read.
Colin Kaepernick and the San Francisco 49ers landed at the bottom of the NFL West this season, but hopefully the quarterback’s book, Different, will do a little better on the best seller charts. Hitting the shelves in June, the memoir talks about his adoption, losing the Super Bowl and his faith.
Ah, a book about the beautiful game. Soccer Without Borders: Jürgen Klinsmann, Coaching the U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team, and the Quest for the World Cup by Erik Kirschbaum and Jurgen Klinsmann, due out in the summer outlines Klinsmann’s vision for making the U.S. men’s soccer team a dominant world team.
Last summer, I went to Cooperstown, New York and visited the National Baseball Hall of Fame, where they had an entire section devoted to women in baseball. It was awesome. So I’m equally excited about the Encyclopedia of Women and Baseball which will come out in July.
Okay, I admit that I don’t really keep up with the Iditarod, but this story is amazing and I can’t wait to read Fast into the Night: A Woman, Her Dogs, and Their Journey North on the Iditarod Trail which comes out in just two weeks. The story follows 47-year-old Debbie Clarke Moderow’s journey to the trail, but then her dogs just didn’t want to run anymore.
And even though she wants us to ‘forget her,’ don’t forget to pick up soccer phenom Abby Wambach’s book, Forward, in the fall. It will be published by Dey Street Books and the two-time Olympic gold medalist and member of last summer’s Women’s World Cup champions will also release a young adult edition as well. The 35-year-old Wambach retired from the pitch in October.
If you love to bet on the ponies, then in Bookmaking, Horse Racing, and Sports Betting: An American History, Arne K. Lang you’ll get a sweeping overview of legal and illegal sports and race betting in the United States, from the first thoroughbred meet at Saratoga in 1863 through the modern day. The cultural war between bookmakers and their adversaries is a recurring theme, as bookmakers were often forced into the shadows during times of social reform, only to bloom anew when the time was ripe. While much of bookmaking’s history takes place in New York, other locales such as Chicago, Las Vegas, and Atlantic City—not to mention Cyberspace—are also discussed in this volume.
And finally, if you are more interested in the WWE matches than biographies, this book, WWE: 100 Greatest Matches by Dean Miller, comes out in May.
