Last year, I had a chance to watch a lot of sports movies and documentaries and also had a chance to read many great sports books. Here are some of my favorite Sports Reads and Movies in 2015. Even though it’s a fresh year, if you didn’t get a chance to see or read them, it’s not too late:
Touchdown Israel: Touchdown Israel is, honestly, one of the best sports documentaries I’ve ever watched. Documentary filmmaker Paul Hirschberger read about the Israeli Football League five years ago in The New York Times. “I thought, ‘no way they are playing football there,’ but that story wouldn’t let me go, so I contacted Steve Leibowitz, president of the Israeli Football League,” he explained to me in an interview I did with him last year. “He told me about the guys who would play tackle football in parks without any gear. They came to him asking to create a league and that’s how it was formed.”
Within five years, the league grew from four teams to 10 teams and 500 players and, thanks to the involvement of the New England Patriots’ owner Robert Kraft, the league now has a stadium.
The Boys in the Boat: This New York Times’ bestseller by Daniel James Brown is a must-read, if you are one of the maybe 10 people who haven’t done so already. It’s an irresistible story about beating the odds and finding hope in the most desperate of times.
HOOPS TO HIPPOS: TRUE STORIES OF A BASKETBALL STAR ON SAFARI! Okay, this combines several of my favorite things: animals, books and the San Antonio Spurs, because it’s written by Boris Diaw. Yes, it’s a kids book, so buy it for one of your kids (or someone else’s kids). He wrote the book and took the photos and he tells some really great, and sometimes funny, stories about his time in Africa. So cool to see what athletes do when they are off the court.
“Out at Home,” The True Story of Glenn Burke, Baseball’s First Openly Gay Player: Before Jason Collins and before Michael Sam, there was Glenn Burke, who became the first — and only — openly gay player in Major League Baseball. Glenn was a pioneer for gay athletes the same way that another black Dodger rookie, Jackie Robinson, broke the league’s color barrier. Author Erik Sherman tells his story so well.
FYI: I’ll post my list of books that I’m looking forward to reading in 2016, but heads up that Erik Sherman has another book coming out: Kings of Queens: Life Beyond Baseball with ’86 Mets. As a Mets’ fan who watched the 86 Mets win the World Series while I was crouched around a portable television in New York City’s Grand Central Station and who has interviewed Ed Hearn, I can’t wait for this book. We all know that some of the players have struggled with some personal demons since that amazing year, including Darryl Strawberry, Doc Gooden and Lenny Dykstra and Sherman tells their story and more. Sherman also interviews Keith Hernandez, Mookie Wilson, Howard Johnson, Doug Sisk, Rafael Santana, Bobby Ojeda, Wally Backman, Kevin Mitchell, Ed Hearn and Danny Heep.
56: Joe DiMaggio and the Last Magic Number in Sports: I have such admiration for best-selling sports journalist Kostya Kennedy, who churns out these well-written, incredibly researched books that keep you so entertained about the subject. Last year, he released 56: Joe DiMaggio and the Last Magic Number in Sports, but you may want to look back even a year earlier and read his Pete Rose: An American Dilemma. http://www.kostyakennedy.com/
George D. Martin: You’re not going to believe what George Martin, former New York Giants defensive end, did last year. He walked from the Atlantic to the Pacific to raise funds for 9/11 survivors. He documented it in his book “Just Around the Bend” and you take the physical, and often emotional, journey with him.
Billy Corben: “The U Part 2” Billy Corben, legendary sports documentary directory, pulls off another great story of how the “bad boys” of Miami forever changed the image of the University of Miami Hurricanes; in “The U Part 2” the documentary continues where the first left off!
And of course, I squeezed Concussion in at the end of the year. I’m going to get into more about 2015 sports films and the ones you can expect in 2016 in another post.
What sports books and films have you seen this year and what ones were your Favorite Sports Reads and Movies in 2015?
