Here are 94 books that Big Game fans have personally recommended if you like
Big Game.
Book DNA is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
I have been privileged to cover sports for the Boston Globe for the last 40-plus years. It is the best place in the country to do what I do. New England has tradition, smart readers, historic teams, and a great deal of success, especially in this century. As an author of 14 books, it's nice to bring some sports to the conversation on this site.
The veteran scribe grew up in Baltimore and knew Unitas well. This book is worth it just to read what Unitas said to former teammate Johnny Sample when Samply tried to taunt him at the end of Super Bowl III. It's "Diner" meets "North Dallas Forty.''
In a time “when men played football for something less than a living and something more than money,” John Unitas was the ultimate quarterback. Rejected by Notre Dame, discarded by the Pittsburgh Steelers, he started on a Pennsylvania sandlot making six dollars a game and ended as the most commanding presence in the National Football League, calling the critical plays and completing the crucial passes at the moment his sport came of age.
Johnny U is the first authoritative biography of Unitas, based on hundreds of hours of interviews with teammates and opponents, coaches, family and friends. The depth of…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I have been privileged to cover sports for the Boston Globe for the last 40-plus years. It is the best place in the country to do what I do. New England has tradition, smart readers, historic teams, and a great deal of success, especially in this century. As an author of 14 books, it's nice to bring some sports to the conversation on this site.
The author looks back on 50 years of sportswriting. This is a personal book, rich with stories of the sports gods of the 1960s and 1970s. Callahan was an insider and has stuff on Larry Bird and Muhammad Ali that no one else has. Callahan presents a fascinating earlier time when newspaper beat reporters were valuable to the team's they covered. Cincinnati Royals coach Bob Cousy refused an airline's request to bounce Callahan off a commercial flight, telling the pilot "we fly as a team and he is with us."
As a columnist for Time magazine, among many other publications, Tom Callahan witnessed an extraordinary number of defining moments in American sport across four decades. He takes us from Roberto Clemente clinching his 3,000th, and final, regular-season hit in Pittsburgh; to ringside for the Muhammad Ali-George Foreman fight in Zaire; and to Arthur Ashe announcing, at a news conference, that he'd tested positive for HIV. There are also little-known private moments: Joe Morgan whispering thank you to a virtually blind Jackie Robinson on the field at the 1972 World Series, or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar saying he was more interested in being…
I have been privileged to cover sports for the Boston Globe for the last 40-plus years. It is the best place in the country to do what I do. New England has tradition, smart readers, historic teams, and a great deal of success, especially in this century. As an author of 14 books, it's nice to bring some sports to the conversation on this site.
This is the behind-the-scenes account of the most-watched NCAA Final in television history, and the epic Celtic-Laker clashes of the 1980s. MacMullan had ultimate access and knows the game. In this work, she captures the voices of Magic and Larry throughout giving the reader primary source history on a golden time in the NBA.
From the moment these two legendary players took the court on opposing sides, they engaged in a fierce physical and psychological battle. In Celtic green was Larry Bird, the hick from French Lick with laser-beam focus, relentless determination, and a deadly jump shot, a player who demanded excellence from everyone around him. Magic Johnson was Mr. Showtime, a magnetic personality with all the right moves. Young, indomitable, he was a pied piper in purple and gold.
Their uncommonly competitive relationship came to symbolize the most thrilling rivalry in the NBA—East vs. West, physical vs. finesse, old school vs. Showtime, even…
The Year Mrs. Cooper Got Out More
by
Meredith Marple,
The coastal tourist town of Great Wharf, Maine, boasts a crime rate so low you might suspect someone’s lying.
Nevertheless, jobless empty nester Mallory Cooper has become increasingly reclusive and fearful. Careful to keep the red wine handy and loath to leave the house, Mallory misses her happier self—and so…
I have spent four decades studying the sports business. A lifelong sports fanatic and a trained antitrust lawyer, I originally approached the problem as a straightforward cartel by owners. When consulting for a UK government investigation into sports, I learned how often owners “leave money on the table” because they can’t agree on how to divide things up, and how often league decisions are not responsive to consumer preference. The book is part of a career of analyzing how the structure of sports governance fails to meet the expectations of fans and the general public.
Although the collection of essays by a wonderful journalist is a great read, the key is the chapter Going Green about the innovative investment and community-oriented management of the Oakland Athletics baseball team by the Haas family and the principal owner’s son-in-law, attorney Roy Eisenhardt.
I loved the articulation of why sports are important and how owners should behave, and how front office management should manage.
Our book would be unnecessary if owners were likely like Walter Haas, Jr. and his family.
Offering a unique perspective on the ins and out of baseball, the author examines in detail the job of the catcher, pitchers' strategies, and the intricate play of infielders, discussing the best players of the past five seasons and their greatest moments
I have spent four decades studying the sports business. A lifelong sports fanatic and a trained antitrust lawyer, I originally approached the problem as a straightforward cartel by owners. When consulting for a UK government investigation into sports, I learned how often owners “leave money on the table” because they can’t agree on how to divide things up, and how often league decisions are not responsive to consumer preference. The book is part of a career of analyzing how the structure of sports governance fails to meet the expectations of fans and the general public.
Although now quite old, I still think the wonderful journalistic description of Pete Rozelle’s success in what the author coined as “LeagueThink” to overcome the structural problems in sports identified in my book is a great model.
I knew David Harris by reputation as an anti-Vietnam War activist and singer Joan Baez ex-husband, but I found he pivoted to this topic with excellence.
Based on three years of research, extensive interviews, and confidential NFL documents, an investigative report documents the little-known power struggles that have recently reorganized the internal structure and politics of the football business
I grew up in Green Bay and my dad was the official scorer for the Packers, so I was immersed in pro football history even as a child. During my careers as a newspaper feature writer and editor and as an advertising copywriter, I also became a sports historian. My magnum opus was “The Encyclopedia of North American Sports History,” 650,000 words. But my favorite by far is my biography of Johnny Blood. I was 12 or 13 when I decided I wanted to write it, 33 when I began working on it, 38 when I finished it, and 78 when it was finally published.
Professional football didn’t begin with the National Football League.
Starting in the 1890s, football teams were organized in various cities and towns in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. They were amateur teams at first, but occasionally one team or another would pay a player or two to strengthen the lineup. Eventually, more and more players were being paid until teams became entirely professional.
Keith McClellan covers that era of pro football history, paying special attention to teams like the Columbus Panhandles, the Youngstown Patricians, and the Fort Wayne Friars. He clearly dug through hundreds of old newspapers and he presents his findings in often entertaining prose.
In the most complete and compelling account of the origins of professional football, The Sunday Game tells the stories of all the teams that played independent football in the small towns and industrial cities of the Midwest, from early in the twentieth century to the beginning of the National Football League shortly after the end of World War I. The foundations of what is now the most popular professional sport in America were laid by such teams as the Canton Bulldogs and the Hammond Clabbys, teams born out of civic pride and the enthusiasm of the blue-collar crowds who found,…
Don’t mess with the hothead—or he might just mess with you. Slater Ibáñez is only interested in two kinds of guys: the ones he wants to punch, and the ones he sleeps with. Things get interesting when they start to overlap. A freelance investigator, Slater trolls the dark side of…
I grew up in Green Bay and my dad was the official scorer for the Packers, so I was immersed in pro football history even as a child. During my careers as a newspaper feature writer and editor and as an advertising copywriter, I also became a sports historian. My magnum opus was “The Encyclopedia of North American Sports History,” 650,000 words. But my favorite by far is my biography of Johnny Blood. I was 12 or 13 when I decided I wanted to write it, 33 when I began working on it, 38 when I finished it, and 78 when it was finally published.
Although this is ostensibly the history of a single team, by its very nature and size (4 volumes and 925 pages!), it also encompasses the history of the National Football League during its first century of existence. Cliff Christl, the official historian of the Packers, is a meticulous researcher and engaging writer.
I grew up in Green Bay and my dad was the official scorer for the Packers, so I was immersed in pro football history even as a child. During my careers as a newspaper feature writer and editor and as an advertising copywriter, I also became a sports historian. My magnum opus was “The Encyclopedia of North American Sports History,” 650,000 words. But my favorite by far is my biography of Johnny Blood. I was 12 or 13 when I decided I wanted to write it, 33 when I began working on it, 38 when I finished it, and 78 when it was finally published.
In a work that is almost as much cultural history as pro football history, Michael McCambridge looks at the growth of the National Football League from the end of World War II to the 21st century
This well-researched and well-written book covers the league’s inner workings as well as the on-the-field highlights. The establishment of the NFL Players Association is treated equally with the establishment of the Super Bowl.
It’s difficult to imagine today—when the Super Bowl has virtually become a national holiday and the National Football League is the country’s dominant sports entity—but pro football was once a ramshackle afterthought on the margins of the American sports landscape. In the span of a single generation in postwar America, the game charted an extraordinary rise in popularity, becoming a smartly managed, keenly marketed sports entertainment colossus whose action is ideally suited to television and whose sensibilities perfectly fit the modern age.
America’s Game traces pro football’s grand transformation, from the World War II years, when the NFL was fighting…
I grew up in Green Bay and my dad was the official scorer for the Packers, so I was immersed in pro football history even as a child. During my careers as a newspaper feature writer and editor and as an advertising copywriter, I also became a sports historian. My magnum opus was “The Encyclopedia of North American Sports History,” 650,000 words. But my favorite by far is my biography of Johnny Blood. I was 12 or 13 when I decided I wanted to write it, 33 when I began working on it, 38 when I finished it, and 78 when it was finally published.
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.
Founded in 1920, the National Football League chose famed athlete Jim Thorpe as its first president, a position he held briefly until a successor was elected. From 1921 to 1939, Joe F. Carr guided the sport of professional football with intelligence, hard work, and a passion that built the foundation of what the NFL has become: the number one sports organization in the world. During his eighteen-year tenure as NFL President, Carr created the organization's first Constitution & By-Laws; implemented the standard player's contract; wrote the NFL's first-ever Record and Fact Book; helped split the NFL into two divisions and…
A sense of adventure is what gets me out of bed every morning. What will the day hold? I have no idea, but some of it is within my realm of control. Will I let myself get sucked into the Doldrums, or will I courageously reach out to a friend to say that I need help? I believe deeply in the interconnectedness of all things, and that part of my personal destiny is to be a part of that connection for others. Even in the daily struggles that come with using a power wheelchair, I keep working hard and following my vision and see where the adventure takes me.
Two quotes stand out for me from this book: “Through relationships, we become.” And “No one does it alone. It’s the fabric of our relationships with those in the thin herd that allow us to go the distance.”
This book helped me outline the vision of what I wanted my life to be and understand that it also takes resources, skills, and relationships with others. For me, the vision sparked the adventure of becoming a competitive Para Surfer.
The modern world bombards us with messages that we are not enough and need something outside ourselves to be fulfilled.
The truth is everything we need is already inside us. We just need to uncover it. Based on the ground-breaking mindset training and culture building platform co-founded by Dr. Michael Gervais and NFL coach Pete Carroll, Compete to Create provides a blueprint to unlock your authentic self, explore the edges of your potential, and live a life of purpose and meaning.
In this Audible Original you’ll get an in-depth look at how world-class athletes, artists, and entrepreneurs organize their inner…
