100 Books Like The Best Game Ever

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.

For fans of true crime, there’s plenty to recommend in this artfully crafted investigation into the murder of casino heir Ted Binion. But the book takes a gonzo turn when its author – a writing teacher from Chicago – uses his advance to enter the World Series of Poker, the tournament started by the Binion family. The deeper he digs into the murder, the deeper he runs in the tournament, creating a once-in-a-lifetime mashup memoir that’s almost too good to be true.

Warren St. John spent a season with the University of Alabama fans who drive their RVs to every single Crimson Tide game, chronicling the lengths and depths of their obsessive fandom, the ways they build community and identity out of a bunch of kids playing a kids’ game... and this was before the Crimson Tide won six national championships in the last 15 years.

As I often tell my wife, an Alabama fan born and raised, “You people are insane.” Lucky for me I find their insanity captivating.

No one watches an NFL game and decides to put on a helmet and get knocked down, but once in a rare while, fans are so moved as spectators that they get off the couch and become participants. This increased activity is important to a largely sedentary nation with an obesity epidemic and there are several historical examples of this “participation effect,” when spectators become players, but none bigger than golf. Before this Cinderella story, golf was an elite niche sport and the vast majority of courses private. “Normal” people simply did not play. But when Francis Quimet, a 20-year-old caddie and son of a handyman reached the US Open final (then match play format), it electrified the public. This changed golf forever, sparking millions to take up the game and thousands of courses, overwhelmingly public, to be built. If not for the dramatic 1913 US Open, golf today might… show more.

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.

A political writer, Leibovich brings tremendous levity to the ever-serious NFL. The author had good access to Tom Brady and outs Jerry Jones and Bob Kraft for the needy buffoons they are. You will learn and laugh. Jones and Kraft, two of the most powerful owners in the might National Football League, engage in wild and hilarious competition for a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. 

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.

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.

This book reads like a fictional suspense novel, but it’s not! It was engaging from the beginning where the opening lines seemed like the author was staging a murder mystery in a small town. However, the familiar characters from sports agents to owners to players in the 1980s quickly piqued my interest, and soon it was apparent that the story was about the mafia’s unsuccessful attempt to infiltrate the NFL in the eighties through money laundering, racketeering, bribery, wire fraud, and more.

I was intrigued by the political gamesmanship of the NFL, which was determined to eradicate the mafia’s takeover attempt, but was almost equally caught off guard by the previously untold story of its vulnerability to corruption, especially from an almost equally powerful organized crime affiliate.

The story-telling was especially compelling and read like a legal drama. Conspiracy was at its finest, and this book was exceptional for its… show more.

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.