Written by Jonathan Knight

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There’s a common conception that sports fans are generally not voracious readers.

While to some extent that’s true, give them the right book and sports fans will devour it like Prince Fielder at a Hometown Buffet.

A few months ago, I put together a list of the best Cleveland sports books. But as I discovered in the process, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There are countless quality nonfiction sports books out there that Cleveland fans can enjoy even though they have absolutely nothing to do with Cleveland sports.

With so many to choose from, I think it’s important to qualify the list right off the top. It’s not the “best” sports books ever written, but rather the ones that are the most fun to read. In my experience with many of the books included on most of the “best ever written” lists, I can appreciate their merits and why they were selected, but often did not truly enjoy the experience of reading them.

It’s kind of like most of the books we read in junior high and high school - sure they were good, but they weren’t exactly fun to read.

So to get us through these final weeks of winter when 65% of our day is still spent in darkness and going outside never ends well, here are the 25 most fun sports books that have nothing to do with Cleveland.

25. Our Game: An American Baseball History

by Charles C. Alexander

All-encompassing histories of baseball are generally a turn-off, but this is the Baby Bear of the genre: everything about it is just right. Meaty but not too long, this book, written by Ohio University history professor Charles Alexander, weaves the tale of American baseball from its post-Civil War beginnings through the next century. It masterfully juggles the dozens of larger-than-life characters with the on- and off-field dramas that make baseball’s history the most interesting of any sport in our culture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

24. Going Long: The Wild 10-Year Saga of the Renegade American Football League in the Words of Those Who Lived It

by Jeff Miller

The birth and rise of the wild and crazy American Football League is chronicled beautifully in this book, which takes a subject you thought you knew well and shows you actually didn’t. Through nearly 200 interviews with players, coaches, and other colorful characters who made the AFL the amazing enterprise that it was, Jeff Miller compiles the best football oral history to date.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

23. Big Red Dynasty: How Bob Howsam & Sparky Anderson Built the Big Red Machine

by Greg Rhodes & John Erardi

Before the dawn of free agency and the period when big-market teams simply bought up available talent, the Cincinnati Reds put together one of the finest clubs in baseball history, and this book encapsulates everything that made it special. Designed essentially as a photo album and loaded with fantastic pictures, Big Red Dynasty recounts the Reds teams of the 1970s and supplements the narrative with dozens of sidebars and statistical data that further illustrate just how amazing this team was.

 

 

 

22. Bums: An Oral History of the Brooklyn Dodgers

by Peter Golenbock

The James Michener of baseball writers, Peter Golenbock hit the jackpot with Bums, still the definitive history of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Using the words and memories of the players and personalities surrounding the team, Golenbock recreates baseball’s most beloved franchise at its pinnacle, just before its ultimate demise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

21. The Bad Guys Won: A Season of Brawling, Boozing, Bimbo Chasing, and Championship Baseball with Straw, Doc, Mookie, Nails, the Kid, and the Rest of the 1986 Mets, the Rowdiest Team Ever to Put on a New York Uniform - and Maybe the Best

by Jeff Pearlman

The 1986 Mets may have been the most hated team in baseball history, with a collection of arrogant, self-centered, though colorful characters that proved to be the best in the game. This book - and its ridiculously long subtitle - illustrates how what we knew back then just scratched the surface, and how pompous (and good) the ’86 Mets were.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

20. Dodger Dogs to Fenway Franks: The Ultimate Guide to America’s Top Baseball Parks

by Bob Wood

In 1985, schoolteacher Bob Wood lived out the dream of most baseball fans: he spent the summer driving across the country, attending a game in each of the then-26 major-league stadiums and then chronicling his adventures. Though most of the ballparks he visits no longer exist, this book is still a fantastic read, partly for the nostalgia but mostly because it’s just so much fun to live vicariously through the author.

 

 

 

 

19. The Biggest Game of Them All: Notre Dame, Michigan State, and the Fall of ’66

by Mike Celtzic

Focusing on the almost mythic 10-10 gridiron tie between No. 1 Notre Dame and No. 2 Michigan State in November of 1966, Mike Celtzic creates a delicious look back at a very different era in college football. More than just the play-by-play of this classic contest, the book sets the stage beautifully, capturing the flavor of college football in the 1960s and perhaps the moment that launched its modern era.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

18. One Pitch Away: The Players’ Stories of the 1986 League Championships and World Series 

by Mike Sowell

The 1986 baseball postseason was the greatest in the history of the sport, with both league championship series and the World Series each being remembered as one of the finest playoff sequences ever seen. Mike Sowell takes the reader back to that magical October with a spellbinding account of the games and storylines woven by the Mets, Astros, Red Sox, and Angels and dedicates individual chapters to all the key characters - how they got to the ’86 playoffs and what happened to them after.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

17. Big Ten Country: A Journey Through One Football Season

by Bob Wood

This one’s out of print and hard to find, but if you can get your hands on a copy, it’s worth the effort. In his sequel to Dodger Dogs to Fenway Franks, Bob Wood spends the autumn of 1988 driving around the midwest to attend a football game at each of the Big Ten’s then-10 campuses. While nearly a quarter-century old, his tales have little to do with the games themselves and more about the campuses and the characters he discovers on his journey through the heart of college football.

 

 

 

 

16. Perfect Rivals: Notre Dame, Miami, and the Battle for the Soul of College Football

by Jeff Carroll

Anyone who was tuned in to college football in the late 1980s and early 1990s will adore this book, which studies the bitter Miami-Notre Dame “Catholics vs. Convicts” rivalry when both programs were the cream of the crop - and hated each other’s guts. But more than just an on-field rivalry between the players and an off-field one among alums, Miami-Notre Dame also revealed sociological and racial undertones across the country.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

15. Where the Game Matters Most: A Last Championship Season in Indiana High School Basketball

by William Gildea

This is essentially a love letter to what was one of the most charming aspects of American sport - the Indiana high school basketball state tournament. William Gildea hits the back roads of Indiana through the winter of the 1996-97, the final season before the IHSAA split its schools into divisions based on size and thus eliminated the possibility of David vs. Goliath stories that inspired the film Hoosiers. Mixing a history of Indiana basketball with a narrative on the then-current state of the sport, this book is a tribute to everything good about high school hoops.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

14. The Echoing Green: The Untold Story of Bobby Thomson, Ralph Branca and the Shot Heard ‘Round the World

by Joshua Prager

More than just a tale of the New York Giants’ amazing run to the 1951 pennant, this well-written tome outlines the nefarious plot by Leo Durocher & Co. to use a telescope in the Polo Grounds to steal the opponents’ signals and electronically relay them to the Giants’ dugout. At times reading more like an espionage novel, The Echoing Green combines the chicanery and the suspense that led up to Bobby Thomson’s “shot heard ‘round the world.”

 

 

 

 

13. Loose Balls: The Short, Wild Life of the American Basketball Association

by Terry Pluto

Ironically, what might be Terry Pluto’s finest work has nothing to do with Cleveland sports. Loose Balls is the definitive history of the short-lived American Basketball Association and examines how truly crazy things were for everyone involved. It’s a wonderful book that shines a spotlight on an often-forgotten chapter in the history of pro basketball and shows how the ABA’s influence  perseveres in the NBA to this day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

12. Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream 

by H.G. Bissinger

While the title has turned into its own enterprise - inspiring a loosely based film and television series - the significance of the original book, published in 1990, has unfortunately been somewhat diminished. Without the melodrama and exaggeration of the visual versions (though both were well done), Bissinger takes the reader through a season with the Permian Panthers and provides the first - and still best - examination of the fish-bowl environment of Texas high school football.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

11. The Best Game Ever: Pirates vs. Yankees, October 13, 1960

by Jim Reisler

Granted, with this book focusing on the New York Yankees and a team from Pittsburgh, it automatically starts with an 0-and-2 count. But Game Seven of the 1960 World Series was a truly magnificent story, and Jim Reisler accentuates it with his outstanding writing, particularly in portraying the time period, rickety old Forbes Field, and how much this single game meant to the city of pre-Steeler-dynasty Pittsburgh.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10. Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx is Burning: 1977, Baseball, Politics, and the Battle for the Soul of a City

by Jonathan Mahler

While the ESPN miniseries based on this book was - like the Yankees themselves - bloated and unnecessary, the book is a true gem. While there’s plenty of detail about the George Steinbrenner/Reggie Jackson/Billy Martin triad of pomposity, the book really hits its stride when focusing on the landscape in which these clowns thought they stood center stage: a struggling New York City in which a blackout and subsequent looting led to millions of dollars in property damage, two unknowns named Ed Koch and Mario Cuomo battled for the mayoral nomination, and the serial killer Son of Sam terrorized the entire city.

 

 

 

 

 

 

9. The Curse of the Bambino

by Dan Shaughnessy

Even if you can’t stand the Red Sox or New England fans, and even though the Curse of the Bambino has been broken, this is still a crackerjack book, containing fun from cover to cover. Cleveland fans would find particular enjoyment in the wallowing over long-ago suffering and the way the talented Dan Shaughnessy relays the fashion in which the Red Sox are part of the very fabric of the culture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8. It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over: The Baseball Prospectus Pennant Race Book

by Baseball Prospectus

True baseball nerds are already quite familiar with the Baseball Prospectus geeky statistical empire, but this is the one thing it has produced that is thoroughly entertaining even for the casual fan. It examines 13 of the best pennant races in baseball history (including the Indians’ legendary triumph in 1948) first from a narrative an then a purely statistical angle, using a myriad of fascinating mathematical equations to define exactly why each team won or lost and why one pennant race was better than another.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7. The Last Good Season: Brooklyn, the Dodgers, and Their Final Pennant Race Together

by Michael Shapiro

Countless words have been written about the Brooklyn Dodgers since they moved west more than a half-century ago, but this collects some of the best. It’s a heart-wrenching but poignant narrative of the 1956 season, the final “good” summer the Dodgers and Brooklyn spent together as whispered rumors of the team moving seemed utterly preposterous.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6. War As They Knew It: Woody Hayes, Bo Schembechler, and America in a Time of Unrest

by Michael Rosenberg

Even if you’re well-versed in the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry and the Woody Hayes-Bo Schembechler relationship, this is a must-read. It brings the two men and their supporting casts to life while illustrating just how huge the OSU-Michigan game was throughout the late 1960s and 1970s - and by extension, how little it means today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. The Greatest Game: The Yankees, the Red Sox, and the Playoff of ’78

by Richard Bradley

In recent years, the 1978 one-game playoff for the AL East title between the Yankees and Red Sox has gained momentum and steamed up many fans’ lists of the greatest games ever played. Even if you’re venomous toward both clubs, after reading this masterpiece, you can’t help but agree this game was a treasure - intersecting countless storylines between the two clubs’ rich histories.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series

by Eliot Asinof

The first investigatory sports book, Eight Men Out shed much light on what actually happened in those frenzied days before, during, and after the 1919 World Series. Amazingly, though it was published in 1963 and is based in the 1920s, it reads as well as any modern sports literature and flows like a ragtime novel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. Summer of ’49

by David Halberstam

Easily David Halberstam’s best foray into sportswriting, reading Summer of ’49 is like picking up a charming, yellowing postcard from a scrapbook. Telling the story of a heated post-war pennant race between the Yankees and Red Sox, Halberstam paints a picture of baseball in its golden age, using some of the greatest characters in the game’s history as his brushes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. Game Six: Cincinnati, Boston, and the 1975 World Series: The Triumph of America’s Pastime

by Mark Frost

Hard to believe it took more than 30 years for a talented writer to dedicate an entire book to what’s widely considered to be the greatest baseball game ever played, but Game Six was worth the wait. Mark Frost guides you deep into the defining contest of the 1975 World Series between Cincinnati and Boston - and how these two wonderful franchises studded with outstanding personalities transformed (maybe even saved) the game of baseball.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. America’s Game: The Epic Story of How Pro Football Captured a Nation

by Michael McCambridge

The hardback edition of this book could kill your dog if dropped from the coffee table, but don’t let its size scare you. It’s the most comprehensive account of the history of professional football ever written, and it flows like a John Jakes novel, combining all the mythical origins of the game with reality and beautifully tracing its evolution to its status today as America’s top sport.

 

 

 

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