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Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s
Jeff Pearlman · back to the book
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24 books with the same feel
Hide books by the same authorAmerica's Game: The Epic Story of How Pro Football Captured a Nation
Michael MacCambridge · 567 pages
Tor!: The Story of German Football
Ulrich Hesse-Lichtenberger · 368 pages
Badasses: The Legend of Snake, Foo, Dr. Death, and John Madden's Oakland Raiders
Peter Richmond · 358 pages
Highlights the glory days of the team who won six division titles and a Super Bowl under the leadership of coach John Madden and a roster that included Ken Stabler, Willie Brown, Gene Upshaw, and Gene Otto.
Game Six: Cincinnati, Boston, and the 1975 World Series: The Triumph of America's Pastime
Mark Frost
The Jordan Rules: The Inside Story of Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls
Sam Smith · 333 pages
Dream Team: How Michael, Magic, Larry, Charles, and the Greatest Team of All Time Conquered the World and Changed the Game of Basketball Forever
Jack McCallum · 352 pages
"They were the Beatles of basketball, the Mercury Seven in sneakers. In Dream Team, acclaimed sports journalist Jack McCallum delivers the untold story of the greatest team ever assembled: the 1992 U.S. Olympic Men's Basketball Team that captivated the world, kindled the hoop dreams of countless children around the planet, and remade the NBA into a global sensation. As a senior staff writer for
The Breaks of the Game
David Halberstam · 400 pages
The story of one season with the Portland Trail Blazers basketball team touches on many aspects of professional sports: stars, salaries, the media, fans, ethics, drugs, and racial tension.
Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics
Jonathan Wilson · 320 pages
Soccer fans love to argue about the tactics a manager puts into play, and this fascinating study traces the world history of tactics, from modern pioneers right back to the beginning, where chaos reigned. Along the way, author Jonathan Wilson, an erudite and detailed writer who never loses a sense of the grand narrative sweep, takes a look at the lives of the great players and thinkers who shaped
The Punch: One Night, Two Lives, and the Fight That Changed Basketball Forever
John Feinstein · 375 pages
When a fistfight broke out between the Houston Rockets and the Los Angeles Lakers one night in 1977, All-Star Rudy Tomjanovich raced to break it up. He was met by Kermit Washington, a good player with a great reputation, and by an astonishingly ferocious punch, a single blow that has reverberated in both men's lives ever since. With his unerring insight into the deeper truths of professional sport
Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football
Rich Cohen · 338 pages
"A riveting account of the 1985 Chicago Bears and the author's personal relationship with the football team"-- An account of the Chicago Bears 1985 championship season shares anecdotes about its extraordinary events while describing the contributions of such personalities as Walter "Sweetness" Payton, Dan "Danimal" Hampton, and coach Mike Ditka.
The Dirtiest Race in History: Ben Johnson, Carl Lewis and the Olympic 100m Final
Richard Moore · 326 pages
The 1988 Seoul Olympics played host to what has been described by some as the dirtiest race of all time, by others as the greatest. The final of the men's 100 metres at those Olympics is certainly the most infamous in the history of athletics, and more indelibly etched into the consciousness of the sport, the Olympics, and a global audience of millions, than any other athletics event before or sin
Summer of '68: The Season That Changed Baseball—and America—Forever
Tim Wendel · 272 pages
In a year shaped by national tragedy, baseball was shaped by amazing pitching--culminating in a victory by a Detroit Tigers team that faced off against Bob Gibson's St. Louis Cardinals, the 1967 World Series defending champions.
The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told By the Men Who Played It
Lawrence S. Ritter · 320 pages
Personal narratives by Rube Marquard, Tommy Leach, Davy Jones, Sam Crawford, Jimmy Austin, Fred Snodgrass, Stanley Coveleski, Al Bridwell, Harry Hooper, Joe Wood, Chief Meyers, Hans Lobert, Rube Bressler, Edd Roush, Bill Wambsganss, Sam Jones, Bob O'Farrell, Lefty O'Doul, Goose Goslin, Willie Kamm, Heinie Groh, and Paul Waner.
Invictus: Nelson Mandela and the Game that made a Nation
John Carlin · 288 pages
Soon to be a major motion picture from Academy Award(r)—winning director Clint Eastwood, starring Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman. After being released from prison and winning South Africa's first free election, Nelson Mandela presided over a country still deeply divided by fifty years of apartheid. His plan was ambitious if not far-fetched: Use the national rugby team, the Springboks-long an embodi
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
Jeff Pearlman · 304 pages
Once upon a time, twenty-four grown men would play baseball together, eat together, carouse together, and brawl together. Alas, those hard-partying warriors have been replaced by GameBoy-obsessed, laptop-carrying, corporate soldiers who would rather punch a clock than a drinking buddy. But it wasn't always this way ...In The Bad Guys Won, award-winning former Sports Illustrated baseball writer Jef
The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O'Neil's America
Joe Posnanski · 276 pages
Documents the author's cross-country travels at the side of Negro Leagues champion Buck O'Neil, a journey during which the pair sought to recapture their love of the game, remembered O'Neil's history-making career, and explored the numerous challenges that the sport has overcome.
The Horse God Built
Lawrence Scanlan · 304 pages
In The Horse God Built Lawrence Scanlan gives the reader a groom's-eye view of the most exciting time in racing history. But more than anything else, it is a moving portrait of the powerful bond between human and horse.
The Three-Year Swim Club: The Untold Story of Maui's Sugar Ditch Kids and Their Quest for Olympic Glory
Julie Checkoway · 431 pages
The inspirational story of a group of impoverished children who were transformed into champion swimmers. In 1937 an ordinary grammar school teacher on the island of Maui took a group of underprivileged children, mostly of Japanese ancestry, and in three short years transformed them into Olympic champions.
When March Went Mad: The Game That Transformed Basketball
Seth Davis · 329 pages
The dramatic story of how two legendary players--Earvin "Magic" Johnson and Larry Bird--burst on the scene in an NCAA championship that gave birth to modern basketball. The date was March 26, 1979. The place: Salt Lake City.
99: Stories of the Game
Wayne Gretzky, Kirstie McLellan Day · 400 pages
The Real All Americans: The Team That Changed a Game, a People, a Nation
Sally Jenkins · 347 pages
Sally Jenkins, bestselling co-author of It's Not About the Bike, revives a forgotten piece of history in The Real All Americans. In doing so, she has crafted a truly inspirational story about a Native American football team that is as much about football as Lance Armstrong's book was about a bike.If you'd guess that Yale or Harvard ruled the college gridiron in 1911 and 1912, you'd be wrong. The
The Magical Game: The Spirit and History of Baseball's Superstitions, Rituals, and Curses
Addy Baird · 304 pages