This article was originally published on July 15, 2024.
I READ BOOKS.
A lot.
I read fiction. I read non-fiction. I read new stuff. I read old stuff. I read good stuff. I read crap stuff. I read award winners. I read cheese.
And I read about sports.
A lot.
This is why I’m painfully aware that the modern sports literature canon isn’t as rich as one might think. Sure, there are dozens and dozens of baseball, basketball, and football titles published each year, but few resonate beyond their immediate release.
Then when you get niche about the whole thing — when you focus on one narrow aspect of the sports literature canon — it gets even more difficult to find true gems. (Unless you’re a fan of the Bronx Bombers. There are too many damn good books about those damn Yankees.)
But for my chosen niche — Chicago sports books, natch — I was fortunate in that there are plenty of gleaming gems to choose from. Here are my ten shiniest:
Hyperion Books, 1998
Elevator Pitch: NBA Zen Master mines his Chicago Bulls journey to teach mindfulness.
The Skinny: It’s pretentious, it’s meandering, and it’s extra, but if you, like me, have an affinity for the Deadheady Bulls-era Jackson (as opposed to the cranky Lakers-era Jackson), Sacred Hoops is un-put-down-able. Admittedly it doesn’t hold up well — you don’t see much in the way of spirituality in professional sports these days — but it’ll always have a spot in the hearts of us Bulls-ficionados.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017
Elevator Pitch: The Cubs sucked. Then they didn’t. Here’s the ride.
The Skinny: The contemporary professor emeritus of Chicago sports lit used the Cubs’ 2016 World Series run as a launching point for the tale of both the team and his own frustrating lifelong relationship with the franchise. A lovely meditation on fandom and patience.
St. Martin’s Griffin, 1992
Elevator Pitch: The Wrigley Field bleachers, in book form.
The Skinny: I think we can all agree that if you put together a collection of history’s greatest baseball writers, Roger Angell would sit atop the list — but the prolific Golenbock would certainly hit the top ten. Here, on one of the rare occasions the New York native didn’t write about the Mets or the Yankees, Golenbock illustrates why we stick with the Cubs through thick and thin. Mostly thin.
Crown Archetype, 2010
Elevator Pitch: To quoth the subtitle: How the 1985 Monsters of the Midway became the greatest team in NFL history
The Skinny: After the Bears won the 1985 Super Bowl, Chicago bookshelves were clogged with titles about the team and/or by its players. But most of those are garbage, and Delsohn’s — what with it’s no-frills, light-hearted rundown of the whole season — is most definitely not.
Taylor Trade Publishing, 1998
Elevator Pitch: Michael Jordan wasn’t as nice as you thought.
The Skinny: Lazenby wrote two wonderful books about the Bulls: This 1998 behind-the-scenes romp and his epic 2014 Michael Jordan bio. I had to choose one, so I went with gossipy rather than serious.
Broadway Books, 2000
Elevator Pitch: The Jumpman gets the Halberstam treatment
The Skinny: Playing for Keeps isn’t Halberstam’s best sports book — that honor goes to, of course, The Breaks of the Game — but if you want to re-live M.J.’s Bulls career in an academic yet engaging fashion, here ya go.
Gotham Books, 2011
Elevator Pitch: You thought you knew the Chicago Bears legend. Well, you don’t.
The Skinny: Pearlman has proven time and again he can discover stuff about athletes that you can’t. His justifiably acclaimed bio of the greatest running back of all time — sorry, Barry Sanders, Emmitt Smith, and Jim Brown, but you know I’m right — is a haunting portrait of a wonderful man who wasn’t quite as happy as he seemed.
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963
Elevator Pitch: A devastating gambling tale ripped from the headlines of yesteryear.
The Skinny: I read Asinof’s heartbreaking story of Shoeless Joe Jackson’s gamblin’ Sox when I was, like, seven, and it made little-to-no sense. When I read it ten years later, I was like, “This is the best baseball book I’ve read, and will possibly ever read.” I’ll stand by that.
Simon & Schuster, 1992
Elevator Pitch: Michael Jordan punched out Steve Kerr. Enough said.
The Skinny: Sometimes you love something because you discovered it during a special time in your life, and that’s exactly the case here. Critics probably believe that Smith’s dishy debut shouldn’t be in the top ten — and it definitely shouldn’t be ahead of Eight Men Out — but this eminently readable tome dropped during the Jordan/Pippen/Grant-era Bulls, a special time in my sports-viewing life, thus it’s my jam.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013
Elevator Pitch: How the NFL’s most frustrating franchise finally won a Super Bowl.
The Skinny: The professor emeritus is back, and this time, he’s on top. This memoir-slash-history is exceptionally relatable to me as Cohen and I are about the same vintage, we both grew up on the North Shore of Chicago, and when the Bears won the 1985 Super Bowl, both of our heads exploded. But unlike me, Cohen had the wherewithal (and the memory) to write the definitive book on the Chicago Bears — and possibly Chicago sports.