Great teams, events, writers accent gift ideas
SPORTSBooks about Yankee Stadium, knockout fight, Dallas Cowboys and Texas Rangers among recommendations

Published: November 30, 2008

Looking at the sports bookshelf as we head toward Christmas, here are some gift-worthy books.

"The Game America Plays” ($25, Arnica) is subtitled "Celebrating 75 Years of the Amateur Softball Association.” Written by longtime ASA staffer Bill Plummer III, the book is packed with information and rare photos.

"Boys Will Be Boys” ($26, HarperCollins) has a subtitle that’s bound to attract readers: "The Glory Days and Party Nights of the Dallas Cowboys Dynasty.” The book, by Jeff Pearlman of ESPN.com, lives up (and down) to the subtitle. It’s filled with lots of previously unknown details, for adults only.

"Going Deep: 20 Classic Sports Stories by Gary Smith” ($27, Sports Illustrated) improves and updates a 2000 collection of Smith’s classic SI stories, "Beyond the Game.” Only six of the 20 stories here were among the 15 in the previous work.

"Everything They Had: Sports Writing From David Halberstam” ($25, Hyperion) is a treasure trove in book form. It is a wide-ranging collection of the late, great Halberstam’s sportswriting, drawn mostly from his work for magazines, newspapers and ESPN.com.

"The Last Great Fight” ($25, St. Martin’s) is a terrific read about what happened before, during and since Buster Douglas’ stunning knockout of Mike Tyson in 1990. This superbly told tale is by Joe Layden, who now ranks among my favorite writers.

"The Last Real Season” ($26, Grand Central) is one of the most hilarious baseball books ever. It’s primarily about the 1975 Texas Rangers, as recalled by Mike Shropshire, their Fort Worth Star-Telegram beat writer at the time. It is highly recommended, but it’s also for adults only.

"The Best Game Ever” ($23, Atlantic Monthly) by Mark Bowden is an engaging look back to the 1958 NFL championship game between the Baltimore Colts and New York Giants. It made me feel like a kid again, watching the classic game on my parents’ black-and-white TV.

"The Mysterious Montague: A True Tale of Hollywood, Golf and Armed Robbery ” ($26, Doubleday) is for the most part a rousing tale by a superb writer, Leigh Montville. But the book’s punch weakens in the final chapters.

"101 Baseball Icons” ($20, Ten Speed Press) is an album of photographs showing the Baseball Hall of Fame’s unrivaled collection of artifacts from the game’s history.

"When Baseball Went to War ” ($28, Triumph) is a definitive history of the baseball players who served in World War II. It uses the resources of the National World War II Museum and includes a 74-minute compact disc of interviews.

"Remembering Yankee Stadium” ($45, STC Books) is a coffee-table book written by historian Harvey Frommer and featuring outstanding photos for the ages. After 85 seasons, baseball’s most famous ballpark has closed its doors, but they remain open here.

— Bob Hersom

Your thoughts!