Sport Illustrated's Top 100 Sports Books of All Time

This list is from the 12/16/2002 issue of Sports Illustrated.

I have read the books colored green. I wrote about the books in the top ten in my BLOG.

  1. The Sweet Science   by A.J. Liebling (1956)
  2. The Boys of Summer   by Roger Kahn (1971)
  3. Ball Four   by Jim Bouton (1970)
  4. Friday Night Lights   by H.G. Bissinger (1990)
  5. You Know Me Al   by Ring Lardner (1914)
  6. A Season on the Brink   by John Feinstein (1986)
  7. Semi-Tough   by Dan Jenkins (1972)
  8. Paper Lion   by George Plimpton (1965)
  9. The Game   by Ken Dryden (1983)
  10. Fever Pitch   by Nick Hornby (1991)
  11. A River Runs Through It   by Norman Maclean (1976)
  12. Seabiscuit   by Laura Hillenbrand (2001)
  13. Loose Balls   by Terry Pluto (1990)
  14. Bang the Drum Slowly   by Mark Harris (1956)
  15. Heaven Is a Playground   by Rick Telander (1976)
  16. Levels of the Game   by John McPhee (1969)
  17. The Breaks of the Game   by David Halberstam (1981)
  18. The Summer Game   by Roger Angell (1972)
  19. The Long Season   by Jim Brosnan (1960)
  20. Instant Replay   by Jerry Kramer and Dick Schaap (1968)
  21. Everybody's All-American   by Frank Deford (1981)
  22. Fat City   by Leonard Gardner (1969)
  23. The City Game   by Pete Axthelm (1970)
  24. The Natural   by Bernard Malamud (1952)
  25. North Dallas Forty   by Peter Gent (1973)
  26. When Pride Still Mattered   by David Maraniss (1999)
  27. Babe: The Legend Comes to Life   by Robert Creamer (1974)
  28. The Golf Omnibus   by P.G. Wodehouse (1973)
  29. About Three Bricks Shy of a Load   by Roy Blount Jr. (1974)
  30. A Fan's Notes   by Frederick Exley (1968)
  31. Joe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life   by Richard Ben Cramer (2000)
  32. The Game They Played   by Stanley Cohen (1977)
  33. Veeck as in Wreck   by Bill Veeck and Ed Linn (1962)
  34. Ben Hogan's Five Lessons   by Ben Hogan and Herbert Warren Wind (1957)
  35. The Worst Journey in the World   by Apsley Cherry-Garrard (1922)
  36. Beyond a Boundary   by C.L.R. James (1963)
  37. A False Spring   by Pat Jordan (1975)
  38. Life on the Run   by Bill Bradley (1976)
  39. The Red Smith Reader   by Red Smith (1982)
  40. An Outside Chance: Essays on Sport   by Thomas McGuane (1980)
  41. The Unforgettable Season   by Gordon H. Fleming (1981)
  42. The Celebrant   by Eric Rolfe Greenberg (1983)
  43. Big Red of Meadow Stable   by William Nack (1975)
  44. The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract   by Bill James (1985)
  45. End Zone   by Don DeLillo (1972)
  46. Foul! The Connie Hawkins Story   by David Wolf (1972)
  47. Shoeless Joe   by W.P. Kinsella (1982)
  48. Into Thin Air   by Jon Krakauer (1997)
  49. Eight Men Out   by Eliot Asinof (1963)
  50. Baseball's Great Experiment   by Jules Tygiel (1983)
  51. Laughing in the Hills   by Bill Barich (1980)
  52. Dollar Sign on the Muscle   by Kevin Kerrane (1984)
  53. The Bronx Zoo   by Sparky Lyle and Peter Golenbock (1979)
  54. The Professional   by W.C. Heinz (1958)
  55. The Baseball Encyclopedia   by MacMillan (Publisher) (1969)
  56. A Savage Business   by Richard Hoffer (1998)
  57. The Glory of Their Times   by Lawrence Ritter (1966)
  58. The Complete Armchair Book of Baseball   Edited by John Thorn (1999)
  59. Among the Thugs   by Bill Buford (1991)
  60. Lords of the Realm   by John Helyar (1994)
  61. The Universal Baseball Association, Inc.   by Robert Coover(1968)
  62. Days of Grace   by Arthur Ashe with Arnold Rampersad (1993)
  63. Out of Their League   by Dave Meggyesy (1970)
  64. Golf Dreams: Writings on Golf   by John Updike (1996)
  65. In These Girls, Hope Is a Muscle   by Madeleine Blais (1995)
  66. They Call Me Coach   by John Wooden with Jack Tobin (1972)
  67. Cosell   by Howard Cosell (1973)
  68. Down the Fairway   by Bobby Jones and O.B. Keeler (1927)
  69. Big Game, Small World   by Alexander Wolff (2002)
  70. The Last Shot   by Darcy Frey (1994)
  71. Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder   by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Douglas Kent Hall (1977)
  72. Out of the Bunker and Into the Trees   by Rex Lardner (1960)
  73. The Fight   by Norman Mailer (1975)
  74. Only the Ball Was White   by Robert Peterson (1970)
  75. Harvey Penick's Little Red Book   by Harvey Penick with Bud Shrake (1992)
  76. Whatever Happened to Gorgeous George?   by Joe Jares (1974)
  77. Annapurna   by Maurice Herzog (1951)
  78. The Great American Novel   by Philip Roth (1973)
  79. Soccer in Sun and Shadow   by Eduardo Galeano (1998)
  80. The Story of American Golf   by Herbert Warren Wind (1948)
  81. Inside Edge   by Christine Brennan (1996)
  82. Farewell to Sport   by Paul Gallico (1938)
  83. Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times   by Thomas Hauser (1991)
  84. Can't Anybody Here Play This Game?   by Jimmy Breslin (1963)
  85. The Complete Book of Running   by James Fixx (1977)
  86. The Science of Hitting   by Ted Williams And John Underwood(1970)
  87. Only a Game   by Robert Daley (1967)
  88. The Joy of Sports   by Michael Novak (1976)
  89. The Lords of the Rings   by Vyv Simson and Andrew Jennings (1992)
  90. Road Swing   by Steve Rushin (1998)
  91. Golf in the Kingdom   by Michael Murphy (1972)
  92. Game Misconduct   by Russ Conway (1995)
  93. No Cheering in the Press Box   by Jerome Holtzman (1973)
  94. Beer and Circus   by Murray Sperber (2000)
  95. The Harder They Fall   by Budd Schulberg (1947)
  96. The Tumult and the Shouting   by Grantland Rice (1954)
  97. SportsWorld   by Robert Lipsyte (1975)
  98. The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings   by William Brashler (1973)
  99. The Miracle of Castel di Sangro   by Joe McGinniss (1999)
  100. Little Girls in Pretty Boxes   by Joan Ryan (1995)
Rick Umali rickumali@gmail.com
Last Updated: Sat Apr 14 13:14:20 EDT 2018