More good sports books for holiday shoppers
With the holidays coming, there are several good sports books on the shelves and online this year. Here are a few recommendations:
You Can't Make This Up: Miracles, Memories and the Perfect Marriage of Sports and Television" by Al Michaels ($28.99, HarperCollins, 288 pages)
The legendary broadcaster, who just turned 70, has a breezy memoir out. Sports Illustrated recently excerpted a chapter about Howard Cosell. It's everything you hope it would be when it comes to the larger-than-life Cosell.
And reading about the "Miracle on Ice" never gets old. Michaels has some good insights about the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team, which won the gold medal at Lake Placid.
Do you believe in good reads? Yes!
The Keeper: The Unguarded Story of Tim Howard ($16.99, HarperCollins, 288 pages, Young Readers Edition)
The goalkeeper on last summer's United State's World Cup soccer team will release his autobiography on Dec. 9.
Howard played sensationally in Brazil, and he currently plies his trade professionally for Everton of the English Premier League. He writes about growing up in New Jersey and dealing with Tourette Syndrome. Howard is striking while the iron is hot, as he also does some commentary work on NBC Sports Network's coverage of the Premier League.
Turning the Black Sox White: by Tim Hornbaker ($24.95, Sports Publishing, 400 pages)
Chicago's Rich Lindberg is the ultimate authority on all things White Sox, but Hornbaker's story of the scandal-ridden 1919 White Sox is an essential read for South Side fans.
Like Lindberg, Hornbaker argues that team founder Charles A. Comiskey's role in the Black Sox scandal has been misrepresented. The subtitle of the book is "The Misunderstood Legacy of Charles A. Comiskey."
You be the judge and jury.
The Art of Scouting: Seven Decades Chasing Hopes and Dreams in Major League Baseball, by Art Stewart ($24.95, Ascend Books, LLC, 270 pages)
Die-hard baseball fans will love digging into this inside story of baseball scouting by one of the field's legends.
Among the many stories here, Stewart tells of scouting Bo Jackson for the Kansas City Royals. In a 1986 Royals scouting report, reproduced in the book, Jackson is called "the greatest pure athlete in America today."
Stewart also relates how telling baseball stories to police officers may have gotten him out of a few speeding tickets on the way to seeing young ballplayers.
This book is a can't-miss prospect.