A Look at the Season's Best Sports Books

by Harvey Frommer

It's the time of year when sports fans are in reading heaven, with Web sites and stores loaded with all types of new sports books. There are literally dozens to choose from. With apologies to the rest, here is a look at some of the best.

And the Crowd Goes Wild by Joe Garner (Sourcebooks, Inc., $49.95) is more than just a sports book. This is a terrific package that includes two audio CDs narrated by Bob Costas and inspirational, exciting and poignant playbacks of 47 of the most celebrated sporting events ever broadcast.

The book's foreword is by Hank Aaron, its after-word by Wayne Gretzky and in between we are there with the great Babe Ruth calling his shot on October 1, 1932 up to the U.S. women's soccer team winning the World Cup on July 10, 1999. This book that belongs at the top of your "must have, must give" list.
From Total/Sports Illustrated publishers, 20th Century Sports—Images of Greatness by Mike Meserole ($26.95) is a trade paperback feast for the eyes of any and all sports fans.

Show on words but long on visual images, the book takes you through the decades and gives up-close and striking looks at groundbreaking times in sports history. Using rare and evocative photographs from photo archives including Sports Illustrated, the book, as the author describes it, "is a family album of the twentieth century, the great extended family of sports."

ESPN Sports Century, edited by Michael MacCambridge (Hyperion, $40) offers reference, nostalgia, time machine and entertainment all in one. It presents a decade-by-decade look at the century's highlights of sports and culture in lavish color and appealing black and white images.

While the images are fantastic, some of the hype-prose could certainly be toned down. For example, this passage from the book's segment on the 1960s, "Caught in the quagmire of a feudal war abroad and fulfilled promise at home, the nation spent the decade in a schizophrenic spasm of pleasure and revulsion," lays it on a little thick.

Pro football fans should check out Best Shots (DK Publishing, $30). The book showcases the greatest National Football League photography of the century. You'll witness 80 seasons of NFL action, including Randall Cunningham flying to victory over the New York Giants, Joe Montana in solitude before Super Bowl XXIII, Giants quarterback Y.A. Tittle's look of disbelief after a crushing defeat and Denver Broncos quarterback John Elway exultant in triumph after Super Bowl XXXIII. It's a book filled with defining moments.