The SportsThink Review #124

June 20, 2025: 42 for 42, Part 1

The SportsThink Review highlights my favorite sport-related content. Most things I share are recently published, but some are not; the only rule is that I’ve read or encountered them recently. Some are relevant to my day job as a professor teaching courses on the business, history, and philosophy of sports. Others are just plain interesting, relevant to my lifelong obsession with the games we play. I also occasionally share articles and assorted musings on Twitter.

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42 For 42: The Sports Books That Made Me

Last weekend I turned 42. Not a milestone exactly, but I’ve decided to think of it as my Jackie Robinson year. Which is cool.

I’ve been thinking about what it means to be 42, and while I’m sure I’m suppressing some deep and complex things, only one recurring anxiety keeps surfacing: will there be enough time to read all the books?

Thus, in an attempt to cope, I’m trying to find joy in all of the reading that I’ve already been blessed to do, to sort out my life’s journey via books. And sports. The two obsessions that have been there as long I can remember. I’d give up sports if I could only have one, but I wouldn’t be happy about it. So that’s the plan for these next few newsletters, biblio-biographical walk down memory lane, limited only to books about sport. (I’m not sure if I could do this without the constraint, I wouldn’t even know where to begin if it was “books in general.”)

Initially, I thought this would just be one long edition, but then I started writing….so this time around you get young Tolga, or what we might call the full-head-of-hair era. Finally, while these are generally endorsements (except where noted), this is not an attempt at a “greatest sports books ever” type list. It’s just my journey thus far and I hope you enjoy it.

Ok, one more “finally”: I’d love to learn about the sports books that shaped your life. Use the comment section below or just hit reply to the email!

42 for 42: The First 9….

The Early Years

1. Avon Superstars: Magic Johnson/Larry Bird by Bruce Weber

   As a kid, I wanted to be Magic Johnson. I didn’t want to just be a professional basketball player or a Laker, just Magic. I spent inordinate amounts of time trying to recreate his long-range buzzer beaters and no-look passes. In formal basketball settings, my game was much more in the spirit of AC Green/Dennis Rodman, so 9 year old me would put up bizarre stat lines like 23 rebounds, 3 points, and 2 assists. (The points and assists coming in spectacular fashion that made my coaches groan. But the long range 3 and wrap around passes worked, so I got away with them.)
   
   The Avon Superstars books were split biographies, 2 athletes for the price of one. I bought this at a Scholastic Book Fair (!) at Grand View Elementary (Manhattan Beach, California), probably in first or second grade. I read Magic’s half over and over again; not sure I even looked at Bird’s half. I also had the Jim McMahon/Marcus Allen volume, but don’t remember much of it.
   

   

   Grand View Elementary, with mom, a serious reader. The coach’s son got #32.

   
   

2. Bo Knows Bo by Bo Jackson and Dick Schapp
   I know I got this for Christmas in 1990, second grade. Jackson was on top of the world when this came out. Within a year he’d be forced to retire from football and eke out another 3 years in baseball before hobbling away in 1994. Yes, I wanted to be Magic, but Bo provided a good backup plan: the only thing better than being a professional athlete would be being a professional athlete in two sports. What a legend. I still have my original copy and just flipped through it; reads like a decent-enough ghostwritten autobiography. This would definitely have contributed to my early internalization of the lessons to be found in sports, the value of hard work and all that. That said, my only real memory of this book is asking my mom what “prostitute” meant.
   

3. Matt Christopher’s novels

   I read a ton of these, mostly in second and third grade. These have got to be the best selling kids sports books in history, right? A dose of morality and good citizenship delivered pretty ably by Christopher. The Kid Who Only Hit Homers is probably the standout and Catcher With A Glass Arm always stuck with me on the title alone. I remember being chafed that there was only one soccer book (Soccer Halfback), but it seems like whoever is ghostwriting for the Christopher estate has pumped out several more. There was also a skateboarding one, which even then was cheesy as hell.
   

4. I Had a Hammer: The Hank Aaron Story by Hank Aaron and Lonnie Wheeler

   My parents ran a big travel agency, where 97% of the staff were immigrants. Joe Tremblay was the rare exception and a serious character. To young me, he was ancient; it didn’t make sense that someone well older than my folks could work for them. Reflecting on it now, he was probably in his late 50s or early 60s, his last stop before retirement. In my imagination/memory, he was a bit of the archetypical Boston Democrat, with the occasional contradictions that entails. He’d get into trouble for saying inappropriate things on ethnic and racial lines, but he was the only agent in the office that our Nigerian client base wanted to work with. They mostly came in on Saturdays to see Uncle Joe.
   
   For me Uncle Joe was a sporadic tutor of sorts. When my parents hit a roadblock in helping me out with homework, we’d call Joe and he’d read an encyclopedia entry to me over the phone. He loved baseball and at some point handed me down a Red Sox hat. He also gifted me a copy of this book, which was the longest I’d read at that point (3rd or 4th grade). I was already a trivia geek, so I knew who Aaron was, but I remember being really engrossed with this one. Beyond the superficial elementary school treatment of MLK, this was definitely my first real introduction to civil rights and matters of race in American society.
   

5. Fab Five: Basketball, Trash Talk, and The American Dream by Mitch Albom

   This is Albom before Tuesdays With Morrie. I know I had this in paperback, I’m thinking 1994. Basketball is the obsession at this point and the Fab Five were The Dudes. Of course there’s hip hop and MTV and all that and Chris Weber and the boys were emblematic of an entire cultural shift. I definitely had the big shorts and started wearing t-shirts under my jersey. I wouldn’t have put it this way as an 11 year old, but I remember being impressed with Albom’s research. Wonder how it holds up….

Middle School and High School: I…. Have No Idea

So I guess this is growing old? I have vivid memories of the books above, but when I start thinking about middle school and high school, I’m drawing a near-total blank. I was still totally sports obsessed and I was still reading non-stop; I can rattle off a list of novels and leftist political tracts on top of all the school reading. But sports books???? I must have read some, but I got nothing. (and before you get the idea that my memory is fried because I was having such a good time partying in high school, trust that I was a straight edge dork.)

The One I Remember From High School (And it’s a big one)

6. The Miracle of Castel Di Sangro by Joe McGinnis

   We waited till spring of my senior year to visit college campuses. Brown, with their total academic freedom and Ivy League reputation, was my dream school. I was in the stands at Fenway when I got the news from home that I hadn’t gotten in. Their loss!
   

   I think I fell in love with Haverford College twice on my visit: sports and books were involved. My dad and I stumbled upon a softball game, which had such a perfect, small college vibe. Maybe 30 people just hanging out and cheering on the team. The pitcher had a Jim Abbot situation going on: she only had one fully-functioning hand and would quickly slip on her glove after throwing the ball. I was impressed and felt like the whole scene was what I was about.
   
   Then there was the bookstore. In the era where most college bookstores were being taken over by corporations, ours was resolutely independent, small but well appointed. I was browsing by a group of guys when one of them picked up a copy of For Whom The Bell Tolls. Some discussion of symbolism in the closing scene ensued. Even more than at the softball field, I was impressed and felt like the whole scene was definitely what I was about. I had found my people.
   
   I’m not sure why I picked up The Miracle of Castel Di Sangro that day, probably because that’s what you do in a bookstore if you’re an addict like me. You don’t leave without a book But I’m so glad I picked it up. This is easily my favorite non-fiction book of all time and a source of some cosmic happenings in my life. The story of an American journalist in small town Italy, embedding himself with a tiny team doing the unthinkable and moving through the ranks of Italian soccer. It’s a funny stranger-in-a-strange-land story, it’s a decent introduction to Italy, and a wonderful and heartbreaking sports book.

   
   A few years later, as a study-abroad student in Rome, I walked into a punk rock record store and the owner was wearing a bootleg Castel Di Sangro sweatshirt that also referenced one of my favorite bands, a pretty obscure one at that. I did like a triple take. (For the 6 people reading who will appreciate this: it was a ripoff of a Judge “New York Crew” shirt. Yes, my brain exploded.) It turned out Roberto was the leader of the Rome faction of the Castel Di Sangro Ultras and he didn’t seem that surprised that I knew all about the team. It was as if he was waiting for me. He never got me one of those shirts though.

   I eventually paid a visit to the small town in the story, where some locals told me that I wasn’t the first to visit because of the book. There weren’t many of us, but there had been a few. They helped me locate a pin and a small banner.
   
   Some years after that, Katy gifted me a weekend in Archer City, hometown of Larry McMurtry (and my favorite novelist). His legendary bookstore—Booked Up—was closing shop and having a sale; I found a first edition of Castel Di Sangro there. On any other trip, this would have been the highlight, but I proposed to Katy that weekend as well, and I would forsake all the books in the world for her and the kids.

College

I’m also coming up somewhat short in the college years. Once again: no partying, plenty of sports, and plenty of books. Lots of driving to VFW halls in New Jersey to watch loud bands. Lots of hoagies. I do remember reading a lot of books on health and fitness and training. A lot of poker books as well (it was the poker boom, after all), but poker is not a sport.

7. Brother Iron, Sister Steel by Dave Draper

   What a title! More in the fitness realm, but there’s a good dose of bodybuilding memoir in here, so I’m counting this as a sports book. Draper— “the Blonde Bomber”—should be recognized as the poet laureate of bodybuilders. This is such a lovely book blending training advice and his own stories. Easily the best book to recommend a 3-day tuna and water diet. As good as Arnold’s books are, Draper excavates the soul of bodybuilding, which remains a very weird sport indeed. Years later and my research and writing on Muscle Beach still bring me back to Draper; I had him on a conference presentation slide just 3 weeks ago.
   

8. Moneyball by Michael Lewis

   Of course I read this when it came out. In high school, I had entertained the idea of pursuing computer science, but in the wake of the dot-com bust, I figured there wasn’t much to be had there (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA SAD LAUGHTER). Similarly, I loved this book, and fully believed Lewis’ basic premise that we were on the cusp of an analytics revolution in sports. Did this influence my studies or career path? Of course not, I just read Rousseau and Hobbes and played a lot of FIFA instead. In the 22 years since it came out, analytics have gone from controversial to completely mainstream; my earliest students were still suspect of data and my students today don’t know a world without it. In an alternate universe, I take Moneyball and run with it, becoming one of the legion of D3-liberal arts geeks dominating the sports world today.
   

9. Among the Thugs by Bill Buford

   Bought at the aforementioned college bookstore and promptly devoured. A fantastic investigation of soccer hooliganism, mostly focused on the maniacs associated with Manchester United. Buford embedded himself deeply, ending up in riots and getting beaten up by Italian police for good measure. Serious ethnography, seriously good writing. I had no idea at the time, but this was planting the seeds for the type of stuff I’d focus on early in graduate school. It’s an excellent book, but if you only read one by Buford, read Heat, his book on training to become a chef. I’ve read way too many food memoirs as well, and this is probably tied with Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential as my favorite.

As always, thanks for reading. I’ll be back next week with the next round of books, what we might call the receding-hairline-quarter-life-crisis-era. There are some goods. Please share the newsletter far and wide!

See you soon,

Tolga