The best sports books of 2021

Of the innumerable sports books published this year, these were the six that most stood out for book critic Micah Wimmer.

I read no shortage of good sports books this year, though there were a handful that truly stood out. They won me over in different ways: some had lovely prose, others focused on captivating storytelling, while others made the most of a novel idea (or executed a less original one brilliantly).

From a meditation on the greatest icons of baseball history to the story of a women’s football league; from a biography of an LGBTQ icon to an astronomer’s basketball insights; from the story of one Boston championship to the tale of six others several decades later,  these are the best sports books of 2021.

Here are the six best sports books from 2021

How to Watch Basketball Like A Genius by Nick Greene

What can a couples therapist tell us about LeBron James? Are there similarities between designing a trajectory for interplanetary travel and finding an open teammate for a pass? In How to Watch Basketball Like a Genius, Nick Greene searches out the answer for these, and many more questions. Throughout the book, Greene interviews experts from a variety of different fields in order to see what unique vantage points they may be able to offer about basketball and each chapter is full of insights both entertaining and informative.

Nick Greene takes an ingenious concept and executes it wonderfully, capturing the joy and magic of watching basketball from a variety of angles. Reading his work, all who love the game will be reminded of why they fell in love with the sport in the first place and will be able to watch the game anew the next time they fire up NBA League Pass. Few books of recent years have been this fun and this insightful.

Singled Out by Andrew Maraniss

In Strong Inside, Andrew Maraniss showed his skill as a biographer of athletic pioneers, telling the life story of Vanderbilt’s Perry Wallace, the first black athlete in SEC history. Now, in this year’s Singled Out, Maraniss does it again by writing about Glenn Burke, the first out gay man in Major League Baseball history, as well as the inventor of the high-five. Throughout Singled Out, Maraniss captures Burke’s personality, giving the reader a feel for the man himself while also highlighting his achievements and shining a light on the intersection between sports and LGBTQ history. Burke’s story is hardly as well-known as it should be and Maraniss’ book should help rectify that as it has never before been told this fully or this well.

The Baseball 100 by Joe Posnanski

Ranking the 100 best players in baseball history is not a particularly innovative idea, but in The Baseball 100, Joe Posnanski is less concerned with providing readers with a definitive list of the 100 greatest players in baseball history than with telling the story of the sport through the lives of its most notable and accomplished players. It is a unique way to approach the game’s past — full of trivia, anecdotes, and odd statistics that articulate what made each player special. The book is not only a celebration of their on-field achievements; it is also an exploration of their personalities and the myths that transformed many of these men from athletes to icons of Americana. Even if one is not a baseball fan, one is still sure to be drawn in by the larger-than-life figures and Posnanski’s passionate prose. The Baseball 100 is a labor of love, the result of a lifetime of reading and watching, and it’s a book that any fan of baseball (or good writing) is sure to appreciate.

Hail Mary by Britni de la Cretaz and Lyndsey D’Arcangelo

I love coming across a book that tells a story I knew nothing about before picking it up. And no book more fully actualized that desire for me this year than Britni de la Cretaz and Lyndsey D’Arcangelo’s history of the National Women’s Football League, Hail Mary. Together, de la Cretaz and D’Arcangelo chronicle the history of the league from its nascent beginnings as a gimmick imagined by promoter Sid Friedman to a league largely run by the women who played themselves. They also tell the stories of several women who found a sense of freedom and liberation from playing in the NWFL, showing how they became athletic pioneers in the process. It is a fascinating look at life on the athletic margins and for anyone interested in the intersection of sports and gender, or simply in a great story, Hail Mary is a must-read.

It’s Better to Be Feared by Seth Wickersham

Your local bookstore or library is not lacking in books on the New England Patriots dynasty. Yet even among the numerous works already available, Seth Wickersham’s It’s Better to Be Feared stands out. Wickersham has covered the team for many years and his immersion in the franchise is evident. It is full of well-told new stories that are as revealing as they are interesting, getting closer to the core of what makes Tom Brady and Bill Belichick who they are than anyone else. Looking at the dynasty as a three-act structure — its initial rise, its plateau, and then its second string of Super Bowl victories — Wickersham captures all the drama and success, all the highs and lows of this era in electrifying prose. It is not only a sports book, but a human tale about the nature of success and what satisfaction it may, or may fail to, bring.

Tall Men, Short Shorts by Leigh Montville

In the spring of 1969, Leigh Montville was not yet an award-winning sportswriter, but a young columnist for the Boston Globe, covering that year’s NBA Finals. It was the seventh match-up between the Lakers and the Celtics in 11 years, and though the Lakers had lost each of the previous six series, Los Angeles was heavily favored against the aging Celtics. The series, which featured seven Hall of Famers, ended up being one of the greatest and most memorable in league history, helping to define the legacies of several all-time greats including Bill Russell, Jerry West, and Wilt Chamberlain. In Tall Men, Short Shorts, Montville revisits this series and the bygone world it happened in. It is both a history of that era in NBA history as well as a memoir that captures the no-longer-recognizable sports world of the late ’60s. In this way, it functions as a love letter to the sports media of the past and a time when true literature was the common goal for a new generation of columnists and reporters. He does this all without idealizing the old days or denigrating the current ones, creating a unique book that all NBA fans, or those who care about sports writing as a medium, will enjoy.