I praised Chad Harbach’s debut, The Art of Fielding (also one of our 25 most anticipated books for fall), in a “What we’re reading Wednesday” post last week, and now you can find out what all the fuss is about—for free! This week, we’re giving away TWO hardback copies of this wonderful novel about baseball, growing up and falling in love.
For a taste of the book, read this line from the review of the novel in our September issue:
There aren’t many books of 500 pages that feel too short. But like a true fan enjoying a game of baseball as it scrolls its leisurely signature across a summer afternoon, there are moments when you will find yourself wishing The Art of Fielding would never end. It’s that good.
What this book for yourself? Cross your fingers and keep reading . . .
TO ENTER: Leave a comment on this post with the name of your favorite sports story—from Wait Til Next Year to Moneyball to Friday Night Lights. Don’t read a lot of books about sports? Tell us about a time when you’ve rooted for an underdog.
CONTEST DETAILS: Two winners will be chosen by random.org from among entries received by 6 pm CST on September 9. The winners will each receive a hardback copy of The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach. This prize must be shipped to a North American address.
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ETA: Congratulations to our winners, Frank M. and BookBelle! Frank’s a fan of A League of Their Own, and BookBelle loved Wait Til Next Year: A Memoir by Doris Kearn Goodwin!
Thank you to all who entered. Contest is now closed.
I don’t read many sports books, but have associations with a local university that insists on playing football games with powerhouses….
for the big bucks and for the experience, so we’re usually the underdog!
I have such sympathies for our players, who give their ALL, but they
just aren’t as big as the teams they face. “One of these days” we keep
saying…….
The Blind Side
The Natural
I don’t read many stories about sports but I enjoyed Playing for Pizza by John Grisham as well as his book Bleachers. Now that I think about it I also enjoyed Pat Conroy’s My Perfect Season and Robert Parker’s Edenville Owls. Hey, I do read stories about, or that at least include sports. I’ve always intended to read W. P. Kinsella’s Shoeless Joe which was the novel that the film Field of Dreams was based on.
W.P. Kinsella’s stories.
“shoeless joe”
I loooooooooved Moneyball.
a league of their own
The Blind Side, the book is terrific!
Loved the themes in Blind Side …universal!
My favorite sports book would have to be “Tough Guy” by Bob Probert, the recently-deceased former hockey player for the Detroit Red Wings. He was a troubled man, living life on a huge scale (including drugs and alcohol, which is rampant in the game of hockey), and he brought an interesting insight to the game. He had been writing the book with a co-author when he passed away suddenly, and his wife finished the book. The opening chapter described his sudden death, sadly, while boating with his family, and it was troubling and sad. He lived a huge life and the book was very eye-opening for me.
The Iowa Baseball Confederacy
Friday Night Lights is one of my favorite TV shows of recent times, but in terms of books, my favorite sports story would have to be George Dohrmann’s Play Their Hearts Out, which examines the state of youth basketball in America and how the search for the next up-and-coming superstar takes a toll on the lives of many young players.
Dirk Hayhurst’s The Bullpen Gospels
The Blind Side!
Favorite: The Blind Side
My grandson is a dedicated baseball player — age 9 — fortunately his parents are both athletic, as he drags them outside to play every day. During family baseball games when we can field two teams, I am the relief batter — as a grandmother I have earned the right to nine swings at bat.
It would be THE BLIND SIDE for me.
I loved Doris Kearn Goodwin’s Wait Til Next Year: A Memoir. It is a father-daughter love story.
I really, really want a copy of The Art of Fielding! My fingers are crossed.
Belle
I loved The Blind Side, too.
A Season of Miracles,(Rusty Whitener)was a really good story all around,about sports,people and helping others deal with life…
The Blind Side was definitely my favorite sports story… in movie form. I would love to win this book for my husband. He loves sports of any kind, live or televised. I’m not much for televised sports, except for tennis. But I do love a real live game of baseball, tennis, football, basketball, and almost anything!
I really enjoyed The Natural,and the movie too…and many of the older movies about The Babe,Lou and many others
The Blind Side.
That said, rooting for the underdogs is a favorite past time. I’m a Pittsburgh Pirates fan.
I enjoyed Roland Merullo’s GOLFING WITH GOD.
This is a fantastic giveaway! I don’t read a lot of stories about sports but “The Natural” is a fantastic one and so worth reading!
Aimala127@gmail.com
Although I can’t say I’ve read a sports book, per se, there is a wonderful scene in “The Painted House” by John Grisham where the family and all the field workers get together for a game of baseball that sticks in my mind. A thunderstorm arrives during the middle of the game, causing them to all run for cover! Might sound simple; but it was a wonderful book!
The Pitch That Killed. It is the story of Cleveland Indians shortstop Ray Chapman, the only player ever killed in a major league baseball game.
Brian Piccolo: A Short Season by Jeannie Morris – Chicago Bear running back Brian Piccolo died of cancer at age 26, leaving behind a young wife, three daughters, friends – and a legend. This incredible story of a man determined to win his battle with cancer will make you cry!
Shoeless Joe by W. P. Kinsella – This book is not so much about baseball as it is about dreams, magic and life!
The Prologue to Dennis Lehane’s The Given Day works well as a stand-alone short story. Babe Ruth, traveling by train from one baseball game to the next, joins a group of local black men playing ball when his train experiences trouble and they have to disembark. By the end of the prologue, I was hooked on the book, which told of much more than just baseball.
The Blind Side-Also I Am A Red Sox Fan
Favorite sports book – Wait Till Next Year – a delightful baseball memoir by a fellow ex-Brooklynite – Doris Kearns Goodwin. I remember her being interviewed when the book first came out and she described it as a memoir of growing up Dodger and Catholic. How could you not want to read it! My youngest grandson’s middle name is Kinsella – an homage to the book Shoeless Joe and the movie Field of Dreams. We are a baseball family.
I enjoyed Bleachers by John Grisham. It seemed like something I could imagine in my town.( lots of sports fanatics here )
The Year The Yankees Lost The Pennant
A sports book that was memorable was Diamond Ruby by Joseph Wallace.
I loved THE BASEBALL CODES: Beanballs, Sign Stealing, & Bench-Clearing Brawls, written by Jason Turbow and Michael Duca. It reveals the MLB game as seen by the players themselves. Lots of humor!
The Art of Racing in the Rain
Playing for Pizza by John Grisham was a fun read.
The Blind Side!
I have read several sports books, so I will just go with rooting for the underdog. As a Cub fan, I am for the underdog every day.
I’m an MU graduate so I always cheer them on. Sometimes they do good and sometimes they don’t.
The old ball game: how John McGraw, Christy Mathewson, and
the New York Giants created modern baseball , and The Entitled, both by Frank Deford.
Let’s give a shout out to some outstanding LGBT sports books: The Dreyfus Affair by Peter Lefcourt There have been plenty more including: The Front Runner by Patricia Nell Warren.
Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Wait ‘Til Next Year because it’s my era, and my story too, except that my team was the Chicago Cubs – my favorite underdogs!
Seabiscuit!
“Seabiscuit” is by Laura Hillenbrand
I loved ‘The Greatest Game Ever Played’ by Mark Frost. I also loved most of the books already mentioned and I got some great titles of books that I haven’t yet read.
Moneyball of course!!
The Boys of Summer, The Natural, North Dallas Forty and Chariots of Fire.
A League of Their Own –women rock
I live in Cleveland, Ohio. . . Needless to say I’m always rooting for the underdog!
The Natural – it was very different from the film!
Blind Side.
I haven’t read a sports book in years. For me,book wise would be Shoeless Joe. Movie wise-it would be Remember the Titans and Rudy.
Thanks for the giveaway!
After reading Playing for Pizza, I booked a trip to Italy!
“I Am Third” by Gale Sayers was the inspiration of the great television movie “Brian’s Song.”
I loved “Born to Run”
I have been a die hard Red Sox fan for over 25 years. Did I mention I am from Northeast New Jersey. How is that for rooting for the under dog?
Can’t help commenting here. My daughter’s name is Ivy. She was raised in northern NJ. At first, I thought maybe she was you. Then I saw that comment about the Red Sox and nope, I knew you are a different Ivy.
(Go, Rays!)
I do read quite a few, to keep middle school boys interested, but Pat Conroy is a favorite writer, and My Losing Season is a favorite book, about basketball & his senior year in high school.
my favorite sports film is FIELD OF DREAMS…it was one of the few movies that could make my dad cry, and i rarely saw him cry, but that always got to him..I never really knew my dad too well, he wasn’t easy to talk to or know, but he must have seen this movie a 100 times, and each time it got to him.. should i have picked SHOELESS JOE then? do movies not count? there it is..i said it..DAVID
Too many good ones: The Blindside, A League of Their Own, The Natural, Rudy . . . . . .
My favorite sports book is Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer by Warren St. John about the ‘rabid’ fans of the Alabama Crimson Tide football team.
Gosh…so hard to pick just one…I really love Doris Kearns Goodwin’s ‘Wait Til Next Year’ because I can relate to her childhood and waiting for the Texas Rangers to win the pennant…LOL! I also absolutely LOVED ‘The Teammates’ by David Halberstram. This friendship between these four players was incredibly moving and touching. I also loved W.P. Kinsella’s books of baseball short stories, especially ‘The Dixon Cornbelt League and Other Baseball Stories.’
The Year The Yankees Lost the Pennant – The book the broadway play and movie “Damn Yankees” was based on.
The Hector Quesadilla Story by T.C. Boyle.
Moneyball is by far my favorite sports book. I recommend it to everyone that will listen. I would love to win another sports book to read.
Michelle O’Boyle (@OBoyledBooks)
OBoyledBooks at gmail dot com
Dan Gutman’s sports series for kids, lots of fun
So many great baseball books. Two of my favorites are Christopher Lehmann-Haupt’s “Me and DiMaggio: A Baseball Fan Goes in Search of His Gods” and “The Echoing Green” by Joshua Prager. And there’s no better sports movie than “Hoosiers.”
As a born and bred Hoosier who bleeds for Indiana University, my favorite sports story is “A Season on the Brink.” Not only is the book written by a terrific sports writer, John Feinstein, but it manages to capture the magic of Indiana basketball under Bobby Knight perfectly.
For fiction, you can’t beat Mike Lupica’s “Bump and Run.”
Thank you for the giveaway. Please pick me. I really want to read “The Art of Fielding.”
DefinitelyA League of Their Own!
it seems I am always rooting for the underdog, but right now, I am rooting for my beloved Detroit Tigers..who were never expected to win their division this year, but are well on the way to doing so.
I’ve been waiting for this book for a while.
I also loved “The Blind Side.”
(Dying to read this book, by the way. )
I’ve been a huge Friday Night Lights fan, from way back when I read the book. I’m sure this is a direct result of growing up in the South where Friday night football was played under lights and was sacred, and I was in the Pep Squad. Now, years later, I dredged up some of “my” story and turned it into middle grade fiction!
One reason I’m looking forward to this baseball book, am even considering buying a copy if I don’t win, is that I’m working on book 2, and there’s a baseball subplot.
You’d think I was a sports nut. Just a moderate fan who loves to read!
My all-time favorite sports story is Shoeless Joe Jackson- the story behind the film Field of Dreams. I am excited for another sports story to touch my heart. they are among my favorite things to read!
It’s from my childhood, but “In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson” is a good read.
Stan Musial by George Vecsey. Great book about one of the greatest Cardinals ever!
It’s Not About the Bike
Lance Armstrong
I’m a lifelong Pittsburgh Pirates fan, so I’ve always rooted for the underdogs. I liked The Natural and am looking forward to reading The Bullpen Gospels when I whittle down my pile of “to read” books.
The Blind Side
Bull Durham. Wait, not a book. Hm. Friday Night Lights. Great book.
My favorite sports story is The Natural.
(Thanks for the giveaway!)
Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby
The Blindside!!
Shoeless Joe by WP Kinsella. And not a bad movie either…
I don’t read sports stories, generally. Or I haven’t so far.
I am always cheering on the underdog. Most recently, that was Wade Watts, aka Parzival, from Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. What a great story!
Being from Texas, it is no surprise that my fav is Friday Night Lights.
Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
If I have to choose one, it would be Waiting for Next Year by Dolores K Goodwin; shared it with my son, since all good Red Sox fans pass down the legacy!
I don’t follow any sport, least of all, boxing, but I was impressed by the 2011 biography of legendary boxer Jerry Quarry: “Hard Luck: The Triumph and Tragedy of ‘Irish’ Jerry Quarry.” As a lover of “The Grapes of Wrath,” I was intrigued that Quarry grew up hard in the same California migrant camps of which Steinbeck wrote. “Hard Luck” is a very affecting life story.
Shoeless Joe by W. P. Kinsella…The origin of the now iconic line: “If you build it, he will come.”
It would be extremely difficult to narrow my favorite sports stories to one, but I think “Wait Till Next Year” by Doris Learns Goodwin was a wonderful blend of baseball and father-daughter relationships. It resonated with me, the wife of a (former) college baseball coach and the mother of three daughters. My daughters and I all loved it.
My favorite sports book is The Natural. I don’t like sports that much, but I loved The Natural after having to read it for school.
I liked Hal Higdon’s On the Run from Dogs and People, a collection of people’s funny encounters while running.
I usually do not read many sports books but I LOVE a good sports film like..Blind Side, Field of Dreams, Remember the Titians, We are Marshall, etc….It is always so inspirational to see someone triumph over difficulty.
Streak, Joe DiMaggio and the Summer of `41, by Michael Seidel.
I`m a tennis player and I would like to see Andy Murray win a major.
Does Netherland by Joseph O’Neill count? It had cricket in it.
Definitely Moneyball.
I’ve recommended Moneyball by Michael Lewis to many of my baseball fan friends.
My favorite underdog story was during the Stike Out Lou Gehrig’s Disease Little League All Star tournament. A 14U team, coached by Steve Garvey, played the first 3 games of its pool and scored over 40 runs with many home runs ($100 each) – earning a lot of money for the ALS Association – while their opponents scored ZERO. They went to the semifinal as their pool winner and won that game with the other team not scoring. Then in the final, played on a college field instead of a little league field, what would have been home runs were now fly balls. The other team, AV, got one over the center fielder and it was a race around the bags and a play at the plate. The AV team won 1-0. Incredible. Best Little League game ever.
The Life of Reilly by Rick Reilly. His writing is terrific!
my favorite sports story – well off the top of my head it’s the movie story of the Jamaican bobsled team, “Cool Runnings”
The Blindside…Th book was awesome and I’ve seen the movie 6 times!
I love sports personally. Chris Crutcher’s themes revolve around sports, i.e. Deadline, Stotan, Running Loose. Just love his books!
I grew up reading every baseball related book that the library had! I even read “Ball Four” when I was about 10 years old! I also grew up a loyal (and often frustrated) Chicago Cubs fan! The favorite saying was “Wait till next year!” Still saying it!
Having grown up as the only girl in a neighborhood of boys, I have my share of scars! One on my shin from being tackled into a lifeguard stand. Felt many times like one of the “Bad News Bears players” on a pro team! I liked “Blind Side and “Shoeless Joe”. Have to keep dreaming – don’t I?
Field of Dreams
I love Bill Simmon’s sportswriting. Nonfiction, but excellent. Lewis is definitely on my list, however.
The Last Days of Summer by Steve Kluger. Hilarious! A baseball player becomes a big brother to a precocious Jewish kid in the 1950s.
Books by the late Ernie Harwell, Detroit Tigers announcer.
I positively loved the 2005 documentary “Murderball.” For those who haven’t had the pleasure of seeing it, it’s about quadriplegic athletes who play wheelchair rugby. One of the best sports stories on film. And best of all it’s not full of contrived Hollywood sap. Thanks for the chance to win a copy of “The Art of Fielding.” It sounds fantastic.
I don’t typically read sports books, but I enjoyed the movie version of Blind Side and am looking forward to Moneyball.
My favorite sports book was Playing for Pizza. It was a great book even for those who aren’t sports fans.
I don’t read a whole lot of sports stories, but I really enjoyed The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon.
I had the privilege of reading “How Lucky You Can Be: The Story of Coach Don Meyer” by Buster Olney. It is about a man who was completely devoted to coaching basketball, but was also a man of faith. Then he was in a devastating car accident which led to him losing a leg and learning he had terminal cancer. Instead of feeling sorry for himself he turned to his faith and recuperated enough to coach basketball for one more season. His story was one of the most inspiring stories I’ve ever read.
Wait til next year. Who doesn’t love Doris Kearns Goodwin?
my favorite sports story….”The Sandlot”..watched many times with my son