Here at Prayers For Blowouts we love to let our members spout off their opinions on anything and everything.

Recently we asked them to tell us what their favorite sports book of all time was…

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I’ve read almost all of John Feinstein’s books.  You could pick any of his and have a good tale.

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Michael Lewis’s  – Moneyball

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I’m a closet Grisham fan so when he wrote The Bleachers I looked forward to it…and I think it delivered.  But I am a Cowboys fans too and when Jeff Pearlman’s Boys Will Be Boys came out…it was an instant winner on my book lists.  I remember the 90’s cowboys but from a school aged kid’s perspective…and that book gave me more details to the whole picture.  It was a great read.

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As quickly as I devoured Matt Christoper books like “Catcher With A Glass Arm” and “The Kid Who Only Hit Homers” as a kid, I’d have to go with John Updike’s “Rabbit, Run” because nothing illustrates the dull post-high school lives I jealously wished on all of the star athletes I went to school with quite like Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom. In case no one else mentions them, I also want to give shout-outs to Buzz Bissinger’s “Friday Night Lights,” Joe McGinniss’ “The Miracle of Castel di Sangro” and Bill Buford’s “Among the Thugs.” All three books changed the way I looked at sports, writing and journalism.

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seabiscuit.  seriously.  great book.

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This is easy – everything that Matt Christopher has ever written.  I credit his cheesy, optimistic ’50s-era novels as the reason I became interested in sports.

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Lance Armstrong’s It’s Not about the Bike.

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I don’t read much (Bryan, I swear I’ll read your book when you’re published, even if I don’t get a free copy), so for this question, I’ve got to go back more years than I’d like to admit.  I’m also going to offer 2 answers to this question.

The first is “Field of Hope” by Brett Butler.  I had a chance to meet Brett back in 1993, and some of the things he said impacted me in ways I can’t begin to explain.  Ten years later when my son was born, we named him Brett.  Butler’s story holds a special place in my life.

The second is “The Worth of a Man” by Dave Dravecky.  Dave deals with how we wrap up the “who we are” in what we do.  Who is Ron Davis?  Keeping families safe online is what I do, but who I am is so much more than that.From what I recall, neither of these books is exceptionally well written (they’re athletes, not writers), but they are 2 books that will always have a home on my bookshelf.

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As a 27 year old, I’ve been reading sports books for close to 22 years – yes, I am going all the way back to the Berenstein Bears and the book in which Brother Bear is on the soccer team but skips school and loses his spot on the team.  Even as a kid, sports books were the best way for me to stay engaged and reading – I could plow through a Matt Christopher novel in a day or two – but who among us didn’t?

As a teen I turned to biographies for pleasure reading – I distinctly remember reading Bo Knows Bo, Carl Lewis’ biography, and a book called Rise and Walk about paralyzed NY Jets lineman Dennis Byrd.

As I’ve grown older, I find the best sports books are the ones which touch not just on the action on the field, but also on the off-field side of sports.  Michael Lewis hits a homerun with Moneyball and The Blind Side – and David Halberstam’s Playing for Keeps is a classic for the way it looks at Michael Jordan’s total impact on the sports world.

Yet I think the best sports book I’ve ever read is a little-known piece of non-fiction about an American writer who spent a year following a local team from one of Italy’s poorest cities.  Against all odds, the team puts together a series of wins to sit on the edge of promotion to the ultra competitive SerieB…but I won’t spoil the ending.  It’s worth a look even for those who hate the Beautiful Game.

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Three Nights in August.  It’s about a three game set between the Cards and Cubbies in August of 2003 in the heat of a playoff chase.  Gives a lot of great insights on being a MLB manager, as well as some interesting side stories on particular players.

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Play Ball, Kate for obvious reasons; it completely blew up the stereotyped images in a 4 year old boy’s head and is an against-the-odds story of success. You know a book is good if you read it multiple times and I don’t have enough phalanges to count the number of times I read this classic gem.

Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby.  I’ know very little about the game of soccer, but Nick Hornby’s confession of an obsessed fan relates to all of us who sometimes take our love for sports a little too far.

One of the more interesting sports-related books I read was Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer by Warren St. John.  St. John does a great job of following Alabama fans around for a season of football and giving us a glimpse into the odd culture of hardcore southern football fans.  He does a good job of portraying the idiosyncrasies and head-scratching actions that some of these people do without being too condescending or mocking the fans.

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Walk-on: Life from the End of the Bench by Alan Williams. AW played two years ahead of Chris Paul at Wake and has an incredible story about what he had to do just to stay on the Wake squad for four years and he ties his faith into the whole thing. A close second would be The Miracle of St. Anthony: A Season with Coach Bob Hurley and Basketball’s Most Improbable Dynasty by Adrian Wojnarowski

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Mind Game : how the Boston red sox got smart, won a World series, and created a New Blueprint for Winning by The Writers of Baseball Prospectus

Want to join the team at PFB? It’s the perfect Christmas present for yourself this holiday season! Just send your name, favorite team, and a headshot to prayersforblowouts(at)gmail.com.

While skimming through my Publisher’s Marketplace weekly Publisher’s Lunch email I found this little tidbit in the “New Book Deals” section:

Texas Ranger Josh Hamilton’s comeback story from blue chip prospect to addict to American League All Star; after being confronted by his grandmother at rock bottom, Hamilton embraced Christianity, found his faith, and made it back to the pinnacle of his profession, to Harry Helm at Center Street, by Richard Abate at Endeavor.

I’m assuming this is a book that Hamilton is helping to write, but I could be wrong. In any event, it should make for a good read.