New Books In Sports

How games are built on the foundations of rules, and how rules—of which there are only five kinds—really work. Board games to sports, digital games to party games, gambling to role-playing games. They all share one thing in common: rules. Indeed, rules are the one and only thing game scholars agree is central to games. But what, in fact, are rules? In The Rule Book: The Building Blocks of Games (MIT Press, 2024), Jaakko Stenros and Markus Montola explore how different kinds of rules work as building blocks of games. Rules are constraints placed on us while we play, carving a limited possibility space for us. They also inject meaning into our play: without rules there is no queen in chess, no ball in Pong, and no hole in one in golf. Stenros and Montola discuss how rules constitute games through five foundational types: the explicit statements listed in the official rules, the private limitations and goals players place on themselves, the social and cultural norms that guide gameplay, the external regulation t

In Kings of the Garden: The New York Knicks and Their City (Three Hills, 2024), Adam J. Criblez traces the fall and rise of the New York Knicks between the 1973, the year they won their last NBA championship, and 1985, when the organization drafted Patrick Ewing and gave their fans hope after a decade of frustrations. During these years, the teams led by Walt Frazier, Earl Monroe, Bob McAdoo, Spencer Haywood, and Bernard King never achieved tremendous on-court success, and their struggles mirrored those facing New York City over the same span. In the mid-seventies, as the Knicks lost more games than they won and played before smaller and smaller crowds, the city they represented was on the brink of bankruptcy, while urban disinvestment, growing income inequality, and street gangs created a feeling of urban despair. Kings of the Garden details how the Knicks' fortunes and those of New York City were inextricably linked. As the team's Black superstars enjoyed national fame, Black musicians, DJs, and B-boys in t

Johnny Mize was one of the greatest hitters in baseball’s golden age of great hitters. Born and raised in tiny Demorest, Georgia, in the northeast Georgia mountains, Mize emerged from the heart of Dixie as a Bunyonesque slugger, a quiet but sharp-witted man from a broken home who became a professional player at seventeen, embarking on an extended tour of the expansive St. Louis Cardinals Minor League system. Mize then spent fifteen seasons terrorizing Major League pitchers as a member of those Cardinals, the New York Giants of Mel Ott and Leo Durocher, and finally with the New York Yankees, who won a record five straight World Series with Mize as their ace in the hole—the best pinch hitter in the American League. Few hitters have combined such meticulous bat control with brute power the way Mize did. Mize was a line-drive hitter who rarely struck out and also hit for distance, to all fields, and usually for a high average. Nicknamed the Big Cat, “nobody had a better, smoother, easier swing than John,” said Ca

Although much has been written about the Nazis, one aspect of their rule has been all but overlooked: gambling. While philosophically opposed to gambling, in practice the Nazis relied on gambling to prop up Germany's economy, earn hard currency, and wage war. In Gambling Under the Swastika: Casinos, Horse Racing, Lotteries, and Other Forms of Betting in Nazi Germany (Carolina Academic Press, 2019), Professor Robert M. Jarvis (Nova Southeastern University) presents the first comprehensive look at gambling in the Third Reich. After summarizing Germany's pre-Nazi gambling laws, Jarvis describes how, within months of coming to power, the Nazis re-opened Baden-Baden's famed casino (shuttered since 1872), took control of the country's horse tracks, and encouraged citizens to play the lottery (to fund social welfare programs). With the advent of war, the Nazis' use of gambling increased. While in some countries (such as the Netherlands) the Nazis used gambling to curry favor with the local citizenry, in others (such

While the topic of relationships in professional sports teams is gaining greater attention from researchers and practitioners, the role that coach and athlete language plays in shaping these relationships remains largely unexplored. How Language Shapes Relationships in Professional Sports Teams: Power and Solidarity Dynamics in a New Zealand Rugby Team (Bloomsbury, 2022) by Dr. Kieran File addresses this gap by examining how every day, authentic language patterns used by coaches, captains and players shape relationships in a professional New Zealand rugby team. More specifically, through a discourse analysis of taken-for-granted ritual language practices in training sessions, team meetings and match-day interactions, the chapters of this book illustrate how coaches, captains and players shape particular interpersonal dynamics of power and solidarity between themselves in and through language and, in the process, reflect and reconstruct shared and underlying ideologies about how relationships of power and soli

It was 1953, the Korean War in full throttle, when two men—already experts in their fields—crossed the fabled 38th Parallel into Communist airspace aboard matching Panther jets. John Glenn was an ambitious operations officer with fifty-nine World War II combat missions under his belt. His wingman was Ted Williams, the two-time American League Triple Crown winner who, at the pinnacle of his career, had been inexplicably recalled to active service in the United States Marine Corps. Together, the affable flier and the notoriously tempestuous left fielder soared into North Korea, creating a death-defying bond. Although, over the next half century, their contrasting lives were challenged by exhilarating highs and devastating lows, that bond would endure. Through unpublished letters, unit diaries, declassified military records, manuscripts, and new and illuminating interviews, The Wingmen: The Unlikely, Unusual, Unbreakable Friendship Between John Glenn and Ted Williams (Citadel Press, 2023) reveals an epic and int

Rachel S. Gross's Shopping All the Ways to the Woods (Yale University Press, 2024) tells the fascinating history of the profitable paradox of the American outdoor experience: visiting nature first requires shopping No escape to nature is complete without a trip to an outdoor recreational store or a browse through online offerings. This is the irony of the American outdoor experience: visiting wild spaces supposedly untouched by capitalism first requires shopping. With consumers spending billions of dollars on clothing and equipment each year as they seek out nature, the American outdoor sector grew over the past 150 years from a small collection of outfitters to an industry contributing more than 2 percent of the nation’s economic output. Gross argues that this success was predicated not just on creating functional equipment but also on selling an authentic, anticommercial outdoor identity. In other words, shopping for the woods was also about being—or becoming—the right kind of person. Demonstrating that out

Roberto Alomar was not just a five-tool Hall of Famer; he was a magician on the diamond, a generational talent whose defensive wizardry left teammates and opponents breathless. Yet, despite his twelve All-Star selections and ten Gold Glove awards, he has remained one of the most contentious and enigmatic characters in baseball’s history. Roberto Alomar: The Complicated Life and Legacy of a Baseball Hall of Famer (Roman & Littlefield, 2024) is the first complete, balanced biography of arguably the greatest second baseman in the history of Major League Baseball. It covers Alomar’s impressive career, his altercation with umpire John Hirschbeck and their eventual friendship, the allegations stemming from Alomar’s personal life, never-before-heard stories about his conflicts with both minor and major league teammates, and his global influence. When Roberto Alomar retired in 2005, his place as one of baseball’s all-time greats was unquestioned. But the controversies that always seem to follow him make Alomar’s lega

This instalment of the Object Lessons series focuses on the Swimming Pool (Bloomsbury, 2024). The book explores the pool as a place where humans seek to attain the unique union between mind and body. As a former world-ranked swimmer whose journey toward naturalisation and U.S. citizenship began with a swimming fellowship, Piotr Florczyk reflects on his own adventures in swimming pools while taking a closer look at artists, architects, writers, and others who have helped to cement the swimming pool's prominent and iconic role in our society and culture. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose forthcoming book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sports

In July 2021, Naomi Osaka—world number 1 women’s tennis player—lit the Olympic Cauldron at the Tokyo Olympic Games. The half-Japanese, half-American, Black athlete was a symbol of a more complicated, more multiethnic Japan—and of the global nature of high-level sports. Osaka is now about to start her comeback, after taking some time off following the birth of her child. She’s not just an athlete: She’s a media entrepreneur, venture investor, and mental health advocate—with that latter label coming with difficult conversations about the wellbeing of high-performance athletes, and their obligations to the media. Just in time for her comeback tour, tennis writer Ben Rothenberg is here with a new biography of the tennis star: Naomi Osaka: Her Journey to Finding Her Power and Her Voice (Dutton, 2024). Ben Rothenberg is a sportswriter from Washington, D.C. who has covered Naomi Osaka around the world since she emerged onto the WTA Tour in 2014, both in print for The New York Times—for which he covered tennis from 2

Welcome to the G League--the official minor league of the National Basketball Association. Life in the G: Minor League Basketball and the Relentless Pursuit of the NBA (University of Nebraska Press, 2023) is about the arduous quest to achieve an improbable goal: making it to the NBA. Zeroing in on the Birmingham Squadron and four of its players--Jared Harper, Joe Young, Zylan Cheatham, and Malcolm Hill--Alex Squadron details the pursuit of a dream in what turned out to be the most remarkable season in the history of minor league sports. Life in the G League is far from glamorous. Players make enormous sacrifices and work unimaginable hours in the hope that someone in the NBA will give them a chance. To this day, very few fans--even the most passionate followers of the NBA--know much about the G League. In the fall of 2021, the Birmingham Squadron granted author Alex Squadron complete access to the team to capture the experience of playing in the league. That year, with hundreds of NBA players sidelined by the

William Meiners is a writer, editor, and teacher living in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. He created Sport Literate as a graduate student at Columbia College Chicago in 1995. By day, he works as a reporter for the Gratiot County Herald, a family-owned weekly newspaper, and by night, he teaches academic writing courses at Mid Michigan College For the 25th anniversary of Sport Literate, Bill and his colleague Brian McKenna chose essays for a special anthology edition entitled Game: A Sport Literate Anthology (Pint-Size Publications, 2023). It features essays from across a wide array of sports: heavy hitters like baseball, football, and basketball, but also essays addressing bicycling, fishing, hockey, tennis and even roller skating. Given that Sport Literate essays have earned notable nods over 30 times in two Best American anthologies, Best American Sports Writing as well as Best American Essays, there was plenty of excellent material to choose from. The episode covers four different essays from the sports of baseb

Today we are joined by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, Professor of History at The New School, and author of Fit Nation: The Gains and Pains of America’s Exercise Obsession (University of Chicago Press, 2023). In our conversation, we discussed the beginnings of fitness in the United States, how fitness both offered the state a way to shape bodies and liberatory possibilities for counter-cultural communities, and the future of exercise in a post-covid world. In Fit Nation, Petrzela investigates the long history of fitness in the United States to better understand how fitness became such an important part of American life. She notes that the number of people who think fitness is essential for a full life has expanded dramatically since the 1890s and fitness shape our understandings of national community, industry, security, wealth, and wellness. Her comprehensive and readable account begins with the immigration of European fitness fanatics to the United States in the 19th century and illustrates how fitness became on

Four historic teams. Four legendary players. One unforgettable season. The 1980s were a transformative decade for the NBA. Since its founding in 1946, the league had evolved from a bruising, earthbound game of mostly nameless, underpaid players to one in which athletes became household names for their thrilling, physics-defying play. The 1987–88 season was the peak of that golden era, a year of incredible drama that featured a pantheon of superstars in their prime—the most future Hall of Famers competing at one time in any given season—battling for the title, and for their respective legacies. In When the Game Was War: The NBA's Greatest Season (Random House, 2023), bestselling author Rich Cohen tells the story of this incredible season through the four teams, and the four players, who dominated it: Larry Bird and the Boston Celtics, Magic Johnson and the Los Angeles Lakers, Isiah Thomas and the Detroit Pistons, and a young Michael Jordan and his Chicago Bulls. From rural Indiana to the South Side of Chicago,

Women’s college basketball is big business—top teams bring in millions of dollars in revenue for their schools. Women’s NCAA games are broadcast regularly on sports networks, and many of the top players and coaches are household names. Yet these athletes face immense pressure to be more than successful at their sport. They must also conform to expectations about gender, sexuality, and race—expectations that are often in direct contrast to success in the game. They are not supposed to have muscles that are too big, they are not supposed to be too tough, they are not supposed to be too masculine or “look like men,” and they are not supposed to be queer. A former college athlete herself, Michelle J. Manno spent a full season with a highly competitive NCAA Division I women’s basketball program as one of the team’s managers. In vivid detail, she takes us on the court, on the team bus, into the locker room, and to championship games to show the intense dedication that these women give to the game. She found, perhap

Today we are joined by Dr. Lindsay Krasnoff, who is an historian, specializing in global sport, communications and diplomacy. She is also the Director of FranceandUS, and she lectures on sports diplomacy at New York University Tisch Institute of Global Sport. We met to talk about her most recent book: Basketball Empire: France and the Making of a Global NBA and WNBA (Bloomsbury, 2023). In our conversation, we discussed the rise of basketball in France, the differences between French and American basketball, and the way that French basketball stars such as Boris Diaw exemplify the new global “empire” of basketball that incorporates Africa, France and its overseas departments, and the USA. Krasnoff divides Basketball Empire into three parts that together investigate how French basketball developed from a low point in the middle of the 20th century to a global powerhouse contributing players to the NBA and the WNBA almost every year. Krasnoff argues that French basketball’s success hinges on their ability make u

Today we are joined by the sports journalist David Steele, who has written for the Sporting News, AOL, the Baltimore Sun and the San Francisco Chronicle, and won awards from the National Association of Black Journalists, the Association of Black Media Workers, the Associated Press Sports Editors, and the Society of Professional Journalists. He is also the author of It Was Always a Choice: Picking up the Baton of Athlete Activism (Temple UP, 2022). In our conversation, we discuss the beginnings of black athlete activism in the 20th century, the different approaches pursued by black and white athletes across the century, and whether or not athletes should use their privileged position to promote positive change in the world. In It Was Always A Choice, Steele explores two interconnected histories: the longer durée story of black athlete activism in the 20th and 21st centuries, beginning with Jack Johnson in the 1910s, and the history of the Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling protests and how contemporary athlete activi

For close to half a century after World War II, Marty Glickman was the voice of New York sports. His distinctive style of broadcasting, on television and especially on the radio, garnered for him legions of fans who would not miss his play-by-play accounts. From the 1940s through the 1990s, he was as iconic a sports figure in town as the Yankees’ Mickey Mantle, the Knicks’ Walt Frazier, or the Jets’ Joe Namath. His vocabulary and method of broadcasting left an indelible mark on the industry, and many of today’s most famous sportscasters were Glickman disciples. To this very day, many fans who grew up listening to his coverage of Knicks basketball and Giants football games, among the myriad of events that Glickman covered, recall fondly, and can still recite, his descriptions of actions in arenas and stadiums. In Marty Glickman: The Life of an American Jewish Sports Legend (NYU Press, 2023), Jeffrey S. Gurock showcases the life of this important contributor to American popular culture. In addition to the stori

We all know many stories about how modernity came about. But what does it mean to be “modern”? This episode comes at the question through the test case of mountain climbing and rock climbing. Claims to becoming modern through climbing often point back to Italian humanist Francesco Petrarch’s ascent of Mt. Ventoux in 1336, a climb that made him, according to many historians, “the first modern man.” But Petrarch was by no means the first person to climb Mt Ventoux, and his own account is, if anything, counter-modern. By surveying evidence of much earlier climbing in Europe and pre-contact North America, the episode argues that humans have always been climbing mountains and scaling cliffs for a wide variety of reasons. Only recently did they start to think of these achievements as making themselves “modern.” It turns out that to claim to be modern is one of the most modern things you can do.  Researcher, writer, and episode producer: Ryan McDermott, Associate Professor of English, University of Pittsburgh Feat

Today we are joined by Stephanie Convery, inequality editor at Guardian Australia, and author of After the Count: The Death of Davey Browne (Penguin Australia, 2020). In our conversation, we discussed the history of boxing in Australia, the failures that explain Davey Browne’s death in Sydney in 2015, the nature of violence in sport, and the future of boxing. In After the Count, Convery blends the genres of history, reportage, and memoir to explore the death of Davey Browne and shows how this one event illustrates the problems and lacunae inside of Australian men’s boxing. Convery writes from an insider’s perspective – she is a boxer – and her work does not condemn the sport for its brutality but rather asks questions about how to make boxing safer and how to make sure the sport of boxing remains meaningful for its participants. She concludes that some of the same toxic forces that gave boxing its allure now make it hard to regulate and threaten the lives of the people who participate in it. The book moves bo