Having a summer reading list is always a good idea, and the Star Tribune sports staff figured a good list of sports books would be especially valuable during a summer when we might be spending much more time at home than out and about.
That was the motivation when we gathered for last week's Virtual Happy Hour.
We knew that trying to convince one another — and you — of the best sports books of all time would be a futile exercise, and one that would be best avoided. Some of us like novels, some of like biographies, some of us like stuff that we remember from our childhoods.
So our goal was to put together a list of our 20 favorite sports books. We found out that we could still battle and tease each other about our picks. When Laura Hillenbrand's book "Seabiscuit" was among the first books chosen, there was a debate over whether Seabiscuit was better than another one of her books — "Unbroken" — about the survivor of a Japanese prisoner of war camp during World War II.
Some snark was thrown, which you can see by reading the transcript of the draft at startribune.com/sportsbooks.
More often, however, the Happy Hour participants came over thinking there was a book or two they were going to have to get their hands on right away — and a few more that piqued their interest for down the road.
Not all of the books are high-profile classics. The first one selected, in fact, is a story by a Chicago sportswriter and college professor about her high school girls' basketball team — its struggle for acceptance and the state title it won in Illinois during her senior year. "State: A Team, a Triumph, a Transformation" by Melissa Isaacson is an important book if not a high-profile one.
There were classics on the list: The prolific John Feinstein made the list twice with two of his deep-dive books. "A Good Walk Spoiled," which takes readers deep inside the PGA tour, and "Next Man Up," his look at the Baltimore Ravens, in which former Vikings offensive coordinator Brian Billick is a main character.
