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9 sports books to ring out 2015 and ring in 2016

Variety is the spice of sports reading. Here are excerpts from a diverse new crop of sports books – covering everything from Obama's grasp of basketball to the greats of the NHL.

6. ‘Bobo Newsom: Baseball’s Traveling Man,’ by Jim McConnell

  • By Ross Atkin

Bobo Newsom was surely one of the most fascinating baseball players during his 20-year career, which ran from the 1930s until the early 1950s. During his prime he had three 20-win seasons and pitched heroically in the 1940 World Series for the Detroit Tigers, winning Games 1 and 5 before giving up the winning runs in a 2-1 loss to Cincinnati in Game 7 after pitching on only one day’s rest. Most striking, however, was how Newsom played for so many different teams when players commonly spent entire careers with the same club. Altogether he pitched for nine of 16 Major League teams, while being sold or traded 14 times, primarily because he was often at odds with management. This first full-length biography of Newsom recounts the many stops along the way.

Here’s an excerpt from Bobo Newsom:

“Bobo Newsom had lost his father and the deciding game of the World Series. Yet in many ways, the winter of 1940-41 was the happiest time of his life.

“The off-season contained a whirlwind of activities, the manifestation of fame and fortune Daddy Quill wouldn’t have dared dream about. But all glory is fleeting, and it flew from Newsom like a DiMaggio line drive. While he was to pitch professionally for another 13 seasons, he never regained the star status he held at the conclusion of the 1940 season. By the end of 1941, he was a pariah on the team he had almost pitched to a World Series title. And the year again brought the horrors of war to America. After December 7, Newsom’s outlandish bragging and squabbles with management were no longer quite as amusing to the public as they were in the throes of the Great Depression.”

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Mark Sappenfield
Editor

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