During the coronavirus shutdown, each day we will bring you a recommendation from The Post’s Peter Botte for a sports movie, TV show or book that perhaps was before your time or somehow slipped between the cracks of your viewing/reading history.
The Ali catalog (Various authors)
The volume of fascinating books dedicated to the self-proclaimed Greatest of All-Time could fill entire shelves of the New York Public Library, so today’s recommendation will be to choose and devour any of these excellent tomes about the incomparable Muhammad Ali.
There are various biographies from different eras of his miraculous life, ones about particular legendary fights, multiple autobiographical accounts, even children’s and coloring books (One fittingly is even called The Greatest Coloring Book of All Time).
Personally, I have read two of the many Ali-related titles out there and fully endorse them.
First, is David Remnick’s “King of the World: Muhammad Ali and the Rise of an American Hero” (1998, Random House), which details the boxer’s rise as Cassius Clay — the 1960 Olympic gold medal, winning his first title against Sonny Liston, etc. — and his conversion to Islam and transformation to Ali throughout the tumultuous 1960s.
Second, is the more comprehensive bio “Ali: A Life” (2017, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), which came out a year after the three-time heavyweight champion died at 74 of septic shock and features more than 500 interviews with family members, confidants, historians and more. Author Jonathan Eig — who also has penned best-selling books about Lou Gehrig, Jackie Robinson and Al Capone — covers it all about the complex Ali, including some remarkable revelations from FBI files related to his refusal to be drafted into the Vietnam War and his nearly four-year absence from the ring.
Another Ali title I’ve been meaning to get to for years is the critically acclaimed “The Fight” (1975, Little Brown) by Norman Mailer about Ali regaining the belt from George Foreman in their “Rumble in the Jungle” bout in Zaire the previous year.
Quote of Note: “I am America,” Clay will proudly declare. “I am the part you won’t recognize. But get used to me. Black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own; get used to me.” From Jonathan Eig’s Ali: A Life.
Botte Blows: 4.7 of 5
