💪Books & Biceps Issue 192 - October 8, 2021

Books & Biceps is the only weekly e-mail that combines reading recommendations, bestselling author interviews, legit workouts and powerful quotes.

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BOOKS

Sandy Koufax: A Lefty’s Legacy by Jane Leavy

While the Red Sox were embarrassing the Yankees on Sunday night I got a text from an old friend who simply asked, “What’s the best baseball biography?”.

Instantly, one book popped into my head and I started to text back…but then I stopped… Was this really the best? Ever? I’ve read hundreds of sports biographies and dozens of baseball biographies and the usual roster of books that top these lists ran through my mind: Clemente by David Maraniss, Joe DiMaggio by Richard Ben Creamer, The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron by Howard Bryant, Ted Williams by Leigh Montville, about three Jackie Robinson bios… and there were plenty of others bouncing around my head… But in the end, yeah… Sandy Koufax by Jane Leavy is, to me, the best baseball biography.

You’ve got an iconic, mysterious, all-time great athlete in Koufax on an iconic, all-time great team, the late 50s/early 60s Dodgers. You’ve got the social implications of Major League Baseball integrating and Koufax dealing with anti-semitism and players getting screwed over by ownership. And then, in a stroke of genius, Leavy tells the entire Koufax saga against the backdrop of his otherworldly perfect game on September 9th, 1965, bouncing between biography and epic performance.

Also, Leavy is a hall of fame storyteller. So yeah, if you text me at the start of the baseball playoffs and ask me what I think the best baseball biography is… my answer is going to be Sandy Koufax: A Lefty’s Legacy. Buy it here.

BICEPS

Here is a workout anyone can do at any time. All you need is a decent-sized street or a field. I did a short version of this workout Thursday morning as a warm-up but if you increase the sets like I did below it’d be awesome. I’m going to try it next week.

I call it the ‘Pump & Run’.

5 push-ups

50 yard sprint

5x

10 push-ups

100 yard sprint

5x

20 push-ups

200 yard sprint

5x

TOTAL: 175 push-ups & 1,750 yards

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“In the end it all comes down to talent. Can nice guys win? Sure, nice guys can win - if they're nice guys with a lot of talent. Nice guys with a little talent finish fourth and nice guys with no talent finish last." - Sandy Koufax

QUICK FLEXES

I put together a few of my favorite quotes from Good Will Hunting and other dudes sent in their favorites on twitter here. And I revisited a cool book signing I did for Life of Dad at Barnes & Noble on Instagram here. 

You also might enjoy this thread on James Breakwell, the man who turned 20,000 tweets, 4 daughters and a drove of pigs into a publishing empire.

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