Fiction books about sports: Favorites? Current reads?

And we'll use this thread to post any novels or short stories about sports.

h/t to @WaynePD and @EnriqueFreeque for the idea.

I'm a big fan of Christopher Crutcher's sports-related YA books. Most have to do with swimming, but also some football, running, and even Iron Man competitions. Of course, sports aren't the only topics; these books deal heavily with social issues as well (censorship, freedom of speech, freedom of (and from) religion, etc.).

My favorites are Stotan! and Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes.

Football favorite is: Footsteps by Hamilton Maule: the (very brief) rise and the fall of a college football coach in the 1960s.

Baseball: Nobody writing after John R. Tunis has (to my mind) equalled or surpassed him.
But Malamud's The Natural is interesting, and can be read by readers that have no special interest in baseball. The movie version is one of my wife's favorite films of all time (and she isn't a baseball fan!)

Golf: Dead solid Perfect
by Dan Jenkins

Hockey, Basketball: ?? !
Don't think I've ever read a novel with a winter sport theme! Would welcome any ideas.

http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/62733122/

above is a link to an SOE article (hope its active) I read today. Its by Jason Fry and here are his creds:

Jason Fry is the co-writer (with Greg Prince) of Faith and Fear in Flushing, the blog for Mets fans who like to read. A writer, editor and journalist consultant, he lives (inevitably) in Brooklyn, N.Y.

I liked the part above where he says the blog is for Mets Fans who "like to read" and thought of our admin Diana here and all of us actually! ;)

I hope this link to it loads:

http://www.faithandfearinflushing.com/

Heres an intriguing book too:

http://www.amazon.com/House-That-Ruth-Built-Championship/dp/0316086088/

If all else fails, just copy & paste, right gang? :)

>4 WaynePD: I've added the SOE article to our running thread on good sports writing. Thanks for the link to his blog. It looks great.

>2 amysisson: Thanks! Those sound interesting; a few more for the never-ending TBR list.

>3 rolandperkins: I like the ending of the book better, though--it's more naturalistic. :)

Maybe @gilroy can recommend some hockey fiction for us.

I've heard good things about Matt Pena's Ball Don't Lie, but I've not read it.