Joe Posnanski is an American sports journalist and author. He spent fifteen years as a columnist for The Kansas City Star and later worked for Sports Illustrated and NBC Sports. The Associated Press Sports Editors twice named him the country’s leading sports columnist, and he received a National Sportswriter of the Year award in 2012.
His books include baseball history, athlete biographies, collections of columns, and accounts of football and golf. The Soul of Baseball, developed from a year traveling with Buck O’Neil, won the CASEY Award. Later projects include a ranked history of baseball players and books organized around notable sporting moments. He also writes independently through JoeBlogs and collaborated with television writer Michael Schur on Big Fan.
Joe Posnanski Books
| Book | Year | Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| The Good Stuff | 2001 | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| The Soul of Baseball | 2007 | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| The Machine | 2009 | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| Paterno | 2012 | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| The Secret of Golf | 2015 | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| The Life and Afterlife of Harry Houdini | 2019 | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| The Baseball 100 | 2021 | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| Why We Love Football | 2024 | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| Big Fan | 2026 | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| Fifty Seasons | 2027 | Description / Buy at Amazon |
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Baseball Books
The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O'Neil's America: Posnanski travels across the United States with former Negro Leagues player and manager Buck O’Neil during the 2005 baseball season. Their encounters with fans and baseball figures connect O’Neil’s personal history with his efforts to preserve the game’s past. Conversations about segregation, memory, jazz, and the pleasure of playing shape an account of how O’Neil understood the sport and the people around it.
The Machine: A Hot Team, a Legendary Season, and a Heart-stopping World Series: The Story of the 1975 Cincinnati Reds: The Cincinnati Reds’ 1975 season provides the focus for this account of the Big Red Machine. Posnanski follows players including Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, Johnny Bench, and Tony Pérez under manager Sparky Anderson. Team relationships, individual contributions, and the pursuit of a championship lead toward the World Series against Boston, placing the celebrated games within the circumstances of the club’s entire season.
The Baseball 100: Posnanski presents a ranked selection of one hundred baseball players, using their lives and careers to tell a wider history of the sport. Individual profiles combine statistics, personal accounts, achievements, and the circumstances in which players competed. The selection includes widely recognized stars and players whose opportunities were restricted, connecting arguments about greatness with changes in competition, access, memory, and the interpretation of baseball records.
Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments: Fifty episodes from baseball history provide the structure for this collection. Posnanski revisits famous plays and less familiar events through accounts involving players, spectators, officials, and others who experienced them. Subjects include exceptional performances, mistakes, and unexpected outcomes. Rather than ranking whole careers, the book concentrates on particular moments and the different perspectives that explain why they remain part of baseball’s shared memory.
Fifty Seasons: Stories of the Baseball Years That Echo: Announced for February 2027, this book selects fifty notable baseball seasons involving teams and individual players. Its subjects include famous major-league achievements and less familiar performances outside that setting, including Joanne Weaver and Mose Solomon. The publisher describes a combination of historical accounts and personal storytelling. It remains a forthcoming title as of October 2026, rather than a book already released to general readers.
Football Books
Paterno: Posnanski follows Penn State coach Joe Paterno’s life and career using interviews, personal records, and access to Paterno and his family. The narrative covers his long association with the university, his working methods, and the influence he acquired through football. Its final period includes the Jerry Sandusky scandal, Paterno’s dismissal, and his death, placing the coach’s account alongside the events that ended his career.
Why We Love Football: A History in 100 Moments: This collection uses one hundred episodes to trace American football’s history. Posnanski revisits familiar plays and lesser-known stories, including the Ice Bowl, Doug Flutie’s Hail Mary pass, and moments involving Patrick Mahomes. Accounts from different participants broaden the perspective on celebrated events. The book connects individual games and performances with the memories and stories through which football’s history has been preserved.
Golf Books
The Secret of Golf: The Story of Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus: Posnanski traces the rivalry and eventual friendship between Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus from an early exhibition meeting through major championships. Their contrasting temperaments and playing styles frame accounts of repeated competition, including the 1977 Open at Turnberry. Interviews with both golfers also inform the account of Watson’s later near-victory there, connecting the development of their relationship with their influence on each other’s careers.
Fandom and Collected Sports Writing
Big Fan: Two Friends, 82,490 Miles, and the Wild, Wonderful Sports We Love: Written with Michael Schur, this account follows two friends traveling to sporting events and exploring the communities formed around fandom. Football, baseball, basketball, darts, chess, soccer, and wrestling appear among their destinations and interests. The narrative combines attendance at major events with less conventional experiences, examining how shared enthusiasm, rituals, disappointment, and loyalty connect people who organize parts of their lives around watching games.
The Good Stuff: Columns About the Magic of Sports: This collection brings together Posnanski’s sports columns, presenting individual people, performances, and incidents rather than a continuous team history or athlete biography. Its shorter pieces draw on the reporting and encounters of a newspaper columnist. The selections connect prominent sporting occasions with less publicized experiences, preserving accounts of the personalities and circumstances that gave those events meaning beyond their final scores.
Other Writing
The Life and Afterlife of Harry Houdini examines the magician’s career and the people who continued to investigate, interpret, and commemorate him. It is a separate subject from Posnanski’s sports histories, although it uses a similar biographical approach to achievement, public reputation, and the persistence of stories after a performer’s death.