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1. In 1951 a young Oklahoman nicknamed "the Commerce Comet" would break in with the New York Yankees and earn 20 All Star Game appearances with the childlike joy and abandon with which he played. Which Yankee Hall of Famer is the subject of "The Last Boy", written by Jane Leavy in 2010?
2. Although this music icon's career runs across more than fifty years beginning in 1959, one of the most highly regarded of his biographies was written by music reviewer and confidant Bob Shelton in 1986. I just bought a recently updated version from 2003, which adds very little to the original. Which member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Songwriter's Hall of Fame is covered in "No Direction Home"?
3. Subtitled "The Wild Saga of Interracial Baseball Before Jackie Robinson," Timothy M. Gay's 2010 book is a celebration of exhibition baseball in the Thirties and Forties. Focusing on three unique hurlers who are now forever together in baseball's Hall of Fame, what is the title of this delightful work?
4. "Friday Night Lights: A Town, A Team, A Dream" by H. G. Bissiger, is an account of sports dreams common to towns across America. In this instance, the town is Odessa, Texas. Although originally intended to be a look at a traditional high school state power and its quest for another championship, the book itself actually became embroiled in controversy for the school and the town's citizens. Which Hall of Fame would the players in this book logically hope to some day be inducted into?
5. With a Pulitzer Prize and biographies of Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Barack Obama, David Maraniss is a literary heavyweight. Which NFL coaching icon, whose ideology is reflected in every Super Bowl, does Maraniss capture in "When Pride Still Mattered"?
6. A first-ballot inductee into baseball's Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, this Atlanta Braves pitcher gave up only one hit to the Cleveland Indians over eight innings in Game 6 of the 1995 World Series, as the Braves won their first Championship for Atlanta. Although he later also pitched for the New York Mets, he wrote a book about the Braves' World Championship called "None But the Braves". Who was this left hander whose number 47 was retired by the Braves?
7. I have several books on my shelves by TV personality Bill O'Reilly. One of them is an account of the death of a great American whose bust was added to the Hall of Fame of Great Americans in 1900. Which of these titles is it?
8. One of the categories by which members of the Hall of Fame of Great Americans are classified is authors and editors. I have a few non-fiction works on my shelves by a writer who was both an author and an editor and is honored in the Hall. Among his works that I have are "Life on the Mississippi" and "Roughing It". Can you identify him?
9. One of my most recent reads is a memoir by the often-called "Zen Master" of the NBA. Winner of eleven NBA championships as a coach and two as a player, who is the guru of the triangle offense who led the Chicago Bulls to two three-peats and the Los Angeles Lakers to another, and authored "Eleven Rings"?
10. Last, but not least, is an autobiography about a man and a quest that captured the nation's attention, and not just within the confines of sports. Chronicling one of the most glorious and most troubling times of his life, what Cooperstown Hall of Famer wrote "I Had a Hammer", which told of a record-breaking feat of the mid-70s?
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