When I was young and watched Wimbledon in the seventies and early eighties, I knew Bud Collins as only the man in the unbelievably loud clothes with a garrulous and colorful broadcasting style to match. I remember John McEnroe derisively beginning an interview with him circa 1982 or so with a comment along the lines of, “Nice pants, Bud.”

Two decades later I was covering the 2002 U.S. Open when I heard someone in the seat behind me talking continuously and somewhat loudly in the courtside press section during the Monica Seles-Ai Sugiyama match in the Ashe Stadium. I turned to see that it was Collins, telling one story after another.

Anyone else talking that close to the court I would have minded, but not Collins. Along the way I had begun to appreciate his work, reading his columns in The Boston Globe and other publications, and I had picked up the 1992 edition of his Modern Encyclopedia of Tennis. Inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1994, Collins, 79, has a vast tennis knowledge acquired in more than a half century of covering the game. He is much more than a vociferous dude in dandy clothes—he is, as Frank Deford says, “a walking tennis encyclopedia.”

Fortunately, as someone who regularly referenced my aging version of his book, a new one is out. The Bud Collins History of Tennis: An Authoritative Encyclopedia and Record Book is an updated and expanded edition that was released this summer by New Chapter Press including records up-to-date through this year’s French Open. Its 762-pages contain most every fact you could want to know about the game, from its origins to records such as the most aces ever in one match at the U.S. Championships, now the U.S. Open (it’s 59 by Ed Kauder in a five-set loss to Ham Richardson in 1955).

If you either think you know a lot about tennis or want to know, this is a must-have reference. It’s also an enjoyable read if you flip it open to many of the chapters, mini-biographies or tennis-by-the-year histories. If you don’t like this book, you don’t like tennis.

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