An affirmation of the strong state of American sportswriting.
For more than two decades, this series has provided annual roundups of some of the best American writing about sports, broadly and generously defined, from the previous calendar year. The 2013 edition continues this tradition.
Series editor Stout (Fenway 1912: The Birth of a Ballpark, a Championship Season, and Fenway's Remarkable First Year, 2011, etc.), who every year does the bulk of the culling of entries, and Pulitzer Prize winner Moehringer (Sutton, 2012, etc.), who edits this year’s edition from Stout’s initial selections, have done a credible job of pulling together a selection that, if not actually representing all of the best sportswriting of the last year, at least serves as a reasonable representation of the healthy state of writing about the games and pastimes that so occupy millions of Americans. Occasionally, the editors confuse a great story (the thing being written about) with the execution (the writing itself) and, in at least one occasion, allow an author’s reputation to outstrip their judgment about the quality of that writer’s contribution. Although professional athletes and famous coaches appear—in the form of the dysfunctions of the Kansas City Chiefs, the lies of Lance Armstrong and Urban Meyer’s return to college football as the Ohio State coach—the best of the entries focus on high school athletes, competitors in individual sports and obscure activities away from the glare of the media. Tragedies feature prominently. This year’s edition also serves as a reminder of the healthy state of long-form writing in magazines, newspapers and on the Internet. Stout includes a listing of “Notable Sports Writing of 2012,” most of which will be available to readers with Internet access. Once again, the series captures the zeitgeist on writing about sports ranging from bullfighting to football, bowling to basketball, with sports almost always being incidental to the human interest beneath the surface.
An affirmation of the strong state of American sportswriting.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-547-88460-8
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Mariner/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A close-up look at the championship season of a girls' high school basketball team that only the team's members and their families will find compelling. Adolescence is inherently hyperbolic, sportswriting is sometimes not far behind, and Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist Blais (The Heart Is an Instrument, 1992) nearly outdistances both as she applies the celebrity biography touch to a subject that is diminished by being so inflated. This is unfortunate, because the Lady Hurricanes of Amherst, Mass., seem a likeable lot who worked hard to capture the 199293 state championship. Co-captains Jamila Wideman (who received several honors, including selection by USA Today as a ``first team all-American'') and Jen Pariseau (who also earned the attention of college sports recruiters) are particularly noteworthy, and each girl makes her own contribution. When Blais discusses actual games, she captures some of the excitement these players must have felt, but she is more interested in the girls as people—even when she cannot make them interesting. Many potentially illuminating anecdotes are related in only a gossipy manner: Jamila starting life in a hospital preemie ward, Sophie King nearly losing a leg to gangrene, and Jen offering her version of ``life's little instructions.'' We hear about not only Coach Ron Moyer but also about his mother. Settling for adoration without insight, Blais asks no questions about the impact of these experiences on the girls' development or their futures; she doesn't ask whether the goal of girls' teams should be to imitate boys' teams, with their unquestioning emphasis on winning, whatever the cost; in short, she ignores the issues that could have made this more than an inflated version of the New York Times Magazine article on which it is based. There might be an insightful book to be written on the subject of girls' basketball, but this isn't it. (First printing of 35,000; author tour)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-87113-572-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1994
An engaging and informative cultural history, on and off the gridiron.
A rich history of the rise of the National Football League from its virtual obscurity at its genesis in the 1920s to its position as an economic and cultural powerhouse today.
Former Baltimore Sun sportswriter Eisenberg (The Streak: Lou Gehrig, Cal Ripken Jr., and Baseball's Most Historic Record, 2017, etc.) returns with the story of how five owners—George Halas, Bert Bell, George Preston Marshall, Art Rooney, and Tim Mara—refused to give up on the struggling league and lived to see (and cause) its current dominance. Thoroughly researched and gracefully told, the story begins with the background of each of the five, then moves chronologically through the early years of the league—struggles, controversies (among the most significant was the arrival of black players), adjustments (to radio and then TV)—to its full arrival in 1958, when 40 million people watched the Baltimore Colts defeat the New York Giants in the exciting championship game. As the author repeatedly points out, these five were fierce rivals, but they knew that to make the league survive and flourish, they could not destroy one another. So they compromised and changed rules to make the game more exciting; all would live to see the league’s vigorous health. (The final chapter deals with the deaths of each.) Although Eisenberg is admiring of the founders, he also recognizes—and highlights—their weaknesses. Marshall, for example, was a racist, the last to bring blacks onto his team, the Washington Redskins. Although the author provides some details about some key games (and iconic players like Red Grange, Marion Motley, and Sam Huff), the narrative is not a rehearsal of games but of the history of a game, a business, and five men who took a chance, lost money, and then found great success.
An engaging and informative cultural history, on and off the gridiron.Pub Date: Oct. 9, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-465-04870-0
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
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