book-excerpt Page 12 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Deadspin Presents An Interpretive Rendering Of Cal Ripken Jr.'s Young Adult Book
We received an email from Cal Ripken Jr.'s publicity team at Random House, which will release his three-CD audiobook, HOTHEAD, next Tuesday. HOTHEAD (the caps are apparently intentional) is about a Babe Ruth League shortstop named Connor Sullivan and is "loosely based on challenges Ripken himself ...
How NASCAR Conquered America Through The Air
Greg Lindsay is the co-author of the forthcoming Aerotropolis: The Way We'll Live Next, which argues that air travel has a lot more to do with your daily life than you might think. In this outtake from the book, he describes how NASCAR teams took to the skies as the sport expanded nationally over th...
Why There Are More .300 Hitters Than .299 Hitters, And Why It Matters
Tobias J. Moskowitz and L. Jon Wertheim, authors of the Freakonomically inclined Scorecasting, explore the peculiar power of round-number milestones and how they affect a ballplayer at the plate....
The Invention Of Air: The Myths Of Young Michael Jordan, Deconstructed
There was a time when Michael Jordan was a very different kind of superstar, writes Bethlehem Shoals in this excerpt from FreeDarko's wonderful and wonderfully idiosyncratic Undisputed Guide to Pro Basketball History. That MJ was edgy and menacing, and he helped make embarrassing music that no one r...
A Yankee Stadium Memory: "Their Look Didn't Say, 'Shut Up.' It Said They Wanted To Kill Me."
The following is taken from Bronx Banter Presents: Lasting Yankee Stadium Memories, edited by Alex Belth and featuring recollections of the old ballpark—sorry, stadium—from the likes of Pete Hamill, Charles P. Pierce, and Joe Posnanski. Bob Costas has something in there, too, I guess. Here, the grea...
Jeff Garcia Pisses In Hand Towels, And The Art Of Breaking Thumbs In The Loose-Ball Pile
Today, mongrels, we're excerpting from Anthony Gargano's tremendous NFL Unplugged, which offers a ruthlessly entertaining portrait of the NFL. It has all the lawlessness, the poop, the broken fingers, the organized insanity that the league would prefer you not know about....
A Meeting With The Godfather: How Youth Basketball's Sausage Gets Made
In the world of grassroots basketball, the sneaker companies are kings, the coaches their vassals, and the players their serfs. However, these links are symbiotic: the companies need the coaches and players for marketing purposes and the coaches and players need the sneaker companies to get exposur...
Here's What The Fuck We Did With Judah Friedlander
Judah Friedlander didn't want to write an essay—or do any of your suggestions—so he dropped by the office and fucked around on the roof. Here's what happened. ...
What The Fuck Are We Supposed To Do With Judah Friedlander?
Greetings, faceless demographic. So the folks at HarperCollins are trying to promote Judah Friedlander's book "How To Beat Up Anybody" and I'm having trouble trying to figure out how to promote it. It doesn't help that the publicist lady referred to the site as "Deadpin" several times....
The Day Jeremiah Pharms's Wife Attacked His New Girlfriend In The Stands
You might remember the brilliant, scary reporting about the 2000 Washington Huskies by the Seattle Times' Ken Armstrong and and Nick Perry in 2008. Now, all the stuff that couldn't make a family newspaper has been released in the book, "Scoreboard, Baby."...
The 1970s Oakland Raiders: Boozin' And Coozin' Through El Rancho
In "Badasses," author Peter Richmond chronicles the whiskey-drinking, horse-stealing, panty-poaching lunacy that surrounded John Madden's Oakland Raiders....
Day One At Dink Inc.: A Woman Begins Her Odyssey Through Sports Gambling's Underworld
Beth Raymer moved to Vegas in 2001, hoping to land a cocktail-waitressing job. Instead, she wound up the girl Friday to a gambler named Dink, from whom she learned that one "takes" the dog, "lays" the favorite, and never, ever steals....
"When Their Panties're Moist, We'll Give 'Em The Finale": One Stud's Adventures In Deca And Male Stripping
Paul Solotaroff, the guy with the pecs in the above photo, lived through the age of muscle, which on one notable occasion found our hero shimmying for horny Long Island women, his dick in a Star of David rayon sling....
A Life And Death In Baseball Cards
The following is taken from Josh Wilker's wonderful memoir Cardboard Gods: An All-American Tale Told Through Baseball Cards. You can find more of Josh's writing at cardboardgods.net...
Why Aren't There More Good Baseball Movies?
The following is excerpted from Emma Span's 90% Of The Game Is Half Mental: And Other Tales from the Edge of Baseball Fandom, an account of one woman's love of baseball—from cheering along at home to being on the team beat and everywhere in between....
The Legend Of Black Superman: Billy Ray Bates, Flying High In The Philippines
In the 1980s, Billy Ray Bates, dubbed "the Legend" by Brent Musberger, washed out of the NBA and onto the shores of the Philippines, where for a few wild years his legend grew, both on the court and in the bars....
Taunting Tony Horton The Day After He Slit His Wrists: A Cleveland Fan Repents
The following is excerpted from Top of the Order: 25 Writers Pick Their Favorite Baseball Player of All Time, edited by Sean Manning and featuring essays by Matt Taibbi, Stefan Fatsis, and others. Here's Scott Raab, writing about former Indian Tony Horton....
Excerpt From <em>The Game From Where I Stand</em>: "Don't You Want A Sammy Sosa Body?"
The following is taken from chapter 8 of Doug Glanville's "The Game From Where I Stand." Read it, buy the book, and chat with Doug in a followup post at 2pm....
Excerpt From <em>Shit My Dad Says</em>: "Act Like You've Been There Before"
Below is a chapter titled "Confidence Is The Way To A Woman's Heart, Or, At Least Into Her Pants " from SMDS by Justin Halpern, America's premier chronicler of patriarchal affection. Buy the book, read the Tweets, pray for Shatner. Chat at 2....
Come Chat With "Shit My Dad Says" Author Justin Halpern Tomorrow At 2pm EST
It's the amusing Twitter account even your dad likes. And, now, it's a book. Come stop by tomorrow for an excerpt and watch the author bravely navigate the commenting arena which has humbled many an author and vaporized one female comedian....