maga Page 19 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Gentlemen, Start Your Coffins
Another good one—Rick Reilly's 1986 SI tribute to the columnist Jim Murray—"King of the Sports Page":...
Lost and Found
Here's "Resurrecting The Champ," J.R. Moehringer's classic 1997 takeout piece for the Los Angeles Times. How about this for a lede?...
The Best-Kept Secret
Another sure-shot for you—David Owen's 1982 Esquire piece on the late, great Murray Kempton: ...
Don't Mess With Texas
If you've never read it, this is a treat: Gary Cartwright's classic 1968 piece for Haper's: "Confessions of a Washed-Up Sportswriter." Here we have a first-hand account of Bud Shrake, Dan Jenkins, Blackie Sherrod and the legendary Forth Worth Press in the Fifties:...
Is Tim Tebow's NFL Career Over? His Camp Is Torn
In a story in ESPN The Magazine's upcoming issue, writer David Fleming goes long on the NFL's casting out of Tim Tebow and questions whether the free agent quarterback still has a future in the NFL. The answer Fleming comes up with: probably not....
All Night Long
Back in 1969, Jimmy Breslin spent a night hanging out with Broadway Joe Namath:...
Thieves of Time
Dig Charlie Pierce's story on Cool Papa Bell (originally published in The National back in 1990):...
Toots Shor Among the Ruins
Another sure shot: Joe Flaherty's 1974 Esquire piece on Toots Shor:...
Here and Now
Ali. The Greatest. There is an entire body of sports writing devoted to him. For more than a generation it's as if every writer worth his or her salt had to tackle him at one point. ...
Down on the Corner, Out in the Street
From the SI Vault, check out Gil Rogin's 1964 story, "Confessions of a Stoop Ball Champion":...
The Last American Hero
And since we're talking classics, how 'bout Tom Wolfe's 1965 Esquire story on Junior Johnson? ...
People Will Say We're in Love
Here's Frank Deford's classic 1985 Sports Illustrated bonus piece, "The Boxer and the Blonde":...
David Foster Wallace's Interview With Roger Federer Lasted 20 Minutes
David Foster Wallace's 2006 Times Magazine profile of Roger Federer is one of sports journalism's most famous write-arounds. Or, as Wallace wrote himself, the piece was "a spectator’s experience of Federer, and its context." But the Times flew Wallace out to Wimbledon, so surely he got to spend some...
The Straw That Stirs the Drink
Check out Robert Ward's infamous 1977 Sport magazine story about Buck Tater: "Reggie Jackson in No-Man's Land."...
Dead Calm
Really nice piece about Lynne Cox by Sarah Turcotte over at ESPN:...
Busta Bus
Here's a good one—"The Legend of Buster Smith," Adam Langer's 1993 story for the Chicago Reader on a checkers champion:...
La Vida Macho
In case you missed it, peep Paul Solotaroff's terrific Men's Journal piece on the late Hector "Macho" Camacho. Solotaroff manages to capture the mishegoss and absurdity that was Camacho's life with empathy and humor. The story plays it straight when it could easily have become a mean, one-note take ...
Top Billin
Few people, if any, have written better stories—funny and smart—about college football than Dan Jenkins. Last fall, Michael MacCambridge was good enough to make Jenkins' 1963 Sports Illustrated piece, "The Disciples of St. Darrell on a Wild Weekend" part of his excellent Director's Cut series for Gr...
Profundo
Head on over to SB Nation's Longform page and check out Eric Nusbaum's story on baseball's unknown slugger:...