reprint Page 2 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
For One Great Ballplayer, Philadelphia Was A Perpetual Traffic Jam
Originally published in January 1970 in Jock magazine. The author, Bill Conlin, died on Thursday. He was 79. Conlin was a legend in his native city who wrote elegantly and hilariously about Philadelphia sports in the days before he allowed himself to become a grouchy old fud. He spent the last decad...
New Year's Eve: America's Biggest And Ugliest Bender
Originally published in 1951 and anthologized in Nobody Asked Me, But ...: The World of Jimmy Cannon....
Why We Get Stupid And Shitfaced On New Year's Eve: A Cultural History
This article originally appeared in The New York Observer in 1993 and is anthologized in Luc's wonderful collection of essays, Kill All Your Darlings. ...
Anatomy Of A Con: How The Public Was Scammed To Build Candlestick Park
While everyone's free to be as nostalgic as they like about Candlestick Park now that it's probably seen the end of its useful life, it's worth remembering that it wasn't only a miserable place to watch a game, but also a forerunner of the modern public financing con. The piece below, which original...
Swee'pea And The Shark: The Struggle For The Soul Of A Playground Hero
Originally published in the November 1992 issue of Esquire. Reprinted here with permission. An afterword from the author follows....
Cracking Up With Charlie Barnett, The Legendary Street Comic
Originally published in the Village Voice (date unknown). Anthologized in the author's collection of reportage, No Success Like Failure. For a sort of companion to this, check out Solotaroff's dispatch from an Andrew Dice Clay show in 1989. The author's afterword is here....
Little Big Mouth: The Unfunny Comedy Of Andrew Dice Clay
Originally published in 1990 in the Village Voice. Anthologized in the author's collection of reportage, No Success Like Failure. Solotaroff's apologetic afterword is here: ...
Off-Broadway Joe: The Song And Dance Of A Playboy Nearing Middle Age
Originally published in the July 1981 issue of Inside Sports. Reprinted here with the author's permission. For more on Namath, check out this reprint of a frank Playboy interview from 1969....
The Champ And The Chump: The Meaning Of Liston-Clay I
Originally published on March 7, 1964, in The New Republic. Reprinted here with the permission of the author's family....
From Louisville To The Nation Of Islam: My Ups And Downs With Ali
This story was originally published in a 1971 issue of Sport magazine. It is reprinted here with permission....
The Challenger And The Muslims
In this story, Dick Schaap writes about the newspaper article that first revealed the connection between Ali and the Black Muslim movement. Schaap's "scoop"—which ran on the front page of the Herald Tribune of January 23, 1964, three weeks after I became city editor of the paper—follows....
Risk And Romance Among NBA Groupies: An Embed's Report
Originally published in the April 1992 issue of Esquire. Reprinted here with the author's permission....
Eric Nesterenko And The Examined Life: A Hockey Intellectual Reflects
Excerpted from From Black Sox to Three-Peats: A Century of Chicago's Best Sports Writing (University of Chicago Press), edited by Ron Rapoport and featuring stories from the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Chicago Daily News, and the Chicago Defender, among other papers. It's an excellen...
The Called Shot Heard Round The World
Excerpted from From Black Sox to Three-Peats: A Century of Chicago's Best Sports Writing (University of Chicago Press), edited by Ron Rapoport and featuring stories from the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Chicago Daily News, and the Chicago Defender, among other papers. It's an excellen...
The Better Man: How Sugar Ray Leonard Handled Fear And Marvin Hagler
Originally published in the May 17, 1987, edition of The Washington Post Magazine. Republished here with the author's permission. His postscript follows. For more on Hagler-Leonard, check out Grantland's oral history....
Great Men Die Twice: Muhammad Ali In Decline
Originally published in the June 1989 issue of Esquire. Republished here with the permission of the late author's son, Mark Kram Jr., a wonderful storyteller in his own right. His postscript follows. For a contemporary, but very different, glimpse of Ali, check out Davis Miller's story about his day...
<em>Playboy</em>'s Candid Conversation With The Superswinger QB, Joe Namath
This interview, from 1969, is part of The Playboy Interview: Sports Gods, an ebook anthology that also includes conversations with Michael Jordan, Muhammad Ali, Bill Jean King, Barry Bonds, and more. Buy it today at Amazon....
Butkus: One Season And One Injury With The Meanest Man Alive
This article originally appeared in the October 1971 issue of Playboy. To read every article the magazine has ever published—from 1953 until today—visit the complete archive at iplayboy.com. For more Playboy, check out PlayboySFW.kinja.com....
Tyrus: The Greatest Of 'Em All
Originally published in the June 1915 issue of American Magazine and anthologized in the Library of America's new collection of Ring Lardner's stories. Reprinted here with permission....
The Sportswriter Who Wrote American Better Than Anyone Anywheres
Below is John Lardner's introduction to a 1959 edition of Ring Lardner's You Know Me Al, a fictional series of letters from professional ballplayer Jack Keefe to his friend Al. Those stories are included in the Library of America's new collection. (There was also a comic strip based on the same char...