sportswriting Page 3 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Yeah, But How Does it Read?
Few years ago, Franz Lidz wrote a piece on former SI managing editor Gil Rogin for the New York Observer. ...
Legends Of The Fall
Fight fans as well as movie fans will enjoy this—George Kimball’s wonderful piece about Budd Schulberg’s memorial service back in the fall of 2009....
You Don't See A Fella Sliding Into Second Base And Breaking His Cigar
Before he became famous a broadcaster, Myron Cope was a terrific writer. Do yourself a favor and track down his compilation Broken Cigars. The title was taken from a conversation Cope once had over beers with Alex Hawkins, a journeyman football player who complained that baseball was losing its popu...
The Best Of The Best
Glenn Stout, series editor of The Best American Sports Writing has posted the table of contents for this year's edition on his website. The book, edited by J.R. Moehringer, won't be out for a few months, but I want to take this moment to celebrate Moehringer's selections....
Heaven Ain't What It Used to Be: Dick Young Goes To Hell
New York sportswriting legend Dick Young was a lot of different things. Among them, for reasons laid out in this classic Ross Wetzsteon profile, he was a man one could easily imagine having a great time filing his column from the depths of Hell. Warren Leight and Charlie Rubin ran with the conceit i...
Dick Young's America ... The Reactionary Who Changed Sportswriting ...
Originally published in the Aug. 1, 1985, issue of Sport magazine. Reprinted here with permission of the author's widow, Laura Ross....
A Gentle Giant
Jack McCallum is a terrific reporter and writer. He was with SI for many years and still does the occasional piece for them. He is also an author and runs a blog. The blog has lots of fun posts. This one, a tribute to the late Robert Creamer, is tender:...
Bet a Million
I once had dinner with Vic Ziegel and asked him to name the most literate sports writer. And he laughed at me, laughed at the idea that someone working on deadline would stop to consider what they were doing literate. ...
Forgive Some Sinner
With Father's Day coming up on Sunday we'll feature stories about Dads this week. This here is as good as it gets—Mark Kram Jr.'s piercing 2007 memoir piece on his father:...
My Dinner With Ali
Adapted from the original, which was published in 1989 in the Louisville Courier-Journal Magazine. Footnotes from the author (as told to Tommy Craggs) are included throughout the story, and a postscript from Glenn Stout, editor of Houghton Mifflin’s Best American Sports Writing series, follows. The ...
Gentlemen, Start Your Coffins
Another good one—Rick Reilly's 1986 SI tribute to the columnist Jim Murray—"King of the Sports Page":...
Thin Air: In The Mountains With Steve Carlton, Armed Conspiracist
Originally published as "Thin Mountain Air" in the April 1994 issue of Philadelphia Magazine. The story appears in The Best Sports Writing of Pat Jordan published by Persea books. A postscript with thoughts from both the author and editor follows....
More Than Somewhat
Damon Runyon was a big shot sports writer in the 1920s and he became an even bigger deal as a chronicler of life on Broadway. Here is a good introduction to his work, including the short story, "Romance in the Roaring Forties." ...
G-L-O-R-Y!
Here's a gem: "Glory!" It's a story written with great empathy and care by Jeanne Marie Laskas about the Ben-Gals cheerleaders:...
"The Faint Tinkle Of Broken Dreams": Roger Ebert, Teenage Sportswriter
When Roger Ebert died last week, sportswriters were among the many to pay tribute. The beloved movie critic's words, Will Leitch wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times, "felt like LIFE." As it turns out, Ebert’s writing life started in sports. In the late 1950s, the News-Gazette, Ebert’s hometown paper in C...
Ryan Glasspiegel runs through sportswriting's reaction to the sad death of the Boston Phoenix, where Charles P. Pierce and Bill Simmons both got their careers started (and where the infamous George Kimball served as a writer and editor for many years). The Phoenix folded yesterday after a 46-year ru...
ESPN Asks: When Will Anyone Pay Attention To A Famous Football Player In This Super Bowl?
OK, now that two different reporters have battled for the chance to drag the mother of a victim in the Ray Lewis murder case to the graveyard, what else can the members of the press corps do to demonstrate that their Super Bowl coverage is about the unexpected and unappreciated angles? Looks like it...
The "Best" American Sports Shouting 2012: An Anthology Of People Screaming Into Microphones On TV And Radio
As the guest editor of this year's edition of the Best American Sports Writing anthology, American sports television host Michael Wilbon, a former columnist, seized the opportunity to hold forth on the sorry state of the craft. Here he is, for instance, discussing the book in a November interview:...
Worst Piece Of Journalism From Super Bowl XLIV — Indianapolis Edition
With all due respect to Tommy, I think this idiotic screed painting Sean Payton as a modern Benedict Arnold is as bad as anything that's been produced this week. Bob Kravitz from the Indianapolis Star, come on down!...
Presenting The Single Worst Piece Of Sports Journalism From Super Bowl XLIV
The headline on ESPN.com is "Papa John's founder John Schnatter feeds me pizza." Then things get really stupid....