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Title: The Best American Sports Writing of the Century by David Halberstam, Glenn Stout ISBN: 0-395-94514-3 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co Pub. Date: 16 June, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.14 (14 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Pleasing even to a non-sports person
Comment: The selection are excellent (they'd have to be for best writing of the century). The essays show a love of sports but also deeper meditations on the art of writing, as well as society. Endless amounts of ink have been used in describing seasons' worth of stats and hyperbole but it is the quiet nature of the essay that allows a deeper glimpse behind the stats or beyond the glare of the media. The essays on DiMaggio and Williams are examples of showing life after baseball and at the same time the influence of these men on the sport.
The only drawback I saw to the book was no information about the writers themselves. I am looking through the prism of a writer -- catching facets of light and form. Through the writer I am seeing someone who is seen by millions. I can speculate on the writer or if the writer is upfront about their views of the person but the writer is a mystery at the same time they are revealing the mystery of the sport or sportsmen.
I would recommend this book not only for the lover of sports but also to anyone who appreciates good writing in general. As a newbie to reading sportwriting it was a very welcome introduction.
Rating: 5
Summary: A classic chronicle for all (not just American) sports fans
Comment: My girlfriend first brought the Best American Sports Writing series to my attention in 1992 by giving me that year's edition as a Chrismas present. I showed my gratitude by burying my head in its covers and ignoring the outside world (her included) until I had finished.
Since that time I have been a keen follower of the series. Because I live in Australia I have little prior background to many of the stories, but this perhaps gives me an objectivity which enhances my enjoyment.
The "Best American Sports Writing of the Century" is a seriously thick compilation of some fantastic pieces. Although falling short of the editors' lofty aims of being a portrait of American life over the past 100 years, it nevertheless manages to identify many of the people and defining moments that have become integral to (admittedly, my perception) of modern American history.
My favourite story - perhaps George Plimpton's 'Medora Goes to the Game', a wonderfully uplifting tale of a father's sneaky attempts to convince his 9 year old daughter to aspire to his alma mater, set against the backdrop of the 1980 Harvard-Yale game. Second place to 'Into Thin Air', Jon Krakauer's harrowing personal tale of tragedy on Everest. There are many other classics, too numerous to mention here - one that particularly fascinated me was Paul Solotaroff's shocking portrayal of steroid abuse in the body building world.
Brickbats to Murray Kempton's play-by-play account of a baseball game, which failed to inspire me (to be fair, possibly because I am not familiar with the game's intricacies). Also, thumbs down to the editors for selecting no fewer than 6 pieces on Muhummad Ali (a trap which the UK-based Picador sports writing anthology also falls into) Davis Miller's excellent piece notwithstanding.
But perhaps the most fascinating insight the book gave me was the fragile mental state of some of America's most famous boys of summer - Ty Cobb, Ted Williams and Joe Di Maggio. All three appeared to me to have, as we say in Australian vernacular, 'a 'roo loose in the top paddock', surely begging the question - does an athlete need to be ill at ease with the world to achieve greatness, or does America's adoration and constant media attention lead to a wariness and deluded view of self-importance that cannot be extinguished ?
Rating: 4
Summary: Some Good, Some Better, Some Best
Comment: Congratulations to David Halberstam and Glenn Stout for putting together their choices for "The Best American Sports Writing of the Century". As with any anthology of "the best of", there are selections that will make one wonder about its' inclusion while there are others whose omission will seem equally unjust. However, such arguments only occur when somebody puts out their choices for public consumption. Having said that, I offer the following criticisms. First of all, Halberstam, in his introduction, heaps a bit too much praise on Gay Talese's story about Joe Dimaggio. One reads it thinking that, yes this is good, but it's not THAT good. There was a fairly lengthy story about Bobby Fischer that was interesting but kept me wondering if chess was a sport. There were a number of short articles and feature articles that were good but still made you wonder why they were included. However, there was plenty of the better and some of the best. The book gave me a good introduction to an excellent sports writer I had not previously known of; W C Heinz. There was the fascinating "Outside" magazine article by Jon Krakauer, "Into Thin Air" that led to the later (equally excellent) book of the same name. There is a touching story about Tommy LaSorda's son, Al Stump on Ty Cobb, an interesting story about a hockey "enforcer", a disturbing article about the steroid madness of body building, the obligatory yet interesting article about Tiger Woods, and a closing section on Muhammed Ali. Unfortunately, the latter section includes an endless article about the Champ by Norman Mailer ironicly titled "Ego". There's lots more but, to be honest, by the time I finished the book, a lot of the earlier selections were by then forgotten. My nomination for the most egregious omission, Frank DeFord's "Sports Illustrated" article "The Toughest Coach the Ever Was". This is an enjoyable book. Some articles may not have merited inclusion in a book of this title but they were still fairly interesting.
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Title: The Best American Sports Writing 2003 by Buzz Bissinger ISBN: 0618251324 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co Pub. Date: 10 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Sports Illustrated: Fifty Years of Great Writing by Editors of Sports Illustrated ISBN: 1932273069 Publisher: Time Pub. Date: December, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: The Best American Sports Writing 2002 by Rick Reilly, Glenn Stout ISBN: 0618086285 Publisher: Mariner Books Pub. Date: 15 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Associated Press Sports Writing Handbook by Steve Wilstein ISBN: 0071372180 Publisher: McGraw-Hill/Contemporary Books Pub. Date: 20 August, 2001 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Beyond the Game: The Collected Sportswriting of Gary Smith by Gary Smith ISBN: 0802138497 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: 02 September, 2001 List Price(USD): $13.50 |
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