A few years ago a friend gave me a worn copy of The Best American Sports Writing circa 2003 or 2004. Since then I’ve devoured every story in all of the anthologies, going the whole way back to 1991. The books have a privileged position on my bookcase, just beneath Shakespeare but above my old PlayStation games.
The series editor and guest editor usually do a good job of winnowing to the surface the best sports stories from print and online media each year and presenting them all in one place. Some editions are better than others, of course. In each issue you’re guaranteed to come across at least a few very poignant and uplifting stories.
The 2008 edition is no exception, though this particular one falls short of being exceptional or even really good. There are far too many stories about the Big Three (football, basketball, and baseball) and the line-up is almost universally male (all but one story). In the context of stiff competition from other years’ performances, I’d give this season a reserved thumbs-up—sort of like losing in the first round of the playoffs. What follows is a brief description of the stories in “The Best American Sports Writing 2008.”
Death in the Baseball Family. A tragic story about a minor-league foul ball that hits and kills a first-base coach. The victim, a father of two boys, dies instantly. How do the family members—and the batter—pick up and move on in the wake of this heartbreaking tragedy?
G-L-O-R-Y! Everything you wanted to know about professional football cheerleaders (well, almost everything). The tone of this piece is hard to pin down—it’s equal parts heroic, mocking, and disdainful. The story weaves interviews of cheerleaders into a narrative about the incredible passion these women have to put on tights and bounce for fifty-thousand-plus people every Sunday for sixteen consecutive weeks. Why do they do it? Why do we care?
Forgive Some Sinner. This story is about sports writing and about the unique relationship between a father and a son (both professional writers). Written by the son, Mark Cram Jr., this piece is a tribute to the father, but jr. doesn’t shy away from exposing sr.’s faults and talking candidly about the trials of working with words as a life-long profession. Can a son help redeem his father’s legacy?
Above and Beyond. A quest to find the tallest living tree in northern California’s Redwood National Park, this story would appeal to conservationists, backpackers, or to anyone who cares about the environment. How tall is the tallest tree? Have you ever felt the wonder of being/trekking/living in the woods?
Dogged. A six-time “US athlete of the year” in endurance running falls off a cliff and is left for dead on an abandoned trail. Will her running companion—a dog named Taz—be able to retrieve help in time? A story about survival . . . and a three-year-old reddish-brown mutt.
Following Terry Fox. Terry Fox is a legend in Canada, equivalent in name-recognition to our own Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan. During the spring and summer of 1980, Fox ran more than halfway across Canada (a total of 3,339 miles)—logging nearly a marathon a day for over 143 days—on one good leg and one prosthetic leg, before finally succumbing to cancer. Fox was twenty-two. What drives a person to stare death in the face, and keep on running? What is Fox’s legacy for cancer patients and for cancer survivors, including their families?
The Legend of Bo and Bo Knows Best. These two stories explore the incredible (but short) career of Bo Jackson, a dual-pro-athlete in football and baseball, and the making of a myth. These stories also hit on the extraordinary marketing campaigns surrounding pro athletes. Long before Nike’s Just Do It campaign, there was Bo Knows. Do you want to know more about the making of a myth, via marketing? Impossible aint nothing.
The Kick Is Up and It’s . . . a Career Killer. NFL kickers are a breed apart from the rest of their lockerroom behemoth buddies. Kickers often don’t even have a locker in the main changing room. This story explores the awkward and oppressive pressure—and often social ostracism—experienced by the professional football kicker. What would it be like to have your entire career built on a series of moments, recorded in seconds, where one mistake could just about wipe out your legacy?
Casualties of the NFL. Have you ever wondered what happens to NFL players who get banged up and pushed around year after year and never find a way to properly save and prepare for retirement? How do they live with their injuries? Who takes care of them? This piece explores the failure of the Players’ Union to address the widespread physical and mental ailments that follow an alarming number of ex-players, sometimes to an early grave.
Atkins a Study in Pride and Pain. Another story about residual NFL pains and traumas, except this story is really a non-story (by the usually insightful and delightful Rick Telander) about trying—and failing—to get an interview with Doug Atkins, seventy-six, the legendary Hall of Fame defensive end for the Chicago Bears. If Telander were Thomas (who?), would this story have made the cut?
Hammering on Hank, The Rocket’s Descent, and Family Carries On After a Tragic Day at Rose Bowl. These three stories are all very short and all pretty dull. In this order: Hammering on sportswriters for hammering on Hank Aaron, Clemens’s shooting star of a steroid-drenched legacy, and a tragic day for a family but a wilted rose of a story.
Getting a Second Wind. A young girl’s suicide leads her father and mother to donate her organs to recipients around the country. Her heart goes to Gainesville, Georgia, to a man named Len Geiger who brings new meaning to the phrase “getting a second wind.”
Golf in Geezerdom. This is a story about learning how to enjoy golf in the declining years of one’s life. Would appeal to anyone who enjoys golf—and can see the game as a metaphor: don’t sweat the bogeys, the bunkers, or the traffic. Enjoy the ride, even if the latter part is in a golf cart.
Joining the Club. Another story about golf, but this one’s a coming-of-age story about a young man and his one-weekend caddying experience with one of golf’s greatest female professionals: Patty Berg. This story would appeal to readers who have had a mentor/coach influence them at a young age, or who have had a memorable run-in with a superstar—a run-in that lasts a lifetime.
The Old Ba’ Game. This is a fun little story about a peculiar annual game in Kirkwall, Scotland, where the town breaks out into a gigantic all-male rugby match, encompassing all the streets and buildings—literally no out of bounds. The game plan: rival factions (two teams, made up of families and neighborhood-ties going back centuries) try to move a four-pound handmade leather ball either to the wall (“Uppies” win), or to the sea (“Doonies” win). If you like rugby, or are curious about the “old world”—or just like Sky Sports—this story is for you. It’s also played on Christmas.
Behind the Bamboo Curtain. This story looks at the polluted China—the parched, coal-dusty, dirt-poor areas spewing out ubiquitous “Made in China” products—the land no one got to see this past summer when China hosted the Olympic Games. There’s not much sport in this story, unless you count the competition for economic and world domination, the by-product of which is rendering “new China” nearly unrecognizable to its agrarian past.
Murder by Cricket. A long story about cricket (the English-inspired game with those thick bats and strange wickets). Thwack! If you’re interested.
Go, Speed Flier, Go. Do you like flying? How about skiing? How about doing both simultaneously. No kidding. Check out this adrenaline-rush of a story.
No Obstacles. Parkour is a French word that means, roughly, route. As a sport, or as an organized activity, parkour refers to the quasi-commando system of leaps, vaults, rolls, and landings designed to help a person avoid or surmount whatever obstacles lies in his or her path. You’ve probably witnessed parkour in the most recent Bourne Identity movie, where Matt Damon (or the athlete playing Damon) runs—more accurately, runs-flies—over and through a series of buildings, fire-escapes, landings, and alleyways. This story seeks the source of this relatively new phenomenon.
Run Like Fire Once More. Are you interested in ultra-endurance events of the body and mind? Are you curious about Zen and the art of self-transcendence? Curious about why people would pay good money to run 3,100 miles around a city block—the same city block—in Jamaica, Queens (New York) in a quest to win a five-dollar trophy, or merely (or should I say triumphantly) finish the race?
Scito Hoc Super Omnia. Do you like Philadelphia native Kobe Bryant and the LA Lakers of the NBA? Want to learn more about this relatively aloof superstar? He speaks Italian, some French, and quotes Latin on his website (Scito Hoc Super Omnia is Latin for Know This Above All Else). He is one of the best players in the league. Why can’t he get no respect?
No Finish Line. This is a runner’s story and it would appeal to anyone who runs regularly or trains for long-distance events, like marathons. Can American runners ever catch up to their African counterparts who are currently dominating the world in long-distance running.
Not to Get Too Mystical About It. Nobody loves Kobe, but Steve Nash, that’s another story—who wouldn’t want this Canadian native to crash one of their kids’ birthday parties? This piece gets into the “flow” of the Phoenix Suns star player, and follows him to China where a small group of NBA players competed this past summer in a series of games to raise money for Chinese schools and schoolchildren.
In the Nick of Time. If you like college football—specifically, Alabama football (“roll tide!”)—then this story will appeal to you. From Paul “Bear” Bryant to Nick Saban, this piece buffs to a luster the Alabama football legacy and program, which has been in relative decline since the Bear retired (’82), and sheds some light on why southerners are so darn crazy about college football.
Baseball after the Boss. Those Damn Yankees—and those damn sports writers who continue to write about the Yankees. This piece talks about the transition underway in the front office, from George Steinbrenner III to his sons . . . and ultimately to Hank, Jr., the latest scion to carry the torch for the franchise (a lot of money for very little flame, lately). This story is less about the players, and more about the men at the top of the Yankee ziggurat.
Twenty-three Reasons Why a Profile of Pete Carroll Does Not Appear in This Space. This is a fascinating profile of University of Southern California (USC) head football coach Pete Carroll, who is a vexing combination of a whistle-toting-everyman, Yoda, CIA analyst, and friend. This piece explores a man who does a lot of things well, and probably could be successful in just about any career. But he chooses to coach college athletes and he keeps on winning. He also helps quell the violence along the mean streets and gang-infested areas of Los Angeles. All that before most of us roll outta bed.
