The Best American Sports Writing 2011 Read Online Free
Author: Jane Leavy
Roethlisberger's crude barroom command cited by Sally Jenkins: "All my bitches, take some shots!" But he would have recognized the ugly truth of entitlement in the language of a quarterback accustomed to barking orders at the line of scrimmage and having them obeyed.
Words give us access to unknown territoryâa crash site revisited 40 years later, the habitat of America's dwindling population of wild mustangs, the workshop of a master carver of Native American lacrosse sticks. And words fill the interior places in the heart and soul. Here is the ineffable John McPhee describing a last visit to the hospital to see his dying father. "I looked out the window for a time, at Baltimore, spilling over its beltway. I looked back at him. Spontaneously, I began to talk. In my unplanned, unprepared way, I wanted to fill the air around us with words, and keep on filling it, to no apparent purpose but, I suppose, a form of self-protection."
Sometimes words just plain take your breath away.
These 29 stories represent a panoply of excellence, reporting, and tone. They are by turns melodic, comedic, elegiac, and always idiosyncratic. I resolved to have as many voices heard as possible, eliminating some otherwise worthy picks because I had already chosen another piece by the author. Glenn dutifully removed the author's name and publication from the weighty batches that thudded at my front door. But some of the voices were so distinct, I recognized them anyway.
Voices of conscience: Sally Jenkins of the
Washington Post,
my pick for the best sports columnist writing today, and Selena Roberts of
Sports Illustrated.
It's no coincidence, I think, that two of the strongest voices in these pages belong to women writing about issues affecting women that wouldn't have made the agate page in Red's day.
Voices of whimsy: P. J. O'Rourke's lessons on child-rearing as gleaned from a 1961 field dog manual; Yoni Brenner's hilarious send-up of the verbal grandiosity of Any Given Sunday in the NFL. The last of his "Trick Plays" gives a whole new meaning to a Hail Mary pass: "In the waning seconds of the first half of the NFC championship game, the pious visiting quarterback leads a masterly 80-yard drive, culminating in a 15-yard touchdown strike. As his teammates celebrate, the quarterback drops to one knee to thank Jesus. Just then, the Rapture comes, and the quarterback is instantly beamed up to Heaven, leaving only his cleats behind."
Voices of grace: Mark Pearson writes of his cauliflower ear, a legacy of his college wrestling days and the love of the sport he inherited from his father. The burdens bequeathed by fathers (present, omnipresent, jailed, dead, remembered) are the subtext of this and so many other stories. Pearson's father taught him to wrestle with pain and left him glad to be the father of daughters. "As much joy and pride as there is between a father and a son, I don't know that I could endure much more of the unspoken pain that marks the lives of fathers and sons."
Voices that expose just how far otherwise rational people will go to win: Bill Shaikin introduces us to Vladimir Shpunt, an émigré Russian physicist hired by baseball's former power couple, Frank and Jamie McCourt, to help the Dodgers win by sending positive energy over great distances. From his living room in Boston. Via cable TV. No word who got custody of him in the divorce.
Voices that speak to the enduring importance of having a voice: Bill Plaschke's autobiographical ode to an old-fashioned notebook that gave a stuttering young boy a voice he didn't know he had speaks volumes about the enduring import of words.
Together, and in unexpected harmony, these 29 voices are sports writing's Greek chorus, by turns singing the praises of risk-takers and bearing witness to risk's pathological excess. On principle, I declined to include any of the multitudinous entries, no matter how well executed, detailing the sexploitation of others by risk-takers named Brett and
Words give us access to unknown territoryâa crash site revisited 40 years later, the habitat of America's dwindling population of wild mustangs, the workshop of a master carver of Native American lacrosse sticks. And words fill the interior places in the heart and soul. Here is the ineffable John McPhee describing a last visit to the hospital to see his dying father. "I looked out the window for a time, at Baltimore, spilling over its beltway. I looked back at him. Spontaneously, I began to talk. In my unplanned, unprepared way, I wanted to fill the air around us with words, and keep on filling it, to no apparent purpose but, I suppose, a form of self-protection."
Sometimes words just plain take your breath away.
These 29 stories represent a panoply of excellence, reporting, and tone. They are by turns melodic, comedic, elegiac, and always idiosyncratic. I resolved to have as many voices heard as possible, eliminating some otherwise worthy picks because I had already chosen another piece by the author. Glenn dutifully removed the author's name and publication from the weighty batches that thudded at my front door. But some of the voices were so distinct, I recognized them anyway.
Voices of conscience: Sally Jenkins of the
Washington Post,
my pick for the best sports columnist writing today, and Selena Roberts of
Sports Illustrated.
It's no coincidence, I think, that two of the strongest voices in these pages belong to women writing about issues affecting women that wouldn't have made the agate page in Red's day.
Voices of whimsy: P. J. O'Rourke's lessons on child-rearing as gleaned from a 1961 field dog manual; Yoni Brenner's hilarious send-up of the verbal grandiosity of Any Given Sunday in the NFL. The last of his "Trick Plays" gives a whole new meaning to a Hail Mary pass: "In the waning seconds of the first half of the NFC championship game, the pious visiting quarterback leads a masterly 80-yard drive, culminating in a 15-yard touchdown strike. As his teammates celebrate, the quarterback drops to one knee to thank Jesus. Just then, the Rapture comes, and the quarterback is instantly beamed up to Heaven, leaving only his cleats behind."
Voices of grace: Mark Pearson writes of his cauliflower ear, a legacy of his college wrestling days and the love of the sport he inherited from his father. The burdens bequeathed by fathers (present, omnipresent, jailed, dead, remembered) are the subtext of this and so many other stories. Pearson's father taught him to wrestle with pain and left him glad to be the father of daughters. "As much joy and pride as there is between a father and a son, I don't know that I could endure much more of the unspoken pain that marks the lives of fathers and sons."
Voices that expose just how far otherwise rational people will go to win: Bill Shaikin introduces us to Vladimir Shpunt, an émigré Russian physicist hired by baseball's former power couple, Frank and Jamie McCourt, to help the Dodgers win by sending positive energy over great distances. From his living room in Boston. Via cable TV. No word who got custody of him in the divorce.
Voices that speak to the enduring importance of having a voice: Bill Plaschke's autobiographical ode to an old-fashioned notebook that gave a stuttering young boy a voice he didn't know he had speaks volumes about the enduring import of words.
Together, and in unexpected harmony, these 29 voices are sports writing's Greek chorus, by turns singing the praises of risk-takers and bearing witness to risk's pathological excess. On principle, I declined to include any of the multitudinous entries, no matter how well executed, detailing the sexploitation of others by risk-takers named Brett and
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