Best American Sports Writing, 1991

This is the first edition in an ongoing series. The variety and quality of stories are excellent although, as with all anthologies, some are better than others. It was particularly interesting to read about sports events that took place more than 20 years ago. Sadly, some of the central characters and some of the authors are no longer with us. As Glenn Stout says in his introduction "You have to love the writing" and this is particularly true with "Pure Heart" (William Nack) and "tell Me a Story" (Roger Angell). This edition set a suitably high standard for the series.

This book is the first year of the Best American Sports Writing series. The book covers a wide spectrum of sports; sports that were new to me (shuffleboard, beagling, pigeon racing), familiar sports (baseball, basketball, football, hockey) and unfamiliar sports (rodeo, horseracing, boxing) are all covered in this compilation of 26 sports writings. Needless to say, there is a wide assortment of sports covered in this collection. Some of the writings are mainly educational such as the article on Russian baseball. Others are more biographical like the fascinating story about long time referee, Earl Strom. While still others focus more on humor. Those with a humorous twist include the article, Bo Knows Fiction, where Bo Jackson pecks away on his typewriter in front of thousands of screaming fans. There is also the hilarious article on the baseball-playing Perez brothers where we learn their secret to great pitching, "Strike out somebody with coconut, and baseball no problem." And lastly there is the short sarcastic article, Personal Best, which ridicules the over-researched statistic in sports. For a sports fan who also enjoys a good read, this is a very enjoyable book.