9780618251322

Since its inception in 1915, the Best American series has become the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. For each volume, a series editor reads pieces from hundreds of periodicals, then selects between fifty and a hundred outstanding works. That selection is pared down to the twenty or so very best pieces by a guest editor who is widely recognized as a leading writer in his or her field. This unique system has helped make the Best American series the most respected -- and most popular -- of its kind.Buzz Bissinger selects the very best writing on a vast variety of competitive endeavors, from baseball to weightlifting, skating to demolition derby. Herein today's foremost journalists -- among them Gary Smith, Elizabeth Gilbert, Bill Plaschke, and Rebecca Mead -- throw revealing light on a pantheon of stars: Shaquille O'Neal, Bobby Fischer, Mike Tyson, the San Diego Chicken, and more.

TERM	PRICE	DUE
SEMESTER	$15.21	Aug 02
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Foreword

ix

Introduction by Buzz Bissinger

xiv

ELIZABETH GILBERT. Lucky Jim

1

(17)

from GQ

BILL PLASCHKE. Fowled Away

18

(10)

from The Los Angeles Times

GARY SMITH. The Ball

28

(22)

from Sports Illustrated

DAVID GRANN. Baseball Without Metaphor

50

(19)

from The New York Times Magazine

S.L. PRICE. The Lone Wolf

69

(18)

from Sports Illustrated

RENE CHUN. Bobby Fischers Pathetic Endgame

87

(24)

from The Atlantic Monthly

ALEXANDER WOLFF WITH DON YAEGER. When the Terror Began

111

(22)

from Sports Illustrated

JULIET MACUR. Power Pact

133

(11)

from The Dallas Morning News

BILL DONAHUE. End of the Run

144

(11)

from Outside

BILL PLASCHKE. Veteran Finds Greens Peace

155

(7)

from The Los Angeles Times

JOSH SENS. Good Karma, Bad Golf

162

(4)

from Golf Digest

ELIZABETH KAYS. Servant of the Cause

166

(18)

from Los Angeles

REBECCA MEAD. A Man-Child in Lotusland

184

(20)

from The New Yorker

JAMES MCKEAN. Playing for Jud

204

(13)

from Witness

RON C. JUDD. Race a Memorable First for Seventeenth Man

217

(5)

from The Seattle Times

SUSY BUCHANAN. Appetite for Destruction

222

(13)

from Phoenix New Times

STEPHEN J. DUBNER. Life Is a Contact Sport

235

(12)

from The New York Times Magazine

PETER RICHMOND. Rulon Gardner Wants a Third Helping

247

(11)

from GQ

MICHAEL LEAHY. Gambling Man

258

(16)

from The Washington Post

MARK KRAM JR. "I Want to Kill Him"

274

(8)

from The Philadelphia Daily News

BRUCE FELDMAN. Out of Control

282

(11)

from ESPN The Magazine

MICHAEL AGOVINO. My Dad, the Bookie

293

(9)

from GQ

TED LEVIN. The Birds at Oriole Park

302

(6)

from Washingtonian

TERRY PLUTO. His Role on Team Is Beyond Words

308

(7)

from The Akron Beacon Journal

BETH KEPHART. Of Sound and Ice

315

(6)

from The Washington Post Book World

Biographical Notes

321

(4)

Notable Sports Writing of 2002

325

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IntroductionIf you care, as I do, with a love and passion that is almost mysterious because of the very depths of it, this was the year that pushed me overboard. To hell with sports. To hell with all of it. To hell with the greed and the pettiness. To hell with that insouciant arrogant athlete swagger of I-could- care-less, man-boys making their millions and not putting out a dimes worth of effort for it. The hype got to me, the towering Babel of Kornheiser and Wilbon and Rome and Tom Arnold, Tom Arnold for godsakes. The saturation got to me, college football games around the clock, NCAA basketball for every mood swing, the NFL draft receiving almost as much bad seat-of-the-pants analysis as the War in Iraq. The scandals got to me, the pathetic shame of the Harricks at Georgia and the decision by St. Bonaventure, when confronted with cheating, to simply cancel the rest of the basketball season as if it never happened. I got tired of sports pages reading like rap sheets. I got tired of wondering whether Shaq liked Kobe or Kobe liked Shaq. I got tired of checking the box score every night to see how many times Rasheed Wallace had pouted. The more I read about high school basketball wunderkind LeBron James, the more it seemed like a nasty little morality play, big-time magazines and big-time networks making this kid larger than life only to chisel away at him when he began to act like the entitled smack- ass monster that they of course had created. I went to a couple of Major League Baseball games, but they were at Veterans Stadium in Philly where I live. The stadium is amorphous and atmosphere-less, everything about it drab except for the hideous glaring green of the artificial-surface field and the increasingly desperate prancings of the Phanatic. By the time it got into the fifth inning, the players seemed like they were in slow motion in the thick soupy summer Philly heat, and I knew it wasnt just the beer that was inducing such bleary-eyed lethargy. I went to an NBA game in Seattle. Thanks to a friend, I had a great seat on the floor right opposite the Seattle SuperSonics bench. The SuperSonics were playing Indiana, and the game was pretty good, actually damn good since it went into overtime. You couldnt help but admire the intensity of Gary Payton even if his scowl did cast the entire arena in shadow. But it was the conduct of the players on the Seattle bench that drew my attention, the way they rose for a team huddle during a time-out with all the enthusiasm of arthritic octogenarians, the cool little nods they gave during the game to friends in the stands, as if what happened after the game was a whole lot more important than what was happening during it. I went to a pro football game in Tennessee. It was a big game, a Monday Night game on ABC, the Titans versus the Patriots. As a result, there was a lot of hype, and it seemed to me that for some of the players, in particular Jevon Kearse, the pregame intro was

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The Best American Sports Writing 2003

The Best American Sports Writing 2003

0618251324

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