Customer Reviews

The Best American Sports Writing 2002 (The Best American Series)

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As is always true with these annual "Best of ..." books, there are several notable omissions that deserved to be included, but there is enough good material to make it well worth its price. More than anything it is a nice reminder of all that went on in sports in 2001, with several well written profiles of athletes, events, and sports that may not have received much coverage but are still fascinating and interesting to learn about. If you like sports or sports writing, this is the best anthology available every year so I would recommend it.

Tom Scocca's story is worth the price of the paperback, but otherwise Mr. Reilly's logrolling of mediocre pieces by his colleagues drags down the overall quality of the book. There are some notable exclusions--check out the honorable mention pages-- that were sacrificed for some howlers from the SI crowd.

There are a few good stories in this edition,but Reilly really dropped the ball more often than not. To many lengthy stories that just aren;t that interesting(Rae Carruth,moronic backyard wrestling)and far too many stories associated with death. Can we actually focus on the sports a little more? There are also too many articles on obscure topics.