Customer Reviews

The Best American Sports Writing 2005 (The Best American Series)

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This is a fabulous book. The reader will be rewarded again and again. Mike Lupica has done a worthy job as editor.

Let's face it, there is no shortage of good writing out there. Just like when we see a film, like it or not, the technical work is outstanding. The challenge for the editor is to create, using his selections, an introduction to the greater narratives that underlie the sensibility of the genre. Sports, in 2005, having never lost the ability to inspire, having those wonderful stories of determination, of grit, of overcoming odds, of personal victory are now also tales of despondency, of scandal, of defeat not just on a personal level, but also at the grander scale that we now experience this global world. So Lupica takes us on an emotional journey that captures as a snapshot the world we live in. The stories are the links in the chain. The chain as a whole, the journey as a whole, is wonderfully well thought out and perfectly executed. I cannot say enough about this book.

If you like this book, and this style of meta-narrative, please check out the 2004 Best American Travel Writing, edited by Pico Ayer. He carves out an incredible emotional journey, in alphabetical order!

From the Texas point of view:
Scanning HM's 2005 Travel anthology, the editor found no obvious Texas connection, but maybe he just doesn't know what he's doing. However, the Sports anthology was different. The full text selections included Michael Hall's "The Duke of Dunbar" and Katy Vine's "Alive and Kicking" both from Texas Monthly issues. In the list at the back for other notables of the previous year were three citations, including John Spong's "The Shot Not Heard Around the World," (Texas Monthly), Jose de Jesus Ortiz's "Braves Exercise Poor Judgment" (Houston Chronicle October 10), and Paul Kix's "All the Rage" (Dallas Observer, August 12-18).