Best American Sports Writing, 1992 - Softcover

Glenn Stout has been the series editor of The Best American Sports Writing since its inception and has written three illustrated biographies with Richard A. Johnson: Ted Williams: A Portrait in Words and Pictures, Joe DiMaggio: An Illustrated Life, and Jackie Robinson: Between the Baselines. He is a columnist for Boston Baseball, and the acclaimed author of Red Sox Century, Yankees Century, and The Dodgers. His work has appeared in many regional and national magazines and newspapers.

The third volume in this series is a notable one, with guest editor Frank Deford, in collaboration with series editor Glenn Stout, choosing 25 topflight pieces from among thousands published during 1992. While many of the contributors will be familiar to readers (e.g., Roger Angell, Roy Blount, Jr., Ron Fimrite, Dave Barry, Rick Reilly), the selections overall are pleasingly atypical. For example, Peter Richmond's GQ piece on Tommy Lasorda isn't about baseball at all, but about the death from AIDS of his son, Tommy, Jr., and how the proud Dodger manager handled the situation (not well, and mostly in denial of the facts of his son's gay lifestyle). Other terrific stories are David Roberts' Men's Journal profile of mountain climber Jeff Lowe, E. M. Swift's SI article on the life and hard times of ill-fated figure skater Tonya Harding, and Jennifer Briggs' Dallas Observer reflection on what it means to be a female sportswriter. Other pieces cover football brutality, track and field, fishing, bear hunting, baseball's minor leagues, and well-known sports figures such as Whitey Herzog and Shaquille O'Neal. In what seems a curious move, the editors have also included Ben Joravsky's lengthy (more than 20 percent of the book) Chicago Reader diary account of a high-school basketball season. It's not bad--nothing in this collection is--but it doesn't seem engaging enough to merit all that space. On all other counts, this is a helluva compilation. Martin Brady