The Best American Sports Writing 2013

The Best American Series
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The Best American Sports Writing
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available.

ISSN
1056-8034

ISBN
978-0-547-88460-8

e
ISBN
978-0-547-88457-8
v1.1013

“Arrowhead Anxiety” by Kent Babb. First published in the
Kansas City Star
, January 14, 2012. Copyright Â© 2012 by Kent Babb. Reprinted by permission of Kent Babb.

“Mourning Glory” by Chris Ballard. First published in
Sports Illustrated
, October 22, 2012. Copyright Â© 2012 by Time Inc. Reprinted by permission.

“Caballo Blanco's Last Run” by Barry Bearak. From “The Run of His Life,” the
New York Times
, May 21, 2012. Copyright Â© 2012 by the
New York Times
. All rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by the copyright laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of this content without express written permission is prohibited.

“The Strongest Man in the World” by Burkhard Bilger. First published in
The New Yorker
, July 23, 2012. Copyright Â© 2012 by Burkhard Bilger. Reprinted by permission of Burkhard Bilger.

“It's Not About the Lab Rats” by Bill Gifford. First published in
Outside
, February 2012. Copyright Â© 2012 by Bill Gifford. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“At the Corner of Love and Basketball” by Allison Glock. First published in
ESPN: The Magazine
, June 11, 2012. Copyright Â© 2012 by
ESPN: The Magazine
, LLC. Reprinted by permission of ESPN, Inc.

“Did Football Kill Austin Trenum?” by Patrick Hruby. First published in
Washingtonian
, August 2012. Copyright Â© 2012 by Patrick Hruby. Reprinted by permission of Patrick Hruby.

“Redemption of the Running Man” by Dan Koeppel. First published in
Runner's World
, August 2012. Copyright Â© 2012 by Dan Koeppel. Reprinted by permission of Dan Koeppel.

“The Legacy of Wes Leonard” by Thomas Lake. First published in
Sports Illustrated
, February 20, 2012. Copyright Â© 2012 by Time Inc. Reprinted by permission.

“The Gym at Third and Ross” by Bill Littlefield. First published in
Onlyagame.wbur.org
, April 13, 2012. Copyright Â© 2012 by Bill Littlefield. Reprinted by permission of Bill Littlefield.

“Waiting for Goodell” by Jeff MacGregor. First published in
ESPN.com
, September 19, 2012. Copyright Â© 2012 by ESPN Internet Ventures. Reprinted by permission of ESPN, Inc.

“The Making of âHomer at the Bat,' the Episode That Conquered Prime Time 20 Years Ago Tonight” by Erik Malinowski. First published in
Deadspin.com
, February 20, 2012. Copyright Â© 2012 by Gawker Media, LLC. Reprinted by permission of Gawker Media, LLC.

“The Most Amazing Bowling Story Ever” by Michael J. Mooney. First published in
D Magazine
, July 2012. Copyright Â© 2012 by Magazine Limited Partners LP. Reprinted by permission of
D Magazine
.

“Eddie Is Gone” by Nicole Pasulka. First published in the
Believer
, September 2012. Copyright Â© 2012 by Nicole Pasulka. Reprinted by permission of Nicole Pasulka.

“At Swim, Two Girls: A Memoir” by Bridget Quinn. First published in
Narrativemagazine.com
, Spring 2012. Copyright Â© 2012 by Bridget Quinn. Reprinted by permission of Bridget Quinn.

“Special Team” by Rick Reilly. First published in
ESPN.com
, November 1, 2012. Copyright Â© 2012 by ESPN Internet Ventures. Reprinted by permission of ESPN, Inc.

“Goal to Go” by Charles Siebert. From the
New York Times Magazine
, November 25, 2012. Copyright Â© 2012 by the
New York Times
. All rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by the copyright laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of this content without express written permission is prohibited.

Foreword

I
AM SITTING
in a bar in Burlington, Vermont, drinking Guinness with a man whose work I have read but who I have never met before, hoping he'll say things I agree with about a subject I love, which may provide a way to write the foreword to a book a lot of people care deeply about. To distract myself from the barmaid who looks right through us and from the sun that shines too bright through the nearby window, I listen closely and file this away for future reference; another
Best American Sports Writing
foreword starts to write itself in my head.

This actually happened, and I was reminded as I sat in that bar how the best part of doing a book like this is not only the words, or the stories, but the short and intense friendships that sometimes develop while talking with another writer. Oh, I remember
BASW
stories, as I am certain the close reader has realized by now. (The above lede is an homage to the start of J.Â R. Moehringer's remarkable “Resurrecting the Champ” from
BASW 1998
.) Really, however, what I remember most are the people and the moments of recognition we discover in others when we realize our own ideas are not alone, but reside in stories shared, then recalled later and twisted and shaped to fit.

Sports is just a path for this, and notice that I just wrote “a” path, not “the” path. And it is certainly not “the only” path. For as the sportswriter above said to me, “Who really cares about sports? This is just a way for us to write about things we really care about.” I thoroughly agree.

It struck me that this is the difference so often here in these pages. In this collection of writing about sports, there is hardly a single writer who, if pressed, would say he or she is “only” writing about sports. The kind of writing that was once “only” writing about sports filled thousands of newspapers every day. That doesn't happen much anymore, because now readers ask for more; outcomes and easy answers are often not enough, and that includes writing that is only about sports. That is, I think, one reason that readers have undeniably fled from the kind of writing that once first came to mind whenever anyone mentioned the word “sportswriting.” But “sports writing,” as we have always termed it in the title of this book? That is something else, and over the 23 years I have been doing the work of this series, if there is one thing I have noticed, it is that this book is more about people and what concerns usâlove, death, desire, labor, and lossâthan about the simple results of a game or competition. Wins and losses are the least important part of the equationâand the standings are often the worst measure of anything. It really is how you play the game .Â .Â . and how you think about it, and how you feel about that.

These are the subjects that draw writers to the keyboard, and readers to the page, and it has been that way since the beginning, whether the words have been crafted from ink or electronics, whether the page is made of papyrus or wood pulp or glass. The amazing thing is not how much the technology has changed over the years, but how much the relationship between the reader, the writer, and the word has
not
changed much at all. Increasingly there is a realization in this new era of reading on tablets and phones, with embedded links and GIFs and other technologies not yet imagined, that although the medium of communication has changed, little else has. For much of the last year I have served as an editor for a web page (
SBNation.com/Longform
), working closely with writers on the same kind of stories that appear in these pages, and the writer's work and responsibility is the same now as everâsomething I have found gratifying beyond measure. Getting deep in the weeds of a story and breaking it down to sound? There is nothing better and nothing more important.

After a period of uncertainty and the misguided belief that the only writing that “worked” anymore was 140 characters or less, more recently readers have been returning to longer forms in droves, and the wise are beginning to realize that the web native was first a
word
native, and that the former is only a subset of the latter. Longer journalismâcall it longformâhas been enjoying something of a renaissance as the desire to read has proven unstoppable. While “the book” is still entering this new age of reading in fits and startsâfor the adjustment period is a bit longer and the investment more costlyâlongform journalism and its readers have seamlessly embraced the future and filled that gap. Regardless of the format or medium, people are reading more than ever. In a world built around the notion of page views, this volume alone will probably collect eight or 10 million and occupy each reader for many, many hoursâthink about that for a moment. For all the worry over the future of writing and publishing, the need to read and to experience the things we really care about through the words of others is fundamental to our experience, as essential now as ever.

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