The Great American Sports Page

April 1, 2019
Among the best sports columnists of his own generation before lighting out for Hollywood to create Xena: Woman Warrior and write for the likes of Jag and Miami Vice, Schulian culls 98 gems from 46 of the most stellar American sportswriters of the past century. The more famous include Shirley Povich, Red Smith, Jim Murray, Thomas Boswell, Dick Young, Tony Kornheiser, Mike Lupica, Michael Wilbon, and Sally Jenkins. Young chronicles, in a nutshell, the cascade of cynical events that sent Brooklyn's beloved Dodgers to L.A., and Kornheiser reminds us he was a great writer before he was an ESPN talking head with a fine New York Times profile of Reggie Jackson. There's also W. O. McGeehan's bold, prophetic 1926 column on American swimmer Gertrude Ederle on the eve of her successful swim across the English Channel, the first ever by a female. And Emmett Watson, far off in the Pacific Northwest, writes a moving, delicate portrait of a young boxer forced to retire to save his own life. Classic columns, indeed.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)