Coming Monday -- the Launch of Sports Biblio, the Website!
This is a lead item to this newsletter I’ve been eager to write for some time.
On Monday, Oct. 5 -- that’s tomorrow -- the Sports Biblio website will finally be launching.
For the last couple of years, I have wanted to start a blog devoted to sports books, history and culture. This idea emerged while writing a now-retired blog. I've been in planning mode for the last few months and am so glad it’s time to share this with all of you.
As I wrote in my introductory post that will be published tomorrow, Sports Biblio takes a step back from the stories, issues and arguments of the day in the sports world.
The main question I want to address, through examining the work of sports authors, historians and others, is this: What does sports mean to those who are seriously drawn to them?
This may seem quaint given the avalanche of sports media attention focused on controversy, scandal, sports business and celebrity, social and cultural issues, fantasy leagues and snarky social media chatter.
For many of us, this is about something deeper, even spiritual. Like literature, or music, or the arts in general, sports reach a place that explains our humanity to us, if we will only go there.
I’ve been a sports journalist for many years, most notably at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, but for as long as I can remember, I’ve been deeply drawn to games that can’t be summed up simply by calling me a fan.
I and others like me are not just killing time watching ball games, or using sports as an “escape” for something else. It’s a vital part of our lives, although not in an unhealthy way.
As I begin Sports Biblio, I will be posting three times a week -- Monday, Wednesday and Friday. At the outset, I will be reviewing new books about sports every other week. I also plan to add a podcast in the near future.
This newsletter will continue to publish every Sunday morning, rounding up Sports Biblio posts for the week, plus other links to great reads about sports books, history and culture.
Sports Biblio also is on Twitter and Facebook, and I invite you to follow there as well.
Thanks so much for subscribing to this newsletter; I invite you to be a part of the initial audience for Sports Biblio as I launch this week. Here’s a bit more about what I have planned for the site.
And I’d love to hear from you. Please contact me any time at sportsbiblio@gmail.com.
My favorite read of the week
At The Big Lead, Ryan Glasspiegel has this sensational retrospective of the glory days of The Washington Post sports section, starting in the 1980s, under sports editor George Solomon. And the talent in the room! Leonard Shapiro, John Feinstein, Michael Wilbon, Thomas Boswell, Dave Kindred, Ken Denlinger, William Gildea, Tony Kornheiser, Sally Jenkins, Jane Leavy, David Aldridge, J.A. Adande, Christine Brennan, Norman Chad and so many others.
Most are long gone -- only Boswell has remained, and Jenkins left and came back. The television and digital age swept away so much of the talent, as has happened at many other big-city papers. Some, like Feinstein and Leavy, have become better known as sports authors, rather than pundits.
On Saturday, Denlinger died at the age of 73. He was well-regarded for his long-form and and investigative pieces, and as an author. His 1994 book, “For the Glory,” was an even-handed assessment of the Penn State football program under Joe Paterno.
Long before the Jerry Sandusky scandal, Denlinger, a Penn State grad, wasn’t afraid to peel away some of the mythology of the “Joe Pa” facade, but without the bristling self-righteousness of too many writers today.
But wait, there’s so much more to read!
John Walters of Newsweek profiles one of the longest-serving and top-notch college sports information directors in the business, Clemson’s Tim Bourret. He was on hand Saturday night as the Tigers beat Notre Dame. The last time the two teams played, in 1977, Bourret was also in Death Valley, as a Notre Dame student assistant sports information director.
Multi-faceted writer, author and journalist Gregg Easterbrook, who wrote the sharp Tuesday Morning Quarterback NFL blog at ESPN and Slate, has taken his work to the Upshot explainer blog at The New York Times. To fit the Grey Lady’s style dictates, it’s called T.M.Q.
Darryl Dawkins and Moses Malone are the most recent examples, but they aren’t the only ones. Why are so many retired NBA big men dying so young?
Advanced sports stats geeks have something else to call their own: An academic-style research publication. The Journal of Sports Analytics has launched and has issued a call for papers.
The Atlanta Braves are uneasy about taking a statue of Ty Cobb now located at Turner Field with them to their new suburban ballpark. His latest biographer, Charles Leerhsen, speaks out on the subject. The team says it can't take something it doesn't own.
Baseball writer Rob Neyer was asked to write about the sports book that changed his life. His choice: Peter Golenbock’s “Bums: An Oral History of the Brooklyn Dodgers.” Why? “It’s neither objective nor even-handed, so one might argue that it’s not even particularly good history. But it’s real and it’s raw and it’s powerful and it’s tremendously entertaining.”
With the New York Islanders having relocated to Brooklyn, The New Yorker’s Nick Paumgarten writes about the short-lived Brooklyn Americans, who played in the NHL from 1925-42. The business of the NHL up to the end of World War II is explored in a new book, “Joining the Clubs."
Vice Sports has begun a Q and A series with authors, directors and others doing “interesting sports things." First up is Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gilbert Gaul, author of “Billion Dollar Ball: A Journey Through the Big-Money Culture of Football.” Money -- ahem -- quote: “I went looking for an example of an efficient college football program, and I couldn't find one. It's truly a revenue theory of costs. You take in every penny and you spend every penny.
Jason Gay, sports columnist at The Wall Street Journal, wrote an expanded Tweet urging readers to give his sports pages a ponder, especially if they are “worn down by the way sports is typically covered.” One of his examples is this nicely crafted piece by Ben Cohen about the “hot hand” theory in basketball. But in the battle for distinctive reads, surely Gay knows it’s as heated a space as the hot takes, clickbait and fomented outrage corners of the sports media universe.
