The Only Game in Town: Sportswriting from The New Yorker (Modern Library (Paperback))

For instance, "It may be that, compared to managers' dreams such as Joe DeMaggio and the always helpful Stan Musial, Williams is an icy star. But of all team sports, baseball, with its grateful intermittences of action, its immense and tranquil field sparsely settled with poised men in white, its dispassionate mathematics, seems to me best suited to accommodate, and be ornamented by, a loner. It is an essentially lonely game. No other played visible in my generation has concentrated within himself so much of the sport's poignance, has so assiduously refined his natural skills, has so consistently bought to the plate that intensity of competence that crowds the throat with joy." from Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu by John Updike

This is a pretty much foolproof anthology. Most people know about The New Yorker's rich history of publishing great writing over the decades. The writers are a who's who of American literature. To take some of the best sports stories and put them in a book called "The Only Game in Town" is a natural. David Remnick has done that. The editor of the New Yorker showed his own sports writing chops with a fabulous book on Muhammad Ali, so it's nice that he didn't bother to delegate this assignment of putting together the anthology together. So a book like this is going to be really, really good. But how good? How is the typical sports fan going to enjoy it? That's a little tougher question. When I look at other anthologies, my usual standard is to see what the batting average is for interesting articles. Let's apply that here. There are some absolute, well-known classics here. Roger Angell's story on a college baseball game between St. John's and Yale retains its glory almost 30 years after it was written. John McPhee's profile of college basketball star Bill Bradley, "A Sense of Where You Are," fascinates to this day. And anyone could have guessed that John Updike's tale of Ted Williams' last game, "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu," would be in here. The best parts here might be the lesser known stories that therefore rank as surprises. Adam Gopnik has a terrific story on coaching kids' football, even if that hardly does the rich subject matter justice. Who expected an art history lesson in such a story, not to mention a touching personal tale? It might be my favorite story in the book, at least of those I hadn't read elsewhere. Charles Sprawson opens up obscure areas of sport with his story on long distance swimming, Arctic version. Nancy Franklin rekindled my interest on a pastime of my youth, ping-pong; she made me want to grab my racket out of the basement. There are some good profiles here too. One on Tiger Woods almost is more revealing now than it was then, considering what's happened to Mr. Woods in the decade since it was written. A quote from father Earl is particularly haunting now: "Tiger was not created to be a golfer. Tiger was made to be a good person." Whoops. Stories about Michael Jordan, Yao Ming and Lance Armstrong are well done as well. This being The New Yorker, there have to be some odd subjects. That's certainly the case here. My reaction to those stories were more mixed. Martin Ames has a short, pointed essay about "tennis personalities" that works well. Nick Paumgarten sucked me in on extreme skiing, Calvin Trillin taught me about the world of snowmobiling. But there were other stories whose charms proved easier to resist. Alec Wilkinson's look at "parkour" seemed a bit out of place. Herbert Warren Wind, one of the best golf writers ever, takes a tour of Irish golf courses that seems a little too highbrow for some. Can't say I made through John Cheever's essay on baseball or Don DeLillo's story on football strategy or Alva Johnston's story on a boxing promoter from a century ago. Oh, right, the cartoons are terrific, as you'd expect. "The Only Game in Town," then, is a lot like the magazine. There's a certain style that comes with the pages. Most sports readers are certainly to enjoy a good portion of this book and make it worthwhile. And for passionate readers of the magazine who also like their fun and games, I have no doubt that this will be read and re-read for years to come.

Wonderful essays about the importance of athletics; very well-written and carefully selected. A classic and a keeper. Any 13-year old will be pleased to grow older with this. The New Yorker does it again!

I bought this book for two of my nephews. The content was so good I wished I had bought one for myself and probably will. I started several of the selections and could hardly put it down. It touches on a variety of the "greats" and will be a book that sports fans will enjoy. The cartoons are fun, too.

Great book for all sports fans. Excellent variety of sports. Passion is found in every story. You will appreciate the depth.

A great collection of sports stories and profiles. The writing is superb if a little 'selected'. Good writing never goes out of style.

We're big New Yorker fams to begin with; this is a great collection with great variety. Highly recommend it-- has a lot of great viewpoints.

If you're a hopeless follower of the classic periodical "The New Yorker" and have a love for sports, this is your book. Contained herein are selected stories from the best sports writing of a classic magazine. This is the type of book that you don't read in order from cover to cover. The selection of stories range from subjects of baseball to bullfighting to ping pong written by such Authors as Roger Angell, John Updike to Ring Lardner and Adam Gopnik. David Remnick selected this compilation of stories and dedicated the book to Roger Angell who is the senior august sports writer for the New Yorker. In fact the very first story is the classic baseball saga entitled "The Web of the Game" written in 1981 by the aforementioned Mr. Angell. This story is an absolute classic of which I've seen nothing written any better on the subject of our national pastime. While this story is my favorite writing in this book, the other selections are eclectic and diverse with great writing. This is a type of book which you don't gulp down from chapter to chapter. It is to be taken as a fine wine. Sipping is allowed to digest these stories of sport which goes far beyond the normal jock type sports writing where the spoils of victory are the only rhyme of reason. These stories go beyond the "jock mentality" of present day Fox sports and immediate Sports Center gratification coming from the studios of ESPN. This is the type of book that you go for an eclectic night's diversion of thoughtful insight into the world of sport as seen from the writer's prospective of that certain time period. The stories are humorous at times. sad at times and always thought provoking. Also as an aside, in true New Yorker tradition, its pages are scattered with its thought provoking cartoons. Great read and fully deserving the 5 Star rating!!

Excellent copy.