The Best American Sports Writing 2020 Read online

  Contents

  * * *

  Title Page

  Contents

  Copyright

  Foreword

  Introduction

  BILL PLASCHKE: For People Suffering from Alzheimer’s and Dementia, Baseball Brings Back Fun Memories

  DAVY ROTHBART: The Believer

  ROBERTO JOSÉ ANDRADE FRANCO: As the Border Bled, Juárez Watched the Game It Waited Nine Years For

  KURT STREETER: Which Way, Richmond? Which Way, America?

  BRYAN BURROUGH: Shooting a Tiger

  JOSHUA HAMMER: Chaos at the Top of the World

  NICK PAUMGARTEN: The Symptoms

  AISHWARYA KUMAR: The Grandmaster Diet

  MARK GOZONSKY: Gritty All Day Long

  ELIZABETH WEIL: Did Venus Williams Ever Get Her Due?

  CHLOÉ COOPER JONES: Champion Moves

  STEVE POLITI: He Told a Kid to Slide. Then He Got Sued.

  KEN ROSENTHAL AND EVAN DRELLICH: The Astros Stole Signs Electronically in 2017—Part of a Much Broader Issue for Major League Baseball

  TIM LAYDEN: Disqualified

  KEVIN ARNOVITZ: How NBA Executive Jeff David Stole $13 Million from the Sacramento Kings

  STEVEN LECKART: The Bicycle Thief

  CHRIS BALLARD: Fumbled Recovery

  MAY JEONG: Patriot Act

  MIKE KESSLER AND MARK FAINARU-WADA: 44 Years. 41 Allegations. Now the Past Is Catching Up.

  JOHN GRISWOLD: The Exiled and the Devil’s Sideshow

  KENT BABB: Olympic Cyclist Catlin Was Driven to the End

  AMY RAGSDALE AND PETER STARK: What It’s Like to Die from Heatstroke

  ANDREW KEH: The Champion Who Picked a Date to Die

  EMILY GIAMBALVO: A Second Chance

  ELIZABETH MERRILL: Whatever Happened to Villanova Basketball Star Shelly Pennefather? “So I Made This Deal with God.”

  Contributors’ Notes

  Notable Sports Writing of 2019

  Read More from the Best American Series

  About the Editors

  Connect with HMH

  Copyright © 2020 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company

  Introduction copyright © 2020 by Jackie MacMullan

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  The Best American Series® is a registered trademark of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. The Best American Sports Writing™ is a trademark of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

  No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system without the proper written permission of the copyright owner unless such copying is expressly permitted by federal copyright law. With the exception of nonprofit transcription in Braille, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is not authorized to grant permission for further uses of copyrighted selections reprinted in this book without the permission of their owners. Permission must be obtained from the individual copyright owners as identified herein. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [email protected] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

  hmhbooks.com

  Cover image © Longchalerm Rungruang/Shutterstock

  MacMullan photograph © Maureen Fletcher

  ISSN 1056-8034 (print)  ISSN 2573-4822 (e-book)

  ISBN 978-0-358-19699-0 (print)  ISBN 978-0-358-18183-5 (e-book)

  v1.1020

  “How NBA Executive Jeff David Stole $13 Million from the Sacramento Kings” by Kevin Arnovitz. First published on ESPN.com, November 19, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by ESPN, Inc. Reprinted by permission of ESPN.

  “Olympic Cyclist Catlin Was Driven to the End” by Kent Babb. First published in the Washington Post, July 29, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by the Washington Post. All rights reserved. Used under license.

  Reprinted courtesy of Sports Illustrated: “Fumbled Recovery” by Chris Ballard, October 2, 2019. Copyright © 2020. ABG-SI LLC. All rights reserved.

  “Shooting a Tiger” by Bryan Burrough. First published in Vanity Fair, May 2019. Copyright © 2019 by Bryan Burrough. Reprinted by permission of Bryan Burrough.

  “As the Border Bled, Juárez Watched the Game It Waited Nine Years For” by Roberto José Andrade Franco. First published in Deadspin, August 7, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by G/O Media, Inc. Reprinted by permission of G/O Media, Inc.

  “A Second Chance” by Emily Giambalvo. First published in the Washington Post, September 18, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by the Washington Post. All rights reserved. Used under license.

  “Gritty All Day Long” by Mark Gozonsky. First published in The Sun, November 2019. Copyright © 2019 by Mark Gozonsky. Reprinted by permission of Mark Gozonsky.

  “The Exiled and the Devil’s Sideshow” by John Griswold. First published in The Common Reader, December 13, 2018. Copyright © 2019 by “The Common Reader” Washington University in St. Louis. Reprinted by permission of “The Common Reader” Washington University in St. Louis.

  “Chaos at the Top of the World” by Joshua Hammer. First published in GQ, December 4, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by Joshua Hammer. Reprinted by permission of Joshua Hammer.

  “Patriot Act” by May Jeong. First published in Vanity Fair, October 4, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by May Jeong. Reprinted by permission of The Wylie Agency, LLC.

  “Champion Moves” by Chloé Cooper Jones. First published in Racquet, Issue No. 9, Spring 2019. Copyright © 2019 by Chloé Cooper Jones. Reprinted by permission of Chloé Cooper Jones.

  “The Champion Who Picked a Date to Die” by Andrew Keh. First published in the New York Times, December 5, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by The New York Times Company. All rights reserved. Used under license.

  “44 Years. 41 Allegations. Now the Past Is Catching Up” by Mike Kessler and Mark Fainaru-Wada. First published by ESPN.com, August 1, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by ESPN, Inc. Reprinted by permission of ESPN.

  “The Grandmaster Diet” by Aishwarya Kumar. First published by ESPN.com, September 13, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by ESPN, Inc. Reprinted by permission of ESPN.

  Reprinted courtesy of Sports Illustrated: “Disqualified” by Tim Layden, May 5, 2019. Copyright © 2020. ABG-SI LLC. All rights reserved.

  “The Bicycle Thief” by Steven Leckart. First published in Chicago Magazine in partnership with Epic Magazine, January 29, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by Vox Media, LLC. Reprinted by permission of Vox Media, LLC.

  “Whatever Happened to Villanova Basketball Star Shelly Pennefather? ‘So I Made This Deal with God’” by Elizabeth Merrill. First published on ESPN.com, August 3, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by ESPN, Inc. Reprinted by permission of ESPN.

  “The Symptoms” by Nick Paumgarten. First published in The New Yorker, November 4, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by Nick Paumgarten. Reprinted by permission of Nick Paumgarten.

  “For People Suffering from Alzheimer’s and Dementia, Baseball Brings Back Fun Memories” by Bill Plaschke. First published in the Los Angeles Times, July 27, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by the Los Angeles Times. Used with permission.

  “He Told a Kid to Slide. Then He Got Sued” by Steve Politi. First published in NJ.com, November 12, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by Advance Local Media. Reprinted by permission of Advance Local Media.

  “What It’s Like to Die from Heatstroke” by Amy Ragsdale and Peter Stark. First published in Outside, June 18, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by Amy Ragsdale and Peter Stark. Reprinted by permission of Amy Ragsdale and Peter Stark.

  “The Astros Stole Signs Electronically in 2017—Part of a Much Broader Issue for Major League Baseball” by Ke
n Rosenthal and Evan Drellich. First published in The Athletic, November 12, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich. Reprinted by permission of The Athletic.

  “The Believer” by Davy Rothbart. First published in The California Sunday Magazine, May 14, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by Davy Rothbart. Reprinted by permission of 21 Balloons Productions.

  “Which Way, Richmond? Which Way, America?” by Kurt Streeter. First published in the New York Times, June 21, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by The New York Times Company. All rights reserved. Used under license.

  “Did Venus Williams Ever Get Her Due?” by Elizabeth Weil. First published in the New York Times Magazine, August 25, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by The New York Times Company. All rights reserved. Used under license.

  Foreword

  Don’t expect a eulogy.

  This is the thirtieth and last edition of The Best American Sports Writing, a series that began in 1991 and one that, accidently, commenced one year after the old Best Sports Stories series, which began in 1945, ceased publication. That makes this the seventy-fifth year an annual collection of sports writing has been published in the United States.

  At such a time there is a great temptation, and maybe even an expectation, to provide some kind of grand summing up of the genre over the past three decades, charting the changes I have witnessed and noting the evolution that takes place in any field over time.

  I might do that at some point, but it won’t be here. Not that I don’t have any thoughts about what has been taking place over the last three decades—I do—but right now this isn’t about what I think, as I’ve never considered this book in any sense “mine.” I’ve only thought of myself as the custodian of something that rightly belongs more to the readers of this book and, in particular, to the writers whose work has appeared in these pages. It is their effort and creativity that sustained this series and inspired a generation of writers and readers.

  It has been an honor to serve as your caretaker. And I mean that. My role, from the start, has been to facilitate the process under standard Best American title guidelines and ensure that everyone—readers and writers—always felt welcome to submit material while surveying on my own as much other work as I could. In a business that is not always fair, I did my best to keep the process equitable and free of favoritism. After that, I tried to stay out of the way and allow the guest editors the latitude to make their own decisions according to their own standards and taste.

  More than anything, I’m simply thankful to have been given both the opportunity and the responsibility. It’s (mostly) been fun, or at least as much fun as living with a mountain of reading material chronically stacked in a corner or flooding My Pocket can be. And even on the occasions when the work has felt burdensome, there has always been the unexpected thrill of encountering a story that was an utter revelation. Apart from the entertainment this series provided over the years, I feel fortunate that it promoted some remarkable work from amazingly creative, resilient, and committed writers and reporters, and that it helped some of them get jobs, keep jobs, earn assignments, and, most important, share their writing with others. The ability of words to reach out is not finite and never ends.

  When people learned that The Best American Sports Writing was coming to an end, it was gratifying to discover that this series has meant so much to so many. Knowing it mattered to you made it matter to me. Reader after reader and writer after writer sent me photos of their collection of the series. I appreciate that so many cared enough not only to buy the book year after year after year but to share it with others, save every volume, and return to read them again and again, just as I once did with the old Best Sports Stories series.

  Before I thank all the writers who have shared these pages, there are a few others I must mention. Siobhan and Saorla have shared me with this book almost from the beginning. Every writer knows that a project extracts a cost from those who share your life; this isn’t a nine-to-five job, and we are not always as present as we should be. I have no word for their love, patience, and understanding. Nor are there adequate words to express my gratitude to the many friends who shared beers and coffee and hours of conversation about writing, who gave counsel and criticism in equal measure. Some are writers and some are not, but at various times and in various ways you kept me moving forward on this project. Thanks in particular go to Howard Bryant, Richard Johnson, John Dorsey, Scott Bortzfield, Brin-Jonathan Butler, Kim Cross, Alex Belth, and everyone else who rewarded my faith in words.

  I also thank the editors at Houghton Mifflin and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt I have worked with over the years: Steven Lewers—who first took a chance on this wild-haired librarian and freelancer—Alan Andres, Margie Patterson Cochran, Eamon Dolan, and Olivia Bartz. No one was more important to both The Best American Sports Writing and my career than Susan Canavan, who supported this series and placed her trust in me for most of the last two decades, not only for this book but for many others. My thanks go out as well to the countless editorial assistants, copy editors, and everyone else at HMH who have supported the series.

  Beginning with the late David Halberstam, who, as the first guest editor, set the standard, my thanks go out as well to all the guest editors with whom I have worked, a list that includes some of the most prominent names in writing and journalism: Thomas McGuane, the late Frank Deford, Thomas Boswell, the late Dan Jenkins, John Feinstein, the late George Plimpton, Bill Littlefield (who supported this series for so many years on his National Public Radio program Only a Game), Richard Ford, the late Dick Schaap, the late Bud Collins, Rick Reilly, Buzz Bissinger, the late Richard Ben Cramer, Mike Lupica, Michael Lewis, David Maraniss, the late William Nack, Leigh Montville, Peter Gammons, Jane Leavy, Michael Wilbon, J. R. Moehringer, Christopher McDougall, Wright Thompson (who, by a score of 13–12, was just edged out in total appearances by the esteemed Gary Smith, but since Wright also served as guest editor and wrote an introduction, I consider it a tie), Rick Telander (unfailingly generous, Rick once, while visiting, came to see me play with an Irish band and drink Guinness), Howard Bryant (whose frequent conversations and friendship are invaluable), Jeff Pearlman, Charles P. Pierce, and Jackie MacMullan. This book could not have been what it has been without every one of them. And to the thousands of writers acknowledged in the “Notables” over the years, I wish there had been more room up front.

  I remember long ago, when I was young and dreamed of being a writer, I’d see the stretch of Best Sports Stories lining the shelves of my local library and feel overwhelmed. Now, in the old secretary cabinet where I store my book titles, the span of The Best American Sports Writing, including this edition, reaches a full three feet.

  I initially intended to include a comprehensive index to the series in this edition, but space apparently precludes that. Instead, since any impact this series has had belongs to the contributors, after thirty years I’ll end simply by acknowledging each of the more than 400 writers of the nearly 750 stories that have appeared here.

  I hope I didn’t miss anyone. It’s quite a list and includes everyone from writers who have won Pulitzers and National Magazine Awards and National Book Awards and all sorts of other honors to inexperienced writers fresh out of the box who punched up.

  Between the covers of this book you all belonged. It’s been a pleasure to share the pages.

  * * *

  Alan Abel, J. A. Adande, Michael Agovino, Mitch Albom, David Aldridge, Marti Amis, Dave Anderson, Joel Anderson, Lars Anderson, Peter Andrews, Roger Angell, and Kevin Arnovitz.

  Kent Babb, Katie Baker, Chris Ballard, Michael Bamberger, Bruce Barcott, Dan Barry, Dave Barry, Christopher Beam, Barry Bearak, Pam Belluck, Alex Belth, Ira Berkow, Jane Bernstein, Mike Bianchi, Burkhard Bilger, Jon Billman, Furman Bisher, Buzz Bissinger, Roy Blount Jr., Will Blythe, Jake Bogoch, Sam Borden, Ron Borges, Tom Boswell, Flinder Boyd, John Ed Bradley, Rick Bragg, John Branch, John Brant, Yoni Brenner, Jennifer Briggs, Chip Brown, James Brown, Larry Brown, Tim Brown, William Browning, Howa
rd Bryant, Susy Buchanan, Bill Buford, Amby Burfoot, Timothy Burke, Bryan Burrough, Bruce Buschel, and Steery Butcher.

  Matt Calkins, Tom Callahan, Gary Cartwright, Oscar Casares, Greg Child, Megan Chuchmach, Rene Chun, Tom Clynes, Richard Cohen, John Colapinto, Robert Cole, Steve Coll, Gene Collier, Bud Collins, Jeremy Collins, Pamela Colloff, Kevin Conley, Frank Conroy, Mark Coomes, Chloé Cooper Jones, Jeff Coplon, Sara Corbett, Greg Couch, Lynne Cox, Daniel Coyle, Tommy Craggs, Virginia Otley Craighill, Richard Ben Cramer, Kim Cross, Paulo Cullum, Bryan Curtis, and Luke Cyphers.

  Beth Davies-Stofka, David Davis, Frank Deford, Peter DeJonge, David DiBenedetto, Jack Dickey, Michael Dileo, Heather Dinich, Michael Disend, David Dobbs, Kathy Dobie, George Dohrmann, J. D. Dolan, Bill Donahue, Neil Donnelly, Larry Dorman, Geoffrey Douglas, Robert Draper, Evan Drellich, Todd Drew, Stephen J. Dubner, David James Duncan, Jeff Duncan, and Timothy Dwyer.

  Mat Edelson, Scott Eden, Gretel Ehrlich, Tim Elfrink, and James Ellroy.

  Jason Fagone, Steve Fainaru, Mark Fainaru-Wada, Michael Farber, Tom Farrey, Bruce Feldman, Nathan Fenno, Dave Ferrell, Bill Fields, Ron Fimrite, David Finkel, Michael Finkel, Robin Finn, William Finnegan, David Fleming, Sean Flynn, Bonnie D. Ford, Richard Ford, Pat Forde, Reid Forgrave, Roberto José Andrade Franco, Ian Frazier, Steve Friedman, Tad Friend, Tom Friend, and Ken Fuson.

  Peter Gammons, Greg Garber, Emily Giambalvo, Elizabeth Gilbert, William Gildea, Bill Gifford, Malcolm Gladwell, John M. Glionna, Allison Glock, Michael Goodman, Adam Gopnik, Cynthia Gorney, Mark Gozonsky, Tim Graham, David Grann, Karl Taro Greenfeld, Vahe Gregorian, Alice Gregory, John Griswold, and Mike Guy.

  David Halberstam, Michael Hall, Joshua Hammer, Travis Haney, Greg Hanlon, Jim Harrison, Nancy Hass, Nick Heil, Tony Hendra, Amanda Hess, Peter Hessler, John Hewitt, James Hibberd, John Hildebrand, Richard Hoffer, Bob Hohler, Skip Hollandsworth, Johnette Howard, Kerry Howley, Patrick Hruby, Robert Huber, Steve Hummer, and Dave Hyde.

  Jeff Jackson, Dan Jenkins, Lee Jenkins, Sally Jenkins, Chantel Jennings, May Jeong, Cory Johnson, Bret Anthony Johnston, Bomani Jones, Chris Jones, Robert F. Jones, Ben Joravsky, Pat Jordan, Ron C. Judd, and Tom Junod.