The acclaimed author of A False Spring profiles athletes famous and obscure in this captivating and incisive anthology
Once a young pitching prospect with the Milwaukee Braves, Pat Jordan went on to become one of America’s most revered sports journalists, writing for Sports Illustrated, Esquire, the New York Times Magazine, and a host of other major league publications. The Best Sports Writing of Pat Jordan showcases his finest journalism, with twenty-six extraordinary articles covering virtually the entire range of professional sports in America—from baseball, football, and basketball to boxing, tennis, and Formula One racing.
Jordan offers indelible portraits of some of the most legendary sports figures of our time, exposing the imperfections often obscured by the bright lights of fame. He explores the miracle of the Williams sisters and their brash, charismatic father, Richard, and turns his unflinching gaze on such controversial sports personalities as Roger Clemens and O. J. Simpson.
Other highlights include a poignant account of Duke basketball legend Bobby Hurley’s rehabilitation after a devastating car accident, a profile of transsexual tennis star Renée Richards, and fascinating side-trips to the Professional Poker Tour, the child beauty pageant circuit, and a depressed, blue collar town in Pennsylvania where high school football offers the only solace.
Pat Jordan is a celebrated sportswriter and novelist whose work has appeared in the Atlantic, GQ, Harper’s, the New Yorker, Playboy, and the New York Times Magazine, among many other publications. A top high school pitching prospect, he spent three years with the Milwaukee Braves organization before leaving professional baseball to pursue a writing career. Time magazine praised A False Spring, a memoir about his time in the minor leagues, as “one of the best and truest books about baseball and about coming to maturity in America,” and Sports Illustrated named it one of the Top 100 Sports Books of All Time. In the follow-up, A Nice Tuesday, Jordan chronicles his unlikely return to the mound at the age of fifty-six. His numerous other books include the sports anthologies The Suitors of Spring, Broken Patterns, and The Best Sports Writing of Pat Jordan, and the crime novels a.k.a. Sheila Doyle and a.k.a. Sheila Weinstein.