The Best American Sports Writing 2014

by Glenn Stout

  By now, they’d cleared out the long white medical tent in the middle of Copley Square across from the Boston Public Library, over whose doors are carved the words FREE TO ALL, as though that was something permanent about the society we create among ourselves. Earlier that day, the runners who were recovering in that tent from the pain they’d voluntarily inflicted upon themselves were told, in a fashion both chilling and swift, to move to the back, and then the people who had been injured were brought in, and the exhausted, the sunstruck, and the dehydrated moved away, shuffling and stumbling in their bright silver blankets, because the medical tent now had a trauma ward and three people were dead. Now, the tent was quiet and, not far down the street, the fireman sagged on the fender of the truck and stared at the bottle of water at his feet.

  I do not know what happens now. I know the event will never be the same. It is marked now, and it will be marked in the future, by what happened on the afternoon of April 15, 2013. Some of it will be locked down. Some of it will be tightened up. I walked back down to the Public Garden again, because Copley Square was growing dark and exhausted as the night began to fall. Back by the stone fountain, a woman in a silver blanket told a Providence TV station that she’d been unable to find a ladies’ room after the race because all the restaurants and hotels had been locked down and she had to come all the way down to Park Square to find facilities that would deign to accommodate her. She was not happy at all, and she was telling greater Providence about it. “And I needed to pee!” she told some undoubtedly astounded Rhode Islanders.

  There was something comfortingly mundane in how truly angry she was. The best example of this came from my friend, Steve Brown, a reporter for WBUR, one of the local Boston NPR stations. Brown swore he heard one person say, “Damn it, this is the first time I ever got DNF’d.” Goddamn runners. I swear, one day, I promise, I’ll laugh about them again. The Marathon will be worth mocking again. But that will not be today. It will not be any time soon. I sat down near the stone fountain, and wished all of us could wash the day away.

  Contributors’ Notes

  Award-winning sportswriter RON BORGES is a columnist for the Boston Herald. Before joining the Herald in 2007, he wrote for the Boston Globe, primarily covering football and boxing.

  FLINDER BOYD is a California native and freelance writer. A former professional basketball player who lived in France, Spain, the United Kingdom, Slovakia, and Greece during a 10-year career, he now resides in New York. He also holds degrees from Dartmouth College and Queen Mary, University of London.

  TIMOTHY BURKE has served as Deadspin’s video/assignment editor since 2011. He previously spent 10 years in higher education teaching communication, rhetoric, and media courses. He lives in St. Petersburg, Florida.

  JACK DICKEY is a writer for Time and Sports Illustrated. He previously wrote for Deadspin. Originally from Guilford, Connecticut, he now lives in New York.

  KATHY DOBIE is a freelance writer who lives in Brooklyn and writes for GQ, Harper’s Magazine, and O Magazine. She is the author of the memoir The Only Girl in the Car.

  IAN FRAZIER is a staff writer for The New Yorker and the author of many books, including Great Plains, On the Rez, The Cursing Mommy’s Book of Days, and Travels in Siberia. A native of Cleveland and a graduate of Harvard, he lives in New Jersey.

  Originally from Northern California, ALICE GREGORY is a writer living in New York. Her work has appeared in publications including the New York Times, GQ, Harper’s Magazine, New York, and newyorker.com.

  AMANDA HESS is a Slate staff writer, a cofounder of Tomorrow magazine, and a contributor to The Book of Jezebel. Her work has appeared in ESPN: The Magazine, Wired, Elle, the Los Angeles Times, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, Pacific Standard, and the Village Voice. She has lived in Wisconsin, Nevada, Washington, Arizona, and California but now resides begrudgingly in Brooklyn.

  PATRICK HRUBY is a writer for Sports on Earth and a contributor to Washingtonian magazine and elsewhere. He has worked for ESPN.com and the Washington Times and taught journalism at Georgetown University. He holds degrees from Georgetown and Northwestern and lives in Washington, DC, with his wife, Saphira. This is his fifth appearance in The Best American Sports Writing.

  CHRIS JONES is a writer-at-large for Esquire and a senior writer for ESPN: The Magazine. He has won two National Magazine Awards for his feature writing and two National Headliner Awards for his columns. This is his fourth appearance in The Best American Sports Writing. He lives in Port Hope, Ontario, with his wife and two boys.

  JAY CASPIAN KANG is the author of the novel The Dead Do Not Improve. His journalism has appeared in the New York Times Magazine and Grantland.com.

  RAFFI KHATCHADOURIAN is a staff writer for The New Yorker. His work has been shortlisted for two National Magazine Awards: one in profile writing, and the other—in conjunction with the magazine’s digital team—for multimedia. In 2008, his feature on the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society was included in The Best American Nonrequired Reading.

  BROOK LARMER is a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and National Geographic and the author of Operation Yao Ming, a tale of China’s global emergence told through the prism of sports. An award-winning foreign correspondent, Larmer covered Mexico and Central America for the Christian Science Monitor and worked for more than a decade at Newsweek as the bureau chief in Buenos Aires, Miami, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. From his current base in Asia, he travels widely on assignment, occasionally indulging his interest in sports stories that illuminate the societies around them. A graduate of Williams College, Larmer lives in Beijing with his wife and two sons.

  JONATHAN MAHLER is a reporter at the New York Times and a longtime contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine. He is the author of the bestselling Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning, The Challenge: How a Maverick Navy Officer and a Young Law Professor Risked Their Careers to Defend the Constitution—and Won, and Death Comes to Happy Valley. He lives in Brooklyn.

  JEREMY MARKOVICH is an Emmy Award–winning producer with WCNC-TV, a columnist at Charlotte magazine, and a contributor to Our State Magazine and SBNation.com. A graduate of Ohio University, he lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, with his wife, Kelsey, their newborn son, Charlie, and their dog, Lucy. His website is www.jeremymarkovich.com.

  BEN MCGRATH has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 2003. He lives in the lower Hudson Valley.

  Floridian freelancer BUCKY MCMAHON is a writer, painter, and sculptor—as well as a tennis enthusiast, barefoot runner, and stand-up paddle surfer. He’s currently at work on a play about William Butler Yeats and the supernatural, while pitching stories about extreme sports, wildlife, the environment, and the arts.

  DAVID MERRILL is a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and former high school wrestler. He lives with his wife and two children in New York City.

  NICK PAUMGARTEN is a staff writer at The New Yorker.

  CHARLES P. PIERCE is a staff writer for Grantland.com and the author of Idiot America. He writes regularly for Esquire, is the lead writer for Esquire.com’s The Politics Blog, and is a frequent guest on National Public Radio. This is his ninth appearance in The Best American Sports Writing.

  MARY PILON is an award-winning sports reporter at the New York Times and author of The Monopolists, a book that chronicles the secret history of the world-famous board game. She previously worked as a staff reporter at the Wall Street Journal, where she wrote about various aspects of economics and the financial crisis. She has worked at Gawker, USA Today, and New York magazine and is an honors graduate of New York University. She made Forbes magazine’s first-ever “30 Under 30” list for media. A native Oregonian and fledgling marathoner, she lives in New York City. Visit her website at marypilon.com and find her on Twitter @marypilon.

  AMANDA RIPLEY is an investigative journalist for Time, The Atlantic, and other magazines. She is the author, most recently, of The Smartest Kids in the World—and How They Got That Way, a New York Times bestse
ller. Her first book, The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes—and Why, was published in 15 countries and turned into a PBS documentary. Before joining Time as a writer in 2000, Ripley covered the DC courts for Washington City Paper and Capitol Hill for Congressional Quarterly. A graduate of Cornell University, she lives in Washington, DC, where she is an Emerson Senior Fellow.

  STEPHEN RODRICK is a contributing editor at Rolling Stone and Men’s Journal. He is also a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine. This is his fifth appearance in The Best American Sports Writing. His book The Magical Stranger, a reported memoir on the death of his pilot father, Commander Peter Rodrick, off the USS Kitty Hawk, was recently released in paperback. He lives in Los Angeles.

  ELI SASLOW is a staff writer for the Washington Post and a contributor to ESPN: The Magazine. He has won a Polk Award for national reporting and been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in feature writing. His first book, Ten Letters: The Stories Americans Tell Their President, was published in 2012. He lives in Takoma Park, Maryland, with his wife and two daughters.

  When he was growing up, CHRISTOPHER SOLOMON cared so little about following organized sports, or running footraces, that his father called his statistics-obsessed older sister “the son I never had.” Today he’s the one who writes frequently about athletes and the outdoors for Runner’s World, the New York Times Magazine and the New York Times Sunday travel section, Outside magazine, and other publications. His writing has also appeared in The Best American Travel Writing. He lives in Seattle, and his writing lives at www.chrissolomon.net. His dad has come around and now claims him.

  PAUL SOLOTAROFF is a contributing editor for Men’s Journal and the author of The Group and The House of Purple Hearts. This is his eighth appearance in The Best American Sports Writing.

  DON VAN NATTA JR. is a senior writer for ESPN: The Magazine and ESPN.com. He joined ESPN in January 2012 after 16 years as a New York Times correspondent based in Washington, London, Miami, and New York. Prior to that, he worked for eight years at the Miami Herald. A member of three Pulitzer Prize–winning teams, Van Natta is the author of First Off the Tee and the coauthor of Her Way, both New York Times bestsellers, and Wonder Girl. He lives in Miami with his wife, Lizette Alvarez, who is a Times correspondent, and their two daughters.

  Notable Sports Writing of 2013

  SELECTED BY GLENN STOUT

  JONATHAN ABRAMS

  The Forgotten Phenom. Grantland.com, September 13

  MITCH ABRAMSON

  Road to Recovery. New York Daily News, February 10

  ERIC ADELSON

  Prison Rodeo. Yahoo.com, May 9

  MICHAEL AGOVINO

  Company Town. Howler, Summer

  JOEL ANDERSON

  Friday Night Lights, Miami Edition. BuzzFeed.com, September 13

  NICOLE AUERBACH

  Remembering Aspiring Sports Journalist a Year After Aurora Shooting. USA Today, July 16

  KENT BABB

  Allen Iverson, NBA Icon, Struggles with Life After Basketball. Washington Post, April 19

  TODD BALF

  The Maniac Next Door. Runner’s World, October

  CHRIS BALLARD

  Lost Soul. SportsIllustrated.com, October 23

  RAFE BARTHOLEMEW

  We Went There. Grantland.com, August 12

  KATIE BENNER

  Where Did the Hockey Millions Go? Fortune, July 1

  GREG BISHOP

  Few Know How to Enter; Fewer Finish. New York Times, March 28

  MARK BOWDEN

  The Silent Treatment. Sports Illustrated, September 2

  JOHN BRANCH

  That’s as Bad as It Gets. New York Times, July 25

  MICHAEL BRICK

  Jingo Unchained. Harper’s Magazine, May

  HOWARD BRYANT

  TV Money Inflates Sports Bubble. ESPN.com, March 13

  BRIN-JONATHAN BUTLER

  Requiem for a Welterweight. SBNation.com, November 20

  LES CARPENTER

  Search for Basketball’s Next Great Seven-Foot Center Leads to India and China. Yahoo Sports, May 8

  ANTHONY CASTROVINCE

  Drews, Olin Families Persevering 20 Years Later. MLB.com, March 21

  DIRK CHATELAIN

  The Disappearance of Small-Town Football. Omaha World-Herald, December 22

  JAMES CHESBRO

  Overtime. Stymie, November

  JASON COLLINS WITH FRANZ LIDZ

  Why NBA Center Jason Collins Is Coming Out Now. Sports Illustrated, May 6

  LAUREN COLLINS

  The Third Man. The New Yorker, September 2

  JORDAN CONN

  A Death in Valdosta. Grantland.com, September 6

  MICHAEL CROLEY

  Ground Down. Paris Review Daily, August 21

  MATT CROSSMAN

  Bobby Allison Still Struggles to Remember. Sporting News, February 18

  BRYAN CURTIS

  Friday Night Tykes. Texas Monthly, January

  SETH DAVIS

  Shades of Blue. Sports Illustrated, November 18

  SARA DEMING

  A World Champion, Punching and Playing Hard. Washington Post, October 3

  JOE DEPAOLO

  The Importance of Being Francesa. SBNation.com, January 8

  TIM ELFRINK

  The Steroid Source. Miami New Times, January 31–February 6

  DAVE ESSINGER

  Hallucinating in Suburbia. Sport Literate, “Body and Mind” issue

  KATE FAGAN

  Owning the Middle. ESPN: The Magazine, May 29

  NATHAN FENNO

  Dying to Win. Washington Times, November 12

  MATTHEW FERRENCE

  The Slashing. Gulf Coast, Summer/Fall

  DAVID FLEMING

  The Marathon of Their Lives. ESPN: The Magazine, October 10

  STEVE FRIEDMAN

  Bret, Unbroken. Runner’s World, June

  SONNY GANADAN

  Va’a, Va’a, Va’a Voom! Hana Hou! October/November

  WILLIAM GIRALDI

  Atlas Flexed. Grantland.com, September 27

  JEFF GOODMAN

  Blindsided. CBSSports.com, January 24

  IAN GORDON

  Inside Major League Baseball’s Dominican Sweatshop System. Mother Jones, March/April

  S. C. GWYNNE

  Who Is Johnny Football? Texas Monthly, September

  ASHLEY HARRELL AND LINDSAY FENDT

  The Legend of Malacrianza. SBNation.com, May 14

  SEAN HOJNACKI

  Skeeing There. The Classical, June 27

  SKIP HOLLANDSWORTH

  Hoop Queens. Texas Monthly, April

  PATRICK HRUBY

  The Sports Cable Bubble. SportsOnEarth.com, July 12

  ROBERT HUBER

  The Real Chase Utley. Philadelphia, April

  BRUCE JENKINS

  World Record Surfer a Prisoner of His Talent. San Francisco Chronicle, December 2

  PAT JORDAN

  The Constant Gardener. SportsOnEarth.com, December 12

  COLIN KEARNS

  Life, Death, and Steelhead. Field & Stream, November

  PAUL KIX

  Breaking Good. ESPN.com, September 26

  THOMAS LAKE

  The Ghost of Speedy Cannon. SportsIllustrated.com, October 8

  TIM LAYDEN

  Out of the Darkness. SportsIllustrated.com, October 30

  ARIEL LEVY

  Trial by Twitter. The New Yorker, August 5

  RICK MAESE

  Guts, Glory, and Goodbye. Washington Post, June 23

  ERIK MALINOWSKI