The Best American Sports Writing

• 12th Feb 2007 at 15:58:40 GMT by Liam Doyle
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Further reflections on John Amaechi's announcement and the celebration of The Best American Sports Writing Series.

In sports, sexual inclination seems to be taking the place once occupied by race: Jackie Robinson is now gay

Not, as you may think, a hastily written piece following on from the debate about Amaechi's book. These words were written by Michael Lewis in the foreward to The Best American Sports Writing 2006 which was released in October 2006.

Lewis goes on to write

This collection includes two stories about homosexual coaches and players, another about a boxer who killed an opponent in the ring after the opponent called him "queer", and a fourth about a pitcher for the Cincinnati Reds whose chief distinction, apart from his 94-mile-per-hour fastball, is that he was raised by lesbians. All achieve a poignancy that they might not have if they were set in an arena outside of sports...

I've been dipping in and out of this book for a couple of weeks now and was unaware of these articles until I happened upon them. They're given added poignancy by the debate that's currently taking place in the aftermath of Amaechi's announcement but depressingly, reveal that this problem is not new (the article on Emile Griffith refers to a fight in 1962), that it's not confined to the sexuality of the player (it's Joe Valentine's mothers who are gay) and it's not confined to professional sport (Merry Stephens was coach of a high school team in Texas).

It's not necessarily adding much to the debate but it does show how engrained feelings are and demonstrates that it's going to be a slow process before any real change takes place.

I bring this to your attention partly to highlight the continued issue of homosexuality in sport with but also to celebrate the continued excellence of the Best Sports Writing Series.

It's a very simple idea - bring together the best bits of sports writing from the previous year and put them together in a book - but it works and continues to work because of the quality of the writing. It helps of course, that the articles are "reflections on" rather than "reports of". They're not concerned with just telling you who won last night's game but rather are the stories behind the stories and consequently have more depth and a more substantial feel to them.

Getting audiences to buy into general collections like this is notoriously difficult and the few efforts that have been released in the UK, such as The Picador Book of Sportswriting and Simon Kuper's Perfect Pitch (albeit that it managed 4 volumes) are both good examples of the difficulty. Indeed Kuper in his interview with The Global Game specifically said of the Perfect Pitch series

It didn't sell enough, so it had to stop.

So we should celebrate a series that's been strong enough to support publication since 1991. It's perhaps a shame that the submission guidelines restrict entries to articles that have been published in the States or Canada, although with the exception of Hugh McIlvanney who continues to delight, I'm not sure how many of the UK's numerous sports journalists would find their work on the shortlist.

In addition to the articles already referred to, there's a delightful tale of a homeless man playing softball and a fascinating and inspiring tale of a wrestler who competes despite his disabilities. However it's almost disrespectful to highlight only a few of the articles. Take a punt with almost any of them and you should enjoy.