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The Top of His Game: The Best Sportswriting of W. C. Heinz: A Library of America Special Publication
Bill Littlefield (NPR's Only a Game ) presents the second installment in the Library of America series devoted to classic American sportswriters, a defintive collector’s edition of the pathbreaking writer who invented the long-form sports story. Like his friend and admirer Red Smith, W. C. Heinz (1915–2008) was one of the most distinctive and influential sportswriters of the last century. Though he began his career as a newspaper reporter, Heinz soon moved beyond the confines of the daily column, turning freelance and becoming the first sportwriter to make his living writing for magazines. In doing so he effectively invented the long-form sports story, perfecting a style that paved the way for the New Journalism of the 1960s. His profiles of the top athletes of his day still feel remarkably current, written with a freshness of perception, a gift for characterization, and a finely tuned ear for dialogue. Jimmy Breslin named Heinz’s “Brownsville Bum”—a brief life of Al “Bummy” Davis, Brooklyn street tough and onetime welterweight champion of the world—“the greatest magazine sports story I’ve ever read, bar none.” His spare and powerful 1949 column, “Death of a Race Horse,” has been called a literary classic, a work of clarity and precision comparable to Hemingway at his best.
Now, for this essential writer’s centennial, Bill Littlefield, the host of NPR’s Only A Game, presents the essential thirty-eight columns, profiles, and memoirs from the author’s personal archive, including eighteen pieces never collected during his lifetime. Though Heinz’s great passion was boxing—the golden era of Rocky Graziano, Floyd Patterson, and Sugar Ray Robinson—his interests extended to the wide world of sports, with indelible profiles of baseball players (Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio), jockeys (George Woolf, Eddie Arcaro), hockey players, football coaches, scouts and trainers and rodeo riders.
Now, for this essential writer’s centennial, Bill Littlefield, the host of NPR’s Only A Game, presents the essential thirty-eight columns, profiles, and memoirs from the author’s personal archive, including eighteen pieces never collected during his lifetime. Though Heinz’s great passion was boxing—the golden era of Rocky Graziano, Floyd Patterson, and Sugar Ray Robinson—his interests extended to the wide world of sports, with indelible profiles of baseball players (Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio), jockeys (George Woolf, Eddie Arcaro), hockey players, football coaches, scouts and trainers and rodeo riders.
576 pages, Hardcover
First published March 10, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
September 10, 2023
My dad gave me this book when I asked for a beach read which frankly makes no sense on his part but I had a threat time reading some of these essays and learning about the cultures of sports like boxing and horse racing that are not nearly as ubiquitous or popular today. Best stories were Bummy Davis and the Fighter’s Wife, as well as the intro about World War II and sports, and their unlikely connections!
June 11, 2015
A.J. Liebling, the other contender for "greatest sportswriter ever," strikes me as a ham, his prose greasy and piled high, the sportswriter other hammy writers like. Heinz is something altogether more mystical and subdued, and thus more powerful. A beautiful writer. I highly recommend this excellent collection for anyone who loves beautiful writing about people, regardless of whether you like sports.
October 16, 2018
I'd been reading this off and on for awhile because it's tough to read straight through. Heinz was a beat reporter in the 40's and wrote mostly magazine articles about sports (primarily boxing but also baseball, horse racing and others) so it's tough to read straight through without being overwhelmed by his voice.
He has a great voice, though. He was a reporter in WWII so he liked to find connections with guys in "transition" from war-time back to the real world, and a lot of those were thoughtfully done. Heinz has a knack of laying out a scene and dialog to make you feel like you're there, listening in and experiencing what he sees.
I had one major issue, though, about the Pete Reiser article. Reiser is one of the few names I knew and I was interested to look through the box scores of games that Heinz described from Reiser's meteoric career, especially in '41 and '42 when he set the baseball world on fire. Problem was, almost nothing checked out.
Reiser would be hit in the head, have a concussion, make some miraculous recovery and play the next day when he really shouldn't, just to hit a walk-off home run like they do in the movies. Except you check the box scores on baseball-reference, and I couldn't find any of it. And there's too many specifics to just ignore. He says Reiser was hitting .391 in July of '42 and everyone was talking about him hitting .400. Well I checked and he topped out at .361 in July, and that's a far cry from .400. Heinz says he was knocked unconscious in St. Louis as Enos Slaughter went around the bases for an inside the park homer, then Reiser woke up in the hospital, caught a train to Pittsburgh, and miraculously won a game with a big hit. He did play in a game where Slaughter hit the inside-the-parker, but he didn't play in Pittsburgh or do anything of note for awhile after.
Makes you wonder how much sportswriters back then could just make stuff up. Which is a shame. If I can't trust the accounts of the game, I might as well go read Bernard Malamud for some over-the-top baseball fiction.
Overall, though, the rest of the articles were really well done and could be included in any list of literature, sports or otherwise.
He has a great voice, though. He was a reporter in WWII so he liked to find connections with guys in "transition" from war-time back to the real world, and a lot of those were thoughtfully done. Heinz has a knack of laying out a scene and dialog to make you feel like you're there, listening in and experiencing what he sees.
I had one major issue, though, about the Pete Reiser article. Reiser is one of the few names I knew and I was interested to look through the box scores of games that Heinz described from Reiser's meteoric career, especially in '41 and '42 when he set the baseball world on fire. Problem was, almost nothing checked out.
Reiser would be hit in the head, have a concussion, make some miraculous recovery and play the next day when he really shouldn't, just to hit a walk-off home run like they do in the movies. Except you check the box scores on baseball-reference, and I couldn't find any of it. And there's too many specifics to just ignore. He says Reiser was hitting .391 in July of '42 and everyone was talking about him hitting .400. Well I checked and he topped out at .361 in July, and that's a far cry from .400. Heinz says he was knocked unconscious in St. Louis as Enos Slaughter went around the bases for an inside the park homer, then Reiser woke up in the hospital, caught a train to Pittsburgh, and miraculously won a game with a big hit. He did play in a game where Slaughter hit the inside-the-parker, but he didn't play in Pittsburgh or do anything of note for awhile after.
Makes you wonder how much sportswriters back then could just make stuff up. Which is a shame. If I can't trust the accounts of the game, I might as well go read Bernard Malamud for some over-the-top baseball fiction.
Overall, though, the rest of the articles were really well done and could be included in any list of literature, sports or otherwise.
September 27, 2021
A difficult book to rate and I admit my 3 stars may be a bit harsh. You have to admire the writing in this book -- no doubt. The introduction, by the editor, Bill Littlefield the wonderful host of WBUR's Only A Game, compares Heinz's writing with Hemingway; the comparisons are well deserved.
The author, W. C. Heinz, is a painter of vignettes in words. In just 2-3 pages, he manages to capture a sense of the people, place, tension, conversation, and other nuances. The writing and the stories are lyrical. I can imagine that when these word portraits appeared in the daily paper with stories of contemporaneous people, teams, contests and sports events, they must have been compelling. But in the fifty years from then to now they just don't have the environment of the day in that morning paper. I think what is missing from these stories was filled in by the contemporary time -- the background, context and immediate interest that at least for me was just not there, fifty years later. Indeed, the portion I enjoyed most was the introduction by Heinz in which he writes about his experience in WWII writing as a journalist and how he made the transition to writing about sports. It had the length that the vignettes did not and enabled me to appreciate the writing more fully because the story had context.
If you're a big sports fan with a keen interest in sports history and want to appreciate some great writing I'd highly recommend this title.
The author, W. C. Heinz, is a painter of vignettes in words. In just 2-3 pages, he manages to capture a sense of the people, place, tension, conversation, and other nuances. The writing and the stories are lyrical. I can imagine that when these word portraits appeared in the daily paper with stories of contemporaneous people, teams, contests and sports events, they must have been compelling. But in the fifty years from then to now they just don't have the environment of the day in that morning paper. I think what is missing from these stories was filled in by the contemporary time -- the background, context and immediate interest that at least for me was just not there, fifty years later. Indeed, the portion I enjoyed most was the introduction by Heinz in which he writes about his experience in WWII writing as a journalist and how he made the transition to writing about sports. It had the length that the vignettes did not and enabled me to appreciate the writing more fully because the story had context.
If you're a big sports fan with a keen interest in sports history and want to appreciate some great writing I'd highly recommend this title.
May 24, 2019
WC Heinz is in the pantheon of great sportswriters and so it's impossible to finish reading this collection of his features and columns because at the very least you will want to re-read the best of the stories in here - Brownsville Bum or the Rocky Road of Pistol Pete or Death of a Race Horse.
July 12, 2018
Even if you don't consider yourself a sports fan, this is damn good writing and deserves your attention.
June 5, 2016
Heinz excels at placing the reader directly in the story as a participant. There is none of the high-level analysis and opining that colours so much of sports journalism. Heinz thrives on reporting, establishing an atmosphere that places you inside the world as if you're there yourself. It has an immediacy and frankness that brings athletes down to human level. That is the theme of this book: showing the humanity and, frankly, normality of athletes so often worshipped as otherworldly.
The most brilliant talent Heinz has is using dialogue to create a personality. There's very little description of someone's character: Heinz uses people's own words as real substance and you feel as if you've made up you own mind about someone rather than having it conveyed to you through a piece of journalism.
The most brilliant talent Heinz has is using dialogue to create a personality. There's very little description of someone's character: Heinz uses people's own words as real substance and you feel as if you've made up you own mind about someone rather than having it conveyed to you through a piece of journalism.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews