All-time favorite piece of sports journalism?

I actually liked his San Diego Chicken one even better. Ted Gianola or whatever his name is gives a million interviews a year, and it's the same schtick, and everbody who writes about him eats it up (including me) and thinks they just got great stuff. Plaschke bulled his way past the act.

 

Mr Down,

On favorite vs best ...

When I mentioned two obscure SI stories from the 70s as favorites, it was wholly personal, a matter of memory of the time, circumstances. I don't even know if they were the best stories in those issues.

I remember a mag piece that was probably awful (Canadian Magazine had George Chuvalo rating the NHL's toughest fighters) but I re-read it dozens of times--great illustration of GC in John Ferguson's corner.

And the Jenkins gamer, well, it is both the story and the game that gives it into favorite status. (In an industry poll Tom Watson at Pebble might rank as DJ's best.)

Bookwise, I forgot to mention the just re-released Instant Replay. Read it up at the cottage as a kid and it was my Grade Nine book report first month back at school. I think it still stands up. So does The City Game by Ax. (The Kid slightly less so.) Again, favorite rather than best.

YHS, etc

 

Somebody mentioned Gary Smith's piece on an Indian reservation earlier in the thread. The story was "Shadow of a Nation," I believe, about Crow Indians in Montana and basketball. It was writtein in 1991 or '92 and it remains my personal favorite of all Smith's great work. I've raved on it before here. Pretty sure it won the National Magazine Award that year.

Enthusiastically second the mention of "The Man. Amen." By Charlie Pierce. Also, Charlie on Magic Johnson, "The Magic Act." Brilliant.

Too many others to mention right here, right now. But I'll cogitate on it and come back.

 

Interesting note, since there are a lot of SI track and field stories I could come up with over the years. But that's mostly because I was such a huge track and field fan growing up. Liquori vs. Ryun in Philadelphia sticks out in my mind, May 1971.

 

Double-D's on the money with the MacGregor Keyshawn story. The lede scene at the US Open is fantastic. Two other SI faves are Nack's Secretariat and Rushin's 40th anniversary story. And we shouldn't forget Tom Wolfe's Junior Johnson piece.

 

What is it about the Jenkins story on Nebraska-Oklahoma that makes some of you cite it as the best gamer ever? It's certainly very good, but I don't read it and think, "Wow. That's incredible. It's hard for me to conceive of a better game story." (Not that it means anything, but I'd take Kram's gamer on The Thrilla in Manila over Jenkins' piece.) Granted, all taste in such matters is subjective, but for those of you who love Jenkins' story, is it the writing that stands out? The reporting? The game itself? Something else? I guess I'd just like to know what I might be missing.

EDIT: Here's Kram's story, if anyone's interested: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/centurys_best/news/1999/05/05/thrilla_manila/

 

The Gary Smith story they turned into the buffoonish movie "Radio" really blew me away when I first read it.

 

I wonder how many sports editors around the country just laughed it off when a writer said, "You know, I bet old Crazy Joe who goes to all the Podunk High games might make a good feature story." Editor: "Crazy Joe?! That guy's a loon. Get that shit out of here!"

There a Radio at every high school in America.

 

Grohl, no harm repeating, but that was cited and linked on Page 1 of the thread by -- me. )

 

I'll second "A Reminder of What We Can Be," SI's sportsmen of the year story on the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team. As an aside, Heinz Kluetmeier's famous shot of the USSR postgame celebration is my favorite photograph of anything, ever:



Others I love. I'm sorry, on some of these, the writers escape me:
"They Shoot Heroes, Don't They?" -- detailing Roger Maris' tumultuous 1961 season
"The Power and the Gory" -- bodybuilder Ted Michalak's nightmare with steroids
"Back Home in Indiana" -- SI article about Hoosier high school basketball from the '80s
"Game 6" -- Gammons' look back at the Buckner game for SI's 1987 baseball preview issue

And a lot of us have mentioned Gammons' gamer from Game 6 in 1975 -- and rightly so -- but Hal McCoy's work from that night was pretty damn good, too.

 

Oops. Please forgive me, SF. Anway, the story's so good, it deserves to be linked to twice.

 

Whenever I'm asked this question, that's the first thing that pops to mind, although as noted, in the daily newspaper deadline writing category, Death of a Racehorse is right there.