Journalism

The Crowd Sounds Happy: A Story of Love, Madness, and Baseball

From the author of the best-selling The Catcher Was a Spy, his most original work yet: a memoir of two cities (New Haven and New York), a family (troubled), a time (the 1970s), a boy who never quite fits in anywhere--and how baseball helps him find his place in America.

The Crowd Sounds Happy is the story of a spirited boy's coming-of-age in a doomed hometown, with a missing father, a single mother, and the professional ballplayers who gradually become the men in his life as he listens to them every night on the bedside radio. This is a childhood shaped by remarkable characters, foremost Nicholas Dawidoff's mother, a stoical, overwhelmed, enterprising woman committed to securing a more promising future for her children. It also tells, with the same arresting candor of Dawidoff's celebrated New Yorker magazine memoir of his father, what it's like to grow up with a disturbed, dangerous parent. Here are the events and places that come to define a young boy's outlook: a local playground, a kidnapping and a murder, rock 'n' roll, the steamy awkwardness of adolescence and first love, and the private world of baseball--the inner game as it has never been described before.

The Crowd Sounds Happy is a beautifully written, moving piece of personal history that transforms ordinary moments into literature.

Everything They Had: Sports Writing from David Halberstam

"Sometimes sports mirrors society, sometimes it allows us to understand the larger society a little better. But mostly, it is a world of entertainment of talented and driven young men and women who do certain things with both skill and passion."
--David Halberstam

David Halberstam was a distinguished journalist and historian of American politics. He was also a sports writer. Everything They Had brings together for the first time his articles from newspapers and magazines, a wide-ranging collection edited by Glenn Stout, selected over the full scope of Halberstam's five decades as one of America's most honored journalists. These are dazzling portraits of some of the most compelling sports figures of our era, the superstars of popular sports like basketball, football, and baseball, but also fishing, soccer, and rowing, and the amateur athletes who play for the love of the game.

In "My Dinner with Theodore," Halberstam recounts his long anticipated--and unforgettable--meeting with Red Sox legend Ted Williams. Against the backdrop of 1960s Nashville, he beautifully recounts a lifelong love of football in "How I Fell in Love with the NFL." And "Men Without Women," set on a fishing expedition in Patagonia, is more than a hunt for giant brown trout--it is a story of fishing, friendship, and fellowship. These and many more stories exemplify the breadth and depth of David Halberstam's devotion to diverse sports and his respect and fascination for the men and women who play them so well.

The result is an intimate and personal collection that reveals the issues and the ideals David Halberstam cared about--racial equality, friendship, loyalty, and character--and creates a vivid and unforgettable portrait of the author himself. Everything They Had takes its rightful place alongside Halberstam's bestselling sports titles, which include The Breaks of the Game, The Amateurs, Summer of '49, and The Education of a Coach.

Associated Press Guide to Photojournalism (Associated Press Handbooks)

Written by noted AP photographer and photoeditor Brian Horton, this is an insider’s manual to one of the most glamorous and exciting media professions. Emphasizing the creative process behind the photojournalist’s art, Brian Horton draws upon his three decades of experience, as well as the experiences of other award-winning photojournalists, to instruct readers in the secrets of snapping memorable news photos every time. With the help of more than 100 photographs from the AP archives, he analyzes what constitutes successful news photos of every type, including portraits, tableaux, sports shots, battlefield scenes, and more, as well as offering tips on how to develop a style of your own.

Sports Illustrated: Hate Mail from Cheerleaders and Other Adventures from the Life of Reilly

The Life of Reilly: The Best of Sports Illustrated's Rick Reilly

Witty, irreverent, opinionated, honest, laugh-out-loud funny. These are just a few of the adjectives that have been used to describe the writing of Rick Reilly, the eleven-time National Sportswriter of the Year, who has entertained the readers of Sports Illustrated for 22 years with his unique perspective on the world of sports and life in general. Now, in The Life of Reilly, Rick has selected over 60 of his finest stories to create a collection that will amuse, inform, and provoke sports fans and non-fans alike.

The book is organized around Reilly's seven Rs: Rants, Raves, Reality, Roots, Rough, Wrecks, and Royalty. There are features on sports greats, rants against high-profile athletic programs, tales of golfing glory in and out of the spotlight, reflections on enduring values and the true meaning of sacrifice, and personal stories about the Reilly family trials and tribulations and much more!

Those of you who know Reilly's work will be pleased to revisit the master; those who don't will be thrilled to discover an extraordinary talent. This book was a New York Times bestseller in hardcover.

God Save the Fan: How Preening Sportscasters, Athletes Who Speak in the Third Person, and the Occasional Convicted Quarterback Have Taken the Fun Out of Sports (And How We Can Get It Back)

ESPN thinks its viewers are stupid. The Olympics claw at your inner sap. Barbaro, after all, was just a horse. So says Will Leitch, founding editor of Deadspin.com, whose God Save the Fan is your new manifesto.

Arch and unrepentant, Leitch is the mouthpiece for all the frustrated fans who just want their games back from big money, bloated egos, and blathering sportscasters. Always a fan first and a journalist second, Leitch considers the perfection of fantasy leagues, the meaninglessness of the steroids debate, and the aching permanence of loyalty to just one team. He'll tell you why, long before that dogfighting mess, Michael Vick's undercover STD clinic name was Ron Mexico; why athletes persist in publicly praising God; and what the beer companies really think about you. Share Leitch's dread as he spends twenty—four hours watching ESPN. Sit and have a beer with John Rocker and his surprising girlfriend. Be inspired by Rick Ankiel's phoenixlike rise, and fall.

With a voice strengthened by the success of Deadspin and its chorus of commenters, Leitch has written all—new material for God Save the Fan. If you or a fan you love is suffering from the sense of listless dissatisfaction brought on by the leagues and networks, this is your restorative tonic. Packed with lists, glossaries, confessions, and rages, Leitch's manifesto sings a rallying cry for fan empowerment. The games, after all, belong to us.

Sports Illustrated: Hate Mail from Cheerleaders and Other Adventures from the Life of Rick Reilly (Sports Illustrated)

Soon after best-selling author Rick Reilly started writing a weekly back-page column for Sports Illustrated, he tackled the subject of cheerleading. Reilly wrote: "I don't hate cheerleading just because it's as safe as porcupine juggling. I hate it because it's dumb. Cheerleaders have no more impact on the game than the night janitorial staff. Exactly what does a girl get out of cheerleading, anyway, besides a circle skirt and a tight sweater?" These sentiments didn't exactly endear him to the pom-pom set, who went after the 11-time National Sportswriter of the Year with a vicious letter-writing campaign. That's the story behind the title of Reilly's latest collection of columns, Hate Mail from Cheerleaders, now releasing as a paperback. Having handpicked 100 of his favorite pieces from the last seven years, Reilly revisits his subjects by adding postscripts to his work. It's obvious why the book's first release as a hardcover in the spring of 2007 reached the New York Times bestseller list for eight consecutive weeks: this collection brings together the best work by the best columnist in the business.

Why My Wife Thinks I'm an Idiot: The Life and Times of a Sportscaster Dad

Meet Mike Greenberg, the popular host of ESPN Radio’s Mike and Mike in the Morning, the highest-rated drive-time sports talk show on the dial. To his three-million-plus listeners, Greeny is the guy who’s equally as comfortable dissecting zone defenses as he is discussing cashmere sweaters. He’s been to Super Bowls and World Series, All-Star Games and Final Fours. He’s interviewed Michael Jordan, Joe Montana, and Wayne Gretzky. He gets paid to enthuse about sports, which means he’s the envy of most men in America.
This is the hilarious, sometimes touching, and endlessly entertaining debut of one of America’s fastest-rising sportscasters, a wry and revealing look at one man’s good-hearted but mistake-prone attempt to grow up before his children do. Marriage, fatherhood, manhood, fame, athletes, crazed aunts with gambling problems, the true significance of sports, the worst possible thing to say in a room full of pregnant women–no topic is beyond his reach. But don’t take our word on it, read what Greeny has to say about:
• Dating: “People who reminisce fondly about dating are blocking out all the disasters and focusing only on the few great nights. If that is all you choose to remember, fine. But be aware that no experience is without good moments. I’m sure during the sacking of Rome there were a few decent nights; maybe they put on a play.”
• Life on the road:
“Wife + television = no sleep.”
“No wife + no television = no sleep.”
“Wife + no television = sleep.”
“No wife + television = porn.”
• Keeping things in perspective: “Never assume you know more than the guy in the camouflage tux.”
• And, of course, marriage: “All of us are married to women who think we’re idiots.”
Whether he’s talking trash on the radio or talking dirty diapers over a fancy dinner, Greeny’s determined to reconcile two halves of a whole. So if your enthusiasm has ever been curbed, or you’re feeling remote without the remote, or you’re just wondering what exactly goes on in a guy’s brain, Why My Wife Thinks I’m an Idiot will be a source of comfort and unadulterated laughter.


From the Hardcover edition.

The Sweet Science

Senior Year: A Father, A Son, and High School Baseball

In Senior Year, Dan Shaughnessy focuses his acclaimed sportswriting talent on his son Sam's senior year of high school, a turning point in any young life and certainly in the relationship between father and son. Sam is a natural hitter who quickly ascended the ranks of youth baseball. Now nicknamed the 3-2 Kid for his astonishing ability to hover between success and failure in everything he does, Sam is finally a senior and it is all on the line: what college to attend; how to keep his grades up and his head down until graduation; and whether his final high school baseball season will end in disappointment or triumph.

All along the way, Dad is there, chronicling that universal experience of putting your child out on the field--and into the world--and hoping for the best. With gleaming insight, wicked humor, and, at times, the searching soul of an unsure father, Shaughnessy illuminates how sports connect generations and how they help us grow up--and let go.