Copyright © 2020 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company

Introduction copyright © 2020 by Jackie MacMullan

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ISSN 1056-8034 (print) ISSN 2573-4822 (e-book)

ISBN 978-0-358-19699-0 (print) ISBN 978-0-358-18183-5 (e-book)

v1.1020

How NBA Executive Jeff David Stole $13 Million from the Sacramento Kings by Kevin Arnovitz. First published on ESPN.com, November 19, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by ESPN, Inc. Reprinted by permission of ESPN.

Olympic Cyclist Catlin Was Driven to the End by Kent Babb. First published in the Washington Post, July 29, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by the Washington Post. All rights reserved. Used under license.

Reprinted courtesy of Sports Illustrated: Fumbled Recovery by Chris Ballard, October 2, 2019. Copyright © 2020. ABG-SI LLC. All rights reserved.

Shooting a Tiger by Bryan Burrough. First published in Vanity Fair, May 2019. Copyright © 2019 by Bryan Burrough. Reprinted by permission of Bryan Burrough.

As the Border Bled, Juárez Watched the Game It Waited Nine Years For by Roberto José Andrade Franco. First published in Deadspin, August 7, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by G/O Media, Inc. Reprinted by permission of G/O Media, Inc.

A Second Chance by Emily Giambalvo. First published in the Washington Post, September 18, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by the Washington Post. All rights reserved. Used under license.

Gritty All Day Long by Mark Gozonsky. First published in The Sun, November 2019. Copyright © 2019 by Mark Gozonsky. Reprinted by permission of Mark Gozonsky.

The Exiled and the Devil’s Sideshow by John Griswold. First published in The Common Reader, December 13, 2018. Copyright © 2019 by The Common Reader Washington University in St. Louis. Reprinted by permission of The Common Reader Washington University in St. Louis.

Chaos at the Top of the World by Joshua Hammer. First published in GQ, December 4, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by Joshua Hammer. Reprinted by permission of Joshua Hammer.

Patriot Act by May Jeong. First published in Vanity Fair, October 4, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by May Jeong. Reprinted by permission of The Wylie Agency, LLC.

Champion Moves by Chloé Cooper Jones. First published in Racquet, Issue No. 9, Spring 2019. Copyright © 2019 by Chloé Cooper Jones. Reprinted by permission of Chloé Cooper Jones.

The Champion Who Picked a Date to Die by Andrew Keh. First published in the New York Times, December 5, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by The New York Times Company. All rights reserved. Used under license.

44 Years. 41 Allegations. Now the Past Is Catching Up by Mike Kessler and Mark Fainaru-Wada. First published by ESPN.com, August 1, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by ESPN, Inc. Reprinted by permission of ESPN.

The Grandmaster Diet by Aishwarya Kumar. First published by ESPN.com, September 13, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by ESPN, Inc. Reprinted by permission of ESPN.

Reprinted courtesy of Sports Illustrated: Disqualified by Tim Layden, May 5, 2019. Copyright © 2020. ABG-SI LLC. All rights reserved.

The Bicycle Thief by Steven Leckart. First published in Chicago Magazine in partnership with Epic Magazine, January 29, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by Vox Media, LLC. Reprinted by permission of Vox Media, LLC.

Whatever Happened to Villanova Basketball Star Shelly Pennefather? ‘So I Made This Deal with God’ by Elizabeth Merrill. First published on ESPN.com, August 3, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by ESPN, Inc. Reprinted by permission of ESPN.

The Symptoms by Nick Paumgarten. First published in The New Yorker, November 4, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by Nick Paumgarten. Reprinted by permission of Nick Paumgarten.

For People Suffering from Alzheimer’s and Dementia, Baseball Brings Back Fun Memories by Bill Plaschke. First published in the Los Angeles Times, July 27, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by the Los Angeles Times. Used with permission.

He Told a Kid to Slide. Then He Got Sued by Steve Politi. First published in NJ.com, November 12, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by Advance Local Media. Reprinted by permission of Advance Local Media.

What It’s Like to Die from Heatstroke by Amy Ragsdale and Peter Stark. First published in Outside, June 18, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by Amy Ragsdale and Peter Stark. Reprinted by permission of Amy Ragsdale and Peter Stark.

The Astros Stole Signs Electronically in 2017—Part of a Much Broader Issue for Major League Baseball by Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich. First published in The Athletic, November 12, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich. Reprinted by permission of The Athletic.

The Believer by Davy Rothbart. First published in The California Sunday Magazine, May 14, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by Davy Rothbart. Reprinted by permission of 21 Balloons Productions.

Which Way, Richmond? Which Way, America? by Kurt Streeter. First published in the New York Times, June 21, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by The New York Times Company. All rights reserved. Used under license.

Did Venus Williams Ever Get Her Due? by Elizabeth Weil. First published in the New York Times Magazine, August 25, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by The New York Times Company. All rights reserved. Used under license.

Foreword

Don’t expect a eulogy.

This is the thirtieth and last edition of The Best American Sports Writing, a series that began in 1991 and one that, accidently, commenced one year after the old Best Sports Stories series, which began in 1945, ceased publication. That makes this the seventy-fifth year an annual collection of sports writing has been published in the United States.

At such a time there is a great temptation, and maybe even an expectation, to provide some kind of grand summing up of the genre over the past three decades, charting the changes I have witnessed and noting the evolution that takes place in any field over time.

I might do that at some point, but it won’t be here. Not that I don’t have any thoughts about what has been taking place over the last three decades—I do—but right now this isn’t about what I think, as I’ve never considered this book in any sense mine. I’ve only thought of myself as the custodian of something that rightly belongs more to the readers of this book and, in particular, to the writers whose work has appeared in these pages. It is their effort and creativity that sustained this series and inspired a generation of writers and readers.

It has been an honor to serve as your caretaker. And I mean that. My role, from the start, has been to facilitate the process under standard Best American title guidelines and ensure that everyone—readers and writers—always felt welcome to submit material while surveying on my own as much other work as I could. In a business that is not always fair, I did my best to keep the process equitable and free of favoritism. After that, I tried to stay out of the way and allow the guest editors the latitude to make their own decisions according to their own standards and taste.

More than anything, I’m simply thankful to have been given both the opportunity and the responsibility. It’s (mostly) been fun, or at least as much fun as living with a mountain of reading material chronically stacked in a corner or flooding My Pocket can be. And even on the occasions when the work has felt burdensome, there has always been the unexpected thrill of encountering a story that was an utter revelation. Apart from the entertainment this series provided over the years, I feel fortunate that it promoted some remarkable work from amazingly creative, resilient, and committed writers and reporters, and that it helped some of them get jobs, keep jobs, earn assignments, and, most important, share their writing with others. The ability of words to reach out is not finite and never ends.

When people learned that The Best American Sports Writing was coming to an end, it was gratifying to discover that this series has meant so much to so many. Knowing it mattered to you made it matter to me. Reader after reader and writer after writer sent me photos of their collection of the series. I appreciate that so many cared enough not only to buy the book year after year after year but to share it with others, save every volume, and return to read them again and again, just as I once did with the old Best Sports Stories series.

Before I thank all the writers who have shared these pages, there are a few others I must mention. Siobhan and Saorla have shared me with this book almost from the beginning. Every writer knows that a project extracts a cost from those who share your life; this isn’t a nine-to-five job, and we are not always as present as we should be. I have no word for their love, patience, and understanding. Nor are there adequate words to express my gratitude to the many friends who shared beers and coffee and hours of conversation about writing, who gave counsel and criticism in equal measure. Some are writers and some are not, but at various times and in various ways you kept me moving forward on this project. Thanks in particular go to Howard Bryant, Richard Johnson, John Dorsey, Scott Bortzfield, Brin-Jonathan Butler, Kim Cross, Alex Belth, and everyone else who rewarded my faith in words.

I also thank the editors at Houghton Mifflin and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt I have worked with over the years: Steven Lewers—who first took a chance on this wild-haired librarian and freelancer—Alan Andres, Margie Patterson Cochran, Eamon Dolan, and Olivia Bartz. No one was more important to both The Best American Sports Writing and my career than Susan Canavan, who supported this series and placed her trust in me for most of the last two decades, not only for this book but for many others. My thanks go out as well to the countless editorial assistants, copy editors, and everyone else at HMH who have supported the series.

Beginning with the late David Halberstam, who, as the first guest editor, set the standard, my thanks go out as well to all the guest editors with whom I have worked, a list that includes some of the most prominent names in writing and journalism: Thomas McGuane, the late Frank Deford, Thomas Boswell, the late Dan Jenkins, John Feinstein, the late George Plimpton, Bill Littlefield (who supported this series for so many years on his National Public Radio program Only a Game), Richard Ford, the late Dick Schaap, the late Bud Collins, Rick Reilly, Buzz Bissinger, the late Richard Ben Cramer, Mike Lupica, Michael Lewis, David Maraniss, the late William Nack, Leigh Montville, Peter Gammons, Jane Leavy, Michael Wilbon, J. R. Moehringer, Christopher McDougall, Wright Thompson (who, by a score of 13–12, was just edged out in total appearances by the esteemed Gary Smith, but since Wright also served as guest editor and wrote an introduction, I consider it a tie), Rick Telander (unfailingly generous, Rick once, while visiting, came to see me play with an Irish band and drink Guinness), Howard Bryant (whose frequent conversations and friendship are invaluable), Jeff Pearlman, Charles P. Pierce, and Jackie MacMullan. This book could not have been what it has been without every one of them. And to the thousands of writers acknowledged in the Notables over the years, I wish there had been more room up front.

I remember long ago, when I was young and dreamed of being a writer, I’d see the stretch of Best Sports Stories lining the shelves of my local library and feel overwhelmed. Now, in the old secretary cabinet where I store my book titles, the span of The Best American Sports Writing, including this edition, reaches a full three feet.

I initially intended to include a comprehensive index to the series in this edition, but space apparently precludes that. Instead, since any impact this series has had belongs to the contributors, after thirty years I’ll end simply by acknowledging each of the more than 400 writers of the nearly 750 stories that have appeared here.

I hope I didn’t miss anyone. It’s quite a list and includes everyone from writers who have won Pulitzers and National Magazine Awards and National Book Awards and all sorts of other honors to inexperienced writers fresh out of the box who punched up.

Between the covers of this book you all belonged. It’s been a pleasure to share the pages.

Alan Abel, J. A. Adande, Michael Agovino, Mitch Albom, David Aldridge, Marti Amis, Dave Anderson, Joel Anderson, Lars Anderson, Peter Andrews, Roger Angell, and Kevin Arnovitz.

Kent Babb, Katie Baker, Chris Ballard, Michael Bamberger, Bruce Barcott, Dan Barry, Dave Barry, Christopher Beam, Barry Bearak, Pam Belluck, Alex Belth, Ira Berkow, Jane Bernstein, Mike Bianchi, Burkhard Bilger, Jon Billman, Furman Bisher, Buzz Bissinger, Roy Blount Jr., Will Blythe, Jake Bogoch, Sam Borden, Ron Borges, Tom Boswell, Flinder Boyd, John Ed Bradley, Rick Bragg, John Branch, John Brant, Yoni Brenner, Jennifer Briggs, Chip Brown, James Brown, Larry Brown, Tim Brown, William Browning, Howard Bryant, Susy Buchanan, Bill Buford, Amby Burfoot, Timothy Burke, Bryan Burrough, Bruce Buschel, and Steery Butcher.

Matt Calkins, Tom Callahan, Gary Cartwright, Oscar Casares, Greg Child, Megan Chuchmach, Rene Chun, Tom Clynes, Richard Cohen, John Colapinto, Robert Cole, Steve Coll, Gene Collier, Bud Collins, Jeremy Collins, Pamela Colloff, Kevin Conley, Frank Conroy, Mark Coomes, Chloé Cooper Jones, Jeff Coplon, Sara Corbett, Greg Couch, Lynne Cox, Daniel Coyle, Tommy Craggs, Virginia Otley Craighill, Richard Ben Cramer, Kim Cross, Paulo Cullum, Bryan Curtis, and Luke Cyphers.

Beth Davies-Stofka, David Davis, Frank Deford, Peter DeJonge, David DiBenedetto, Jack Dickey, Michael Dileo, Heather Dinich, Michael Disend, David Dobbs, Kathy Dobie, George Dohrmann, J. D. Dolan, Bill Donahue, Neil Donnelly, Larry Dorman, Geoffrey Douglas, Robert Draper, Evan Drellich, Todd Drew, Stephen J. Dubner, David James Duncan, Jeff Duncan, and Timothy Dwyer.

Mat Edelson, Scott Eden, Gretel Ehrlich, Tim Elfrink, and James Ellroy.

Jason Fagone, Steve Fainaru, Mark Fainaru-Wada, Michael Farber, Tom Farrey, Bruce Feldman, Nathan Fenno, Dave Ferrell, Bill Fields, Ron Fimrite, David Finkel, Michael Finkel, Robin Finn, William Finnegan, David Fleming, Sean Flynn, Bonnie D. Ford, Richard Ford, Pat Forde, Reid Forgrave, Roberto José Andrade Franco, Ian Frazier, Steve Friedman, Tad Friend, Tom Friend, and Ken Fuson.

Peter Gammons, Greg Garber, Emily Giambalvo, Elizabeth Gilbert, William Gildea, Bill Gifford, Malcolm Gladwell, John M. Glionna, Allison Glock, Michael Goodman, Adam Gopnik, Cynthia Gorney, Mark Gozonsky, Tim Graham, David Grann, Karl Taro Greenfeld, Vahe Gregorian, Alice Gregory, John Griswold, and Mike Guy.

David Halberstam, Michael Hall, Joshua Hammer, Travis Haney, Greg Hanlon, Jim Harrison, Nancy Hass, Nick Heil, Tony Hendra, Amanda Hess, Peter Hessler, John Hewitt, James Hibberd, John Hildebrand, Richard Hoffer, Bob Hohler, Skip Hollandsworth, Johnette Howard, Kerry Howley, Patrick Hruby, Robert Huber, Steve Hummer, and Dave Hyde.

Jeff Jackson, Dan Jenkins, Lee Jenkins, Sally Jenkins, Chantel Jennings, May Jeong, Cory Johnson, Bret Anthony Johnston, Bomani Jones, Chris Jones, Robert F. Jones, Ben Joravsky, Pat Jordan, Ron C. Judd, and Tom Junod.

Jennifer Kahn, Jay Caspian Kang, Karen Karbo, Donald Katz, Jesse Katz, Elizabeth Kaye, Andrew Keh, Garrison Keillor, Beth Kephart, Mike Kessler, Raffi Khatchadourian, James Kilgo, Dave Kindred, Melissa King, Stephen King, John Klima, Sam Knight, Dan Koeppel, Howard Kohn, Tony Kornheiser, Thomas Korosec, Pete Kotz, Jon Krakauer, Mark Kram, Mark Kram Jr., Aishwarya Kumar, and Mike Kupper.

Thomas Lake, Michael Lananna, Brook Larmer, Jeanne Marie Laskas, Guy Lawson, Tim Layden, Sydney Lea, Michael Leahy, Martha Weinman Lear, Dan Le Batard, Steven Leckart, Mark Levine, Ted Levin, Ariel Levy, Michael Lewis, Franz Lidz, Bill Littlefield, Mike Littwin, Jere Longman, Mark Lucius, and Mike Lupica.

Jeff MacGregor, Jackie MacMullan, Juliet Macur, Mike Magnuson, Jonathan Mahler, Erik Malinowski, Thomas Mallon, David Mamet, Steve Marantz, John Marchese, Jeremy Markovitch, Guy Martin, Jeff Maysh, Bruce McCall, Jack McCallum, Terrence McCoy, David McGlynn, Ben McGrath, Thomas McGuane, James McKean, Michael McKnight, Bucky McMahon, James McManus, John McPhee, Rebecca Mead, Craig Medred, Andy Meisler, David Merrill, Elizabeth Merrill, Jonathan Miles, Kathryn Miles, Andrew Miller, Davis Miller, Sam Miller, J. R. Moehringer, Leigh Montville, Jon Mooallem, Michael J. Mooney, Kenny Moore, Eric Moskowitz, Doug Most, Lester Munson, and Jim Murray.

William Nack, Eric Neel, Dan Neil, Glenn Nelson, Tim Neville, John Paul Newport, Duane Noriyuki, Bob Norman, and Eric Nusbaum.

Henley O’Brien, Alexis Okeowo, Lisa Olson, Steve Oney, Susan Orlean, P. J. O’Rourke, Scott Ostler, Dan O’Sullivan, Jim Owczarski, and David Owen.

Ruth Padawar, Dave Parmenter, Nicole Pasulka, Avni Patel, Randall Patterson, Nick Paumgarten, Ben Paynter, Jeff Pearlman, Mark Pearson, Paul Pekin, Brian Phillips, Charles P. Pierce, Mary Pilon, Bill Plaschke, George Plimpton, Terry Pluto, Steve Politi, Neal Pollack, Brett Popplewell, Joe Posnanski, Shirley Povich, Padgett Powell, Robert Andrew Powell, John Powers, Joshua Harris Prager, Alan Prendergast, and S. L. Price.

Bridget Quinn.

Scott Raab, David Racine, Amy Ragsdale, Joel Reese, Elwood Reid, Jan Reid, Rick Reilly, David Remnick, Bill Reynolds, William C. Rhoden, Peter Richmond, Cinthia Ritchie, Amanda Ripley, Adam Rittenberg, David Roberts, Linda Robertson, Eugene Robinson, Stephen Rodrick, Ken Rodriguez, Michael Rosenberg, Ken Rosenthal, Tracy Ross, David Roth, Davy Rothbart, Karen Russell, Steve Rushin, Bob Ryan, and Joan Ryan.

Mike Sager, Robert Sanchez, Richard Sandomir, Eli Saslow, Grayson Schaeffer, Adam Schefter, Charlie Schroeder, John Schulian, Jason Schwartz, Tom Scocca, John Seabrook, Jay Searcy, Jonathan Segura, Josh Sens, Joe Sexton, Bill Shaikin, Sam Shaw, Dave Sheinin, Kevin Sherrington, Blackie Sherrod, David Shields, Florence Shinkle, Maggie Shipstead, Charles Siebert, Mike Sielski, T. J. Simers, David Simon, Mark Singer, Clay Skipper, Bryan Smith, Gary Smith, Jack Smith, Michael Sokolove, Christopher Solomon, Paul Solotaroff, John Spong, Charles Sprawson, Peter Stark, Alexandra Starr, Susan Sterling, Carlson Stowers, Donna St. George, Abe Streep, Kurt Streeter, Shelby Strother, Tim Struby, Mimi Swartz, and E. M. Swift.

Lisa Taddeo, Gay Talese, Jerry Tarde, Donna Tartt, Matt Teague, Rick Telander, Art Thiel, Louisa Thomas, Teri Thompson, Wright Thompson, Ian Thomsen, Tommy Tomlinson, Pat Toomay, Touré, Wells Tower, and Tyler Tynes.

Karen Uhlenhuth.

Tom VanHaaren, Chris Van Leuven, Don Van Natta Jr., Kevin Van Valkenburg, George Vecsey, Bob Verdi, Tom Verducci, Craig Vetter, Katy Vine, and David Von Drehle.

Bruce Wallace, David Foster Wallace, Caity Weaver, Elizabeth Weil, Michael Weinreb, Patricia Wen, L. Jon Wertheim, Dan Wetzel, David Wharton, Ian Whitcomb, Peter O. Whitmer, Seth Wickersham, Chris Wiewiora, Michael Wilbon, Alec Wilkinson, Simon Winchester, Mike Wise, Gene Wojciechowski, Alexander Wolff, Woody Woodburn, and Brian Woolley.

Charles M. Young.

Mark Ziegler, Tim Zimmermann, Dave Zirin, and Derek Zumsteg.

After thirty years, I believe there is more TK, but for now, to each and every one of you, I say only this: Thanks for being a writer.

-30-

Glenn Stout

Alburgh, Vermont

Introduction

When I was

nine years old, free to languish amid the lazy days of summer, I chose instead to meticulously lay out my clothes the night before I turned in, so I would be prepared. I lived on a quiet residential street shaped like a horseshoe, and it so happened that the straightaway section, the flattest part of the road, conveniently stretched along the front of my house. It was the ideal location for a makeshift street hockey game, an event that happened to be the center of my world in those days, but the rules were clear: first to the pavement were the first to play.

I wanted to be first. Not the first girl, because, as always, I would be the only one. It was paramount to me that while my sisters lingered at the breakfast table, cozy in their pajamas, I would be fully dressed, sneakers tied, peering out from behind the curtains of our dining room window, alertly awaiting my day’s companions, who would soon be queueing up, sticks in hand, for an afternoon that promised to be splendid.

During adolescence, these were the moments when I felt most empowered, and most comfortable in my skin. Competition flooded me with confidence, and as long as I was running and jumping, or chasing, swatting, or shooting a ball, I was happy. In the sixties, my passion was occasionally met with curiosity, even skepticism. Is that girl out there again? Won’t she get hurt? And yet, aside from my blond ponytail, I was indistinguishable from the rest of our group; T-shirts, shorts, knobby knees, and squeaky voices hollering Caaaaarrrr! whenever one of our family’s station wagons lumbered down the hill.

Sports became my everything, allowing me to embrace an identity that seemed elusive in many of my alternate universes. It wasn’t as nakedly simple as winning or losing, although when my team came up short, it was often me who quickly declared, Let’s go again! even as the sun quit on us and our moms beckoned us to the dinner table. I knew I was different, but as long as I was immersed in sweat and the camaraderie of my male neighbors—my friends—I could navigate that.

It was only natural my love affair with competition would soon lead me to obsessively track the people who had parlayed their athletic talents into professional careers. There was a rule in our house regarding the newspaper: we were welcome to scour the sports pages and memorize the box scores, but only after we had dissected the news of the day. Once I waded through world affairs, politics, and daily crimes in the metro section, I was free to embrace the lyrical cadence of Boston Globe columnist Ray Fitzgerald, who so expertly enlisted humor and grace to spring my sports heroes to life.

In a major family breakthrough, my father purchased our first color television, enabling us to tune in to WSBK, the Boston station that broadcast the Bruins. (Yes, sporting events on television were free back then.) Like so many other New England kids my age, I worshiped at the altar of Orr. I carefully cut news clippings and photos from the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald Traveler and lovingly glued them into my Bruins scrapbook, smoothing each page, adding my own pointed comments (what would Ray Fitz write?), then tucking it under my bed. This was not a book for public consumption. It was my own deeply personal experiment.

When the Bruins won the Cup in 1969, the roars thundered up and down Stanford Drive, from the den of elderly Mrs. Corcoran, who always wore a dress, neatly pressed, with stockings, and charted how many goals Espo scored each night, to my pal Georgie Whalen two houses down, a ten-year old regular at our street hockey games who reminded us all of the value of a grinder like Wayne Cashman. We shared in our team’s triumph as if we had suited up ourselves, as if we had anything to do with Orr taking flight in front of the net. Somehow, it felt as though we did, in part because of the way Fitzgerald and his cohorts drew us close, set the scene, and coaxed us into basking in the revelry.

In the decades that followed, I came to marvel at the power of sport, how it could draw together the most divergent of personalities—like an eighty-year-old widow and a preteen boy in love with the Bruins; two colleagues, a Muslim immigrant and his devoutly Catholic coworker, who discovered they both loved tennis and became partners on the court; the father and daughter who struggled to communicate, unless it was over football on Sunday; or a grandmother and grandson who found common ground by driving to the ballpark early to catch batting practice. The moment that remains forever etched in my soul is standing alongside two women, eyes shining, as they heaved a basketball toward a bent rim without a net on a dirt court in Rwanda. These women had been told their entire lives that exercise was just for men, only to discover, to their delight, that was a lie.

Rejoicing over common allegiances and heated (even hated) rivals is a bond that often transcends race, gender, religion, and economic status. As sports became increasingly politicized, we charted the awakening of our superstars, who decided Black lives did matter, kneeling was necessary, and skipping the White House ceremony could spawn meaningful dialogue. This led to debate, consternation, anger, and, once in a while, acceptance, but through it all the games continued, evolving along with society.

But then, last March, a most extraordinary event occurred: the entire athletic universe suddenly jammed on the brakes . . . and stopped. There we stayed, frozen in place, in uncharted territory for months, as a worldwide pandemic paralyzed our health care system, our economy, and life as we knew it.

The sports tipping point was when a seven-foot-tall basketball player from the north of France tested positive for the new coronavirus, COVID-19, a silent, deadly ailment that was seemingly impossible to corral. Days earlier, that same player, Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert, had mocked the severity of COVID-19 by playfully touching the microphones and recorders of reporters. In an instant, he became the catalyst that brought all competitions across the world to a screeching halt. The psychological hand-wringing spread as swiftly as the disease itself. What will we do without sports?

The NBA shut down immediately, as did the NHL, on the precipice of the postseason. Baseball pushed back spring training, then opening day. Major golf and tennis tournaments were canceled or postponed—even the Masters, which for decades seemed impervious to outside forces, floating above it all in its own stratosphere. The Tokyo Olympics hit the pause button—for an entire year.

The annual NCAA spring basketball tournament was also a major casualty. The coronavirus served as the ultimate bracket buster, and for the first time ever during March Madness, everyone lost. There would be no fairy-tale ending for Sabrina Ionescu, the iconic Oregon superstar who returned for her senior season for one reason only: to win it all. There were no Cinderella highlights of the upstart Dayton Flyers, who were gunning for their first-ever men’s championship; instead reruns from Villanova’s 1987 upset over Georgetown and Christian Laettner’s miracle shot from twenty-eight years ago attempted to plug the gaping hole.

We lamented for high school students from all over the country who were preparing for their state tournaments, until they were delivered the sobering news that no new champions would be crowned in 2020. For the spring warriors, track and field meets, lacrosse matches, and baseball and softball games were canceled before they were even scheduled. Pickup basketball was banned along with youth soccer, flag football, and impromptu games of street hockey on the flattest section of the neighborhood. Overnight, athletics went from a sanctuary to a hazard. It was unsafe to shake hands, exchange high-fives, or offer bear hugs at the buzzer. The danger was real—people died from the coronavirus by the tens of thousands—and the loss, even among those unaffected by the disease, was palpable.

As so often happens in a crisis, kindness and generosity emerged to help salve wounds. Franchises vowed to support workers who relied on the hourly wage from sporting events to pay their bills. Gobert donated $500,000 of his money to the cause; pledges followed from an array of familiar faces, among them Sixers big man Joel Embiid, Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo, Dallas Cowboys defensive end Demarcus Lawrence, Houston Texans captain J. J. Watt, and Florida Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky.

The stories in this remarkable collection were written a year before COVID-19 rocked our world. They encompass a range of sports tapestries from some unlikely venues: a massage parlor in Jupiter, Florida, where the reputation of one of the most powerful men in the NFL was forever tarnished; a boulevard in southern Virginia in front of a Confederate statue that prompted tears of despair from author Kurt Streeter; a tiny apartment in Diest, Belgium, where a Paralympic athlete chose to end her life; and a courtroom in Somerset County, New Jersey, where a middle school baseball coach regained his.

None of these stories highlight exploits of stars from the major professional teams. Increasingly, elite athletes have opted to create their own brand, churning out self-made glossy presentations shellacked with a veneer that lacks the authenticity of a story well told. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that most of the subjects featured in this anthology are not household names who compete in mainstream sports for sizable cash prizes. As stars become less accessible and more protective of their legacy, their stories also become less compelling.

Each of the gifted writers who grace these pages veered off the main path to craft rich storytelling that is gorgeous, pensive, and, in some cases, haunting. When I began the tortuous process of choosing which ones should be included, I promised myself to begin with a blank canvas of expectation—with no preconceived notions regarding writing style or subject matter. The plan was to open my mind—and, hopefully, yours—to a myriad of ways the written word can move us to tears, laughter, indignant rage, sorrow, regret.

Exceptional writing transports us on journeys we never imagined, immersing us so thoroughly that we can actually taste the dust from the desolate Angola Prison in John Griswold’s The Exiled and the Devil’s Sideshow, his bleak account of the Louisiana State Penitentiary, where our country’s last surviving prison rodeo is held. Angola’s prisoners landed there for committing heinous crimes; for a few dollars, they provide fodder for a leering audience that seeks vengeance and violence in the form of twisted, gruesome entertainment. Griswold unveils this house of horrors that is equally abusive to the animals and the prisoners by introducing us to convict poker, where four inmates sit at a table pretending to play cards as a snorting bull is released into the ring and does his mighty best to gore them all. Each rodeo event is crueler and more absurd than the next, leading Griswold to ponder, Is this another joke, meant to parody what ignorance yields in the hardness of life? In any case, no one wins anything.

Elizabeth Merrill’s thoughtful portrait of Shelly Pennefather, a former college basketball supernova from Villanova who gave up a lucrative overseas basketball career to become a cloistered nun, is less jolting, yet no less moving. Sister Rose Marie of the Queen of Angels, as Pennefather is now known, cannot email, call, or text her loved ones. Every twenty-five years she is allowed to enter a room and hug her family. Merrill’s tender prose examines how her siblings and teammates grapple with this selfless decision, and how the enduring faith of Shelly’s mother enables her to find peace with God, even as she embraces her daughter in quiet anguish, knowing it will likely be for the final time.

If you are surprised to discover accounts of a prison rodeo and a cloistered nun on these pages, then consider the Olympic hopeful who robbed twenty-six banks on his bicycle, and threw the stolen money in the nearest trash can during his maiden heist. Author Steven Leckart invites us on a rollicking ride with Tom Justice, whose self-destructive bent is at once perplexing and unfathomably sad.

In Shooting a Tiger, Bryan Burrough transports us to a remote village in India, where the hunt for a female tiger who has mutilated thirteen villagers entangles doctors, environmentalists, hunters, bureaucrats, activists, lawmakers, veterinarians, and townspeople in a web of deceit and intrigue. It is a complicated quandary that weighs human life against the rights of an endangered animal who has been flushed from her habitat by the very humans who want her gone. Burrough’s suspenseful storytelling, which masterfully unleashes tension throughout, left me vacillating back and forth between fervently believing the tiger should be shot, then reversing course and proclaiming the tiger should be spared.

While reviewing the entries for this anthology, there was one particular theme I hoped to discover, since it had thwarted me as a young writer struggling to find my voice. When I was a college student at the University of New Hampshire, I signed up for a magazine writing course and spent most of the semester desperately attempting to evade the red pen of professor Andy Merton, who was not for the faint of heart. With each submission, I remained tentative but hopeful that I had stumbled upon a winning formula, only to have my work returned with the telltale angry red slashes signifying my inability to accomplish Professor Merton’s one simple objective: teach me something!

It became a mantra for me going forward, both as a writer and a reader. No wonder I was drawn to The Grandmaster Diet, an intriguing story written by Aishwarya Kumar that details the grueling physical demands of becoming a world-class chess player. Did you know that the 1984 World Chess Championship was called off because the defending champion lost twenty-two pounds during the competition? I did not. How is this possible? Please read Aishwarya’s story and discover why for yourself.

It is evident that these amazing pieces were carefully assembled through research, most of which was no doubt conducted face to face. Personal interaction is essential when it comes to capturing the mood of a subject, whether it’s a slight hand gesture, a crinkle of the nose, or a vexed and furrowed brow. As any credible editor will inform you, there’s no such thing as too many details, and when you think you’ve spoken to enough sources, it’s time to reach out and tap into ten more. The most compelling stories are ones we can feel and touch and imagine, without much difficulty, that we are there.

This is precisely what Bill Plaschke accomplishes in his poignant column on patients with Alzheimer’s disease, who gather at a Los Angeles office building to engage in what is called baseball reminiscence therapy. They swap stories about the game they love, slap a ball into their mitt, and hope to revive a snapshot of when the grass was freshly cut, the nights were warm and steamy, and their memories were intact. Plaschke unfurls a scene so vivid and visceral that I felt as though I had a seat in the therapy circle. Patients who sometimes go for weeks without engaging with anyone, who can’t remember what they had for breakfast, draw strength from each other to unlock their minds and relive the simple pleasures of their past. As Plaschke notes, Baseball has done it again. Baseball has wrapped its arms around unsettled souls and taken them out to the ballgame.

The hunt for such heartrending prose that so powerfully illustrates the impact of sport is a worthy one, even as our industry continues to shift dramatically. Access to the athletes of the major sports continues to shrink, and the challenge of connecting with them becomes more daunting each day. Practices used to be open to journalists, and players were free to converse before and after those workouts with the scribes who were regularly assigned to their team. If you wanted to foster a relationship, you arrived early and lingered late. Many teams still flew commercially, and the idle chatter and small talk at the gate or the coffee shop were building blocks for the writer to understand the athlete a little better—and vice versa. Those interactions were like tiny gold nuggets: priceless, and now, it seems, in high demand.

These days a private dialogue with an athlete feels like a major coup. Teams no longer rely on the airlines. Flying their own jets now, they can leave town immediately after their road game. Practices are scarce, and when they are scheduled, journalists are given no pre-workout accessibility. Often players are trotted out in group settings, or scrums, as we like to call them. It is a disheartening way to do business, for both the athlete and the journalist, and it’s nearly impossible to extract anything meaningful or unique from these sessions.

Yet even against that backdrop, superior reporting continues to emerge, as enterprising writers look elsewhere for meaningful content. The damning profile of Conrad Mainwaring, a former Olympic hurdler who became an Olympic training coach and was accused of molesting more than forty-one men over four decades, is shocking in its scope and the grim reality of its time line. Authors Mike Kessler and Mark Fainaru-Wada unsparingly peel back the layers of Mainwaring’s alleged abuse with graphic and emotional testimonials from the many lives he ruined. It’s a difficult story to digest and was even more challenging to report, requiring perseverance, courage, and persistence.

So, too, did Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich’s groundbreaking reporting on the sign-stealing scandal that consumed the Houston Astros and ultimately cost both manager A. J. Hinch and general manager Jeff Luhnow their jobs. It was the most explosive story in baseball in 2018, and, one could argue, in 2019 as well. Its ramifications continue to shake the foundation of one of our country’s oldest and most revered pastimes.

As I write this, the sports world is still on hiatus, which, the dictionary tells us, is a pause or gap in a sequence, series, or process. It feels more seismic than that. It’s impossible at this moment to quantify how the coronavirus has affected our culture, the quality of our lives, and our ability to do our jobs. For a brief time before the virus shut down sports completely, new safeguard regulations were put in place to protect the athletes, including closing the locker room to all reporters. It was a temporary measure, we were assured, but still, the alarm bells sounded. It was another obstacle to access, another hurdle in our quest to provide you, the readers, with the quality of work exemplified in The Best American Sports Writing 2020 that rests in your hands. Sadly, this will be the final BASW, and my sincere hope is that we have selected stories that are memorable, and enduring.

As we navigate this haze of uncharted territory, there’s one thing I’m certain of: exceptional reporters will continue to generate captivating stories, and superb writing will live on, from inside a convent, a village