BOOK REVIEW: 2005 VERSION HAS REMINDERS OF LIFE AND DEATH

The Best American Sportswriting 2005

Mike Lupica, Editor and Glenn Stout, Series Editor

Houghton-Mifflin 2005

356 pp., $14.00

By Al Mattei

Founder, TopOfTheCircle.com

On Page 200 of The Best American Sportswriting 2005, L. Jon Wertheim writes the following passage: "Roscoe Tanner is not, of course, the first retired athlete to turn his life into a Hieronymus Bosch canvas."

And, if Glenn Stout has his way, this story won't be the last of this kind to flash before our eyes.

This annual tome, for which series editor Stout and noted columnist Mike Lupica collaborate to find the best writings from many American publications, has the usual collection of stories of athletes who lost their way.

Chief amongst them is Wertheim's story of former tennis pro Roscoe Tanner, whose penchant for borrowing money to pay off debts and child support got him imprisoned.

Numerous social themes are explored in this version of the book, which, because the chapters are carefully selected to be read one next to another in sequence, is almost like a conceptual record album. Two stories on Howard Cosell are juxtaposed with two consecutive stories on fishing.

Drug and their tragic aftereffects are a key theme in the 2005 volume. Mark Ziegler of The San Diego Union-Tribune chronicles the terrible fall of former National League MVP Ken Caminiti. Mark Fainaru-Wada -- yes, the co-author of the 2006 bombshell book on Barry Bonds -- pens a story on a young phenom named Rob Garibaldi who dies from the effects of steroid use. And Michael Bamberger goes to great lengths to flesh out the story of Jeff Allison, former top draft pick of the Florida Marlins, whose career was derailed by prescription medication.

Another death, just as tragic, was that of former pro hockey player Duncan MacPherson, whose body was missing for some two decades after an avalanche near Innsbruck, Austria. Chris Jones, in an Esquire story, makes MacPherson come alive in a way that makes you almost hopeful that he dropped out of normal society that day.

One story whose repercussions resound even into 2006 was the detailed expose by Steve Coll in The Washington Post into the death of former NFL player Pat Tillman and how his official death story was allegedly faked.

Not all of the stories chosen by famed sports scribe Mike Lupica are about the human failings leading to death and dismay.

Sports Illustrated's Gary Smith penned a story called "Running for Their Lives," about McFarland high school cross-country coach Jim White, who had a penchant for teaching Mexican-American immigrant boys lessons on life and teamwork over his long career.

Bill Plaschke penned a column in The Los Angeles Times about the Compton softball team and its battle against indifference on the part of the administration and student body, even 30 years after Title IX.

Baseball's lesser-known names have a place in the writings of 2005. And there were a pair of good stories. Ira Berkow traces the career of former Chicago Cub Jim Woods. The two of them played against each other in high school.

Andrew Miller, in "Field of Broken Dreams," writes about former rookie sensation Jeff Stone, whose carefree and simple attitude towards the game of baseball ran up against the forces corporatizing the game in the early 1980s.

To be sure, there was a good pair stories of inspiration. Kevin Van Valkenburg's Baltimore Sun feature on former Virginia Tech basketball player Rayna DuBose's courageous return to school after losing her limbs to meningitis.

Also, John Brant's epic "Duel In The Sun" recounts the 1982 Boston Marathon which pitted Alberto Salazar against Dick Beardsley, and the ways that the two runners' paths crossed for years afterward while Salazar was coaching and Beardsley slipped deep into addiction. The opening points out, startlingly, how far long-distance running has fallen in the American sports culture: in 1982, 156 runners finished the distance between Hopkinton and Boston in less than 2 1/2 hours. In 2003, that number dropped to 21.

Sporting milestones are included in the book, including a pair of stories at the end of the book on the 2004 Boston Red Sox. Tom Verducci's "Sportsmen Of The Year" cover story from Sports Illustrated was a given, but the flip side of the Red Sox Nation was found in The Providence Journal, in which Bill Reynolds rips the sporting collectibles culture for charging outlandish fees for signed memorabilia.

All in all, the 2005 version of The Best American Sportswriting may be the most well-contructed anthology in the entire series.