Synopses & Reviews
Bill Littlefield (NPR's Only a Game) presents the second installment in the Library of America series devoted to classic American sportswriters, a defintive collectors edition of the pathbreaking writer who invented the long-form sports story. Like his friend and admirer Red Smith, W. C. Heinz (19152008) 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 Heinzs Brownsville Bum”a brief life of Al Bummy” Davis, Brooklyn street tough and onetime welterweight champion of the worldthe greatest magazine sports story Ive 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 writers centennial, Bill Littlefield, the host of NPRs Only A Game, presents the essential Heinz: thirty-eight columns, profiles, and memoirs from the authors personal archive, including eighteen pieces never collected during his lifetime. Though Heinzs great passion was boxingthe golden era of Rocky Graziano, Floyd Patterson, and Sugar Ray Robinsonhis 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.
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“Heinz had it all—a deep understanding of human nature, a wonderful sense of humor, and a writing style so clear and clean that he makes the difficult seem easy, just the way a great athlete does.”
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"Bill Heinz was not just one of the great sports writers this country has ever produced, he was simply one of the great American writers." Mike Lupica
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"Bill Heinz is not just one of the great sportswriters this country has produced, he is one of the great American writers."
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"Heinz could make sentences sing, but his special gift was somehow to sound the chord of music that was the man. The subjects of his profiles lived and breathed and laughed and wept with unforgettable vitality."
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"Heinz is that rare writer who not only becomes more important over time but more essential. His work deserves to be read and treasured by a new generation of readers."
About the Author
BILL LITTLEFIELD, a nationally known author and veteran sports commentator, has been the host of National Public Radios weekly sports program Only A Game since it began in 1993. He lives in Boston.