Back The Top of His Game: The Best Sportswriting of W. C. Heinz (paperback)

The Top of His Game: The Best Sportswriting of W. C. Heinz (paperback)

Edited by Bill Littlefield

“Moments . . . make you say ‘Wait a minute, let me go back and read that again,’ are everywhere in The Top of His Game, a 569-page anthology of Mr. Heinz’s work as a sportswriter. . . . If you are looking for the sounds, the feel, the colors, the still-beating hearts from events that happened a long, long time ago, you have to keep turning the pages. . . . This book is an understated wonder.”—Leigh Montville, The Wall Street Journal

Overview
Table of Contents

Overview

In those vibrant postwar decades when print was king, W. C. Heinz was the byline to watch for. A pioneer of the long-form sports story, Heinz wrote with a freshness of perception, a gift for characterization, and a finely tuned ear for dialogue, creating a style that has influenced generations of journalists. His profiles of the top athletes of his day—boxers, baseball players, gridiron legends, hockey stars, jockeys, and rodeo riders—are classics of the form, as immediate and affecting today as when first written. Jimmy Breslin called his account of the brief and bloody life of Al “Bummy” Davis, a Brooklyn street tough who became welterweight champion of the world only to die, at age twenty-five, defending himself during a barroom holdup, “the greatest magazine sports story I’ve ever read, bar none.” His celebrated piece on the Dodgers’ Pete Reiser, a reckless outfielder who would have made the Hall of Fame had he resisted the urge to catch the uncatchable, is a comic yet inspiring illustration of the maxim “character = fate.” And the many late-life memoirs he wrote for his book Once They Heard the Cheers—including portraits of jockey Eddie Arcaro, pitcher Joe Page, Packer Willie Davis, and Heinz’s signature subject, Rocky Graziano—are nothing less than mini-masterpieces of the biographer’s art.

“Heinz had it all,” says David Maraniss of The Washington Post, “a deep understanding of human nature, a wonderful sense of humor, and a writing style so clean and clear that he makes the difficult seem easy, just the way a great athlete does.” Here—in thirty-eight timeless pieces, chosen and introduced by NPR’s Bill Littlefield—is an American master at the top of his game. The volume also contains, as an appendix, postscripts Heinz published in books and magazines between 1979 and 2000, offering reflections and updates for seven of the stories.

Bill Littlefield has hosted National Public Radio’s weekly sports magazine, “Only A Game,” since 1993 and has written commentaries for NPR and Boston’s WBUR-FM for over thirty years. He is the author of seven books, including the novels Prospect and The Circus in the Woods and the recent collection of sports verse Take Me Out. In 2001 he met W. C. Heinz and they became friends, for which he has been grateful ever since.
Table of Contents

Introduction: True to the Way It Happens by Bill Littlefield

Out of the War
Transition • Autumn 1945

On the Beat
Memories of a Great Jockey • George M. Woolf, 1910–1946
Beau Jack Is Good Customer • “Ah’m Buyin’ Hats…”
Down Memory Lane with the Babe • The Ascension of George Herman Ruth
About Two Guys Named Joe • DiMaggio and Louis Are Picture-Perfect Sportsmen
German Heavyweight Checks In • Hein Ten Hoff Says “Ja” to America
“They Used to Fight Dogs” • Ringside with William Jennings Bryan
Rumpus in the Living Room • “Toughie” Brasuhn, Queen of the Roller Derby
Uncle Mike Is Back • You Can Tell He’s All Right, He Won’t Listen to Morgan
Late Afternoon on the Harlem • The Columbia Freshmen Are First on the River
How They Told Charlie Keller • The Yankees Send a Good Man Down
Jake Steals the Show • Mintz Crowned Heavyweight Manager of the World
Death of a Race Horse • Air Lift, Son of Bold Venture
The Psychology of Horse Betting • Hooked on the Thrill of Almost Winning
“The Lost Leader” • Gardella Drops His Suit Against Baseball
Retired Undefeated Heavyweight Champion • Or, How Joe Louis Makes a Living

Out in the World
Brownsville Bum • Al (“Bummy”) Davis, 1910–1945
The Day of the Fight • Graziano–Zale, September 27, 1946
The Fighter’s Wife • Norma Graziano Gets Through the Night
Punching Out a Living • Billy Graham, Boxing’s Uncrowned Champ
Young Fighter • The Trouble with McNeece Is That He Fears Nothing
Brockton’s Boy • A Rising Marciano Lifts All Boats
Scouting for the Yankees • Between Phone Calls with Paul Krichell
The Rocky Road of Pistol Pete • The Dodger They Padded the Walls For
The Ghost of the Gridiron • Red Grange Could Carry the Ball
Work Horse on Ice • Gordie Howe of the Detroit Red Wings
The Happiest Hooligan of Them All • What a Card This Pepper Martin Is!
The Rough and Tumble Life • Jim Tescher, Rodeo Rider
The Twilight of Boxing • They’re Dimming the Lights at Stillman’s Gym

Among the Monuments
The Shy One • The Quiet Power of Floyd Patterson
The Man Who Belongs in Blue Jeans • Jim Tescher Revisited
So Long, Jack • John C. Hurley, 1897–1972
The Fireman • Joe Page’s Good Days
The Artist Supreme • Dancing with Willie Pep
The Coach, Relived • Willie Davis Talks Vince Lombardi
The Greatest, Pound for Pound • There’s Only One Sugar Ray
The Smallest Titan of Them All • Eddie Arcaro Rode to Win
Somebody Up There Likes Him • The Life and Times of Rocky Graziano

Afterwords by W. C. Heinz

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ISBN: 978-1-59853-710-9 594 pages

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