10 Essential Sports Articles

Friday Night Lights by Buzz Bissinger - Outside, the August night was cool and serene, with just a wisp of West Texas wind. Inside, there was a sense of excitement and also relief, for the waiting was basically over…

The Trading Desk by Michael Lewis - For the past four years, working with one of the lowest payrolls in the game, the Oakland A’s have won as many regular-season games as almost any other team. How on earth did they do it?

Federer as Religious Experience by David Foster Wallace - The world of top-flight tennis, and arguably its greatest exponent

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer - I understood on some dim, detached level that it was a spectacular sight, but now that I was finally here, standing on the summit of Mount Everest, I just couldn’t summon the energy to care

The Last American Hero Is Junior Johnson. Yes! by Tom Wolfe - Ten o'clock Sunday morning in the hills of North Carolina. Cars, miles of cars, in every direction, millions of cars…

The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved by Hunter S. Thompson - I got off the plane around midnight and no one spoke as I crossed the dark runway to the terminal. The air was thick and hot, like wandering into a steam bath..

A History of Flight by Wright Thompson - Michael Jordan might not be the most famous person on the planet anymore, decades after he last put on those shorts and took the court, but as the person has faded, the idea of him has somehow remained powerful and bright…

Off Diamond Head by William Finnegan - To be thirteen, with a surfboard, in Hawaii

The Istanbul Derby by Spencer Hall - Soccer, fire and a game at the world’s crossroads

The Sea of Crises by Brian Phillips - On sumo, ritual suicide and the death of samurai culture