Top sportswriting of 2012

Quickish's top stories: http://www.quickish.com/articles/the-quickish-12-the-best-sportswriting-of-2012

And Longform's: http://longform.org/lists/best-of-2012/sports

 

Oh good, this will make my plane ride tomorrow slightly more bearable.

Not sure if it's on these lists, but Deadspin's Sarah Phillips piece still sticks out to me, simply from an investigative reporting standpoint - we don't see a whole lot of that stuff in sports.

Also shouldn't somebody publish an "all time" list? The world is ending in like, what, three days?

 

The Quickish list is very interesting to me. Only one (kind of, USA Today Sports) newspaper story on the entire list. Otherwise, not a single story worthy of mention from the NYT, LAT, WashPost, Dallas, KC, Boston, nowhere?

It either says something about how we now write, or how we're beginning to read.

 

Feel free to post links, and we can see how they compare.

 

does #longform have a hipster bias? let's see... amateur marathoning, ultimate frisbee and bowling pack the top five!

on the quickish list and nothing against christopher mcdougal/outside, b/c his story about ultra-runner micah true was good, but barry bearak's on the same topic was way better:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/sports/caballo-blancos-last-run-the-micah-true-story.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

 

Surprised the San Diego Union-Tribune's work on Junior Seau doesn't make the quickish list.

Part 1: http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/oct/14/junior-seau-real-story/
Part 2: http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/oct/21/bitter-endgame/

Five months of work and all that reporting apparently pales in comparison to this: http://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2012/5/4/2998098/junior-seau-suicide

 

Anxiety at Arrowhead is better than many of the articles on the quickish list, no question.

I think the list says more about how online lists aren't always as comprehensive as they'd like you to think they are.

 

I wonder if this is an archiving issue or that searches show these sites and magazines differently. Maybe it's just that writing is just better these days at places other than newspapers.

I certainly can't argue with any of the entries on the list. They're all terrific. I just found it interesting and possibly telling that newspapers weren't really part of the conversation.

 

A few newspaper standouts not mentioned:

Barry Bearak on Queen Underwood: http://nyti.ms/VP3KPe
Adam Kilgore on Bryce Harper: http://wapo.st/VP3L5J
Danny O'Neil on Ryan Leaf: http://bit.ly/Yjxsmb
Harvey Araton on Lenny Cooke: http://nyti.ms/YjxWIP
Bill Plaschke on a paralyzed college baseball player: http://lat.ms/VP3LCZ
Kevin Van Valkenburg on Joe Flacco: http://bsun.md/YjymyS

I think these lists often measure the splashiest sports writing of the year. Will Leitch's feature on Derrick Rose was not one of the 10 best things he has written this year.

I keep a running list of the best of what I read every year. I read many of the pieces on that Quickish list, and I wouldn't have put many of them on my list of a similar size.

 

For what it's worth, here's my own shot at a 10-story list:

Patrick Hruby on sports welfare: http://bit.ly/TxVsgg
Thomas Lake on Wes Leonard: http://bit.ly/TxVAMY
Kent Babb on Scott Pioli: http://bit.ly/YiuAWL
Jordan Conn on Mo Isom: http://es.pn/TxVftw
Dan Wetzel on Tom Brady: http://yhoo.it/TxVogH
Michael Sokolove on Oscar Pistorius: http://nyti.ms/TxVSU4
Eli Saslow on Rumeal Robinson: http://es.pn/TxVkNU
Erik Malinowski on Homer at the Bat: http://deadsp.in/TxVvsL
Barry Bearak on Queen Underwood: http://nyti.ms/TxVODI
Spencer Hall on dogs: http://sbn.to/TxW4mn

 

It says far more about the person doing the list.

 

Yes -- whoever is doing the list is reading a lot of Grantland and not scanning through the dozens of newspaper websites that might provide candidates. Stories on the list are great, but the sample is obviously leaning toward glamour websites.