This year re-affirmed that the 99th percentile of sportswriting has never been better.
Of the thousands of pieces of great sportswriting -- from real-time snippets to “longish” reads -- that Quickish has highlighted and recommended throughout the year, these stood out. (A worthwhile caveat: The “12” thing is a handy formatting framework; the “Also Receiving Votes” group is just as worthy of your attention.) Check out a few "liner notes" here.
So fire up the Pocket or Instapaper and send out 2012 with some great reads:
Quickish’s “12 Best of ‘12”
Jonathan Abrams, “The Malice at the Palace: An Oral History,” Grantland
Sam Alipour, “Will You Still Medal In the Morning?” ESPN the Magazine
Chris Ballard, “Man In Full,” Sports Illustrated
Chris Brown, “Luck and Griffin III: The Future Is Now,” Grantland
Bryan Curtis, “The Ballad of the Piggyback Bandit,” Grantland
Spencer Hall, “Bury a Man, Keep a Statue,” SB Nation
Christopher McDougall, “On the Trail of the White Horse,” Outside
Michael Mooney, “The Most Amazing Bowling Story Ever,” D Magazine
Tom Scocca, “Why the Baltimore Orioles Matter,” Deadspin
Wright Thompson, “Urban Meyer Will Be Home for Dinner,” ESPN the Magazine
Kevin Van Valkenburg, “Games of Chance,” ESPN.com
Dan Wetzel, “Tom Brady’s Daze of Disappointment,” Yahoo Sports
“Also Receiving Votes”
Katie Baker, “Where Hockey Endures,” Grantland
Alex Belth, “The Two Rogers,” SB Nation
Jordan Conn, “Let It Fly,” Grantland
Tommy Craggs, “Eli Manning and the NFL’s Trouble With Goodness,” Deadspin/Slate
Chuck Culpepper, “A World Removed,” SportsOnEarth.com
Wayne Drehs, “Soccer in the Storm,” ESPN.com
Craig Fehrman, “Who Is The Blurry Guy In This Photo, And Why Did Manny Ramirez Steal His Pants?” Deadspin
Alex French and Howie Kahn, “The Sound and the Fury,” Grantland
Rachel George, “Sharrif Floyd’s adoption,” USA TODAY Sports
Patrick Hruby, “The Truth Is Out There,” ThePostgame.com
Jay Caspian Kang, “The Unfair Significance of Jeremy Lin,” Grantland
John Koblin, "Who Is Sarah Phillips?" Deadspin
Thomas Lake, “The Tragedy of Wes Leonard,” Sports Illustrated
Will Leitch, “Is Derrick Rose the Next Michael Jordan,” GQ
Erik Malinowski, “The Making of ‘Homer at the Bat,’” Deadspin
Dave McKenna, “Wilt vs. Elgin,” Grantland
Elizabeth Merrill, “Calvin Johnson Is Magic On Sundays,” ESPN.com
Sam Miller, “The Phenom,” ESPN the Magazine
JR Moehringer, “120 Reasons Why Football Will Last Forever,” ESPN.com
Jeff Passan, “Long, Maddening Fall for Matt Bush,” Yahoo Sports
Rick Paulas, “The Cup of Coffee Club,” The Awl
Brian Phillips, “The Death’s Head of Wimbledon,” Grantland
Joe Posnanski, “Holding Court With the Hit King,” SportsOnEarth.com
Karen Russell, "The Blind Faith of the One-Eyed Matador," GQ
Jason Schwartz, “End Game,” Boston Magazine
Joe Sheehan, “May 4, 2012 (On Mariano Rivera),” Joe Sheehan’s Baseball Newsletter
Charles Siebert, “The Hard Life of an N.F.L. Long Shot,” New York Times Magazine
Bill Simmons, “The Consequences of Caring,” Grantland
Mark Singer, “Marathon Man,” The New Yorker
John Jeremiah Sullivan, “Venus and Serena Against the World,” New York Times Magazine
Wright Thompson, “Lionel Messi: Here and Gone,” ESPN.com
Tommy Tomlinson, “Minus One,” SportsOnEarth.com
Matt Ufford, “On Junior Seau's Suicide, And When It's Okay To Compare The NFL To The Military,” SB Nation
Don Van Natta, “Fight On State,” ESPN the Magazine
Michael Weinreb, “A Failed Experiment,” Grantland
Lang Whitaker, “The Dream Will Never Die,” GQ
* - Suggested by readers as glaring omissions, then added. Updating...
Dave Gessner, “Ultimate Glory,” BillAndDavesCocktailHour.com (h/t: Longform.org)
Brian Phillips, “Riders In the Sky,” Grantland
Patrick Symmes, “The Beautiful Game”, Outside (h/t: Erik Malinowski)
Here are a few liner notes from this year's selection, and in case you missed it, check out the "Quickish 11" list from 2011.
Comments, reactions and notice of egregious omissions: dshanoff-[at]-gmail-[dot]-com.
