Gary Smith retirement writing - by Price, Posnanski, Tomlinson & Reilly

There was some excellent pieces of writing done recently with longtime Sports Illustrated feature writer Gary Smith announcing his retirement from the magazine.

There were missives by Joe Posnanski and by Tommy Tomlinson for their respective personal blogs and for Sports Illustrated, appreciation pieces from Rick Reilly and from S.L. Price as well as the SI compilation "The best of Gary Smith: Picking the greatest stories of his SI career." Really great writing on someone I've posted on and linked to a number of times.

Boston Marathon stories - by Lowery & Pfeiffer

Two really interesting pieces sports writing were done recently on the Boston Marathon last month, with one before and one after the race.

"The story behind that Boston Marathon photo of runners carrying a competitor toward the finish" was written by Wesley Lowery for the Washington Post and about a heartwarming moment from the race and "One Last Boston Marathon For Legendary Father-Son Team" was by Sacha Pfeiffer for the Boston-area radio station WBUR and about the longstanding heartwarming tale of Dick Hoyt and his quadriplegic son Rick Hoyt, the duo many learned about from a great Sports Illustrated profile (which I wrote about in 2011) by Gary Smith.

GQ piece by Paterniti on Spanish restaurant & Esquire by Pierce on Elizabeth Warren

Recent issues of GQ and Esquire had two really sold pieces of recent feature magazine writing to note here. From GQ, Michael Paterniti wrote about the Spanish restaurant Mugaritz and Charlie Pierce for Esquire did a fairly lengthy story on Elizabeth Warren.

Paterniti's recent writing is heavy on great description and feeling and this very much comes through in the GQ feature and while Pierce also an excellent writer, I'm most fascinated in the Esquire profile for who it's about in the Massachusetts Senator frequently talked about as a presidential candidate.

Writing on Matthew Powers & Alaska's Aniakchak National Monument

Two pieces of recent writing I found to be excellent were a feature on travel to a remote national park system area at the start of the Aleutian island chain in Alaska and a remembrance of frequent outdoor adventure writer Matthew Power.

The tribute for Power who died while working on a story in Africa last month was "No Way Is Matt Power Gone" by Brad Wieners for Businessweek and both lovely writing on him and provided details into the heat stroke that brought about his death. Such a shame that he passed away and also understandable to read how someone could unwittingly put themselves in great danger.

The Outside Magazine piece was also really well done and struck me as being on the type of adventure that Power would frequently embark on and then write about. Written by Christopher Solomon, "Surviving Aniakchak National Monument" covered his time travelling in Aniakchak National Monument, "the least visited site in the national park system," and was a cool story about a place that also happens to be brown bear country.

GoPro story by Bill Gifford in Businessweek

A terribly interesting story in a recent Businessweek was "GoPro Goes Big as a Hybrid Media Company/Videocam Maker" by Bill Gifford and it brought to mind past writing on another company that's built a huge business based on the lifestyle around their product, just as much if not more so than around the product itself.

"Red Bull's Billionaire Maniac" was written by Duff McDonald for Businessweek in 2011 and then there was a Teressa Iezzi feature on the company at #29 on the 2012 Most Innovative Companies list by Fast Company Magazine.

Really interesting on both companies and the approach they've taken towards becoming fairly iconic brands.

"Bigger Than the Game" by Dirk Hayhurst

Bigger Than the Game by Dirk Hayhurst was an interesting follow up book to his first two books Out of My League (which I reviewed here) and The Bullpen Gospels about his journey as a professional baseball player.

This most recent book was set during a baseball season Hayhurst lost to injury and in the process had to deal with the mental pain caused by not being able to play.

In terms of his injury rehab program, it was both remarkable and entirely believable reading about how some medical programs would have a seemingly guessing based approach with the "sure, can't hurt" principle to getting better and then other approaches would be highly methodical. What ultimately got Hayhurst better was care at the Andrews Clinic in Birmingham, AL with rehab direction done there by Kevin Wilk under Dr. James Andrews. While many of the stories of his time there are fairly mapcap and entertaining, Hayhurst detailed some pretty remarkable work done on high profile athletes done at the clinic.

Overall, it was an entertaining book on the experiences of a player in the world of professional baseball.

Surfing story by Joe Spring for SB Nation

Really enjoyed reading last week "The Deadliest Wave" by Joe Spring for SB Nation.

It was about the 2013 Billabong Pipe Masters in Memory of Andy Irons competition on Oahu's North Shore as well as the overall season points crown between Kelly Slater and Mick Fanning and brought to mind the fantastic Susan Casey book The Wave that I wrote about back in 2010.

Great Sports Writing - by Michael Rosenberg, Jane Lee & Jeff Pearlman

Three recent sports stories I particularly liked included a short MLB player profile, a feature on the players from an NCAA men's basketball Final Four 25 years ago and piece about writing a huge sports story 15 years ago.

The one about writing a story was "A Reporter's Tale: The John Rocker Story 15 Years Later" for Bleacher Report by Jeff Pearlman on putting together the story he's perhaps best known for.

The Sports Illustrated feature on the 1989 NCAA Final Four participants was by Michael Rosenberg and title "A memorable title game twenty-five years ago brought joy, heartbreak." Really some fascinating stories about the people involved, including: referee John Cloughtery, coaches P.J. Carlesimo, Mike Krzyzewski and Steve Fisher and players Rumeal Robinson and Ramon Ramos.

The baseball piece was a short one by Jane Lee for MLB.com titled "Thanks to his dad, Gray was built for success" about Oakland A's starting pitcher Sonny Gray and his late father Jesse Gray.

"Hatching Twitter" by Nick Bilton

Hatching Twitter by Nick Bilton was about some compelling people that came up with a pretty revolutionary business. Reading the book reminded me of my thoughts about what I wanted to do with blogging when I began in 2008 and just over 20 of my posts since have included Twitter as a label, with many of them linking to writing (the most memorable to me being this by Clay Travis) about Twitter as a platform for disseminating all types of communication.

Bilton in Hatching Twitter writes a highly entertaining book that I found myself at times wondering how accurate it all was, but the people portrayed (with the possible exception of a seemingly batty CEO Coach) and their actions struck me as quite plausible, especially given the presence of power, prestige, money and strongly held beliefs.

Detailed in the book is how Twitter began in 2005 out of a podcasting startup, Odeo, that was founded by Noah Glass and funded by Ev Williams who made his money by starting and then selling Blogger to Google. With $200K in Odeo, Williams became CEO and around this time, Jack Dorsey and Biz Stone joined the company and then the podcasting website idea basically got killed when Apple said they were going to have Podcasting on iTunes, leading to Dorsey’s idea of building something around a “status update” message similar to what was up on AOL instant messaging. Glass came up with the name Twitter for the venture and was completely enthused about the human connections the idea could foster, but then fired from the company by Williams as the lead investor lost confidence in and disagreed with Glass on many things.
 
Twitter hit big at the 2007 South by Southwest conference in Austin, TX and when roles and leaders were then established, Dorsey was the first CEO with 20% of the company, Williams as the lead investor 70%, Stone and Jason Goldman around 3% each with the remaining 4% split up among other employees. Not long after this, Williams and Dorsey began to have disagreements and Venture Capital investors Fred Wilson and Bijan Sabet came into the picture and sided with Williams on feelings of unhappiness with the CEO.

In 2008, Dorsey was forced out as CEO, but not from the company and he then accepted any and all press requests that came his way and burnished his reputation and perceived role at Twitter at the same time that he began the payment processing company Square. Additionally, Peter Fenton came in as a Twitter investor and would prove a Dorsey ally as the former CEO began to undermine Williams and, along with the aforementioned unbelievable CEO-coach Bill Campbell, force Williams out as CEO with him being replaced in Summer of 2010 by then COO Dick Costello.

There are lots of salacious details throughout the story from Bilton and it makes for entertaining reading that of course portrays some people in a better light than others, but all seems plausible and makes a fascinating read on the people behind a remarkable communication tool.

Esquire essays by Chiarella on helping someone & Jones on doing stand-up

Two different pieces of writing in the latest issue of Esquire stood out as excellent life-lessons type stories as part of the "83 Things You Need to Do Before You Die" section of the issue.

Tom Chiarella wrote "I Don't Have a Life List" and Chris Jones did "Live Your Nightmare," with both being really well-done introspective looks at things they've done.

"Grandma Gatewood's Walk" by Ben Montgomery

Grandma Gatewood's Walk by Ben Montgomery was an interesting tale of one woman's determination and journey as she in 1995 became the first woman to through-hike the entire 2,050 miles of the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine.

The story of Emma Gatewood was a compelling one with her raising 11 children while enduring an abusive husband, leaving him, and then after her children were grown taking off on her own and doing the AT hike at the age of 67. Then two years later, she hiked the trail again, later hiked the general path of the Oregon Trail from Missouri to Oregon and in 1964 did the Appalachian Trail for a third time.

Also interesting was mention of how heavily she was followed by the national media as word of her hike began to spread, and then towards the very end of the book, Montgomery wrote of meeting on the top of Mount Katahdin in Maine through-hikers who cited Gatewood as an inspiration.

The read for me did get to be slow going at times, but I think that was due simply to the less than glamorous subject and the book built up to solid meaning with (among other things) the idea that it's never too late for someone to do what they want to do and turn themselves into something they weren't previously.

I waited until completing the book to read it, but also found interesting Montgomery's piece for Nieman Storyboard on writing the book.

Great writing by Price, Sandomir & Jacobsen

Three pieces of recent great writing I hadn't previously posted on were from Sports Illustrated, the New York Times and Outside Magazine.

For SI was "As Reds' Chapman recovers, dangers of line drives hit close to home" by S.L. Price and reminiscent of the excellent 2009 book Heart of the Game by Price, which I wrote about here.

The Times story was "A Story of Perseverance" by Richard Sandomir on ESPN SportsCenter Anchor Stuart Scott and his battle with cancer and the feature for Outside was "The Gourmet Invasivore's Dilemma" by Rowan Jacobsen on the havoc wreaked by invasive species and one chef's small-scale approach towards the problem.

Esquire writing - new feature by D'Agostino on ADHD & old one by Junod on Mr. Rogers

The latest issue of Esquire had a great feature by Ryan D'Agostino titled "The Drugging of the American Boy" on ADHD. D'Agostino covers the huge increase in it being diagnosed (particularly in boys) and also written about in captivating form is an alternate approach towards treatment as practiced by therapist and author of Transforming the Difficult Child, Howard Glasser.

Also posted to the Esquire website last month was a story I posted on previously, but that hadn't been online at the Esquire site. "Can You Say... Hero?" was by Tom Junod on Mr. Rogers and one of the most memorable magazine pieces I've read.

Pieces on writing - by Michael Kruse, Bethany McLean & on Tom Bodett

It's been a while since I last posted on pieces about writing and I was fascinated by three that I came across recently.

For his personal blog, Tampa Bay Times writer Michael Kruse wrote "How I did the Bounty story," which had fascinating stuff in it about the year-long process of researching and writing (really about the dogged researching) of a lengthy story and I saw on Twitter a few writers noting as great wisdom the final two sentences...

"No matter the story, no matter your process, no matter the timetable — somewhere in the middle, you won’t be able to see the end. Can’t stop. Keep going."

"But the most important thing I learned doing Bounty — the most important thing I learned in 2013 — is that you can’t try to make something happen. All you can do is try to make something."

The shorter pieces to note here were one on fact-checking by Bethany McLean for LinkedIn and an interview with Tom Bodett for Alaska Magazine. The Bodett interview stood out as interesting to me with him having lived for quite a while in Homer, AK (where my parents have a house) and in that it showed how sometimes unexpected opportunities can develop.

ESPN The Magazine writing by Jones and Olney

Two great recent stories from ESPN were "A Long Journey to Spring" by Chris Jones on Kansas City Royals coach Mike Jirschele and "Creative Control" on Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw by Buster Olney.

The piece on Kershaw details his meticulous preparation leading up to starts and profiles well (Olney is just an excellent writer) someone that seems to be a really good guy. On Jirschele, Jones provides a more profound story on someone who has endured enormous family tragedy with three brothers dying from muscular dystrophy and this season has his first big-league job after 36 years in the minors. Really a sad and at the same time heartwarming story told well by Jones.

"Showtime" by Jeff Pearlman

Showtime by Jeff Pearlman was on the Los Angeles Lakers team of the 1980s and would be a great read for a Lakers fan, and was still an interesting one for myself as not a huge basketball fan.

Some of the things in the book that stood out as fascinating included what Magic Johnson was like coming in as a breath of fresh air rookie, the details of his ridiculously great performance at center that year to win the 1980 NBA Championship and his womanizing.

Also particularly interesting in the book (and covered in an excerpt for Sports Illustrated) was info on how Pat Riley became head coach, with first Jack McKinney in charge, him suffering a devastating head injury and Paul Westhead taking over, and then Westhead following up initial success with becoming an overbearing force on his team, much like Riley would later do on both counts. In this regard, Pearlman tells a fascinating story throughout the book of how people would change with success and fame.

Again, I went into Showtime as someone who loves sports, but not particularly basketball and while for me as a reader I could have done without some of the details of particular games or series, I can definitely see how the book called for it and really enjoyed the read.

Michael Paterniti writing - on burrneshas in Albania & a jumbo jet crash at sea

Michael Paterniti is a non-fiction writer I've posted on a number of times and recently I've seen two additional features from him, with the latest an interesting piece and one from 2000 a brilliantly done one that made me wonder what it was like to write when just reading it was heart-wrenching.

The March issue of GQ Magazine had "The Mountains Where Women Live as Men" on a small and dwindling group of people in the Albanian Alps and originally published in the July issue of Esquire Magazine was "The Long Fall of One-Eleven Heavy" on Swiss Air flight 111 that crashed into the Atlantic, killing all 229 passengers. Just amazing writing in this Esquire piece that's popped back up again with the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

Writing by and on Matthew Power

Recently while on assignment in Africa, non-fiction writer Matthew Power died and his passing brought about some profound remembrances as well as mentions of his work.

Two pieces on his memory were "Relentless Generosity" by Abe Streep for Outside Magazine and "Remembering Journalist Matthew Power" by Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke for New York Observer.

Really well-done and thoughtful pieces both and while I've only read a few of Power's works, stories of his from a number of publications have recently been highlighted, including his archive of articles for Harper's Magazine (with "Mississippi Drift" being the Harper's piece I saw the most mentions of by readers of Power).

Book excerpt from Ron Suskind

A couple of days ago in the New York Times Magazine was a great book excerpt from political writer Ron Suskind. "Reaching My Autistic Son Through Disney" was taken from Life, Animated: A Story of Sidekicks, Heroes, and Autism and really powerful reading. It's embedded in the Times excerpt, but there's also a great 4-minute long video with Suskind and his now adult son Owen.

Great sports writing - by Pearlman, Kennedy and Tomlinson

Three excellent pieces of sports writing I've seen recently included two book excerpts in Sports Illustrated and a feature for the ESPN website.

From the Mar 3 issue of SI was "The Birth of Showtime" by Jeff Pearlman. It was taken from his book Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s and fascinating reading about the events that led to Pat Riley becoming head coach.

The second SI published except was written by Kostya Kennedy with "A quarter century later, there are no easy answers to the Pete Problem." Out of the book Pete Rose: An American Dilemma, it paints a vivid portrait of Rose and covers the question of whether he should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame when his misdeed of gambling on his team considered against against the actions of steroid users.

The final piece to note here was by Tommy Tomlinson for ESPN with "Precious Memories."  About former North Carolina men's basketball coaching legend Dean Smith, it's powerful reading on the toll that Dementia takes on people and their loved ones.