Part 1 of Essay
remembers it well. It was 1966. He was 32 and working in Paris for the New York Times when he read a piece of journalism that would change his life. The article was an Esquire magazine feature on Joe DiMaggio, written by Gay Talese. But it was more than just an insightful observation by Talese of a man who once was king ....

Part 2 of Essay
.... and a 20th-anniversary edition in 1993). Now he's paying tribute to some of the top sports reporting ever put on paper. His most recent project was to serve as guest editor of "The Best American Sports Writing of the Century" (Houghton Mifflin), part of an annual series edited by Glenn Stout. This latest installment, published in May, covers the century, an encompassing look at the development of sports writing that parallels the burgeoning popularity of sport in a large part of American consciousness. 'He ....