A ghost of football past

THE GALLOPING GHOST: Red Grange, an American Football Legend
By Gary Andrew Poole
Houghton Mifflin, 336 pp., illustrated, $25

THE FIRST TIP-OFF: The Incredible Story of the Birth of the NBA
By Charley Rosen
McGraw-Hill, 288 pp.,illustrated, $24.95

FOLLOW THE ROAR: Tailing Tiger for All 604 Holes of His Most Spectacular Season
By Bob Smiley
Harper, 280 pp., illustrated, $25.95

THE BEST AMERICAN SPORTS WRITING 2008
Edited by William Nack; Glenn Stout, series editor
Houghton Mifflin, 407 pp., paperback, $14

"The Galloping Ghost," by Gary Andrew Poole, may convince readers that Red Grange was the most productive college football player ever to strap on a helmet. Grange, who played for Illinois and sort of went to school there, was a prolific offensive force: 402 yards gained and five touchdowns against Michigan in 1924, 300 yards gained and three touchdowns against Chicago in the same year, when Chicago was a powerhouse. He played defense as well, and sometimes kicked, and returned kicks, so comparing Grange with contemporary college players, whose work is as specialized as that of any assembly-line worker, may be pointless.

Football as Grange played it was both more and less dangerous than today's game. The players were much smaller, so according to the laws of physics the collisions between them were less devastating. On the other hand, at least according to Poole, the play was dirtier. He establishes this with one magnificently weird sentence about a game between Illinois and Minnesota in 1924: "They [the Minnestota defense] were rototilling Grange late the whole game, even toothing his skin with bites."

Though today's college and pro players frequently suffer concussions, torn ligaments, and broken bones, they are not rototilled, and their skin is seldom toothed with bites.

"The First Tip-Off," Charley Rosen's entertaining history of the initial season of the league that became the National Basketball Association, likewise establishes that the game played by Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett bears little resemblance to its mid-20th-century ancestor. In 1946, when Red Auerbach was challenging the refs to meet him out back on behalf of the Washington Capitols, the ball was bigger, the players were smaller, and the gambling was more blatant. Fan behavior was different, too. At one especially cozy arena, spectators would tug on the wires stabilizing the backboard, thus providing opposing players at the foul line with a moving target.

At the end of that first year, the franchises in Toronto, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Detroit folded. Commissioner Maurice Podoloff called the season "a complete failure," and he wasn't referring exclusively to the league's finances. "The games were lousy," he said. "That was my lasting memory of that season - the lousy games."

Tiger Woods dropped off the PGA tour during the 2008 golf season to address knee problems that had become chronic. But before he did so, he won four of the six tournaments in which he played, including the US Open "with a torn anterior cruciate ligament and two stess fractures." Bob Smiley witnessed in person every shot Woods hit during that run, traveling as far as Dubai to do so, because, as Smiley puts it, "how often does one have the chance to see a person do something better than perhaps it has ever been done before or will ever be done again?"

"Follow the Roar" is a tribute to the skill, dedication, and determination of Woods, who may very well turn out to be golf's most accomplished player. Smiley's admiration for Woods borders on worship, but worship leavened with a sense of humor. Though much of the book is presented as a shot-by-shot (and sometimes minute-to-minute) account of Woods's days on the course, some of the best moments come when Smiley briefly looks away from his triumphant subject, as in this passage describing Rocco Mediate when he's locked in a playoff with Woods at the US Open: "When he walks up, a U.S.G.A. official reminds us that we need to stand still and be quiet. Rocco shrugs his shoulders and says, 'Or you can talk.' "

Each year's volume of "The Best American Sports Writing" gives readers an opportunity to see what they've missed by failing to subscribe not only to Sports Illustrated, but to Runner's World, Esquire, The New York Times, and several more obscure print publications as well as lots of websites. The guest editor of this year's book is William Nack, our most literate and entertaining chronicler of thoroughbreds, so it is surprising that several of the stories he picked involve two-legged runners.

Still, there's plenty here for fans of the more traditional games. You may never again take for granted an extra point after reading Michael Lewis's "The Kick Is Up and It's . . . a Career Killer." Mark Kram Jr.'s account of the ups and grim downs of his father's career as a sportswriter transcends the category of "sports story," as does Franz Lidz's portrait of George Steinbrenner. Perhaps the most powerful entry in the collection is Paul Solotaroff's "Casualties of the NFL," which first appeared in Men's Journal. It's still another moving indictment of the near-complete failure of the league and the players' union to responsibly address the damage veteran players suffered at their workplace - damage that has led to agony, poverty, and, in some cases, dementia.

Bill Littlefield hosts National Public Radio's "Only a Game." His most recent book is also titled "Only a Game."