Part One Understanding Poetry＆Sports 3
40-Love&Roger McGough 3
My Knicks Are Going to Beat Your Spurs&Catherine Bowman 5
Schusssssssss&Martin Steingesser 7
Basketball at 65&Robert W.Hamblin 9
On the Death of the Evansville University Basketball Team in a Plane Crash,December 13,1977&Robert W.Hamblin 11
Matina:Last Wimbledon&Robert W.Hamblin 13
The Runner&Walt Whitman 15
Runner（An Excerpt）&W.H.Auden 17
The Iliad（Excerpts）&Homer 20
To an Athlete Dying Young&A.E.Housman 22
Casey at the Bat&Ernest Lawrence Thayer 24
Casey's Revenge&Grantland Rice 28
Game Called（1948 Version）&Grantland Rice 31
The Standing Broad Jump&Richard Frost 33
Baseball and Writing&Marianne Moore 35
The Opening Game&Ernest Hemingway 40
Dedicated to F.W&Ernest Hemingway 41
The Fish&Elizabeth Bishop 42
To an Athlete Turned Poet&Peter Meinke 46
Ex-Basketball Player&John Updike 48
The Sometime Sportsman Greets the Spring&John Updike 50
The Zen of Racquetball&David Allan Evans 53
Pole Vaulter&David Allan Evans 56
The Performance&James Dickey 59
The Death of the Race Car Driver&Norman Dubie 62
Defending Walt Whitman&Sherman Alexie 64
Narrative:Ali（An Excerpt）&Elizabeth Alexander 68
The Sprinters&Lillian Morrison 72
The Sidewalk Racer or on the Skateboard&Lillian Morrison 73
Eton Manor&Carol Ann Duffy 75
An Ode to Football&Musa Okwonga 77
Part Two Understanding Short Stories＆Sports 83
Winter Dreams（An Excerpt）&F.Scott Fitzgerald 83
Lynx-Hunting&Stephen Crane 88
A Piece of Steak（Excerpts）&Jack London 95
The Battler&Ernest Hemingway 107
The Eighty-Yard Run&Irwin Shaw 113
Death［of Paret］&Norman Mailer 123
The Pro&John Updike 129
The National Pastime&John Cheever 134
Champion（Excerpts）&Ring Lardner 140
I Want to Know Why（Excerpts）&Sherwood Anderson 146
The Ordeal by Golf（Excepts）&P.G.Wodehouse 152
Part Three Understanding Non-fiction＆Sports 163
The Moose（From The Wilderness Hunter）&Theodore Roosevelt 163
How the Great Football Game Was Played&Richard Harding Davis 168
McGraw,Mack,McCarthy and Others（From The Tumult and the Shouting）&Grantland Rice 174
Lou Gehrig—An American Hero&Paul Gallico 181
Farewell to Baseball Address&Lou Gehrig 186
The Decline of Sport&E.B.White 189
His Name Is Muhammad（From Cosell）&Howard Cosell 193
The Smaller the Ball,the Better the Book:A Game Theory of Literature&George Plimpton 197
Paper Lion&George Plimpton 206
Winning and Losing&Bob Cousy,John Devaney 210
Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu&John Updike 214
Fathers Playing Catch with Sons&Donald Hall 219
What Shakespeare Knew about Baseball&Earl L.Dachslager 223
Instant Replay（An Excerpt）&Jerry Kramer,Dick Schaap 225
Days of Grace（An Excerpt）&Arthur Ashe,Arnold Rampersad 229
Into Thin Air（An Excerpt）&Jon Krakauer 235
What I Talk about When I Talk about Running（An Excerpt）&Haruki Murakami 240
Why I Run（An Excerpt）&Roger Robinson 243
Fever Pitch（An Excerpt）&Nick Hornby 245
The Rapture of the Athletes Assumed into Heaven&Don DeLillo 250
Game 6（An Excerpt）&Don DeLillo 252
Born to Run（An Excerpt）&Christopher McDougall 258
The Fight（An Excerpt）&Norman Mailer 261
Soccer in Sun and Shadow（Excerpts）&Eduardo Galeano 264
The Game（An Excerpt）&Kenneth Wayne Dryden 268
Part Four Understanding Novels＆Sports 275
The Champion（From Ben-Hur:A Tale of the Christ）&Lew Wallace 275
A Busher's Letter Home（From You Know Me,Al）&Ring Lardner 279
The Great Gatsby（Excerpts）&F.Scott Fitzgerald 285
The Sun Also Rises（Excerpts）&Ernest Hemingway 288
The Old Man and the Sea（Excerpts）&Ernest Hemingway 295
The Catcher in the Rye（Excerpts）&J.D.Salinger 299
Rabbit,Run（An Excerpt）&John Updike 302
The Front Runner（An Excerpt）&Patricia Nell Warren 305
Friday Night Lights（An Excerpt）&H.G.Bissinger 313
The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner（An Excerpt）&Allan Sillitoe 317
Goodbye,Columbus（Excerpts）&Philip Roth 320
The Great American Novel（An Excerpt）&Philip Roth 323
American Pastoral（An Excerpt）&Philip Roth 325
The Blind Side（Excerpts）&Michael Lewis 330
Once a Runner（An Excerpt）&John L.Parker Jr. 333
The Sportswriter（Excerpts）&Richard Ford 337
Underworld（Excerpts）&Don DeLillo 340
Shoeless Joe（An Excerpt）&W.P.Kinsella 343
References 347