John Jeremiah Sullivan begins Blood Horses, an exceptionally literate
and very
ambitious book, with his father’s observation that Secretariat’s
performance in the 1973 Kentucky Derby was “just beauty, you know?”

Sheryl Swoopes; No Curses Here; The Quiet Hooting of the Temple Owl; Running From the Law; The Return of the NBA; Blood Horses; World Series Sweeps with Charlie Pierce; Mud and Blood and Quidditch in October

A family celebration with which I was happily occupied on Sunday meant that I had no opportunity to pay attention to sports that day. But one of the relatives familiar with my line of work assumed that I’d somehow managed to stay current on all matters sports, and asked me Sunday evening how the football games had come out.

The World Series; Schaller’s Pump; A Victory for Maccabi; George Weah; Pumpkin Fest; World Series with Charlie Pierce; Only With Passion

I am suspicious of sports-related books with subtitles that include the word “life,” as in, “Figure Skating’s Most Winning Champion On Competition and Life,” which is the subtitle of Katarina Witt’s book, “Only With Passion.”

The players in the National Basketball Association will not be allowed to wear pendants or medallions over their clothes.

A Cardinals Championship?; World Champion Brooklyn Dodgers; Who’s That Girl?; Bridgeview’s Stadium; The Calm Before the World Cup Storm; Letters; Charlie Pierce; Next Man Up

Readers who want to learn a great deal about how a National Football League team operates day-to-day, and sometimes hour-to-hour, will be delighted with John Feinstein’s “Next Man Up (A Year Behind the LInes in Today’s N.F.L.).”

MLB Playoff Update; Hockey Returns with Helene Elliott; Stanley Comes Home; Dumb and Dumber in the NFL; San Antonio Saints?; Chicago Sky Brain Trust; MLB and More with Charlie Pierce; Jeremy Bloom Seeks Higher Ground

Bill Littlefield talks about the sports world being taken over by the younger set.