In this collection, his twenty-fifth book, Joseph Epstein departs from writing about literature and culture to indulge his fondness for the world of sport in all its forms. In these essays and stories on such subjects as saving Joe DiMaggio’s reputation from the clutches of an iconoclastic biographer, marveling at the skills of Michael Jordan, shaking free of an addiction to radio sports talk shows, or contemplating the changing nature of the games he grew up with and played as a boy, Epstein turns writing about sports into an art at once penetrating and highly amusing.

Joseph Epstein is the former editor of The American Scholar. For thirty years he taught English at Northwestern University. His essays, short stories, and reviews have appeared in many magazines, both in America and abroad, among them The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Commentary, and the LondonTimes Literary Supplement. He lives in Evanston, Illinois.