Tommy Tomlinson

A book update (and a question)

Guys: My book, “The Elephant In the Room” — which I think I’ve been telling you about for 45 years or so — is one step closer to publication. The

New in the bookstack, 3/18

The stack of great-looking new books is getting out of control. Here are three of the latest to come in the mail: “Vice Versa” by Allen Cowan is about a

Marshall Crenshaw, The Evening Muse, Charlotte, NC, 9/25/10

Marshall Crenshaw writes top-10 hits for a radio station that doesn’t exist anymore. It’s the station with loud guitars but sweet melodies, complex chords but sing-along hooks, performed by singer-songwriters

Greatest Hits of 2013

What follows, in no particular order, is my best work from the past year. But first, some thank-yous: Larry Burke at Sports on Earth, for letting me explore. Elizabeth Hudson

Glory, glory

I jumped straight out of my chair — my highest vertical leap since I was a teenager, a good solid three or four inches. My old roommate Zane looked at

A PG-13 post

As my Nieman buddy Ernie Suggs said afterward, “One of those naked people will be president one day.” Last night at midnight was the annual Harvard tradition called Primal Scream,

Sports Are Hard

The Miami Heat were doing what every basketball coach wants a team to do: get to the basket. It was the second quarter of Sunday night’s Game 3, and there

The Sawx and baseball bigamy

When I was 11 I became a baseball two-timer. Growing up in Georgia I was by default an Atlanta Braves fan, the key syllable in there being “fault.” The Braves

Turning pro

(This is not about sports, just FYI, although I’ve been thinking a lot about ballplayers who are pros in every way except getting paid, especially when it comes to college

Three things I loved last weekend

Besides Saturday night’s college football, of course: 1. My friend Justin Heckert’s beautiful story in the New York Times Magazine on a girl in South Georgia who can’t feel pain.

The power of helplessness

The writer Catherine Marshall, via Dean Smith’s memoir, “A Coach’s Life“: Crisis brings us face to face with our inadequacy, and our inadequacy in turn leads us to the inexhaustible

The joy in the pain in the game

Soundtrack to this post: Years ago, I was in the stands at a Georgia game with my friend Bill. Georgia did something stupid on the field. (This was during the

Short Stories

Short Stories

A book update (and a question)

New in the bookstack, 3/18

Marshall Crenshaw, The Evening Muse, Charlotte, NC, 9/25/10

Greatest Hits of 2013

Glory, glory

A PG-13 post

Sports Are Hard

The Sawx and baseball bigamy

Turning pro

Three things I loved last weekend

The power of helplessness

The joy in the pain in the game