The Top of His Game: The Best Sportswriting of W. C. Heinz: A Library of America Special Publicaton

In those Vibrant Postwar Decades when print was king, W. C. Heinz was the byline to watch for. His profiles of the top athletes of his day-boxers, baseball players, gridiron legends, hockey stars, jockeys, and rodeo orders-are classics of the form, as immediate and affecting today a when first written. "Heinz had it all." says David Maraniss, "a deep understanding of human nature, a wonderful sense of humor, and a writing style so clean and clear that he makes the difficult seem easy, just the way a great athlete close." Jimmy Breslin named Heinz's "Brownsville Bum"-a brief life of Al "Bummy" Davis, Brooklyn street tough and onetime welter weight champion of the world-"the greatest magazine sports story I've ever read, bar none." Here, in thirty-eight timeless pieces, chosen and introduced by Bill Littlefield, is an American master at the top of his game.