Never, say never, as I have learned from my recent reading experiences with sport stories. I have always enjoyed mysteries, but never did I think I would share the same passion about sports writing.

David Zirin, a sports writer extraordinaire, writes eloquently about the clash of politics and sport icons. In the book called What’s My Name, Fool?: Sports and Resistance in the United States, Zirin writes with insight about athletic icons and their stories of racism, women‘s second-class status, and the increasing alliance of professional sports and politics.

The book is not a condemnation of the importance of sports in today’s culture, but reveals the side of sports where little thought or light is given to by commentators or majority of sports writers.  

I could not put the book down. Zirin's study sheds light on moments in sports I could recall from childhood, but had no idea about the the subtext or back story to those moments.

Moving from the highly-charged writing of David Zirin, The Best American Sports Writing offers readers a different venue. This series began in 1999. Each year a new book is published containing the best sports stories written that year. Topics cover hiking, car racing and child wrestling circuits, boxing, baseball, skating and many more sports. The stories are culled from periodicals, so they are short and tightly written.

Unlike Zirin’s book, The Best series offers both non-fiction and fiction stories. I would propose that Zirin’s book is the meat and potatoes of sports and The Best series is the soup and salad – great for summer reading or when you just need a quick read.

I can’t leave the sports topic without touching on Nate Silver, one baseball’s better-known statisticians. He took his passion for statistics and founded fivethirtyeight.com, Politics Done Right.  

Why 538? That is the number of electors in the electoral college. The site is changed daily with information and stats. Silver uses his data to support what appears to be a shift in direction for the Republican Party – one that is leaning more toward Libertarian.

His article on the number of participants in the Tea Parties shows roughly 330,000 participants in fewer than 400 cities. The site is rich with stats, politics and a dose of baseball language in the commentary. A recent interview with Nate Silver and about his accuracy can be found at The Economist's website.