Showing results for "Holland" in History of Sports

Every year the Grand National produces very different stories from jockeys and horses alike; uplifting scenes from a victor and heartbreak when a mere inch divides the loser from the winner at the end of nearly four-and-a-half miles and 30 challenging fences. The race has evolved over the years, but there is one constant: luck, or the lack of it. How fitting, then, that in 1839 the first winner was named Lottery.

In the half-century since its birth, as Sports Illustrated grew from a struggling start-up to America's preeminent sports magazine, one thing has remained constant: the commitment to great storytelling. That part of the magazine's mission has always been easy to define: Identify the most compelling sports stories of our time and get the best writers in the business to tell them. This book brings together a lineup of writing talent worthy of the Hall of Fame and the classic stories they produced for Sports Illustrated over the past 50 years. Many of the writers whose work is collected here are longtime favorites of SI readers (Frank Deford, Rick Reilly, Steve Rushin, Gary Smith).