Rebutting George Plimpton’s Small Ball Theory
The writer and editor George Plimpton posited what he called the Small Ball Theory, stating that “the smaller the ball, the more formidable the literature.”
Plimpton explained the theory in his introduction to the “Norton Book of Sports” (library link), a 1992 release that Plimpton compiled and edited.
There are “superb books about golf, very good books about baseball, not many good books about football, or soccer, very few good books about basketball, and no good books at all about beach balls.”
Plimpton, who died in 2003 at age 76, was a distinguished man of letters who edited the Paris Review for 50 years. He also had a wonderful sense of humor and undoubtedly meant his theory to be provocative, kindling to spark friendly arguments.
In that spirit, I will go on record stating that the theory was open to debate when he published it, and the ensuing 32 years have not strengthened his case.
When the Norton anthology was issued, Plimpton was aware of the success of “Instant Replay,” the 1968 book co-authored by Jerry Kramer and Dick Schaap about Kramer’s 1967 championship season with the Green Bay Packers and their legendary coach, Vince Lombardi. Kramer, an All-Pro offensive guard, was no John Updike, but was a very competent writer who took readers behind the scenes of an NFL team in a way that had never been done.
Jim Brosnan, a relief pitcher who was also a fine writer, had set a high bar for athlete-written chronicles with “The Long Season,” his account of the St. Louis Cardinals’ 1959 campaign.
Athlete-authored memoirs catch on
But the success of Kramer’s book set the stage for other athletic memoirs, including Jim Bouton’s “Ball Four,” the ground-breaking baseball book whose candor was seen as a national scandal.
I share Plimpton’s admiration for great golf writing, particularly Herbert Warren Wind’s “Following Through,” a collection of the New Yorker writer’s essays. I also recommend Michael Bamberger’s “Men in Green,” which profiles many of the sport’s greats of the 20th century.
However, Plimpton’s theory severely shortchanges the literature of football and basketball.
First, one of Plimpton’s excursions into participatory journalism, “Paper Lion,” was a successful book that was turned into a movie starring Alan Alda. Plimpton took a turn at quarterback for the Detroit Lions in an exhibition game. Perhaps he didn’t consider it great literature, but “Paper Lion” belongs in my list of 50 football books that every sports enthusiast should read.
After “Instant Replay,” anyone wishing to learn more about the Packers’ iconic coach should read David Maraniss’ “When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi.”The 1999 release is one of the great sports biographies.
Some other top football books I return to are Buzz Bissinger’s “Friday Night Lights,” Seth Wickersham’s “It’s Better to Be Feared,” about the New England Patriots’ dynasty, and Jeff Pearlman’s “Sweetness: The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton.”
Basketball books that rise above the rim
Where Mr. Plimpton really went astray was in his short-changing of basketball books.
Nearly every listing of favorite sports books in the English-speaking world includes David Halberstam’s “The Breaks of the Game,” a 1981 book about the Portland Trail Blazers’ 1979-80 season. Halberstam, a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter for the New York Times, wrote other well-received sports books, but few are as lionized as “The Breaks of the Game.”
Bill Simmons wrote a tribute to the book in 2014 in which he said his repeated readings of it – “so many times that the spine of the book crumbled” – not only inspired his career but actually taught him how to write.
I could spend a whole afternoon listing great basketball books, from my perspective. Some of the best are:
“A Sense of Where You Are: Bill Bradley at Princeton” by John McPhee;
“Life on the Run” by Bill Bradley;
“Foul! The Connie Hawkins Story” by David Wolf;
“My Losing Season” by Pat Conroy;
“The Jordan Rules” by Sam Smith;
“Rockin’ Steady: A Guide to Basketball and Cool” by Ira Berkow and Walt Frazier. (I read this in the 1970s as many times as Bill Simmons read the Halberstam book in the ‘80s.)
There are many superb books about sports that don’t involve a ball. The boxing canon alone could fill a small-town library.
We live in a time of abundance for sports books. I happen to live in a region of upstate New York that’s a bit of a used-book desert, but between online vendors and public libraries, it’s not hard to find the classics.
I must give credit to Plimpton for one observation: the great American beach ball book has yet to be written.
