Cramer, Richard Ben, editor and Glenn Stout, series editor. The Best American Sports Writing 2004New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2004. 336pp.

This is an easy one to recommend for commuting or long trips. It's light and easy reading while still being very engaging and interesting. I've read a few other of the volumes in this series and have enjoyed them immensely. As an added bonus, you don't really have to be interested in sports per se to enjoy this book. Certainly, I'm not a basketball fan but there are several basketball stories in the book that I found very interesting. The key point in that they are good stories, not just sports stories. They do stretch the definition of sports a little further than I would: for example there is a story on the world taxidermy championship. Interesting, sure, but hard to define as a sport or even a game. Great stories on soccer player Mia Hamm, Tony Pena, Mickey Mantle's kids, competitive fishing and endurance swimming.