I'm a huge sports fan. Currently, I'm watching the NBA playoffs. I put sports in my books. The books that not many people buy. Hemingway used sports in some of his books--skiing, bullfighting, etc. Ken Kesey and John Irving were excellent wrestlers. Ho hum.
Me too. Boston sports nut. Agree about it not being featured much in literature anymore. Not sure about now, but when I was a kid (80s), sports YA for males was huge. Boys read Matt Christopher, girls read Judy Blume and Beverly Cleary... that kind of thing. I of course read all of them not realizing I was getting an education on how a girl would grow up. Must be where I get my sensitive side and affinity for purple/lavender in my wardrobe.
With football so big in Europe there seems to be little appetite for fiction about the topic but now that it's predominantly a middle class past time this might change in the future......
Last night the Yankees and White Sox played a game at the Iowa farm where Field of Dreams was filmed. That's my second favorite sports movie of all time, fyi. I thought it was a great choice by MLB.
John Feinstein writes a series of sports-themed mysteries for young readers. Ten books so far, I think.
I have a huge soft spot for sports movies. It's a really good way to get feel good motivational speeches injected into your vein. But to be honest, I don't think it would work on books as a medium. In a movie about sports, a non sports person tends to distance themselves from the action and drama that is depicted on screen. I think you'd have to have a heavy background in sports to empathise or relate to the depiction on the screen. But it works as separate from yourself the viewer as you are basically an audience or a crowd cheering the protagonist on. The problem with trying to replicate that in books is that it's at a much more emotional and closer relationship with the POV. Which is more jarring because without a very serious sports experience, you'd not relate to all the nuance of their emotions or at least it won't be as emotionally charged. Plus the action in sports doesn't translate well in books. Imagine trying to create tension by saying "he passed it to the left!", "he passed it to the right!". It just sounds silly. But in movies they can depict the action in the same way you enjoy a real game of whatever sport that is being depicted. That's why I think sports isn't really covered in books unless as autobiography and with only the most dramatic action scenes of sports history being highlighted and dramatised.
i'm an adult and i binged all of Jason Reynold's Track series. its a childrens/YA book series about track and field. each book is about a different runner on the team. their family lives, why they started running, and what they have to go through to get to where they want to be. it was really well done (the first book in the series won an award). It was really accurate, even the part about the coach sending the kids on a street run and following them in his car, honking at them when they stopped (my middle school coach would do that! even my college coach!!) I've never stolen track shoes before (like the MC of the first book did), but i could identify with going to practice and seeing everyone with fancy running shoes and me having cruddy ones, and then being super excited to own my own pair of fancy running shoes.
I love going to the gym and playing soccer or basketball with my friends on weekends. Physical activity greatly helps my brain to rest.
