Sports fans and historians are notorious enthusiasts for minutiae. How nervous did this make you during the fact-checking process?
Extremely. I've already gotten some flack about differences in opinion as to the origins of baseball. But the endnotes are endless and I definitely need to get my fact checker a case of booze as a thank you.
How would you summarize your personal sporting ideals? In a perfect world, what purpose should sports serve?
Fun, exercise, escape and a breakdown between spectator and participant. I would also want to end this professionalization of youth sports. It's a scandal.
Who or what accounts for your refusal to pull punches?
I don't see the point of being a writer in any field that pulls punches. Why write then?
Which sports do you enjoy as a recreational or competitive participant?
Basketball definitely. A little bit of soccer.
Applying standards of conscience as well as athletic achievement, whom would you identify as our three greatest contemporary athletes, and why should we cheer them?
I think Etan Thomas of the Washington Wizards, Jeff Monson from the world of Ultimate Fighting, and Sheryl Swoopes from the WNBA. They don't check who they are and proudly have minds, not merely bodies.
Who would you pick as history's most exemplary sports journalists, and why should fans go back and read them?
Ralph Wiley, Shirley Povich, Grantland Rice, Sam Lacy, Robert Lipsyte. They should be read because they never artificially segregated the sports world from the real world.
When you scan the contemporary domestic sports landscape, what would you identify as the most prominent vestiges of muscular Christianity?
American football, without question.
How would you recommend your Wisconsin Book Festival audience prepare itself to get the most out of your appearance here?
Please pick up and read the book in advance. Also watch a sporting event on tape, and fast-forward through all the commercials.
Who would you short-list to the inaugural induction class for the Dave Zirin Sports Hall of Fame?
Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova.
Which aspects of researching and writing People's History did you find most frustrating? And which were the most satisfying?
Most frustrating was trying to figure out how to tell the history in under 100,000 words. Most satisfying was learning the story of Moses Fleetwood Walker and integrating it into the text (you gotta read it to find out).
You end the book on an ambivalent note with a slight tilt toward the hopeful. What is your vision for the history of 21st-century sports in the U.S.?
I hope it's a history of athletes realizing how much cultural capital they possess, and fans realizing that they are not powerless consumers but have the capacity to challenge sports to change.
What was the last book you read that you would recommend to friends and neighbors, and why would you recommend it?
I think I would highly recommend Waiting Until the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of the Black Power Movement, by Peniel Joseph. It's vivid and breaks new ground.
