Sportswriting has often been overlooked in histories of journalism, much as it was slighted by newspaper managements in the early and middle 20th century. This book endeavors to remedy that oversight, presenting a concise general history of American sportswriting as well as detailed profiles of hundreds of practitioners of the trade.

Covering such subjects as journalistic ethics, women writers and sports journalists of color, as well as the decline of objective sports journalism in the age of shuttered newspapers and multiplying internet outlets, this book highlights the great newspaper and magazine sports editors, columnists, and beat reporters from the 19th century into the present, from the big-city stars to the longer-lasting deans of the trade who wrote for smaller publications.