Part of Outsports’ series on our 100 most important moments in gay sports history. Books, 1974. Many would be surprised to know that the best-selling gay novel of all time is a story about a gay coach and his Olympic runner as told in Patricia Nell Warren’s 1974 best seller, ‘The Front Runner.’ The novel centered [...]
Posts under ‘Books’
Moment #55: Jim Bouton’s ‘Ball Four’ TV show includes gay ballplayer
Part of Outsports’ series on our 100 most important moments in gay sports history. Baseball, 1976. Major League pitcher Jim Bouton had caused quite a stir with his 1970 book, Ball Four. The book chronicled his 1969 season in the Major Leagues and brought to the public eye the rampant womanizing and drug use taking [...]
Moment #92: Pat Griffin publishes ‘Strong Women, Deep Closets’
Part of Outsports’ series on our 100 most important moments in gay sports history. Various sports, 1998. Every woman who plays sports is queer, so it’s gotta be easy being a lesbian athlete, right? That was the prevailing myth that pervaded sports (and largely still does). But it was Pat Griffin’s Strong Women, Deep Closets that [...]
Moment #99: Dan Woog publishes ‘Jocks’
Part of Outsports’ series on our 100 most important moments in gay sports history. Various sports, 1997. With the subtitle, ‘True stories of America’s gay male athletes,’ Dan Woog’s book ‘Jocks’ opened eyes in 1997. This wasn’t one athlete’s story about being gay: This was over two dozen male athletes talking about being gay in various [...]
Patricia Nell Warren releases ‘My West,’ an anthology of the Western United States
Patricia Nell Warren has released a new anthology of stories and articles about one of her favorite topics: The Western United States. Titled My West, the book is just that: a vision of the beauty and grandeur of the West through Warren’s insightful eyes. Warren is the author of the best-selling gay-themed novel of all [...]
Out athlete Ryan Quinn publishes first book
The successful and sometimes controversial novelist Anne Rice offers the following advice to aspiring writers: write the book you want to read and that doesn’t yet exist. Another piece of advice she has: don’t listen to other peoples’ advice. I wasn’t aware of these words of wisdom at the time, but my instincts told me [...]
Newsflash: Johnny Weir comes out as gay
He’s here, he’s Weir. Several Web sites (including AfterElton) are reporting that figure skater Johnny Weir says he is gay in his new book, Welcome To My World. Weir said he would talk directly about relationships in his book, and those relationships obviously include men. One tidbit from a People interview of Weir that AfterElton [...]
Ryan Leaf: The lord of the busts trilogy
For some reason beyond my understanding, Ryan Leaf has been given a three-book deal to write about his time at Washington State, his time in the NFL, and his battle with addiction. The Washington State book is projected to hit shelves in October 2011, and since we’re talking about the super stable Ryan Leaf, I’m [...]
Chely Wright’s lesbian tennis images
We got a copy of newly out Country singer Chely Wright’s new autobiography, “Like Me: Confessions of a Heartland Country Singer“, and quickly scanned it for a sports angle. We knew she had dated NFL quarterback Brett Favre, so we were hoping for some juice. Instead: Nada. No mention of Favre or any other pro-sports [...]
Agassi used crystal meth
Andre Agassi drops a bombshell in his new autobiography, Open: An Autobiography. In the book, he says he used crystal meth while he was still on the Tour. He also admits to lying to the ATP when he tested positive for the drug. Some people are saying this undermines Agassi’s legacy. I don’t see how. [...]
Look back at the book Athlete/Warrior
The blog Andrey’s World gave a flash back to the picture book Athlete/Warrior this week, so we will too. It’s from the photographer duo Anderson & Low and features gorgeous black & white images of student-athletes at our country’s top military universities. This one is just a sample, and there’s another after the jump. Stunning [...]
E. Lynn Harris told closeted sports stories
Jim and I were both out of town when author E. Lynn Harris passed away a couple weeks ago, so I wanted to circle back and make sure we recognized him here. He was on tour for his new book, “Basketball Jones”, when he collapsed of a heart attack in Beverly Hills at age 54. [...]
“Moneyball” flick may be struck out
Variety reports that “Moneyball,” the Steven Soderbergh film starring Brad Pitt as Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane (not to be confused with openly gay former ballplayer Billy Bean) may be in trouble. The report says that Columbia Pictures has put the production in “limited turnaround” because studio head Amy Pascal felt the final draft [...]
Will Phelps’ kiddie book sell?
Michael Phelps has a new children’s book out titled, How to Train with a T. Rex and Win 8 Gold Medals. It chronicles all the work Phelps put in to train for the Beijing Olympics (e.g., he napped for the equivalent of 273 days over six years, and that’s not including his nighttime sleeping). Of [...]
Gay football novel wins Lambda Lit Award
Congratulations to lontime Outsports friend Bill Konigsberg, who won a Lambda Literary Award last night for his book about a gay high school football player, Out of the Pocket. The award was for LGBT Children’s/Young Adult. Bill’s been on the forefront of gay visibility in the sports media since he came out at ESPN in [...]