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Book of sports lists ranks No. 1 for sportswriter Shapiro
For his latest book, Washington Post sportswriter Len Shapiro did much of his work on the road.
He navigated the car with his muse sitting shotgun, and a notebook handy.
By a trip's end, Shapiro's memories were gathered as lists on the page. Lists of "Ten Great Washington Sports Traditions" and "The Top 100 D.C.-Area Athletes of All Time" and "The Ten Reasons to Hate the Dallas Cowboys" and so on.
Lists all perfect for the book Shapiro co-authored with Andy Pollin, co-host of The Sports Reporters on Sports Talk 980. "The Great Book of Washington, D.C. Sports Lists" is Shapiro's sixth book, and one of the easiest to write. It's available at Borders, Barnes and Noble and Amazon.com.
"My best thinking time came in the car," said Shapiro, a Rectortown resident since 1982. "All of a sudden, 'Hey there's a good list.' Something would pop into my head.
"It wasn't hard to come up with a lot of these things. You had to have Dan Synder's 10 greatest blunders and you had to have the top 10 greatest Redskins."
Between Shapiro, Pollin and the 50 players (Sam Huff), coaches (John Thompson), entertainers (Johnny Holliday), politicians (Lee Cowen) and media members (Tony Kornheiser) enlisted, 139 lists were created.
The book includes painful lists like the "Top 10 Redskins Gut-Punching Losses," vain lists like "Best and Worst Hair" and seemingly misplaced lists like "D.C.'s Best Burgers."
Not to mention obscure lists like "The Top 10 'white guy' Montgomery County Shooters of the 70s."
"That was a little esoteric and borderline politically incorrect," Shapiro said. "But the point of this was to get people talking, to spur discussions. We're hoping people will pick up the book and say, 'Hey wait a minute, they forgot this guy.'
"It's not the Bible, and it didn't come down from Moses."
In fact, in the book's introduction, Shapiro and Pollin encourage readers to rectify omissions and re-rank entries. "Feel free to fix them," they write. "Hey, it's a paperback."
Shapiro said he hasn't heard from any outraged reader since the book's Oct. 15 release. It's unlikely everyone agrees with the lists, though.
"I'd expect Dan Snyder could be one of the guys upset," Shapiro said...
See the Wednesday print edition of the Fauquier Times-Democrat for the complete story.
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