"World-Beating, Hairy-Chested Fiction"

In this fine article by Gordon Burn in the U.K. Guardian, the author explores how the subject of sports exposed the much of the raw talent of American writers

during the past century. He starts with Ernest Hemingway and moves across the works of John Updike, Philip Roth, Don DeLillo, Richard Ford, and David Foster Wallace, to name some of the better writers who chose sports as literary centerpieces. A long article but worth the read.