The Cost of These Dreams

Walter Wright Thompson died before he could fulfill his dream of walking Augusta National during the Masters. His son took that walk for him. 

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The death of his father set a battle raging inside the world's greatest golfer. How he waged that war–through an obsession with the Navy SEALs–is the tale of how Tiger lost his way.

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Ted Williams’s ambitions shaped his legacy but wrecked his relationships. It was only in the 11th hour of his life that the Williams family’s cycle of suffering had a slim chance of being broken.

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What drove the former college basketball star to his death in the Brazilian Jungle?

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Muhammad Ali Fought 50 men. Only one disappeared. 

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As he turned 50, Michael Jordan wondered if there were any more asses to kick.

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In 1962 the Ole Miss campus erupted in violence over integration and swelled with pride over a powerful football team. Wright Thompson explores how that tumultuous fall of 1962 still grips the state.

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The hyper-focus of camera lenses made the 24 hours leading up to Game 7 seem like one big explosion of joy in Chicago, but the truth was that nobody could be sure how'd they'd feel when it all ended, whether they'd be full of joy, or grief, or both. 

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From one of America's most beloved sportswriters, a collection of true stories about the dream of greatness and its cost in the world of sports.

There is only one Wright Thompson. His work includes the most read articles in the history of ESPN and has been anthologised in The Best American Sports Writing books ten times. But to say his pieces are about sports, while true as far as it goes, is like saying Larry McMurty's Lonesome Dove is a book about a cattle drive. Wright Thompson figures people out. Whether it be Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods or Tony Harris or Ted Williams, he strips away the self-serving myths and fantasies to fully reveal his characters, and what drives them, in a way that few others can.

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