Thursday, December 9
Book enters list at No. 10
 
 Hyperion's ESPN SportsCentury, the print companion to the award-winning television series, will debut on the prestigious New York Times Best Sellers List, Sunday, Dec. 12. The book, which includes original essays on the century's most identifiable athletes by 10 top authors, will rank No. 10 on the Hardcover Non-Fiction List. Since its September 1999 publication, SportsCentury has gone to press three times, resulting in 220,000 books in print.

"We were fortunate on this project to have the two critical ingredients for success: the right book and the right promotional support," said Robert S. Miller, senior vice president, managing director, Hyperion. "On the one hand, we had the freedom to create a book that stands on its own merits; on the other, we had ESPN's ability to reach the book's intended audience."

John A. Walsh, ESPN Senior Vice President and Executive Editor added: "SportsCentury has become the definitive multi-media effort in a crowded field of end of century projects. We are thrilled that sports fans have connected to this book, which combines terrific original writing, captivating photography and the ESPN style."

In addition to original essays, the hard-cover "coffee table-style" commemorative book includes profiles, items by ESPN commentators, interesting facts, tidbits, pictures and more -- a thorough recap on the past 100 years in sports.

ESPN SportsCentury is available at bookstores nationwide, as well as online through ESPNstore.com.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Halberstam wrote the introduction to the book, while ESPN's Chris Berman wrote the foreword. The editor of the book is Michael MacCambridge, author of The Franchise.

The book includes 10 chapters, each with an original essay on the athlete(s) who best defined each decade. The chapters also feature shorter items on other athletes included on ESPN's SportsCentury 100 greatest North American athletes of the century list.

Original essays for ESPN SportsCentury were written by a group of top authors including Gerald Early, Nicholas Lemann, Robert W. Creamer, Wilfrid Sheed, Roy Blount, Jr., Dick Schaap, Tony Kornheiser, Joyce Carol Oates, Thomas Boswell and Nelson George.

SportsCentury
ESPN's 18-month SportsCentury project presented by General Motors, the most extensive documentary project in ESPN history, includes approximately 60 original programming hours on ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC and several other related tie-ins through different mediums.

The 50 greatest athletes countdown will culminate on Dec. 26 with an hour-long program on ABC (5 p.m. ET) highlighting the top two athletes.

 


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Purchase ESPN SportsCentury book