Well established as the premier sports anthology, The Best American Sports Writing brings together the finest writing on sports to appear in the past year. Edited by the award-winning Peter Gammons, the pieces in this volume embrace the world of sports in all its drama, humanity, and excitement. Venerable (and venerated) baseball writer Gammons makes some fine picks in this twentieth annual installment of the excellent series. The 26 pieces include Thomas Lake’s inspiring story of two Pacific Northwest college softball players who carried an opponent around the bases after she’d hurt herself hitting her only career home run. There’s a disturbing look at the brain trauma and subsequent dementia suffered too frequently by NFL players. Michael Lewis’ perceptive New Yorker profile of Houston’s Shane Battier, defender extraordinaire against the Lakers’ Kobe Bryant, is also reprised here. And the Boston Globe’s Bob Ryan and the Los Angeles Times’ Bill Plaschke, who appear on ESPN’s Around the Horn, show they’re not only about sound bites by delivering strong pieces on racial equality in the NBA and on a veteran MLB scout, respectively. No reason not to add this installment to a shelf beside its predecessors. --Alan Moores GLENN STOUT is the author of Young Woman and the Sea, Red Sox Century, Yankees Century, The Dodgers, and The Cubs. He has been the editor of The Best American Sports Writing since its inception.  His next book, Fenway 1912, Fenway Park's first season, will appear next year.