His career highlights at S.I. include
road trips in search of sports on the equator, the world's most dangerous sport and Roman gladiators
as the first sports superstars, a
lengthy meditation on Don King's hair, the second - ever descent of Africa's Zambezi River, a weighty essay on the 580 - pound sumo wrestler Konishiki, an investigation into the questionable around - the - world run by Robert Garside, a look inside the mind games at the 1987 world chess championship between Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov in Seville, Spain, three weeks in the Sahara covering the 2002 Paris - to - Dakar Rally, a trudge through Panama's Darien jungle retracing Vasco Núñez de Balboa's 1513 expedition, and a journey into the world of Jeopardy! His essay on George Steinbrenner and the New York Yankees» line of succession was called the «scoop of the year» in the 2008 Houghton - Mifflin collection The Best American Sports Writing.