The Cost of These Dreams

While I enjoy watching sports (some more than others), I don't read a lot of sports journalism. Yes, there are exceptions, chief among them The New Yorker's Roger Angell and The Guardian's Barney Ronay. Add Wright Thompson to that list.

In The Cost of These Dreams, a collection of his writing from ESPN The Magazine, Thompson obsesses over what drives the people who inspire us on the diamond, the pitch, the court. He wants to learn – wants us to see – the price they pay to become living legends, superstars, myths. His opening piece on Michael Jordan pairs well with The Last Dance documentary miniseries from last year. The inner forces that made MJ so good at basketball leave him completely ill-suited for normal middle-aged life.

Later, we spend time in Lionel Messi's hometown of Rosario, Argentina, where nobody seems to know what to make of the wunderkind who left for Europe before he could grow up (literally). The goings-on in Leo's heart and mind remain a mystery to his closest friends, possibly inaccessible even to himself.

One is left with the distinct impression that "the cost of these dreams" is, for the most part, entirely too high.