Hardest Game McIlvanney on Boxing

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"The morning's work in the Philippines had drained him as none of his previous 50 fights. . . . No champion in history has ever had access to a greater storeroom of physical and spiritual reserves, but Frazier seemed to have emptied it, to have forced Ali to lift the floorboards and scrape the very foundations of his nature for the last traces of strength . . . On the way back to the dressing-room his face had the greyness of terminal exhaustion and he moved as if the marrow of his bones had been replaced by mercury." Muhammad Ali v. Joe Frazier; Quezon City, The Philippines, October 1, 1975, from The Hardest Game This outstanding compilation of articles from foremost sports journalist Hugh McIlvanney provides a ringside seat to some of the most remarkable happenings in world of boxing since the 1960s. At the core of this collection stands the incredible career of Muhammad Ali--the man whom McIlvanney considers the greatest figure in the history of sports. McIlvanney was also on hand to witness thrilling bouts involving Carlos Ortiz and Carlos Monzon--two of the greatest fighters ever seen--and the extraordinary contests between "Marvelous" Marvin Hagler, Tommy Hearns, and Sugar Ray Leonard. With the author's hallmark combination of immediacy and incisiveness, more recent writing reports on Oscar De La Hoya, Roy Jones, Mike Tyson, and Lennox Lewis. While McIlvanney can starkly illuminate farce and tragedy in boxing, the passion of his writing reveals that, in spite of deep and persistent doubts about its justifiability, he continues to be drawn to this, "the hardest game." "The genius of McIlvanney is his ability to magnify and precisely delineate those elements in sport that contain fundamental truths about the human condition." --The Scotsman "Anyone who admires writing as muscular as it is graceful should buy this book." --The Daily Telegraph