Sports

The sport of boxing has been in the news since boxer Mike Tyson bit the ear of his opponent, Evander Holyfield. Photographer Larry Fink has captured many images of boxing which have been collected in his book, "Boxing" (Powerhouse Books). And sports writer Bert Sugar has written numerous works on sports and has served as senior vice-president of "The Ring" magazine, a magazine on boxing. He wrote the essay included in Fink's book. They'll talk about the often maligned sport. (Interview by Marty Moss-Coane)

This month National Geographic "Explorer" will broadcast a behind-the-scenes documentary about NFL films, whose innovative presentation of football has helped make the sport as popular as it is today. The show, which is called "Inside NFL Films: The Idol Makers," will air on August 17th at 7 PM (ET) on TBS Superstations. Marty Moss-Coane talks with Steve Sabol, the president of NFL films, who also directs many of the NFL films.

Former major baseball league scout John Young. He is currently special assistant to the general manager of the Chicago Cubs. In 1988 he began a program in south central Los Angeles to get inner city kids playing baseball. Known as RBI ("Reviving Baseball in the Inner Cities"), the program has since expanded to include 51 cities and 40,000 youth.

Commentator Gerald Early talks about baseball legend Jackie Robinson and his unintended effects on the Negro leagues.

Athlete and freelance journalist Anna Seaton Huntington. She won the women's pair rowing bronze medal in the 1992 Olympics and was a member of the 1995 women's team in the America's Cup competition. In her new book "Making Waves," she writes of her experience training for and competing in a traditionally male-dominated sport of sailing.

This past spring in Philadelphia, in a well publicized match, Kasparov beat IBM's Deep Blue, which was considered the most competitive chess computer to date. Kasparov recently has been promoting chess as a learning tool in schools. He made a new chess computer game called "Talking Coach Kasparov" by Saitek. It has the unique feature of having an electronic chess tutor talk to you when you're in trouble. Kasparov was born in Moscow and was an outspoken critic of communism during the Cold War.

America's pre-eminent writer has written forty-seven books, including 17 novels. The Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, poet, and essayist has now turned his attention to his other passion. "Golf Dreams: Writings on Golf" is published by Knopf.

An excerpt from the next edition of "This American Life" from WBEZ: a performance excerpt from monologist, actor and writer Spalding Gray. His latest show "It's a Slippery Slope" opens this Sunday at New York's Lincoln Center Theater. This excerpt was recorded at Chicago's Goodman Theater.

Jackson played for eleven years with the New York Knicks, worked as a television color commentator, and coached minor-league for four years, before becoming the head coach of the Bulls. He led the team m through three consecutive NBA championships with a unique coaching style, creating a winning team of star players Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and Dennis Rodman. In his book, "Sacred Hoops," Jackson shares the ways in which he seeks to transform the every-man-for-himself professional play of three of the world's best basketball players into selfless team play.

Linguist Geoff Nunberg compares the different ways France and the U.S. covered the Olympics -- and what they say about these countries' attitudes toward their respective languages.