On the eve of his thirtieth birthday Steve Rushin decided he wanted to revisit the twin pursuits of his youth: epic car trips and an unhealthy obsession with sports. He had a desire to see French Lick Indiana the boyhood home of Larry Bird to attend a Texas high school football game and to watch Louisville Sluggers being Powerized--whatever on Earth that means. So he got into his Japanese car and drove to American sports shrines for a year. I was going to put my finger on the pulse of American sports and I wanted that finger to be one of those giant foam-rubber index fingers worn by pinhead fans across the land. So I joined Interstate 35 and traveled south out of Minneapolis in a cold gray mist. It was like driving into a sneeze. The radio reported ninety-four-mile-an-hour winds in southern Minnesota as well as golf ball- baseball- and softball-sized hail. It was raining sporting goods and I was following the perforated yellow line of the highway like a trail of dripping ballpark nacho cheese that would lead me to the soul of American sports--or whatever I was looking for.

Like a sports-addled Blue Highways Road Swing is a hearty chunk of Americana a travelogue about the places that are the soul of sports and a reflection of those themes that are unique to the American character.