• This New York Times series on an 12-year-old homeless girl -- the series was reported and written by Andrea Elliott and photographed by Ruth Fremson -- was public service journalism at its best.
• The Los Angeles Times had a remarkable special report on the manhunt for Christopher Dorner.
• Indiana Daily Student reporter Jessica Contrera's story on the closing of a Bloomington Waffle House was as good a feature as I've ever read from a college student.
• American photographer Angelo Merendino photographed every stage his girlfriend went through in her battle with cancer. Heartbreaking and beautiful.
• MLB.com reporter Anthony Castrovince checked in with the families of Tim Crews and Steve Olin 20 years after the death of the two Indians pitchers.
• SI's S.L. Price wrote a heartbreaking story on six-year-old Jack Pinto, a huge sports fan who died one year ago at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
• New York Times Magazine writer Stephen Rodrick wrote a brilliant fly-on-the-wall examination of what happens when you cast Lindsay Lohan for a movie.
• The Lance Armstrong scandal ended in vindication for David Walsh, the journalist who first accused him of doping to win the Tour de France. This was an amazing piece here from Walsh.
• Janelle Nanos of Boston Magazine reported a fantastic oral history of Good Will Hunting.
• Here are the 13 most-read New Yorker magazine stories of 2013.
• Washington Post writer Eli Saslow wrote a brilliant piece mourning parents struggling after the shootings in Newtown, Ct.
• This Economist's obituary on Richard III, who died in the 15th century but was rediscovered in February, was sensationally done.
• Michael Jordan isn't known for introspection -- or for giving reporters access -- but ESPN's Wright Thompson beautifully illuminated a middle-aged Jordan.
• This first-person piece on domestic violence by poet Courtney Queeney was brilliantly written about a subject that demands attention.
• Via The New York Times: "The Professor, the Bikini Model and the Suitcase Full of Trouble."
• This two-part series by Pamela Coloff, published in Texas Monthly, on a Texas man being wrongly imprisoned deservedly won a National Magazine Award. Here is Part 1 and Part 2.
• Extraordinary work by Boston Globe reporter Eric Moskowitz on a couple impacted by the Marathon bombing.
• Yahoo! Sports columnist Adrian Wojnarowski displayed a writer at the top of his game with this piece on Pacers guard Lance Stephenson.
• Grantland's Bryan Curtis on the woes of Miami Marlins fans.
• Sensational reporting by Craig Wolff of the Newark Star-Ledger on Rutgers athletic director Julie Hermann.
• ESPN writer Kate Fagan had a fantastic profile of WNBA player Brittney Griner.
• If you love great profile writing, New York Times senior writer Dwight Garner wrote a beautiful piece on singer/songwriter Jason Isbell.
• Washington Post writer Kent Babb had a superbly reported piece on the descent of former NBA star Allen Iverson.
• This Economist obit of Elmore Leonard was brilliant.
• Loved this feature by ESPN NBA insider Marc Stein on how sideline reporters (gingerly) approach Spurs coach Gregg Popovich.
• Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi's dispatch from Camden, New Jersey was a sobering, must-read.
• The New Yorker's Ariel Levy, on the Steubenville rape case.
• CJR's Francesca Borri, on freelancing in Syria for $70 per story.
• Brilliant work by Tampa Bay Times writer Lane DeGregory on a 99-year-old man who lives to work.
• ESPN The Magazine's Chris Jones had a fantastic piece on a 16-year-old Japanese pitching prospect and the duty he feels toward his country's national baseball tournament.
• Susan Elizabeth Shepard wrote a brilliant piece for Buzzfeed on being a topless dancer in an American boomtown. This is sensational work.
• SI's Gary Smith profiled an Ohio high school assistant football coach who saved lives during a school shooting.
• Incredible and heartbreaking reporting from the Washington Post's Saslow on hunger in rural America.
• GQ's Chris Heath had a remarkable feature on a Swedish serial killer.
• Cannot recommend more highly this brilliant piece of journalism on the abuse of civil forfeitures by Sarah Stillman of the New Yorker.
• New York Times reporter Sarah Lyall wrote a brilliant piece on what she learned after spending two decades covering the United Kingdom.
• Richard Sandomir, James Andrew Miller and Steve Eder co-wrote a must-read examination of ESPN's influence over college football.
• Rolling Stone's Paul Solotaroff with Ron Borges published a comprehensive examination of Aaron Hernandez.
•A fascinating essay in the New York Review of Books on how jellyfish are threatening the future of our oceans.
• ESPN's Wright Thompson on racism in Italian soccer.
• A beautiful essay by Rachel Maizes on caring for a bad dog.
• There were some remarkable pieces on Lance Armstrong's admission, but none better than this from ESPN.com's Bonnie Ford.
• ESPN The Magazine's Scott Eden wrote a sensational piece on one of the world's best NBA gamblers.
• New York Times reporter Mary Pilon delivered a fantastic story on an MMA fighter faking his own death.
• Boston Stands As One. SI's S.L. Price on Boston after the Boston marathon bombings.
• Writer Jeff Pearlman on the best lede he ever wrote.
• Esquire's Chris Jones wrote a sensational piece on what happened in the crowded cabin of Air Force One on Nov. 22, 1963 after President John F. Kennedy was killed in Dallas.
• Terrific work by ESPN.com's Paul Kix on a high school coach with a dark past -- he was a meth dealer and user.
• GQ Magazine's Adam Johnson on the sushi chef who served Kim Jong-il and his heir.
• Great piece by ESPN's Tim Keown on the relationship between the city of Oakland and its pro sports teams.
• A brilliant profile by Texas Monthly executive editor Mimi Swartz on former Texas women's track and field coach Bev Kearney and her fight with her former university.
• Deadspin's Tommy Craggs delivered a killer piece on what Howie Schwab -- who was dropped by ESPN without warning after 26 years of service -- meant to the network's soul.
• Esquire's Charlie Pierce wrote brilliantly from Watertown following the manhunt for Dzhokar Tsarnaev.
• Want to get angry? Read this Kansas City Star story about football and privilege in a Missouri town.
• Mike Tyson had a riveting first-person piece for New York magazine: My Life As a Young Thug.
• The Globe and Mail story on the Ford family's history with drug dealing was remarkable journalism.
• Grantland's Bryan Curtis and Patricia Lee reported a great oral history of the 1989 World Series.
• Tim Layden's SI Longform piece on Jeff Lukas should not be missed.
• On life and Ultimate Frisbee.
• Here's Kurt Vonnegut's letter to a group of NYC high school students.
• Grantland's David Shoemaker offered a concise history of racism in pro wrestling over the last three decades.
• Grantland's Jay Caspian Kang on the end of the road for Don King.
• The MMQB's Robert Klemko, on the use of the n-word in an NFL locker room.
• ESPN's Don Van Natta examined whether the seminal Bobby Riggs-Billie Jean King Battle of The Sexes tennis match was fixed.
• A sensational piece by Alan Sepinwall on the genius of the late James Gandolfini.
• "Lee Harvey Oswald Was My Friend." A fascinating first-person memoir from a friend of Oswald's.
• Grantland's Brian Phillips declared a war on the warrior culture.
• The intersection of porn and murder in Miami. Great work by Michael E. Miller of Miami New Times.
• A college football player's death from brain injury was called an accident. Then a haunting email arrived. Nathan Fenno of the Washington Times had the story.
• Terrific piece by Meagan Flynn of Urban Plains Magazine on the one-woman town (yes, population: 1) of Monowi, Nebraska.
• Actor Michael Cera, writing for the New Yorker, on text messaging a stranger.
• Newsday republished this Jimmy Breslin column from Nov. 1963. The subject is the man who dug John F. Kennedy's grave at the Arlington National cemetery. Many consider it the best newspaper column of all-time.
• Matt Stanmyre of the Newark Star-Ledger wrote a beautiful piece on a 17-year-old New Jersey athlete's devotion to his sick mother.
•If you love to run, no matter your speed, I think you'll love this short film.
• SB Nation's Spencer Hall on Auburn-Alabama.
• The MMQB's Peter King embedded with an NFL officiating crew for a week and produced a groundbreaking series on how NFL officials prepare for their job.
• Golf Digest reporter Gabriel Thompson produced a special report on the everyday lives of the Latino immigrants -- both legal and undocumented -- who dominate the maintenance worker ranks on American golf courses.
• Jessica Contrera makes this list again for her work on the death of an Indiana University freshman.
•Paying Til It Hurts: The New York Times examined why the U.S. leads the world in health expenditures.
• One of the best obits I've ever read -- a beautiful piece of writing by Gawker's Tom Scocca.
• ESPN Outside The Lines staffers Steve Fainaru and John Barr produced a thought-provoking piece on the longtime Jets team doctor and why he had so much authority over the NFL's concussion program.
• Amy K. Nelson (for Deadspin) tracked down Jeff Gillooly, the former husband of Tonya Harding and one of those behind the attack on Nancy Kerrigan.
•Grantland's Molly Lambert is the Leo Messi of Mad Men recaps.
• This image and short story about lost love will have some in tears.
• The Fall of The House of Tsarnaev, via The Boston Globe.
• Some photo genius from former SI.com staffer and New York Times staff editor Nicki Jhabvala: The evolution of Chris "Birdman" Andersen.
• That Other School Shooting: Jay Caspian King on One L. Goh, who killed six people at Oikos University in Oakland, California.
• Grantland's Brian Phillips had a brilliant piece on Maria Sharapova, David Beckham, and "immaculate self-absorption" in sports.
• Deadspin's Emma Carmichael did a fabulous as-told-to with Craig Ehlo, who explained what it was like to guard (and get torched by) Michael Jordan.
•Grantland's Eric Raskin had an oral history of the 2003 World Series of Poker, which produced a boom for the game.
• SI's Lee Jenkins deconstructed Ray Allen's game-tying three-pointer in last year's Game 6 of the NBA Finals.
•Omaha World-Herald sports reporter Dirk Chatelain wrote a beautiful piece (with great images) on the disappearance of small-town football in Nebraska.
• Longreads named these 10 stories the ones they could not stop thinking about in 2013.
• The New York Times' Year In Pictures.
• The Los Angeles Times had a remarkable special report on the manhunt for Christopher Dorner.
• Indiana Daily Student reporter Jessica Contrera's story on the closing of a Bloomington Waffle House was as good a feature as I've ever read from a college student.
• American photographer Angelo Merendino photographed every stage his girlfriend went through in her battle with cancer. Heartbreaking and beautiful.
• MLB.com reporter Anthony Castrovince checked in with the families of Tim Crews and Steve Olin 20 years after the death of the two Indians pitchers.
• SI's S.L. Price wrote a heartbreaking story on six-year-old Jack Pinto, a huge sports fan who died one year ago at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
• New York Times Magazine writer Stephen Rodrick wrote a brilliant fly-on-the-wall examination of what happens when you cast Lindsay Lohan for a movie.
• The Lance Armstrong scandal ended in vindication for David Walsh, the journalist who first accused him of doping to win the Tour de France. This was an amazing piece here from Walsh.
• Janelle Nanos of Boston Magazine reported a fantastic oral history of Good Will Hunting.
• Here are the 13 most-read New Yorker magazine stories of 2013.
• Washington Post writer Eli Saslow wrote a brilliant piece mourning parents struggling after the shootings in Newtown, Ct.
• This Economist's obituary on Richard III, who died in the 15th century but was rediscovered in February, was sensationally done.
• Michael Jordan isn't known for introspection -- or for giving reporters access -- but ESPN's Wright Thompson beautifully illuminated a middle-aged Jordan.
• This first-person piece on domestic violence by poet Courtney Queeney was brilliantly written about a subject that demands attention.
• Via The New York Times: "The Professor, the Bikini Model and the Suitcase Full of Trouble."
• This two-part series by Pamela Coloff, published in Texas Monthly, on a Texas man being wrongly imprisoned deservedly won a National Magazine Award. Here is Part 1 and Part 2.
• Extraordinary work by Boston Globe reporter Eric Moskowitz on a couple impacted by the Marathon bombing.
• Yahoo! Sports columnist Adrian Wojnarowski displayed a writer at the top of his game with this piece on Pacers guard Lance Stephenson.
• Grantland's Bryan Curtis on the woes of Miami Marlins fans.
• Sensational reporting by Craig Wolff of the Newark Star-Ledger on Rutgers athletic director Julie Hermann.
• ESPN writer Kate Fagan had a fantastic profile of WNBA player Brittney Griner.
• If you love great profile writing, New York Times senior writer Dwight Garner wrote a beautiful piece on singer/songwriter Jason Isbell.
• Washington Post writer Kent Babb had a superbly reported piece on the descent of former NBA star Allen Iverson.
• This Economist obit of Elmore Leonard was brilliant.
• Loved this feature by ESPN NBA insider Marc Stein on how sideline reporters (gingerly) approach Spurs coach Gregg Popovich.
• Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi's dispatch from Camden, New Jersey was a sobering, must-read.
• The New Yorker's Ariel Levy, on the Steubenville rape case.
• CJR's Francesca Borri, on freelancing in Syria for $70 per story.
• Brilliant work by Tampa Bay Times writer Lane DeGregory on a 99-year-old man who lives to work.
• ESPN The Magazine's Chris Jones had a fantastic piece on a 16-year-old Japanese pitching prospect and the duty he feels toward his country's national baseball tournament.
• Susan Elizabeth Shepard wrote a brilliant piece for Buzzfeed on being a topless dancer in an American boomtown. This is sensational work.
• SI's Gary Smith profiled an Ohio high school assistant football coach who saved lives during a school shooting.
• Incredible and heartbreaking reporting from the Washington Post's Saslow on hunger in rural America.
• GQ's Chris Heath had a remarkable feature on a Swedish serial killer.
• Cannot recommend more highly this brilliant piece of journalism on the abuse of civil forfeitures by Sarah Stillman of the New Yorker.
• New York Times reporter Sarah Lyall wrote a brilliant piece on what she learned after spending two decades covering the United Kingdom.
• Richard Sandomir, James Andrew Miller and Steve Eder co-wrote a must-read examination of ESPN's influence over college football.
• Rolling Stone's Paul Solotaroff with Ron Borges published a comprehensive examination of Aaron Hernandez.
•A fascinating essay in the New York Review of Books on how jellyfish are threatening the future of our oceans.
• ESPN's Wright Thompson on racism in Italian soccer.
• A beautiful essay by Rachel Maizes on caring for a bad dog.
• There were some remarkable pieces on Lance Armstrong's admission, but none better than this from ESPN.com's Bonnie Ford.
• ESPN The Magazine's Scott Eden wrote a sensational piece on one of the world's best NBA gamblers.
• New York Times reporter Mary Pilon delivered a fantastic story on an MMA fighter faking his own death.
• Boston Stands As One. SI's S.L. Price on Boston after the Boston marathon bombings.
• Writer Jeff Pearlman on the best lede he ever wrote.
• Esquire's Chris Jones wrote a sensational piece on what happened in the crowded cabin of Air Force One on Nov. 22, 1963 after President John F. Kennedy was killed in Dallas.
• Terrific work by ESPN.com's Paul Kix on a high school coach with a dark past -- he was a meth dealer and user.
• GQ Magazine's Adam Johnson on the sushi chef who served Kim Jong-il and his heir.
• Great piece by ESPN's Tim Keown on the relationship between the city of Oakland and its pro sports teams.
• A brilliant profile by Texas Monthly executive editor Mimi Swartz on former Texas women's track and field coach Bev Kearney and her fight with her former university.
• Deadspin's Tommy Craggs delivered a killer piece on what Howie Schwab -- who was dropped by ESPN without warning after 26 years of service -- meant to the network's soul.
• Esquire's Charlie Pierce wrote brilliantly from Watertown following the manhunt for Dzhokar Tsarnaev.
• Want to get angry? Read this Kansas City Star story about football and privilege in a Missouri town.
• Mike Tyson had a riveting first-person piece for New York magazine: My Life As a Young Thug.
• The Globe and Mail story on the Ford family's history with drug dealing was remarkable journalism.
• Grantland's Bryan Curtis and Patricia Lee reported a great oral history of the 1989 World Series.
• Tim Layden's SI Longform piece on Jeff Lukas should not be missed.
• On life and Ultimate Frisbee.
• Here's Kurt Vonnegut's letter to a group of NYC high school students.
• Grantland's David Shoemaker offered a concise history of racism in pro wrestling over the last three decades.
• Grantland's Jay Caspian Kang on the end of the road for Don King.
• The MMQB's Robert Klemko, on the use of the n-word in an NFL locker room.
• ESPN's Don Van Natta examined whether the seminal Bobby Riggs-Billie Jean King Battle of The Sexes tennis match was fixed.
• A sensational piece by Alan Sepinwall on the genius of the late James Gandolfini.
• "Lee Harvey Oswald Was My Friend." A fascinating first-person memoir from a friend of Oswald's.
• Grantland's Brian Phillips declared a war on the warrior culture.
• The intersection of porn and murder in Miami. Great work by Michael E. Miller of Miami New Times.
• A college football player's death from brain injury was called an accident. Then a haunting email arrived. Nathan Fenno of the Washington Times had the story.
• Terrific piece by Meagan Flynn of Urban Plains Magazine on the one-woman town (yes, population: 1) of Monowi, Nebraska.
• Actor Michael Cera, writing for the New Yorker, on text messaging a stranger.
• Newsday republished this Jimmy Breslin column from Nov. 1963. The subject is the man who dug John F. Kennedy's grave at the Arlington National cemetery. Many consider it the best newspaper column of all-time.
• Matt Stanmyre of the Newark Star-Ledger wrote a beautiful piece on a 17-year-old New Jersey athlete's devotion to his sick mother.
•If you love to run, no matter your speed, I think you'll love this short film.
• SB Nation's Spencer Hall on Auburn-Alabama.
• The MMQB's Peter King embedded with an NFL officiating crew for a week and produced a groundbreaking series on how NFL officials prepare for their job.
• Golf Digest reporter Gabriel Thompson produced a special report on the everyday lives of the Latino immigrants -- both legal and undocumented -- who dominate the maintenance worker ranks on American golf courses.
• Jessica Contrera makes this list again for her work on the death of an Indiana University freshman.
•Paying Til It Hurts: The New York Times examined why the U.S. leads the world in health expenditures.
• One of the best obits I've ever read -- a beautiful piece of writing by Gawker's Tom Scocca.
• ESPN Outside The Lines staffers Steve Fainaru and John Barr produced a thought-provoking piece on the longtime Jets team doctor and why he had so much authority over the NFL's concussion program.
• Amy K. Nelson (for Deadspin) tracked down Jeff Gillooly, the former husband of Tonya Harding and one of those behind the attack on Nancy Kerrigan.
•Grantland's Molly Lambert is the Leo Messi of Mad Men recaps.
• This image and short story about lost love will have some in tears.
• The Fall of The House of Tsarnaev, via The Boston Globe.
• Some photo genius from former SI.com staffer and New York Times staff editor Nicki Jhabvala: The evolution of Chris "Birdman" Andersen.
• That Other School Shooting: Jay Caspian King on One L. Goh, who killed six people at Oikos University in Oakland, California.
• Grantland's Brian Phillips had a brilliant piece on Maria Sharapova, David Beckham, and "immaculate self-absorption" in sports.
• Deadspin's Emma Carmichael did a fabulous as-told-to with Craig Ehlo, who explained what it was like to guard (and get torched by) Michael Jordan.
•Grantland's Eric Raskin had an oral history of the 2003 World Series of Poker, which produced a boom for the game.
• SI's Lee Jenkins deconstructed Ray Allen's game-tying three-pointer in last year's Game 6 of the NBA Finals.
•Omaha World-Herald sports reporter Dirk Chatelain wrote a beautiful piece (with great images) on the disappearance of small-town football in Nebraska.
• Longreads named these 10 stories the ones they could not stop thinking about in 2013.
• The New York Times' Year In Pictures.
