About this item
Billie Jean King didn't want to play Bobby Riggs. He baited and begged her for months while she ignored his catcalls and challenges. But after Margaret Court's ignominious defeat in the so-called Mother's Day Massacre, Billie knew what she had to do despite the personal and professional risks: take on the self-proclaimed male chauvinist pig and slay the myths about women and weakness. And so it was that King's acquiescence led to the Battle of the Sexes, one of the most wildly surreal moments of the decadent 1970s. The worldwide event, showcasing three sets of tennis in a raucous Houston Astrodome, forever changed the social landscape for women. In A Necessary Spectacle, Selena Roberts, one of the country's finest sportswriters and the only female sports columnist in the New York Times' history, has created a masterful and entertaining journey through the 1970s and beyond, capturing the color and passion, tackiness and anger, prejudice and progress of an American culture in transition.
About the Author
Selena Roberts (born May 15, 1966 in Live Oak, Florida) is an American author and sportswriter, currently a senior writer for Sports Illustrated. She joined the New York Times in 1996 and became a columnist in 2002. Prior to that she was the Minnesota Vikings beat writer for the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the Orlando Magic and Tampa Bay Buccaneers beat writer for the Orlando Sentinel. She received a B.A. degree in journalism from Auburn University in 1988. She also writes for Sports Illustrated and makes frequent appearances on the ESPN talk show The Sports Reporters. In a February 7, 2009 article on SI.com, Roberts and her colleague David Epstein revealed that Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez tested positive for steroids in 2003.
