Review: Death in the Strike Zone (2026)

By Thomas W. Gilbert

Author Thomas W. Gilbert isn't quite done with baseball and the 19th century. 

His first book on the subject was called "How Baseball Happened," and it was published in 2021. It told the story of the development of the game/sport in the 1800s. The book was a good reminder to forget about Albert Doubleday, if you hadn't already. Baseball wasn't invented; it simply evolved from other games. 

Now Gilbert is back with the story of one of the pieces of the puzzle. The subject of the book is pitcher James Creighton, and the book is called "Death in the Strike Zone." Yes, that sounds like a title that belongs in the pulp fiction section of the bookstore. 

Gilbert had an outsized role in the development of baseball in the sense that he only played a couple of years at the game's highest level. He's been called baseball's first star, even it turned out to be one of the shooting variety.

Creighton grew up in the New York City area, and quickly developed an ability to be a standout in baseball. At the age of 18, he was used as a relief pitcher by his team, the Niagaras. Remember that in 1859, pitchers were essentially used to place the ball in a position in which it could be hit by the batter. There were no "balls" called for pitches outside of what we might call the "strike zone." Gloves hadn't even been developed yet, so offenses dominated and the games lasted for hours. 

Pitching underhand, Creighton displayed a unique ability to throw pitches that couldn't be hit. He could throw hard, harder than the rest of the pitchers of the day, and he could make the ball dance a bit too. Essentially, Creighton created the fastball and curveball. Think of fast-pitch softball's pitching, and you get an idea of what the pitching was like. 

Creighton quickly moved up to some better teams in New York City, and by 1860 he joined the Excelsior of Brooklyn squad - one of the best teams around. Creighton eventually pitched the game's first recorded shutout (at least among top teams) and also rarely made an out at the plate. Shohei Ohtani would be proud. The Excelsiors had to take 1861 off from competition - the Civil War and all that - but play resumed in 1862. Creighton, now 21, was still very good. 

But his career was cut short in dramatic fashion. He suffered an injury during a game in October of 1862. He died four days later. Medical experts now guess that Creighton suffered a ruptured injuinal hernia. He became a heroic, legendary figure in death. His appearance on the field could attract fans in those days when the idea of customers paying to see baseball was just catching on. Creighton also seems to have been compensated for his play in one form or another, making him a part of the history of baseball's move toward professionalism.

During Creighton's time, a batter's only weapon was to not swing at the ball - since there was no penalty for that. That way, maybe the pitcher would get tired. But it's not a formula for entertainment. Eventually the sport came up with the concept of balls and strikes, the games became shorter and more watchable, and dollars followed.  

Gilbert tells the story as best he can, and obviously put in some serious time researching his life and times. But there's not that much information from primary sources out there. He has to rely mostly on government records like census data and piece parts of the puzzle together. Later in the 19th century, baseball figures were happy to talk about Creighton's skills - even if their stories could be exaggerated thanks to the fading memories caused by time. (One person claimed Creighton collapsed after hitting a home run in his final game - which is dramatic but untrue.) There's more information out there about some of Creighton's contemporaries that turns up here, but sometimes that feels like padding to fill out what is already a short book. (It checks in at under 200 pages.)

Gilbert is also rather indignant that Creighton hasn't been admitted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. That's an interesting question. Only a couple of people with connections to the sport's all-amateur days have been inducted in Cooperstown, and their baseball careers stretched into the pro era that essentially started with the National Association in 1871. In addition, Creighton only played for those two seasons, and some sort of longevity is prized by most Hall of Fame voters no matter what the profession. Creighton obviously was very influential in the game's development. Is that enough to reach the Hall? Maybe, but I'd need more convincing. 

Creighton is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. Gilbert writes that people still leave old baseballs by his grave. So the pitcher hasn't been forgotten yet, and "Death in the Strike Zone" will serve as at least another reminder of an important transitional figure in baseball history. The book is a lesson how how we got here when it comes to baseball, and that certainly has some value for big fans.

Three stars

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Review: The Long Run (2026)

By Martin Dugard

It wouldn't be fair to say the marathon is an overnight success in our culture. After all, people have been running long distances for thousands of years - most notably in the case of Pheidippides, who supposedly ran about 25 miles from Marathon to Athens to tell the Greek city about a military victory ... and then dropped dead. 

Admittedly, it probably didn't happen that way. But as they say in Hollywood, if you have a choice in a story between legend and reality, print the legend. The legend was powerful enough that a run of a similar distance was introduce to the first Modern Olympics in Athens in 1896. 

That tale marks the start of Martin Dugard's fine book, "The Long Run." It is something of a biography of the marathon as a race, which in itself sound interesting. But more to the point, Dugard is more interested in how the marathon captured the imagination of so many people in recent years, to the point where thousands and thousands of people test themselves against a great physical challenge. As Dugard mentions in the book, the marathon has become "the suburban Everest," which is a simply lovely phrase. 

Once the marathon was introduced to the Olympics, it always seemed like an event that was a little out of place and appealed only to certain types of personalities. After all, track and field events in the Games ran from 100 meters to 10,000 meters  (6.2 miles). It was a big jump from there to try an event that required running 26.2 miles. That's a distance that was put in stone at the 1908 Olympic Games in London. Dugard does a nice job of exploring some of the myths in how we came up with 26 miles and 385 yards as the classic distance. 

The Boston Marathon paid tribute to the Olympic event when it began in 1897. A few other marathons came along eventually, such as Poly Marathon in England in 1907 and the Kosice Peace Marathon (the first on the mainland of Europe) in 1924. But the event and distance was always more of a curiosity than anything else. Men, and it was always men, who ran that far had their sanity questioned by some.

Dugard considers President John Kennedy as an author in the story of the turning point of physical fitness. He tried to convince Americans of all ages that it was time to get in shape. One of the techniques was a song especially written for the occasion called "Chicken Fat," featuring Robert Preston of "Music Man" fame. The 45 rpm record was handed out to school children, who were told to put it on a turntable and exercise to it. Take it from someone who can still recite the lyrics ("Go, you chicken fat, go!"), it was catchy.

Kennedy had some company. Soon-to-be-legendary Oregon track coach Bill Bowerman had a side job of organizing a group of "civilians" into an army of people who were willing to run/walk their way to fitness. He even put out a pamphlet on how to approach the matter. Soon many Americans were trying to run slowly - or as it was labeled then - jog.

By 1972, we were ready for the turning point in the story. The Olympics received a massive amount of publicity that year, in part because of the terrorist killings of Israeli team members that signaled a new chapter in world history. But there were reasons to celebrate during those Games as well, particularly in America. The biggest of them might have come in the marathon, where Frank Shorter became the first runner from the U.S. since 1908 to win a gold medal in that event. 

Dugard takes the unusual step of asking readers and even book reviewers about who was the key figure in the marathon's trip to the mainstream and the running boom of the 1970s in general. To me, Shorter is the clear winner. There's an argument to be made for Steve Prefontaine, a charismatic personality who was on his way to a great track career under Bowerman at Oregon. He died young in a car accident, making him the James Dean of his sport. But he never won an Olympic medal. Shorter showed Americans could be a champion in the marathon, and he had soon company in another great U.S. runner in Bill Rodgers. Americans followed in their footsteps, sometimes literally. 

What's more, some of those runners were women. It took a while to knock down the stereotype that physical fitness was somehow unfeminine. Running associations also had put up barriers to discourage participation. But that wave of women's runners wouldn't be stopped, particularly after receiving a good-sized boost in the form of Title IX in the U.S. in 1972. The pioneers knocked down the walls, and women ran over them. Finally, the Olympics sanctioned a women's marathon in 1984, and Joan Benoit of Maine won going away. The revolution was unstoppable.  

And when something catches on in the United States, the world often follows. Before we knew, cities around the world were hosting their own marathons that were major events on the yearly calendar. I'd argue that once the other countries of the world caught up and eventually passed America in terms of producing world-class marathons, interest here in the actual races dropped off a little. We like to root for our own at times. 

But we're still running. People who lace up their running shoes and head for the streets no longer have to dodge debris thrown from moving vehicles and insults from pedestrians. The Running Revolution has evolved, just as we might have expected.  

Credit goes to Dugard, who did a fine job of researching this book. He talked to several principals who were part of the era, such as Rodgers and Shorter. I thought I knew a great deal on the subject, but he introduces several facts and discussion points that are new and clarifying. Dugard has a slightly odd writing style, sometimes using brief sentences that are downright choppy. Well, some runners use short, frantic strides to get to the finish line, while others use longer steps. They both can work. Dugard also throws in some of his own personal history with running, which is a bit of a distraction from the purpose of the book but nothing more. 

Overall, there's plenty to like in "The Long Run." It covers a subject that has been written up quite often in the past in a fresh way. Even better, you'll feel like lacing up the running shoes and heading outside after reading it. 

Four stars

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Review: Why Can't This Team Just Find .... (2025)

By Terry Pluto

The Cleveland Browns haven't been a mess forever. They were really good in the 1940s and 1950s, and good enough to win a National Football League title in 1964. Since then, though, it's a blank slate when it comes to championships. The Browns have never even been to a Super Bowl since it started in 1967, which if you are counting was 58 years ago. Therefore, someone would have to be close to 70 years old to remember celebrating a Browns' championship. 

After all that losing for many years, you'd think a clean slate might help. The team received one when the old franchise picked up and moved to Baltimore where, naturally, it won titles in 2001 and 2013. An expansion team replaced the Browns in Cleveland, picking up the old nickname, and starting play in 1999. The team still plays like a first-year expansion team frequently, as the mistakes have piled up. "Long-suffering" doesn't do justice to the fans of that region, who certainly deserve better. 

What, then, exactly has been going on for more than a quarter-century? Veteran sportswriter Terry Pluto seems like a good person to contact about the problems of the franchise. After all, he's been around the team for a long time, has written more than 30 books on sports over the years, and always does a solid job on what he produces. 

His latest latest effort is called "Why Can't This Team Just Find a Quarterback? And Other Thoughts on Life in Browns Town." Admittedly, that's a rather awkward title, but it gets the idea across. This isn't exactly a history of the team over the past quarter-century. It's more of a collection of essays about the Browns and their actions during their second chance at glory. Pluto is something of a guide, and he's a good choice. 

Take it from someone in Buffalo, who has watched the Buffalo Sabres become the New York Jets of hockey - which is not a compliment. Those two teams are on the longest string of non-playoff seasons in professional sports as of this writing. Responsibility for such a streak usually falls on the owner for good reason. The Browns started their current run with someone who might have been fine down the road. Al Lerner was dealt a bad hand by the NFL in terms of start-up time before the franchise started playing - about a year. You knew it wouldn't be easy, and it hasn't been. But Lerner showed signs of having a learning curve when he died of cancer in 2002. His successors in the big office haven't been very consistent. They've frequently changed course in the team's direction, which has led to firings and frequent restarts. 

Then there's the matter of the quarterback. It's not easy to find a good one. You'd think there are enough quarterbacks out there to fill a starting spot on most of the NFL teams with reasonable competency. But it's tougher than that. Ask the Browns. They didn't have a quarterback who was the starting quarterback for three straight Opening Days until Baker Mayfield did it in 2019-2021. Mayfield was the first overall draft choice, and the team obviously hoped he could supply stability. He did reasonably well, but the front office wasn't sold on him as a long-term answer. So Mayfield was traded, and he has done better since landing in Tampa Bay.

Meanwhile, the Browns dumped Mayfield because they were on their way to acquiring Deshaun Watson from Houston. What's more, they gave him a ton of guaranteed money in a contract upon acquiring him, even though Watson had been started to be buried under a flood of sexual abuse claims from massage therapists in the Houston area. That didn't make him radioactive enough for the Browns to back away from him. Watson hasn't played more than seven games in a season in Cleveland, and missed all of the 2025 season because of injury. His future in Cleveland, or anywhere else, is a little cloudy these days. And in the meantime, the Browns still need a quarterback. 

While those cover the major areas of the book's essays, Pluto opts to take a few turns off the main highway to deal with other subjects. Jim Donovan, the team's radio broadcaster gets two good-sized chapters during his battle with cancer. Some of the Browns' other mistakes, like trading for Odell Beckham Jr. and drafting Johnny Manzell, go under the microscope. The last chapter allows fans to weigh in on why they've stuck with the Browns. The answer, essentially, is that you always stick with the ones you love - even when they go astray. 

I wouldn't call this a major look at the Browns' history. It's a little too disjointed for that, and it's easy to wonder how much of this was covered in daily articles. Most will able to plow through this book it in a few hours. But Pluto always has known what he was talking about, and his insight makes "Why Can't This Team Just Find a Quarterback?" worthwhile - especially for Browns' fans.  

Four stars

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Review: Heartland (2026)

By Keith O'Brien

My own personal story about Larry Bird - about the only little piece of information that didn't pop up in Keith O'Brien's superb new book, "Heartland" - centers on a baseball player. 

I was talking to someone around 1981 who was playing baseball in Glens Falls, N.Y., in the White Sox organization. (Naturally, I've forgotten the name of the person in question.) It turns out he was part of the Indiana State University's Class of 1978 - meaning that he exited the school a year before Bird did. My new friend said he had the chance to play basketball with Bird there. It probably came in a pickup game. 

"You know how you hear about playing your best basketball when you are with good players?" the player said. "I've never played better basketball than I did when Larry was on my team. If I got open, Larry would pass me the ball. What's more, he'd get the ball to me where it was in perfect shooting position. I'd didn't have to move at all to put it up."

The story about the relationship between Larry Bird and Indiana State was quite unlikely back then. One of basketball's all-time greats turned up on the roster of a school that had never been accused of being a basketball powerhouse. Before Bird, Indiana State might have been remembered as where John Wooden coached before he left for UCLA in 1948. Once the 6-foot-9 forward arrived, the Sycamores went on a very eventful ride that led them to the national championship game in 1979. Bird didn't even leave for the pros a year early in 1978, although he could have done so in that era when it was difficult and/or rare to make that jump. 

But consider what would have happened to someone like that today. Bird would have displayed his talents for Indiana State for a year, and then almost every school in the country would be after him - asking to transfer and promising major Name/Image/Likeness money. He would have wound up at one of those powerhouses, leaving Indiana State with a brief nice moment. 

Looking back, that makes Indiana State's brief rise to the top of the basketball world something of a fairy tale from the perspective of today. It's something that won't be repeated in the foreseeable future, and that's what makes it so much fun to read. "Heartland" is the full account of a wonderful ride. 

The outlines of the story are well known in basketball circles. Bird was a very good high school basketball player, and picked Indiana University (and coach Bobby Knight) for his college career. But the size of the school and the campus overwhelmed him, and he wasted little time in dropping out. Bird was playing pickup ball around his home when Indiana State scooped him up. 

The Sycamores became immediately better, reaching the National Invitation Tournament in 1978. As a transfer, Bird was drafted by the Boston Celtics in the first round ... but decided to stay put. Indiana State went on a dream regular season, going undefeated and earning a No. 1 national ranking at the end of the season. There were some close games along the way, but Bird and Indiana State always figured something out. Off the court, Larry didn't really trust reporters and went out of his way to avoid them - which wasn't easy as the legend grew. Occasionally he'd give a clue that there was an interesting person underneath all that ... but only a clue. Just to add a little drama, head coach Bill King became sick before that season and was replaced by journeyman coach Bob Hodges. 

Students of college basketball history know how the story ended. Indiana State made it to the NCAA Finals, only to run to Earvin "Magic" Johnson and Michigan State. The Spartans won rather easily before the biggest basketball television audience in history. And the Golden Era in Indiana State basketball was over instantly. It took 21 years before the Sycamores returned to the NCAA tournament, and 22 years before it won a game in it. (That's been it to date.) Bird, of course, showed us what the fuss was about in a Hall of Fame pro career.  

O'Brien made some good decisions here. The first one was to ask everyone connected with the program to talk about that era. Happily, almost everyone was willing to do so. The biggest exception was, of course, Bird. But it's not as if Larry has been under-publicized over the years. From there, the level of detail really makes this work. The stories about that brief era really put the narrative into vivid colors. The whole team has the chance to reflect on what happened to it, which at this point must seem like a dream.

O'Brien is on something of a winning streak. He wrote a biography of Pete Rose in 2024 called "Charlie Hustle," which was terrific. Now this. I'm obviously going to have to go back and find "Paradise Falls," which is about the environmental crisis at Love Canal that happened just up the street from me.  

When it comes to books, sometimes you know immediately you're in for a good time. O'Brien reaches that distinction within a couple of chapters. "Heartland" seems destined to reach the 2026 list of best sports books.

Five stars

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Review: It Happened! (2025)

By Jim Lampley

I still remember about when the first time Jim Lampley's name came up in a conversation for me.  

It was the fall of 1974, and I was a sophomore at Syracuse University. I had gotten to know a few people in the radio-TV program, particularly those who were interested in a career in sports broadcasting. ABC had announced that it was plucking one person out of the college ranks to become a sideline reporter for college football games. The idea was that the winner was do a year, and then move on - and be replaced someone else. 

Therefore, everyone in that broadcasting track was jealous of Lampley. They probably didn't know he was 25 and already had some experience in the business. They also didn't know that the "one-year internship" idea lasted only one year. That's because Lampley was good enough to stay on, and ABC didn't really want to make the effort to look for a replacement. 

With that, Lampley was off on quite a ride personally and professionally. He recounts his life in his autobiography called "It Happened!" We'll get to the title in a bit. 

Lampley walked into a job that was part of a golden age in network television sports. ABC had used sports as a way to gain a good reputation for quality programming, under the supervision of Roone Arledge - one of the few geniuses of the sports television broadcasting business. By coincidence, Langley used to caddy for Arledge's father at a golf course in North Carolina. He suddenly found himself working with such names as Howard Cosell, Jim McKay, Keith Jackson and Frank Gifford. 

Slowly but surely, Lampley climbed the ladder. He did events on Wide World of Sports and eventually became the host of the program. Lampley replaced Cosell as the narrator of highlights on Monday Night Football. He worked on many Olympics for a variety of networks. The announcer used some of his spare time to do work for HBO. Lampley covered Wimbledon for several years, but might be best known for a 30-year association with that network for boxing. 

It was the latter that led to Lampley's most well-known moment on the air. When 45-year-old George Foreman had shocked the boxing world with a knockout of Michael Moorer to win the heavyweight title, Lanpley blurted out, "It happened."  It was a great way to describe an epic moment. What we all didn't know was that Foreman had told Lampley that he was confident that at some point late in the fight, Moorer would make a mistake and leave himself open for a knockout punch. What Lampley was saying, then, was "It happened ... the way Foreman thought it would happen." Great moment.

You expect a little name-dropping in a book, and there certainly is some of that. The chapter on Mike Tyson, who Lampley says can be smart and sensitive in private moments is particularly interesting. There are some odd collisions too. One comes when Lampley talked his way into the US-USSR hockey game in Lake Placid, and wordlessly watched the second half of the game with ... Harry Chapin. Then there was the fight between Larry Holmes and Muhammad Ali, in which the young champion gave the legendary Ali a fierce pounding. Lampley was watching the bout on television with, of all people, Mick Jagger, who came up with the appropriate words for the moment: "It's the end of our youth."  

The stories about events and people work quite well, as the veteran broadcaster is a good guide to them. Oddly enough, though, the book suffers a bit when the conversation turns to Lampley himself. 

There are plenty of egos in broadcasting; it sort of comes with the territory. Based on his own descriptions, Lampley could match up with almost any of them. I would guess he paid a price for that professionally He admits along the way here that he made some big mistakes in his career. Lampley didn't quite make it to the top of the mountain, and maybe that was a reason why. 

It also may be a reason why his personal life wasn't exactly smooth sailing. Admittedly, an announcer in that field is going to be spending time on the road constantly. That's going to lead to reduced time with a family back home. Add the ego to the mix, and it's not stunning that Lampley went through several wives - making life even more difficult for his children. Not mentioned here is a 2007 arrest for a suspicious of domestic violence, which led to a restraining order and three years of probation.  

It might be worth mentioning that most of this book was written about events of the 20th century, with only a handful of boxing stories filling out the last 25 years that are covered in the last two chapters. Maybe he needed some time to put some of the events of his life into perspective. 

The usual question about biographies eventually comes down to "Do I like the person that is the subject of the book enough to enjoy the time spent reading it?" In "It Happened," he tells enough good stories to keep the pages moving. Lampley also popped up on a podcast by Jeff Pearlman, and he was a good guest for that format. The book doesn't work quite as well. The book left me feeling a little ambivalent about the author. If you are prepared for that, it might be worth a look.

Three stars

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