Review: Losing Big (2025)

By Jonathan Cohen

The discussion about sports gambling since it has been legalized a few years ago certainly sounds familiar to many.

Do you remember how we heard about how state lotteries were going to provide valuable dollars for our educational system? Do you recall that Off-Track Betting in horse racing would tap in on money already being spent illegally and end up going to the greater good?

Those two areas have become a permanent part of our lives, of course. The problem is that they have come with a cost. Making it easier to gamble certainly has meant more people are gambling, and that led to more social costs affecting society as a whole. A percentage of gamblers - maybe not a big number, but some - are going to become addicted, and will ruin their own lives and the lives of others. You're probably heard stories about lower-class people whose retirement plan is to buy lottery tickets, where the odds definitely aren't in your favor. And gambling taxes are regressive in nature; they draw more money from the lower brackets than the upper.

The 2018 Supreme Court decision to allow wagering on sports events certainly has broadened the scope of gambling in our society. After all, many fans consider themselves experts on the subject of sports, and figure waging on outcomes should be easy. About one in five adults wagered on such fun games in 2023, and it's tough to go anywhere in the world of sports these days (in-person, television, etc.) without being bombarded with marketing messages from such companies as FanDuel and Draft Kings. 

It's a good time, then, to take a look at what's going on right now. Jonathan Cohen has done just that in "Losing Big."

Cohen is well qualified for the job. He's written acclaimed books on lotteries and gambling. Here he takes a look at the small picture and the big picture, as both are important in telling the story in a sense. We learn about how states slowly embraced the concept of sports gambling in order to increase revenues - even though it's actually a regressive tax on the population, since the money paid into the system is skewed by the lower classes contributing a higher rate than the rest of the population. There are other costs as well, such as a high rate of suicides among problem gamblers.

There are stories here about how the gambling companies played a large part in drawing up the rules for such activities through lobbying. The NFL's attitude gets an examination; it's interesting how the league (and other sports leagues) were strongly anti-gambling before they became part of "the house" and thus profited from it all. One gambler offers something of a case study on what can go wrong here. There's also a chapter on how other countries are dealing with the excesses created by sports gambling. 

Some of the stories along the way are quite interesting. Anyone who has been paying attention has seen how the sportsbooks are offering "refunds" to first-time gamblers if they lost that initial wagers. The benefits were so great, Cohen discovered, that the companies didn't have any profits to share with the states. Hmm. But in the long term, they lured some people in for keeps.   

Cohen also has some idea on how to make the system work better. His list starts with the sportsbooks taking steps to protect the individual players from ruin. He calls for some national standards for the industry. a crackdown on illegal and foreign sports books, and more independent regulation and education programs.

I realize that when it comes to a discussion about the morality of gambling, the train has left the station. Everyone does it, and they are going to keep doing it. The Puritans lost that argument. But I don't particularly like what gambling has done to the games. It certainly feels like the level of cynicism among fans has increased, particularly among officiating. The use of "point spreads" in certain sports means that some people will be watching a game with a different approach than the usual main concept of winning and losing. In other words, my team needs to win by four points to make me happy, and not by one. 

That doesn't include the obvious elephant in the room. There are going to be more and more fixed outcomes and scandals down the road. The pros at least are making enough money in many cases so that it would be hard to tempt them financially. But these days you can bet on such sports as college lacrosse, where temptation might land on more favorable ears. 

Cohen's book is a little dry in spots (it's hard not to be considering some of the material), but it makes its points nicely and quickly. Think of "Losing Big," then, as an introduction to a serious subject that's not going away in the near future. It's going to be a bumpy ride. 

Four stars

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Review: Giannis (2021)

By Mirin Fader

There's one usual rule when it comes to autobiographies and biographies of famous athletes: Don't write them until their athletic career is over. 

That's because a period of time in sports usually has enough drama to carry the story through to the ending. It feels a little incomplete without a "how did it turn out?" section. Besides, the subject often isn't old enough to put things into perspective.

Now ... when it comes to the book "Giannis," take that rule, and deposit it in the nearest wastebasket. 

That's because the story of Giannis Antetokounmpo - I'm still working on how to say and type that smoothly - had enough drama in it by the age of 26 to more than fill a book. That's why it still fascinates. 

Full credit to Mirin Fader for coming up with the complete version of the story. She seems to have talked to everyone involved, and supplemented it with other research. Fader came up with a book in 2021 that was simply jammed with great information and insights. 

If you don't know much about the origin story of the Milwaukee Bucks' standout, he was born in Greece to Nigerian parents. The family all had to do almost anything possible to scrape up enough money to have some place to sleep and something to eat on a daily basis. The kids, all three boys (another one was back in Nigeria), didn't even have Greek citizenship papers even though they were born there. Oh, and Giannis and family were black, and there were plenty of people in Greece who needed to take a look at one of them and decide they hated them. 

Giannis did figure out a way to play some basketball after an early fling with soccer didn't work out. It was a good idea, since he was getting taller by the moment in his youth. The problem was that there wasn't enough food at times, so that "lean and hungry" look was sort of permanent. Giannis needed time to grow into his body, and it's a little difficult to believe that he had a chance to become the proverbial prospect. Antetokoumpo couldn't even play with some national teams, because he didn't have citizenship papers. 

But he blossomed at just the right time. When the NBA Draft came along in 2013, some NBA teams thought he might someday turn into a player. The odds were a bit long. However, the Milwaukee Bucks hadn't been a strong contender since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar left town. There was talk that the team might have to move if it didn't make a strong move up in the standings. The Bucks took a chance and drafted him 15th in the first round, surprising almost everyone. 

It's a "stranger in a strange land" story from there. Giannis moved to Milwaukee, which in hindsight was a great place for him. New York or Los Angeles might have been overwhelmed. Milwaukee was a little cold and small, but it was a good place for someone with such an unusual background to learn the American ways. Antetokounmpo also worked hard, and then worked harder. After some serious negotiating, his whole family came across the pond from Greece to help him out. He became better, with each passing year, and fit in nicely with the style of basketball in vogue today in which all players- even 7-footers - have to be comfortable at any place on the court.

Giannis eventually started making NBA All-Star Games and winning individual awards. His career seemed to reach a climax in 2019, when he was named the league's Most Valuable Player. But then he did it again in 2020. That's where the book's story ends, but you don't need a spoiler alert to know that the best was yet to come. In 2021, the Bucks won their first NBA championship in 50 years, and Antetokounmpo was their leader. It was a heck of way to launch into a new contract that paid him a huge amount of money and in theory would keep him in Milwaukee for several more years. (It's easy to wonder if Fader watched that title and thought to herself, "Couldn't they have done it last year?")

Yes, this is a sports book, but as usual the best sports books don't easily fall into that stifling category. "Friday Nights Lights" was about high school football, and a ton of other things too. You can come up with several more examples. The details about those days in Greece are amazing to read, and the stories from Giannis' NBA days also are quite candid and interesting. 

"Giannis" probably works best for those who have little idea of Antetokounmpo's personal story, but practically everyone ought to learn a lot about this fascinating individual. Makes me wish I had read it sooner, but it's still very, very worthwhile.

Five stars

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Review: Selling Baseball (2025)

By Jeffrey Orens

There was a certain symmetry in the timing of when baseball started to take its present form as a business enterprise. The American League started operations in 1901, right at the beginning of the 20th century. It joined the established National League (founded in 1876) at that point, and eventually came together under one business umbrella - although it took longer than you might think to make it a full integration.

We tend to ignore what happened in the 19th century on some level, partly out of convenience. We're used to having the two leagues in business, and it's easy to head back to when that model began. But obviously, the game, the sport and the business needed time to develop. It's been up to some baseball historians to come up with a variety of books and articles to answer the age-old question, "How did we get here?"

In this case, author Jeffrey Orens has focused in on a couple of the major figures of 19th century base ball (as it was called in the day): George Wright and Al Spalding. Both are in the Baseball Hall of Fame. The reason that these two men were picked for biographies of sort in "Selling Baseball" only has some connection to their abilities on the field, which were admittedly considerable. They also had quite an influence on the game off the field - in essence, baseball's first marketing success stories. 

Wright was one of the best players of the 19th century. He was the star of the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings, the first professional team in the sport. When the National Association was formed in 1871 - the first true pro baseball league as we know it - Wright landed in Boston and helped establish a dynasty there. He was accompanied in both spots by older brother Harry, who served as the player/manager of the teams. 

But soon after his arrival in Boston, the light bulb in George Wright's brain went off. If baseball was such a great game, more people should be playing it. They would need equipment to do so, and such items as baseballs, bats, gloves, safety equipment, etc. were becoming standardized. Why not get in on the financial ground floor in the 1870s? Which he did.

Spalding was a teammate of George Wright in Boston in the first half of the 1870s. He moved to Chicago in 1876, played three years there and then retired. Al finished with a career record of 252-65, numbers that were helped by leading his league in pitching wins for six straight years. In 1877, Spalding starting wearing a glove as his appearances on the field started to diminish. Gloves were unusual at that point - you probably could pick out a baseball player by his mangled hands at this point in history - but he liked the concept and convinced some others to use one. And once gloves became universal, the game changed for good and for the better. 

Upon his return to his native Chicago area, Spalding had the same idea as Wright. Why not start a sporting goods business? The idea worked well in the Midwest too. Soon Al had a chain of stores, and started working on other elements of the business. For example, he helped produce an annual guide for baseball that became the top reference source in the country on such matters. 

Orens makes it clear that Wright is more of a good guy in the story. Spalding wasn't above exaggerating or even lying about matters. The best example was when baseball formed a commission on how to figure out how baseball was created. Even though it clearly evolved from other games that came over from Europe, Spalding helped ram through a conclusion on very shaky evidence that Abner Doubleday invented baseball in Cooperstown, New York - even though Doubleday was elsewhere at the time. 

Orens' book has some interesting information between its covers. In hindsight, the concept of a professional sport developed quite quickly. It was something of a regional specialty when the Civil War helped spread it to new areas around the country. Once teams started forming, it was almost inevitable that one city would play a team from its neighbor. It was also inevitable that eligibility and financial rules would get bent along the way ... in other words, teams would figure out a way to lure the best players with under-the-table cash. The cure for that was professionalism. 

The last few chapters aren't quite as gripping. Spalding led an around-the-world tour one offseason in an effort to promote the game. There is a book out there written about that entire experience. But it's still difficult to make a series of exhibition games from long ago dramatic. We hear about Wright's involvement in the eventual growth of golf and lawn tennis as well as something called roller polo (as Orens writes, it's indoor hockey on roller skates). George sold some merchandise in the latter even if the game's 19th-century popularity was short-lived. Some loose ends are tied together in the final main chapter, including the players' attempt at starting their own league in 1890 in order to make negotiations with owners much less one-sided. Spoiler alert: It didn't work. 

"Selling Baseball" accomplishes its goal of illuminating the story about how Wright and Spalding leveraged their on-field success to earn themselves some money and promote baseball and other sports in the process, and does it quickly and professionally. It's hard to say if such a book will find a good-sized audience, but it's nice to have such a publication out there for those interested in the subject.

Three stars

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Review: The Last of His Kind (2024)

By Andy McCullough

It took about until, oh, Page 7 for me to realize that reading this book was going to be a treat. 

"The Last of His Kind" is a biography of baseball standout Clayton Kershaw, and the text opens about Kershaw's preparation for each start on the pitching mound. It's a five-day ritual, more or less. Kershaw probably would be admit to be something of a prisoner of routine in such matters, but he feels that he must go through certain steps along the way in order to be ready for each game. Who can argue? It has worked for him almost all the time, so it is repeated over and over again. 

The opening carries plenty of detail, and it reveals much about the subject's personality. Kershaw is a friendly, interesting person during the four days leading up to the start. But once Work Day arrives, he turns grumpy and sullen. He might as well have a sign around his neck saying "Don't Bother Trying to Talk to Me." There are many ways to be great in sports, and this is the method that Kershaw has used. 

I sometimes wonder if biographies about current athletes work, mostly because their story is unfinished. But that issue doesn't come up in this book by Andy McCullough, who writes for The Athletic. There's plenty to talk about here, thanks to what went into it. Not only did McCullough talk to a ridiculous number of people - 215 - he also had the full cooperation of Kershaw himself and his family. That allows the book to author present a full portrait. 

Kershaw's story is strong enough to carry the reader through his entire life, including childhood. You'd have to stay he started things as a long shot, since his parents separated and divorced before he reached teenager status. With Dad out of the picture and Mom trying to scrape up enough money to keep the family fed and housed, Clayton learned to realize on himself if he wanted to get somewhere. 

It turned out he was good at athletics - can you believe he was actually a center on the high school football team for a while? - but baseball was his strong point. Kershaw received some coaching near the end of his prep days, and some tweaks in mechanics helped turn him into a top prospect. The Dodgers were thrilled to see him available at No. 7 in the amateur draft; Andrew Miller, by the way, went No. 6. Most importantly, the bonus check helped wipe out all of his mother's existing debts and then some. 

Kershaw's rise in the Dodger system was swift. He signed at age 18, and two years later in 2008 he was starting for Los Angeles. Clayton arrived for good in 2009, and improved for a couple of years until he reached stardom levels in 2011. How does 21-5, 2.28 ERA sound for statistics? It sounds like a Cy Young Award winner, and he was. Kershaw stayed among the game's best throughout the 2010s, winning two more Cys and a Most Valuable Player trophy along the way.

But no matter how hard Kershaw worked in his five-day routine, he couldn't single-handedly raise the Dodgers into World Series champs. Baseball fans in the East didn't have that many chances to see him pitch in those years, unless they stayed up late. When Kershaw did have the nation watching him in that era, for example in playoff games, things had a habit of going wrong. It was frustrating for everyone connected with Kershaw, even if he wasn't at fault strictly speaking much of the team. His career record in the postseason entering 2025 is 13-13 with a 4.49 ERA. 

Happily all concerned, the breaks changed in 2020. That was the year of the pandemic, of course, when games were played in mostly empty stadiums. The Dodgers won their first world title in more than three decades, and Kershaw went 2-0/2.31 in the World Series. No one could say he wasn't a winner after that. Clayton has been quite good since then, although injuries limited him to only seven games in 2024. He had to sit and watch his teammates win another title. We'll see what happens next, even if most of his baseball story is written.

What's more, Kershaw has a house full of kids (four) these days, and he apparently discovered what he was missing in terms of stability in his childhood. Kershaw has doted on the kids whenever possible, making special arrangements to spend quality time with them. Maybe the transition to retirement from the game will be easier than this driven athlete ever thought it might be. 

McCullough found plenty of great stories about Kershaw and the Dodgers along the way. We learn about what drives a future Hall of Famer like this. As McCullough writes in the prologue, "He understood that he could never stay satisfied. But he could also never lose what made him special." 

It's rare that a sports biography about someone who is still play can grab the reader immediately and hold on to him through the acknowledgements. "The Last of His Kind" does exactly that. Buy it now, thank me later.

Five stars

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Review: The Basketball 100 (2024)

By David Aldridge and John Hollinger

It's time for another sports history lesson from your friends at The Athletic.

The "publication" (mostly on line, although the New York Times uses its work too) came  up with a list of the top 100 football players a while back. It was all right, although I wasn't as enthusiastic as some other readers.

Now it's time to try the formula on pro basketball players. Thus "The Basketball 100" followed its football counterparts into the bookstores. I found the execution of this one a little bit better than its pigskin associate.

The idea, of course, is timeless. Look over the history of a particular sport or team, come up with the list of the top 10/25/100/500 players, and rank them in order. Then biographies are assigned of the players involved, and you are on your way toward a book. 

David Aldridge and John Hollinger, two familiar names in the basketball media, came up with a rather complicated way of coming up with an initial ranking. It's explained near the back of the book, and the numbers merely serves as a guide for further work. Considerations include championships, individual awards and achievements, all-time statistics, etc. The pair also uses some individual advanced metrics in their rankings. While they no doubt have a good deal of value, I'm on the outside looking in on such matters since I don't follow such things in basketball very closely. 

At that point they had a list of around 100 names, and then the internal debates began. Who goes where? There are two obvious problem areas in this sort of game. The first centers on how how to rank today's players. It's not too early to consider someone like Steph Curry as one of the greatest guards of all time - perhaps in the top five, depends on where you might position such players as LeBron James and Kobe Bryant. Others with shorter careers, such as Nikola Jokic (29 years old at this writing), are harder to rate in terms of history. Someone like Jokic is bound to move up in the near future in many eyes, since durability is a valuable asset. But where to place him now is difficult.

Then there are those who had a shortened or modified career for one reason of another. Grant Hill looked like he was on his way to super-stardom when injuries slowed him down considerably. He still played for a long time, but his march toward the top 20 took an unforced detour. Someone like Bill Walton had his career shortened by chronic injuries. You'd probably say he had a very high one-season peak value but not a particularly long career value, if you get the difference. It's tough to compare that career to one such as Robert Parish's, who had a much longer period of effective play but certainly didn't match Walton's play at his best.

There are also a few players on the list who are hard to put in a category. Spencer Haywood certainly had top 100 talent, but some of it was unfulfilled. He gets credit here for challenging the age-restriction on the NBA draft - something that was important but had nothing to do with his play on the court. Then there's Dennis Rodman, certainly one of the great rebounders in NBA history on an inch-for-inch basis and someone who played on a lot of winning teams. Is that enough to crack the top 100? I can see some logic in that argument, but I'm decidedly not sure. And as far as trying to figure out if George Mikan was a better player than Kawhi Leonard, well, good luck with that. (They are placed next to each other here.)

Once all of that is done, the authors go through the players with good-sized biographies. Here's where the book takes a step up. Most of the stories are quite well done, and some of them leave the reader almost disappointed when they are over because they are so well researched and written. They were a bit better than the ones in the football version of the top 100. I'm a little curious as to why Steve Nash was No. 39 on the hoops list and fellow point guard Bob Cousy was No. 40 - even if I admire both players. But in the long run, I guess it doesn't matter too much.

The point is that "The Basketball 100" offers a good, solid history lesson about the game of pro basketball. For those looking for some information on the all-time greats, it's a reasonable place to start.

Four stars

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