Review: Football (2026)

By Chuck Klosterman

Say the name "Klosterman" to some avid readers, and the first name of "Chuck" no doubt will come up a few times. Chuck Klosterman has become something of a cultural commentator, a good gig if you can arrange it. He's written several books, starting with music-related subjects and broadening his range as he's gotten older. Klosterman even has some novels to his credit, and has written for several top media outlets. 

Say the name "Klosterman" to football fans, at least the older ones (guilty), and the reaction is a different one. Don Klosterman was a player in the 1950s, mostly remembered as a backup quarterback, who eventually moved into the front office. Don was the general manager of a few NFL teams, including one that won the Super Bowl in 1971 (Baltimore). 

Now, by coincidence, Chuck Klosterman is moving into Don's territory with a book called "Football." Talk about worlds colliding. I have no idea if the two Klostermans are even faintly related, but it's a bit fun to see their lives intersect this way.

This is a roundabout way of asking the central question about whether traditional football people like Don would pick up and enjoy this book from Chuck. And the answer is, yes - if they are willing to be a bit open-minded on the subject. For this hits some unique territory.

"Football" reads more like a collection of essays that have something to do with football. We're not headed on a straight line here. Some of the chapters have titles like "The Semantics of GOAT Herding," "This Is Still Your Father's Oldsmobile," "Nuclear Football" and "A Rose by Any Other Name Would Not Impact the Rose Bowl." Meanwhile, the first sentence of the book is "This is a book about football, written for people who don't exist." 

And away we go. After explaining that initial concept - no easy task - we soon get into issues that you probably haven't considered very often. For example, football is about the only sport that is extremely difficult to duplicate at lower levels of competition. For a legitimate football game, you need 22 players minimum, referees, equipment, etc. That's not going to happen very easily. A touch football game can break out on Thanksgiving morning in a neighborhood, but without the physical side of the game it's not a close approximation of the experience. I suppose hockey is close to that level of specialization. But a pickup basketball game is still basketball - just not played as skillfully. A 12-foot putt for birdie translates well to the hacker and the pro. And so on.

Soon we jump from the concept of "America's Team" (Dallas Cowboys) to football as close to a religion in Texas. From there it's on to determining the greatest football player at a given point in the sport's history (spoiler alert: quarterbacks eventually take over). Or perhaps you're more likely to be wrapped up in a discussion about race in football, translated into the question, "How many quarterbacks in the NFL in an ideal setting should be black?" Should it mirror the ratio of the population as a whole, or should it reflect the ratio of other positions in the game? Hmm.

Ever ponder why football in America has four downs, while Canada uses three? Klosterman has. He points out that in the game's formative years, the number of downs was essentially up for grabs. The U.S. version gave a boost to a grind-it-out approach to offense, while Canada's version led to a more wide-open game. Interestingly, a three-down rule came first. 

The price tag that comes with football also comes up here, which leads to a discussion of injuries - specifically concussions. Players now realize when they start playing an advanced level of football full-time that there is a risk of problems down the road with brain function. The rewards for success in the National Football League are enormous, as the pay is life-changing for generations. For many, that assumed risk is worth it for the chance at riches. Could that change? And will a majority of mothers eventually prevent their baby sons from trying to become football players? 

Klosterman saves the best discussion for last. The National Football League essentially has used college football as its minor-league feeder system for its talent. But college football is changing almost by the hour these days. He points out that several changes have come to the sport in the past handful of years, including the transfer portal and the NIL financial deals. These have been great for the athletes, who have been making money for others for that century, Will we get to the point where college football will be reduced to the big schools that can make it work financially? We'd lose something if that happened. But some schools have to be wondering if the football business should be a part of their primary function, which is education. There are no guarantees that we're headed on the right road. 

"Football" is on the messy side, as you may have guessed, and Klosterman hasn't seen a tangent that he's not willing to explore. But there's something nice about going for a ride with an active mind. The book isn't for all fans by any means, but the intellectually adventuresome members of the audience should find plenty to ponder here. 

In other words, Don might have liked it. 

Four stars

Learn more about this book from Amazon.com.  (As an Amazon Associate I earn money from qualifying purchases.)  

Be notified of new posts on this site via X.com @WDX2BB. 

Review: LIV and Let Die (2023)

By Alan Shipnuck

It's never too late to go back and take a look at origin stories in the world of sports, particularly when they are still relevant today. That certainly applies to the LIV golf league, which has been fighting for attention and publicity for the last four years. 

It took an odd combination of events for the LIV (Roman Numerals for 54, or 18-under par on the par-72 golf course) to begin play on some of the world's golf courses in 2022. It's still around, still trying to fight the more established golf leagues, like the PGA Tour of America, for talent and sponsors. Those first couple of years are nicely reviewed by golf writer Alan Shipnuck in "LIV and Let Die."

There has been talk forever about trying to come up with better ways to present professional golf to the public. The problem, to some extent, is that the players are essentially independent contractors with very different interests and incentives. A union, like the ones in team sports, isn't completely practical in that setting. The superstars don't really have much in common with the guys who are simply happy to make the cut this week. On the other hand, a pro tour is survival of the fittest in some ways. If you don't play well and at least make the weekend cut, you go home empty-handed - even if you are one of the players who attracts crowds. 

The plans for something new started to bubble in 2019, but Covid-19 pushed some of it back. Then in 2020, Saudi Arabia and its Public Investment Fund (a huge supply of cash created by oil sales) started talks about creating a new circuit. The Middle Eastern nation is long on dictatorial rules by short on human rights for its citizens, which has caught the attention of many. A golf league was one way to attract attention to its efforts to improve the public image of the country. Phil Mickelson called the technique "sportswashing," which is rather creative. 

Representatives starting throwing around big money at established players in order to lure them to LIV play. Big money, indeed. Dustin Johnson supposedly signed for a guarantee of $150 million to jump in the summer of 2022. Others, such as Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed, eventually joined that crew, as did Mickelson - even though he was more of a drawing card than a top competitor at that point in his career. 

LIV did eventually take off, even if the process was predictably bumpy. The lawyers got rich on this, of course, and the Saudis spared no expense - even by their standards - to make the idea work. Shipnuck is one of the most well-connected reporters on the golf circuit, and he has great fun reportedly on all of the back-and-forth conversation between people and their organizations. It doesn't sound like the hard feelings were healed during that time period. That led to some major changes in how the PGA Tour operated, including more money for the top players who hung around in the form of different schedules, guarantees and bonuses

Shipnuck - who wrote a fun biography of Michelson a while ago - has to stop at some point, and he does so in 2023 when the PGA Tour and LIV negotiated the starting framework to some sort of merger between the two sides. Since the book was published, not much progress has been made on bringing the two sides together. Let's face it - the PGA had a major advantage in this battle. Its weekly results reached the masses of golf fans out in the public. Some stars may be gone to LIV, but the "star-making machinery" that Joni Mitchell used in a far different context creates new heroes to come along with each golf season. It's difficult to follow the LIV tour in America without some effort, especially because of the time zone changes featured in a worldwide tour. Jon Rahm, not surprisingly, is the leading money winner on that tour in the last two years, but you might be hard-pressed to find someone who knew that fact for sure. 

This is not the usual golf book in some spots. For example, a chapter is devoted to the history of the Royal Family in Saudi Arabia, which doesn't come up much in books otherwise filled by bogeys and birdies. A few other spots offer some difficult reading. Happily, Shipnuck has a nice touch for navigating through the corridors of golf power to explain what the heck was going on. Considering that golfers aren't often quote machines for media members, the stories of some of these pros and their attitudes are sometimes eye-opening. And he doesn't waste too much time telling the story here, keeping things brisk.     

It's hard to say where this will wind up, and when. It's obviously in everyone's financial interest to work together to establish a structure that is relatively equitable for everyone. In the meantime, "LIV and Let Die" is a good place to go for the background on these squabbles. Possible readers, however, should know that it's more of a business book than golf book in some ways, so keep that in mind. 

Four stars

Learn more about this book from Amazon.com. (As an Amazon Associate I earn money from qualifying purchases.)  

Be notified of new posts on this site via X.com @WDX2BB.  

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

Learn more about this book from Amazon.com. (As an Amazon Associate I earn money from qualifying purchases.)  

Be notified of new posts on this site via X.com @WDX2BB.       

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

Learn more about this book from Amazon.com.  (As an Amazon Associate I earn money from qualifying purchases.)  

Be notified of new posts on this site via X.com @WDX2BB.

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

Learn more about this book from Amazon.com.  (As an Amazon Associate I earn money from qualifying purchases.)  

Be notified of new posts on this site via X.com @WDX2BB.