Thursday, March 14, 2024

Review: Present at the Creation (2017)

By Upton Bell with Ron Borges

The name of Upton Bell probably doesn't ring much of a, ahem, bell with many of the sports fans of today. Yes, he was in the sports media for a few decades in the Boston area, which probably is how he is best remembered.

However, that was his second go-around in the sports business. It was his first that might be of more interest, at least from an historical perspective. Bell's time in football is nicely chronicled in his book, "Present at the Creation." You can break that portion of his career into four different sections, which are covered here.

* He was the son of the former NFL Commissioner Bert Bell. 

* He was part of the front office of the Baltimore Colts during much of the 1960s.

* He was the general manager of the New England Patriots for a couple of years in the early 1970s. 

* He was the operating manager of the Charlotte franchise in the World Football League, an operation that lasted a mere two years in the 1970s. 

That is a rather intriguing resume, at least in terms of football history. It should be enough to draw some people in.

Bell's father probably ranks with one of the unsung heroes in the history of the NFL. There's a tendency to believe that Pete Rozelle deserves much of the credit for the growth in the league starting in the 1950s. However, Bell established a foundation for that growth in the 1950s. Granted, Upton's version is a little biased - as well it should be. But Bert seems like a man of integrity, and he took several steps that placed the sport of football on a national stage. Sadly, Bert essentially dropped dead during a game in 1959, just after he was making plans to try to step out of the Commissioner's job. Upton at least had an inside look at how pro football administration worked even before he graduated from college.

Upton eventually moved over to a job with the Baltimore Colts, showing an ability to find talent in the nation's colleges and thus having several drafts that helped propel the Colts to a contender's status throughout the 1960s. Baltimore had an interesting team in that era, led by a couple of strong personalities in quarterback John Unitas and head coach Don Shula ... who didn't really get along too well. While the Green Bay Packers are considered the dominant team of that era, it wouldn't have taken much to flip that script. The Colts lost key games to the Browns in the 1964 NFL championship, to the Packers in a 1965 playoff game (featuring a missed call on a field-goal attempt in the final minutes), and famously to the Jets in the 1969 Super Bowl. 

Indeed, the best part of the book might be the one devoted to that Jets' game. Bell said the Colts had figured out that New York not only had a better quarterback (Joe Namath vs. Earl Morrall) for that matchup, but also had better running backs and better wide receivers. In addition, age had caught up with Baltimore on the right side of the defense, and Jets' coach Weeb Eubank - the former head coach in Baltimore - knew it. Even so, the Colts probably would have won the game more than half the time; they just picked the wrong day to have a stinker. 

Still, the Colts' good run of success made Bell an attractive candidate for a promotion elsewhere, and he received it when he was named the general manager of the Boston/New England Patriots in 1971. As Bell writes, it seemed like a good idea at the time. The Patriots had been a mess for the previous several years, but Bell didn't realize how much of a mess it was. I'm fond of saying that sports teams lose for a reason, even if that reason isn't apparent from a distance. In this case, the team's Board of Directors was hopelessly fractured, and authority was scattered throughout the company. That rarely works. Bell lasted almost two years before the end mercifully came. The problems continued for a couple of more decades.

Bell received one more shot at pro football glory, taking an opportunity that became available in the World Football League. Stories of new leagues are always entertaining in a somewhat tragic sort of way. Bell helped move a franchise from New York to Charlotte, the opposite direction of what you might think was a path to success. However, the overall problems of the league overwhelmed Bell and the Hornets didn't need much of a push to be caught up in it. The WFL was dead before its second and final season ended in 1975, and so was Bell's football career.

"Football men" are notorious for having a limited focus on life, concentrating completely on the game rather than the world around it. One of the joys of this book is that Bell doesn't seem to suffer from that. He offers some good stories about what it was like to scout players in the South of the 1960s, where he had a first-hand look at the changes that were starting to take place. 

Bell probably could have fit a few more stories about his media days into the book, but what he offers is quite interesting. It already is closing in on 400 pages as is. Anyone who picks it up in the first place probably is looking for stories about football history, so this doesn't really date for what might be a somewhat limited audience. The pages go by quite quickly. 

In hindsight, it's easy to see why Bell had some success in the sports world. He's a smart, articulate man, and "Present at the Creation" reflects that. Those who fit into the proper demographic will find the book worth their time.

Four stars

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Monday, February 19, 2024

Review: Draft Day (2023)

By Doug MacLean with Scott Morrison

It's an age-old question. How do you build a winning team in professional sports?

Ever since the free-for-all days of signing players on your own ended at various stages (it depends on the sport, but mostly it was in the 1950s or 1960s), the draft has been the key component. That's where the biggest talent influx arrives each year. If those selections work out, one way or another, a team can add to its base of good players and start moving up the ladder in wins. In hockey, for example, teams that win Stanley Cups often have about 10 of their own draft choices on their rosters. 

Some of the other picks contribute in different ways, as they are sometimes traded elsewhere to strengthen a particular spot in the lineup. If a team has some depth at defense but not much talent at center, a swap concept begins to form with a team with the opposite problem.

When watching the draft, there's always a scent that much more is going on than we know about it. Happily, veteran hockey executive Doug MacLean takes us through his career in the behind-the-scenes book, "Draft Day." 

MacLean has had a variety of hockey jobs over the years. He's best known for his work as coach of the Florida Panthers and as the president and general manager of the Columbus Blue Jackets. MacLean always has come across as a smart, interesting person. Here he pulls back the curtain on what goes into the draft, which is the subject of a year's worth of work that comes down to only a couple of days of selections in the summer. No pressure, eh? There's a little wandering in the story that makes this read like an autobiography for a while, but it's not a big problem.

It's striking from the start just how close-knit the hockey family is. MacLean came out of Prince Edward Island in Canada. He played hockey there, but wasn't good enough to get a whiff of the NHL. However, he decided to work his way up the coaching ladder rather than taking what could be called "a real job." You get to meet a lot of people in the game that way, and the circles often intersect along the way. It's something of a fraternity, and friends are made for life. Those friends often turn out to be crucial in advancement. 

A book like this needs to have good stories to make it work, and MacLean comes through nicely in that department during the nearly 300 pages. One of the highlights is how MacLean as the general manager at Columbus managed to trade up to acquire the first overall pick. There he scooped up Rick Nash, who proved to be a top goal-scorer in the NHL. 

There's a skill to that, of course, but luck plays a hand in a team's fate as well. MacLean points out several cases where the lottery was particularly unkind to the Blue Jackets when he was there. A different ping-pong ball, or whatever is used in the lottery, would have made a big difference in the fortunes of the Columbus team. But when there are four particularly great prospects in a draft and you have the fifth pick, things aren't going to go well. 

MacLean devotes a chapter to what he calls "the curious case of Nikolai Zherdev." He was a top prospect in terms of talent from Russia, but there were a few character issues floating around that were tough to decipher. MacLean and Co. put plenty of effort into due diligence when it came to finding out what the full story was. Eventually the choice came down to Zherdev or Thomas Vanek. It turned out that personal issues never allowed Zherdev to realize his talent. By the way, the Buffalo Sabres "settled" for Vanek, who turned out to be a solid pro. GM Darcy Regier told MacLean at the time that the Sabres would have taken Zherdev had they had the chance.      

Speaking of the Sabres, there are a couple of little items in this book that are of interest. In 2015, MacLean tried to console Buffalo general manager Tim Murray for losing the lottery by saying that even if he couldn't get Connor McDavid, he'd at least get someone good. The reply was, "Doug, it's not even close." And back in 1991, the New York Islanders were shopping talented center Pat LaFontaine in a contract dispute. They talked to the Detroit Red Wings, and MacLean worked for the Wings at that point. He writes that the Red Wings were ready to deal Steve Yzerman to the Islanders in a package for LaFontaine. The deal eventually fell through, and LaFontaine ended up in Buffalo. If that original deal goes through with Detroit, hockey history goes in all sorts of different directions in the three cities involved.

This is all told in a down-to-earth style. Not only does MacLean comes across well, but he's in good hands in terms of assistance with Scott Morrison. The latter has been one of the most respected names in journalism for several years. 

The pages on "Draft Day" may not fly by for those who aren't good-sized hockey fans or for those looking for a more indepth look at the draft process, but those that qualify (in other words, the majority of potential readers) will find this more than satisfying. They should pick it up sooner rather than later. 

Four stars

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Thursday, February 8, 2024

Review: The Early Days of ESPN (2024)

By Peter Fox

The lives of sports fans changed drastically on September 7, 1979. That's when a new television network called ESPN signed on the air, with sportscaster Lee Leonard doing the honors. 

It hasn't signed off since that moment - with the exception of a few technical problems, no doubt - and since then it has lived up to its promise that it would show nothing but sports programming for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 (or 366) days a year.

While plenty has been written about those early days of the network's programming, ESPN didn't simply appear out of the ether one day. Several months of planning went into the debut. In fact, the first broadcast by the network took place 10 months earlier in November of 1978. The opening game was an exhibition basketball matchup between the University of Connecticut and Athletes in Action, a tourimg squad. 

Peter Fox was there at the beginning, as ESPN's founding executive producer. He's finally gotten around to putting some of his (and others') memories on those start-up days on paper, and the result is "The Early Days of ESPN."

The idea for the network came almost accidentally. Bill Rasmussen was interested in transmitting Connecticut basketball games around the state by satellite, and discovered that he couldn't just rent the time for a few hours a week. No, he had to agree to use it 24/7. A family member half-jokingly suggested to fill the time with other sports, and they plunged into it. 

After setting the scene a bit, Fox mostly relies on the memories of those who worked there in those early days. Some came from Hartford television, while others were from the immediate area of the Northeast. As you'd expect, the start-up was rather chaotic, with rented offices and potential clients (cable companies and advertisers) wondering how ESPN would fill all that time. Come to think of it, the employees wondered that too.

But eventually, it all came together. The big steps in personnel came when Chet Simmons and Scotty Connal - two big names in television production - were hired. Then the Getty Oil Company, which was sitting on piles of cash at the time, decided a television network would be more fun to own than drilling a dry hole in the ground.  

As you'd expect, the new employees mostly were young people who really didn't have much to lose professionally and loved sports. So there are stories of long hours, equipment breaking down, visits to local watering holes, office romances, more visits to local watering holes (hey, work hard, play hard), etc.

That all sounds like it has the elements of a reasonable book. However, the finished product has a couple of good-sized flaws attached.

For starters, this is part oral history and part personal narrative. The problem is that the material is not presented particularly well. It's rather disorganized, and sometimes it's tough to figure out where on the timeline of ESPN's story we might be at a given page. That's a good-sized drawback in a book like this. There are a few sections along the way that are simply tough to read for that reason. It's also a short book, checking in at under 200 pages with some filler along the way. Readers may not feel they will get their $29.95's worth of information from this.   

Fox comes off as a good and interesting guy, and he probably would be good company for lunch and diet colas. But "The Early Days of ESPN" comes across as something that might appeal to a very small piece of the audience. There are other books out there that might be more satisfying to someone looking for a quick overview of the start of the popular broadcasting outlet.

Two stars

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Monday, February 5, 2024

Review: The Bill James Handbook: Walk-Off Edition (2023)

By Sports Info Solutions

All good things must come to an end ... particularly in publishing, where the landscape seems to change by the hour. 

Such is the case for "The Bill James Handbook," which has concluded a nice run that has lasted for more than three decades. The story of the book's history needs a little explanation first.

Back around 1990, baseball statistics had started to blossom as a subject for study. Bill James, the patron saint of baseball analysis, had started the idea (more or less) with his Abstracts in the late 1970s. That led to an advancement of the subject, through the work of a small but devoted group of individuals who have pushed the research along. 

By 1990, there was a demand for information that just wasn't out there for most of the public. So James and his friends started a book that contained all of those numbers - and not just the ones that were in the Baseball Register by The Sporting News every year. Even better, the book was available by Christmas, which was a good holiday gift for those who couldn't wait until the spring or so when the Register came out. The book not only had those numbers, but also some essays on the game. 

Fast forward to today, and all of those numbers are available almost instantly through other sources on the Internet. So it was easy to guess that the days of the Handbook had to be numbered, and here we are. But the people behind the publication decided to go out with a bang of sorts. So they came out with one last book filled mostly with essays, and called it the "Walk-Off Edition." 

I hadn't bought the book before, as I didn't have a great deal of need for the extra numbers in my life. But as a reader of James' abstracts, I found the concept of an anthology with contributions by and about James to be tough to resist. Sold. 

Sure enough, there are a bunch of articles here, and James has five bylines and is the subject of a question-and-answer story. My favorite story of the bunch was one by James, in which he talks about how the changes in the way baseball is played these days (more relief pitchers, emphasis on home runs by hitters and strikeouts for pitchers, etc.). One of the unexpected aspects of those changes is that statistical standards have been more or less broken. That means the 300-game winner has become extinct, and that a certain type of player who doesn't hit for power has been left behind. There aren't many guys like Wade Boggs out there any more, and perhaps that hasn't helped the game's popularity with the public. Food for thought, at the very least. 

The people behind this book have done a lot of work on fielding statistics over the years, and have picked the year's best again. Fielding probably gets more coverage here than anything else. It's obviously well-researched material, written by smart people.

There's a catch here, though, and it's worth noting. This is a rather short book, and technical in spots. So it's not going to take long to read this, particular if you find yourself skimming over some stories because they are a little hard to follow. 

Is "The Bill James Handbook: Walk-Off Edition" worth $24.95 to you? Each reader will have to make that determination. If baseball is one of the biggest parts of your life, then you might enjoy this. Less rabid readers who prefer information on current teams and seasons might be willing to waiting for the Baseball Prospectus annual, which is always a favorite in this space.

Three stars

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Wednesday, January 31, 2024

Review: The Formula (2024)

By Joshua Robinson & Jonathan Clegg

For years, Formula 1 auto racing held a very small niche in the American sports scene. Yes, enthusiasts knew that the sport was popular around the world, particularly in Europe. Admittedly, watching the annual race on Monaco was something of a curiosity, thanks to the unique nature of the course. But the Grand Prix circuit took a back seat (sorry) to Indy cars and NASCAR events for the most part on this side of the Atlantic. Champion drivers weren't well known unless they made a stop in Indianapolis for the month of May. 

All of that has changed in the past few years. Formula 1 racing has boomed in the United States in the past few years. The races are on television (ESPN) constantly now, and a documentary series on Netflix has proven to be a great way to collect publicity and fans. 

The transformation probably left some people here interested in the history of this particular divisions of the sport of auto racing. Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg are here to fill in that gap with the book, "The Formula." And they have a great story to tell.

The authors offer something of a course on the business side of the Grand Prix circuit. If this sounds like it could be a little dry, well, don't worry. Robinson and Clegg really made the characters come alive. It's an international cast with great stories involved. 

Heck, Bernie Eccelstone could be a book all by himself. This former driver took over financial control of a team on the circuit, which led to him buying the television rights to the series, which led to him taking over control of the entire Formula 1 operation ... which made him very rich. Some of that money was lost in 2023, when a tax fraud conviction cost him more than 800 million dollars. 

The book offers one key insight into the sport that is a valuable tip for the uninitiated. Why does it seem that Formula 1 teams have stretches where they just dominate the competition, race after race? It turns out that it has a lot to do with the rules. While there are pages and pages of regulations about how the cars are designed and built, it seems that designers are constantly looking for ways to bend those regulations in a way that couldn't be called outright cheating. Perhaps the tires are made of a new material, or the car design leads to more downforce that keeps the vehicle on the road at higher speeds. 

That can lead to a bit of an advantage, and that's important in a sport when a second per lap can be a huge edge in the competition. A team runs off some wins, and the rest of the field than either copies that change or the rules are rewritten to level the playing field again. Then the process starts all over again. 

A couple of fabled moments in the history of the series receive plenty of attention too. One centered on the time a driver was ordered to crash his car into a wall so that his teammate could take advantage of the yellow flag and move up in the field. The other concerned the time when a ruling on where lapped cars would be placed on a restart would determine the outcome of a season-long championship. Those may be well-known to longtime fans, but they are amazing moments for the more casual reader. 

Robinson and Clegg do a fine job of telling this as a human story for the most part. In other words, you won't get lost in the text even if you don't know the difference between a carburetor and wheel axle. They also give plenty of details of how Liberty Media came in as the new owners of the circuit and essentially revolutionized how the sport was presented to the public, which is greatly responsible for the current boom in interest (and, naturally, revenues).

You don't have to be a gearhead to enjoy "The Formula," which is a first-class job. You'll want to give it the checkered flag when you're done.

Five stars

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