Review: Then the World Moved On (2024)

By Catherine Johnson

On August 25, 1930, Max Baer and Frankie Campbell stepped into a boxing ring in Recreation Park in San Francisco for a heavyweight match. 

Only one of them walked out of that same ring.

There have been several boxing deaths over the years. It's a sometimes brutal sport, and accidents are almost unavoidable despite effort to make the most savage of competitions a little more, well, civilized. 

But this one seems particularly difficult to comprehend. Campbell, who was injured at some point in the second round, carried on until the fifth. That's when Baer knocked him senseless and into the ropes, and then continued to pound away at Campbell - over and over again to the point where most observers believe he took at least 20 straight punches without response. Finally, referee Toby Irwin stopped the fight, but it was far too late. Campbell essentially was dead when he was carried out of the ring, although he clung to life for several more hours in a hospital. 

It certainly was an outrage of an event; Catherine Johnson certainly thinks so. She's spent an unimaginable amount of time and effort putting research into a book on that fight and its subjects. It's called "Then the World Moved On," and you can read her rage on most of the pages. The veteran boxing fan is determined to set the record straight here.

Of the main characters presented in the story, Campbell is the main "good guy." He grew up in a family with an abusive father, but overcame it to become a good and humble husband and father. Frankie's real last name was Camilli; he changed it upon entering boxing in order to sell tickets to the Irish community. By the way, his brother Dolph played major league baseball for several years in the 1930s and 1940s.

But once you get past Frankie and the family, heroes are tough to find in this story. Even before the fight, Baer was a guy who never saw a character flaw he couldn't embrace. Boxing was the only way that he could come close to earning enough money to keep up with his spending, although his bank account never seemed to win that argument with the bank. Baer also wasn't too bothered by rules in boxing, establishing a reputation for bad behavior such as fouls in the ring. 

From there, we can move on to the referee, and Irwin was universally known as a bad official who seemed to have other priorities than a fair fight - in other words, lining his pockets by helping to fix bouts. The trainers, handlers and promoters weren't exactly honor students either, and the ruling authorities weren't known for their scruples. Gambling influences were everywhere in that era. 

Therefore, it seems like it was only a matter of time before it would all go tragically wrong in some case when a certain set of circumstances emerged. The "smart guys" had put their money on Baer to win in five rounds, and the future heavyweight champion and the referee made sure that the outcome came out as ordered. The health of Campbell wasn't a major concern apparently. 

After the fight, investigations took place in several areas. However, those smart guys had most of the bases covered. Boxing commissioners were quick to protect the principals, and Baer had a different version to tell about what happened almost any time he spoke about the subject in the ensuing years Little was done in the way of reforms suggested by the equivalent of a grand jury. 

Johnson compiles a bunch of Baer's lies from a variety of sources, and it is tough to know how much remorse the heavyweight felt for his actions. But the referee might even have a greater responsibility in the matter. You can argue that a boxer keeps going until told not to do so, and that someone has to uphold order in the ring. Irwin certainly did not do that. But Baer never showed any restraint, and handlers never jumped in the ring or threw in the towel. And so on.

This is a rather compelling story, even for one almost 100 years ago, and probably worth revisiting now. But there are a few problems along the way. 

The first centers on the writing. There is just an epidemic of unnecessary commas that have been placed in the story.  Remember that a comma is designed to make the reader stop and think for a moment, but the extra commas tend to break the train of thought. That forces visitors to the book to figure out what is being said. Also, some words and phrases along the way could use some editing. Self-published books (and I assume this is one) sometimes could use another editor, and this probably applies here. 

Johnson also has the habit of applying quirky metaphors in the boxing sections that read as if they were in a 1930 newspaper. Campbell's handlers simply aren't nervous; they are "near cardiac arrest as their moneymaker seemed about to drop his last gold coin." A foe lands on the canvas "as if Wrigley Field's baseball stands had fallen on him." In describing another knockout, Johnson writes, "Little birdies still orbited his head as Frankie's hand was raised in victory." That can be a charming technique when used once in a while about old-time news, but it should be done sparingly.

And sometimes, in spite of 1,400 sources, it's easy to wonder if minor assumptions aren't being made. Take this portion about Campbell's wife arriving at the hospital: "Her heels echoes in the quiet corridor as she raced breathlessly down the halls of the hospital. When she saw the full extent of what Max Baer had done to husband (sic), she whimpered in horror as she slowly approached hid bed." Since there's no footnote, where did that information come from?

There are those out there who follow boxing who think Baer received a raw deal in this whole matter, but Johnson does a very good job of getting the facts out into the open. For that, "Then the World Moved On" deserves to be noticed in boxing circles. While the flaws make it less than an easy read that may scare away some readers, it is nice to get the full story in these 328 pages. 

Three stars

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Review: Arum and King (2025)

By Marty Corwin

Back in the Eighties when I had a radio sports talk show, I actually had the chance to have both boxing promoters Bob Arum and Don King as my guests on the program at different times. Arum was on by phone and King was in the studio, and they took very different approaches to their jobs - just as you'd expect. Arum was straight-forward and factual, while King was entertaining and full of bluster. I have friends who still remember the time King got so caught up in his work that he could only yell, "Excitement! Excitement! Excitement!"

They were both promoting in their own ways, and you could see why they were very successful in attracting attention for their fights. Sometimes they were at war with each other, sometimes they had forced truces for a while. But when they were at the top of their games, mostly from the 1970s through the 2000s, they were never boring. 

When a book landed in front of me by the only person who was a department head of both organizations, well, I knew it had to be read and reviewed. Unfortunately, "Arum and King" doesn't live up to most expectations that a reader might carry into it. 

Marty Corwin is the author in question here. He headed up the television production departments for both King and Arum's companies, in that order. You wouldn't think anyone had the personality to survive working for such different bosses, but somehow Corwin made it work. 

Let's pretend that one of the promoters was the editor of the book, and the reader had to guess which one. You'd definitely say King was in charge. The volume is rather scattershot in its approach. The chapters seem like a mere jumping-off point as the story goes in all sorts of directions in its less than 200 pages of type. In other words, it feels like a Don King news conference - and perhaps an overpriced ($32 admission) at that. While the chapters give something of an outline to where things are going, the table of contents isn't exactly a road map into what's inside. In other words, there are all sorts of odd turns along the way. It's rather confusing in spots.

Meanwhile, there are obvious mistakes that come up along the way. There are some factual errors in the form of misspellings that pop up, and there are quite a few redundancies here. You should know that every Kindle book comes with a disclaimer saying that the text isn't final, and shouldn't be quoted until a final edition is put out. We'll have to see how much cleaning is done before the final product comes out, but quite a bit is needed. 

This also isn't a particular long book, at less than 200 pages. At times it feels rather padded, when descriptions of fights and fighters and listed at length. Reading it makes one think "I get the idea." The two promoters both come quite well here, even though both of them had some, um, issues along the ways in the form of legal issues and charges along the way. This is an affectionate recounting rather than a tell-all. 

"Arum and King" does have some value. The sport of boxing is nothing if not unpredictable, and Corwin certainly had some adventures. When Mike Tyson first got out of prison, Corwin was on the private plane that took King, Tyson and a few others back to a home in Ohio. Closer to the job, Corwin was responsible for the trains arriving on time when it came to massive television broadcasts of bouts that were beamed around the world. He had to do a lot of juggling along the way, and he seems to have made it all work for the most part. That's a quality that made him very valuable in the day; no wonder both promoters hired him. 

Both Arum and King have cut down on the workload way back in recent years as they are well into senior citizen status. Corwin essentially writes that one of the reasons boxing mattered so much in the days of their promoting primes was that they were geniuses in calling attention to their bouts. There are a number of reasons why "big fights" have gotten rare these days, and the loss of influence from Arum and King certainly is on that list. 

It feels like there's a decent book roaming around in the middle of "Arum and King." Corwin probably needed a better editor to draw out and highlight the good stories and make them flow much smoother. Barring some good-sized surgery before publication, most boxing fans probably will want to pass on this one. 

Two stars

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Review: Ara (2024)

By Mark O. Hubbard

Any discussion about Ara Parseghian probably should start with his name. It's memorable to American audiences, just like its owner.

Ara is a popular first name among Armenian families, since there was a beloved king by that name. That puts you in position to realize that the last name is Armenian as well, as his family at various points crossed the ocean and ended up in Akron, Ohio. 

It's still an unlikely journey from there for Ara Parseghian to be something of a household name in football-loving American households - especially those in the vicinity of South Bend, Indiana. That, naturally, is the home of Notre Dame University. Parseghian coached there for 11 seasons, enough to make him a Hall of Famer and something of a legend.

That leads us to a biography of Parseghian, appropriately named "Ara." It only takes three letters to identify the subject of this one. It's a thorough book that generates a discussion about the issue of access versus objectivity.

But first, a word about Ara's life. He had a good playing career at Miami (Ohio), and signed a pro contract with the Cleveland Browns. However, a hip injury ended Parseghian's time as a pro really before it started. He went back to his alma mater and became a freshman football coach, and then moved up a step when Woody Hayes left for Ohio State. Ara did well at Miami, and was all right in his next stop at Northwestern despite playing much bigger schools in the Big Ten. When Notre Dame decided it was time to look for a new football coach, Parseghian's name popped up high on their list. 

It didn't take him long to make an impression. In 1964, Parseghian was only a few minutes away from a win over Southern California and a national championship. The Trojans pulled that game out, but 9-1 was a sign that Notre Dame football was in good hands. Ara stayed in South Bend for 11 seasons, and his worst records were a pair of 7-2-1 seasons. 

Along the way, the Fighting Irish claimed a couple of national championships. One was in 1966, the year of a famous 10-10 tie with Michigan State in one of the epic games in college football history. (To be fair, the Spartans probably deserved to split the title with Notre Dame that year under the circumstances.) The other was 1973 and came with no baggage; a thrilling win over Alabama in the Sugar Bowl took care of that. Still, ND usually was a contender for national honors, as good seasons popped out of the copying machine year after year. 

Hubbard does make a great point that Notre Dame's independent status is something of a drawback, particular in the 1960s when teams were not going to bowl games. Without a conference affiliation, ND's basic goal every year was a national championship, because there was no second prize. That's a rather high standard. 

Happily, Parseghian by all accounts was a man of high integrity. He won the right way, which was important at Notre Dame. There was an incident involving some players in 1974, which probably is a little underplayed here, but otherwise this was a very clean program. There's a lot to admire here. 

Parseghian lasted 11 seasons, and his retirement was unexpected and sudden. There is pressure on the football coach at Notre Dame, and he had had enough of it. Interestingly, Notre Dame has had several good coaches since then, including Lou Holtz. Only Brian Kelly made it to a 12th season, and he left before the year was over to jump to LSU. Ara eventually made the transition into other areas, such as broadcasting, and did considerable charity work. It was quite a second act, since about 40 years elapsed between retirement and death.

That leads the discussion into access, an important point in this case. Hubbard has a couple of other books about Notre Dame to his credit, writing about the 1953 and 1966 Irish teams. He wrote the script of a video that was played at Parseghian's funeral. Mark first met Ara when the '66 book was in development in 2011, and Hubbard eventually became quite close to the entire family.  

The first clue about the resulting book is right on the cover - "An authorized biography." That means the family allowed Hubbard access to all sorts of information that usually isn't well know. It sounds like Ara kept a ton of material around the house. Some of it winds up here in the form of letters from fans, letters to other coaches and administrators, notes on speeches, playbooks, etc. A few things, like Parseghian's somewhat compulsion to record the details of all of his golf games, mercifully have been lost to history in the form of some cleaning over the years. It's interesting to see some of this material in public, since it usually is not ever disclosed for readers.

But here's where the problem is. The book isn't at all objective about Parseghian and Notre Dame. They get the benefit of the doubt in every case. There are no flaws to be found here. Hubbard still seems to be upset about some officiating in Notre Dame games from long ago, even if he probably wasn't around to see it. There's also a little talk about other people being jealous of Notre Dame and its great record, which turned into bias against the school in poll voting. So it reads as if it were written by a big fan, which it was. And after a while, it all becomes a bit much. Parseghian probably would be the first to say he was no saint, but this is often over the top. 

"Ara" has its virtues. It certainly will fill in the gaps of the career of a remarkable coach, and it probably has been a big seller at the Notre Dame bookstore since publication. Fans of Parseghian will gobble it up. The family members certainly must have been proud of the finished product. But the book is a little too one-sided for my tastes, and maybe for some others as well.

Three stars

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Review: The Golf 100 (2025)

 

By Michael Arkush

Ranking the top 100 performers in any sport seems to be a popular book form right now. I've gone through versions for baseball and football, and been entertained. Basketball is in my Kindle and standing by the scorer's table, waiting to check into the game. But first, there's the matter of golf. 

The first two spots in golf's historical rankings are relatively easy. We know that Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods probably rank at the top of anyone's list. It's just a matter of what you value in a career. If you consider the longest great career, Nicklaus is the clear winner. But if it's the "pick one player for a winner-take-all match between Earth and Mars," Woods in his prime would be a worthy choice. 

It's the other 98 spots on the list that are the problem. Happily, Michael Arkush is up to the challenge. He's taken the time (a considerable amount, I should mention) to rank the best ever from 1 to 100. It's all included in his very readable book, "The Golf 100." 

There are two surprises that come up right off the bat. Arkush's list includes the best 100 golfers of any type. In other words, there are several women on the list. That's less of a problem that you might think. Arkush is comparing accomplishments on the golf course here, and not how everyone would do in a tournament at the local country club. That makes some sense when you consider that a male player who was winning championships 110 years ago couldn't come close to today's pros, but he did the best he could (which was really good) under the circumstances. So it works out well to put everyone under the same brightly colored golf umbrella. By the way, Mickey Wright is the only woman to crack the top 10.

The other is in the introduction, as Arkush comes up with a point system to try to rank all of the players. Players pile up the points by winning major championships in any competition, with a few consolation points handed out for near-misses. Yearly titles (player of the year awards, most wins, etc.) also count. The author adds some bonus points for certain circumstances, which actually makes a lot of sense. 

From there, Arkush forgets all about the points more or less. That's fine. Get to the good parts as soon as possible. So we are off on a journey that starts with No. 100, John McDermott. The story immediately became a little personal for me. 

I knew very little about John McDermott, except for the fact that he won the United States Open in Buffalo in 1912. The course is literally a left turn, a left turn and a right turn from my house. - a few miles at most. McDermott made it two Opens in a row on that course, which is rare air, and he was the first to finish the tournament under par. A few years later, McDermott suffered a nervous breakdown, and never really recovered. His life went downhill, and he never competed with golf's best in the pros. 

But there's one nice story that Arkush tells about the 1971 United States Open near Philadelphia. McDermott, looking less than well dressed, was essentially kicked out of the clubhouse when Arnold Palmer happened to be walking by. Palmer welcomed him and had a good initial chat with the former champion. Then he made McDermott his special guest for the week, making sure he had full clubhouse privileges. It's another reason to love Arnie. 

I suppose you could argue about where a particular player should rank. But as with all of these books, it usually doesn't matter much if someone is No. 48 (Ben Crenshaw) or No. 47 (Johnny Miller). You want to hear about each player and why they are so good, and Arkush usually delivers. You'll learn a bit about all of the players.

My favorites in the group might be the "what ifs?" of golf history. We can probably say in looking back that Phil Mickelson would have been rated higher if he hadn't played in the Woods Era - and hadn't let a few majors get away. We also can also wonder where Nancy Lopez and Sam Snead might have ranked had they put a few U.S. Open trophies in their den. 

It's tough to say how this will go over with anyone who doesn't have a good sense of golf history. But Arkush certainly put in the work to make "Golf 100" work well for those who qualify. As they say on the course, it's well played. 

Four stars

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Review: Homestand (2025)

This book really didn't play fair with me. 

It's something of a love letter to the Batavia Muckdogs of the Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League. Author Will Bardenwerper spent several days in the summer of 2022 with the team in its quest to win a championship while keeping "organized" baseball alive in that city that's located about 45 miles from Buffalo down the Thruway.

The book, "Homestand," was written shortly after major league baseball's "contraction" of several minor league teams after the pandemic. Some New York State squads got together in 2021 to form a summer league from the remains of those franchises, as some of them like Batavia didn't survive the cut.

In an interesting coincidence, I actually attended the final two games of that season in Batavia in 2022. I even checked my baseball scorebook. It was odd that I actually recognized a few names in the scorebook after reading the book, as opposed to when I saw them in person at the time. I've tried to go to Batavia every so often over the years; I even announced a game on the radio in the 1980s there.

Speaking of coincidences, the owner of the Muckdogs also owns the Elmira Pioneers of the PGCBL. Bardenwerper makes a couple of trips there for games. I spent ages 9 to 14 in Dunn Field in Elmira, learning about baseball from my father's company's season tickets along the first-base line. I can still picture the place; I took a walk on the field and in the stands before a PGCBL game when in town in 2023. 

Therefore, there was absolutely no chance I wouldn't like this book. Heck, I lived a little of it. And I did enjoy it - even if I knew how the story of the season was going to turn out (no spoilers here).

Bardenwerper is an interesting personality. He went to Princeton and had a finance job in New York when 9/11 hit. That inspired him to enlist in the Army, and he saw duty in Iraq. After his time was up, Will eventually landed a Masters' degree in international studies and worked at the Pentagon. He has one other book to his credit - the story of Saddam Hussein and his American captivity during the end of the Iraqi's leader's life. 

Still, baseball stays with him. He played in college, and has been a New York Mets' fan for much of his life. But the minor league contraction hit him hard, as MLB ended a tradition of small-town professional baseball that went back decades to save a relatively pittance. So it was off to Batavia for some R&R, even if the players were simply college kids playing summer ball who had little chance to advance their careers past this stop. 

Bardenwerper, then, is of two minds during the course of his summer. He wants to be furious about the way cities like Batavia have been treated, but he likes the way the citizens of the small town have banded together to keep some of the magic around. The author makes friends with the front office members and the manager, of course. But he also manages to fit in with some of the other fans who are regulars. Some walk a few blocks from their home to Dwyer Stadium, while others drive in from Buffalo. It does feel like some of small-town America is still alive and well in Batavia. 

In addition, Bardenwerper stayed in hotels in the Batavia area during his season with the Muckdogs, That gave him time to explore the town a bit. He had meals there, and frequently ran into - or set up appointments - with others. It allows him to inject some local flavor into the story. 

This all adds up into an odd sort of contradiction at the center of the book. He likes what he sees in Batavia, but is still angry about what was lost. So the tone essentially goes back and forth. It's also a little odd that the book was written about the 2022 season, and is only coming out now. I know first-hand that such delays happen, but an update on the situation and the players might have been worth knowing. 

It's also worth mentioning from my standpoint that Buffalo doesn't come off particularly well here. Bardenwerper seems obsessed about the weather, making several knocks about the winter snows in the region. For someone who lives in Pittsburgh and was here in summer - and in terms of weather, Western New York has better summers than almost anywhere else - this comes off as a little petty. 

That said, there's a lot to like in the book. Not much has been said or written about the towns that got left behind when the MBA types in MLB decided to break with the past. There are plenty of moments in "Homestand" that will remind you what we've lost.

Four stars

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Review: Blue-Eyed Soul Brother (2024)

By William C. Kashatus

There's a new book out about the life of Bill Bradley, one of the top athletes of the 1960s.

Let's stop right there. It's not that Bill Bradley, the one you are thinking about unless you are from Texas or Philadelphia. That better-known Bill Bradley was one of the great college basketball players of all time, had a successful career in the pros with the New York Knicks, and went on to become a Senator from New Jersey.

This Bill Bradley, the one in "Blue-Eyed Soul Brother," has a much different story to tell. It may not be as noteworthy as his namesake's tale, but it's still interesting to learn about it.

Some explanation needs to be told. Bradley came out of tiny Palestine, Texas, as something of an athletic legend. He wasn't Bo Jackson-level legendary, but he was mighty good. Even though he wasn't too big and strong, there wasn't anything that he couldn't do athletically. 

Naturally, his first publicity came from football, because that what young boys play first in the state of Texas. It's the home of "Friday Night Lights," where schools spent more month on athletic tape in a year than textbooks. Bradley did everything in high school, serving as a brilliant quarterback - a ambidextrous athlete who could run, throw, punt, return kicks, and so on. Along the way Bradley picked up the nickname of "Super Bill," although with all modesty he said he liked his other nickname, "Stupid Bill," a lot more. 

By the way, if Bradley had put his mind to it, he could have been a pro baseball player - at least according to accounts here. It's tough to say if he could have been a major leaguer, but he might have had the chance to get that far. 

But this being Texas, Bradley headed to the University of Texas in 1965, and was a prized recruit of the legendary football coach Darryl Royal. Things went according to form for a few years there, as Bradley took over the starting quarterback job. He was on the cover of Sports Illustrated in 1967. But then as a senior, the Longhorns got off to a slow start, and Royal decided to install the Wishbone offense. Bradley lost his starting job at that point, in part because a knee injury cost him some quickness. Bill mostly watched for a few weeks until Texas decided to try him in the secondary. Naturally, Bradley was quite good at that position, even without playing it for years. 

The Philadelphia Eagles somehow noticed Bradley's work on defense, and drafted him in the third round in 1969. He was a reserve in the secondary and was the regular punter there for a couple of years. Then Bradley got a chance as a starter in 1971, and all he did was lead the league in interceptions. For good measure, he led the league again in picks in 1972 - the first time anyone had done that. Bradley stayed with the Eagles through 1976, playing with some really bad teams but mostly having a good time on and off the field. The kid from small-town Texas learned how to party Philadelphia style rather quickly, but he always maintained his knack for being popular with his teammates. 

If you are wondering, the title comes from a nickname given to Bradley by Jerry LeVias, an African American football standout of the era who noticed how well Bradley interacted with him and other Blacks of the time. Bradley also was popular with the media, someone known for his candor.

Author William Kashatus has plenty of fun writing about such a free spirit. Bradley was quite open about his exploits over the years, and some of the stories are quite entertaining. The frustration of being a good player on a bad team also comes across here. It's fair to say that Kashatus obviously is quite fond of Bradley, and so this is told in a way that makes the former star look good. 

Most people who might have remembered Bradley from his college days might have not kept up with him since then. After some time in private business, he became an assistant coach in pro football. I had forgotten that he had a stay in Buffalo as an assistant under Wade Phillips. In more recent times, Bradley has had some difficulties, including a family tragedy and some lingering issues probably causes by numerous concussions in his football days. 

Someone once said that Dwayne "Pearl" Washington went from legend to superstar to star to mediocrity, instead of the other way around. Bradley sort of did that with a longer and better second act during his days with the Eagles. "Blue-Eyed Soul Brother" shows that there's no guarantee of ultimate success for high school phenoms, and those who remember the name first-hand will enjoy the details of this look back.

Three stars

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Review: The Fenway Effect (2024)

By David Krell

It didn't take long to figure out that "The Fenway Effect" was going to move into unfamiliar territory.

As in, the title.

It doesn't really provide much of a clue as to what is to come in the upcoming 200 or so pages. The subtitle isn't much help either - "A Cultural History of the Boston Red Sox."

What then are we getting here? "The Fenway Effect" looks at the Red Sox from a variety of different angles, and some succeed and others fall short.

David Krell's work has appeared on this website in the past. He wrote "1962," which was a mixture of baseball and world events. My problem with that book was that there didn't seem to be a unifying theme. At least he covers that base as the Red Sox are the common denominator on the chapters, although it goes in several directions.

You never quite know what you're going to get from chapter to chapter. Let's take the portion of the book called "Icons." There are four chapters there. One is about Carl Yastrzemski, OK, no argument. One is about Tom Seaver, who pitched for a small portion of the 1986 season. While my admiration for Seaver is close to unlimited, his contribution to team history is small indeed. One is about the Citgo sign, towering over left field. That drew me in initially but bogged down a bit in corporate-speak after a while. The last is on the statues outside of Fenway Park. Can't say I've read that much about baseball statues before, but it's fun to hear that the same guy who did a Yastrzemski tribute also did one for Teddy Roosevelt here in Buffalo.

That's the pattern that becomes established in the book. There are some relatively unknown corners of Red Sox history that are explored here, which is nice. The full story of the Jimmy Fund - a fund-raising group to fight childhood cancer - is explored well. Can't say I knew much about the history of Narragansett Beer, which advertised on Red Sox broadcasts back in the day. I still remember the beverage's ads in the annual Red Sox yearbook of the era. It's fun to read about Sam Malone's career (Cheers) and how real Red Sox players were drawn in to stories.

There's a chapter mostly dedicated to the 1967 team, and deservedly so. It changed the course of Boston baseball forever, reviving interest in a long-dead franchise. Most of the games that are reviewed feel a little oddly picked. For example, there's nothing about Bill Rohr's relatively famous one-hitter in the opening week of the season, or the game-saving throw by Jose Tartabull in a win at Chicago. At least the last two games of the regular season and all of the World Series contests are covered.

I have to admit I found myself skimming over some of the material. For example, there's a reference to the Dwight Evens catch in Game Six of the 1975 World Series. Krell doesn't just list some other great catches in the Fall Classic; he writes a paragraph on five of them. My guess is that this audience already knows about it. 

The last chapter is made up of fans' comments on what it's like to be a Red Sox fan. It's really difficult to make such comments interesting to a general audience, although I suppose it puts an upbeat tone on the joys of rooting on the way out.

"The Fenway Effect" adds up to a book that will keep your interest in spots and lose it in others. It's written for fans who follow the team closely, but yet they are likely to know many of the details of the team's history already. It's a tough assignment. Your reaction will depend on where you fit in the scale.

Three stars

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Review: The Last Manager (2025)

By John W. Miller

It doesn't take long to figure out that we are in good hands when reading John W. Miller's fine biography of Earl Weaver, "The Last Manager." I clocked it at less than two chapters. 

The book starts at the end of the 1982 season, when Weaver was about to end a remarkable run as the skipper of the Baltimore Orioles. Weaver's team lost that one-game playoff against Milwaukee for the division title, but the day became a chance for the fans there to celebrate a spectacular run of success for the franchise. Since 1968, the Orioles had won a World Series, lost three others, and taken several division titles in becoming consistent winners. 

And in that opening chapter, Miller points out that Weaver should be remembered for more than arguing with umpires ... although, in fairness, no one was better than Earl in that department. Weaver was an amazing innovator when it came to the game, revolutionizing the thinking that went into the job as manager. He was way ahead of his time when it came to philosophy and matchups, serving as a pioneer in the effort to maximize his team's chances of winning. We might call it analytics today, but Weaver certainly pointed us in that direction. The Orioles manager also carried certain philosophies. Just as an example, Weaver said you only get 27 outs, and you shouldn't give any away. In other words, if you play for one run, that's how many runs you'll get. Weaver emphasized pitching, defense and three-run homers over one base at a time with sacrifice bunts. 

Then in chapter two, we find ourselves back in the spring of 1952. Weaver had worked his way up the ladder of the St. Louis Cardinals organization to the point where he had a good chance of making the major league team. The problem was that the Cardinals had just named an infielder named Eddie Stanky as the manager, and Eddie didn't think he was completely washed up as a player. So while Weaver had a good spring training, Stanky wasn't going to cut himself from the roster. So a broken-hearted Weaver went back to the minors. It was the crucial turning point in his life up to that point. He played a few more years but his heart really wasn't in it.

But everyone realized that Earl knew baseball inside and out, so a switch to manager was almost inevitable. He again worked his way up that ladder, stopping in more small towns along the way. In order to make ends meet, he sold cars in the offseason in Elmira, New York. A friend of mine remembers how Weaver sold his father a car while balancing my pal as a young child on his knee. Eventually, though, Weaver reached the majors. Earl took over the Orioles in 1968, and became one of the most beloved figures in Baltimore's baseball history. No wonder there's a statue of him in Camden Yards.

Weaver developed a particular style of managing that you wouldn't exactly call "corporate." The overriding philosophy shown here is that Weaver didn't merely want to win. He had to win. That meant if an umpire's call went the "wrong way," he was going to hear about it from Weaver. Heck, Earl got himself thrown out of games before they started, which is a pretty good trick. Those arguments with the umps featured plenty of colorful words and a few stunts such as turning his hat around by 180 degrees in order to get more of a face-to-face discussion going. The fans, of course, liked the idea that someone shared their passion for the team. Weaver always figured that the team was better off without him than without one of the players, who had a direct influence on a game's outcome.

Off the field, Weaver did some of his best work in the clubhouse. No, he didn't get along with everyone. His "feud" with Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Palmer was almost legendary, and others sometimes weren't happy about Weaver's style either. But while Earl was maybe too direct in spots, he never carried a grudge to the next day. What's more, Weaver certainly got the most out of his players. Many of them were never better then they were for Earl's teams. 

That sort of passion carries a price, of course. Baseball's schedule is relentless, and Weaver missed a lot of birthdays and anniversaries and dinners and so on. He was divorced from his first wife by the time he reached Double-A. Miller also concludes that Weaver probably could be considered an alcoholic by most standards. That's the way people of that era sometimes blew off steam, for better or worse (mostly worse, of course). Miller points out along the way that writer Bill James once estimated that 17 of the top 25 managers in baseball history were alcoholics. It would be interesting to see that list, although you'd hope that today's skippers are a little more aware of the dangers of traveling down that road.

Miller's workload in putting together this book is quite obvious. He personally visited several of Weaver's stops, from his native St. Louis through Elmira and Baltimore. The author has a long list of items that are source material. At the book's end, the reader really has the idea of what went right in Weaver's life - it's a good-sized list - and what went wrong. It's a balanced and full portrait. 

It's been almost 40 years since Earl Weaver last bounced out of the dugout to complain about, well, something. That might limit the potential number of readers for "The Last Manager." That's too bad, but almost anyone interested in Weaver and the profession of baseball managing will find this just about completely satisfying.

Five stars

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Review: Gut Punch (2024)

By Bob Gutkowski with Wallace Matthews

As a chief executive of a sports operation, you'd have to say that Bob Gutkowski has a fine track record.

He was the President of Madison Square Garden during a portion of the early 1990s, and that was a very good time for New York sports. You might remember that the New York Rangers won the Stanley Cup in 1994 - the only time that has happened since 1940. You also might remember that the New York Knicks reached the NBA Finals in 1995, only to fall just short in the series with the Houston Rockets. Still, there were some good times for the Knicks along the way. 

In hindsight, that accomplishment of having twin winners in New York looks even better now than it did then. Perhaps Gutkowski's biggest strength was getting some strong-willed people to work together, at least temporarily. 

Now, about 30 years later, Gutkowski looks back on his career in sports business with "Gut Punch." It's an easy read about some interesting times for all concerned.

Gutkowski's career dates back to 1970, when he was a page at NBC in New York. His main job was to herd crowds into programs like "The Tonight Show" and "Jeopardy." That may not sound like much, but among those who once had that job were Michael Eisner, Ted Koppel and Regis Philbin. From there things got more serious as Gutkowski worked on the business side of NBC Sports. He left for ESPN at just the right time, as the Connecticut-based network had just about figured out how to survive in a changing landscape.

From there it was on to Paramount Television, which took over Madison Square Garden, in 1985. Bob led the MSG Network for a few years and became president of Madison Square Garden in 1991. Let's face it - on the list of cool if stressful jobs, that's a pretty good one. It also supplies the meat of the book. 

Cleaning up the business end of the operation was the easy part for Gutkowski, who worked to bring in top concerts and some boxing matches to the New York City complex.   Getting the Rangers and Knicks to thrive was more difficult. The problem was personality clashes. In hockey, general manager Neil Smith and coach Mike Keenan didn't get along too well. OK, they couldn't stand each other. A highlight of the book was Gutkowski's meeting with the two of them early in 1994, figuring out how to help the team go on a playoff run. A flurry of trades before the deadline followed, and the Rangers went on to end a 54-year drought. 

In basketball, there weren't many personalities bigger in basketball at the time than Pat Riley, and he was the coach during that era. Riley worked for general manager Dave Checketts, and they had some major disagreements as well. When the dust finally settled, Riley was off to Miami, and the Knicks' era of top-level of play ended shortly after that. 

Gutkowski's stories about all of this work rather well. He also has some tales about George Steinbrenner, the late owner of the New York Yankees. Gutkowski helped negotiate a television deal between MSG and the Yankees that represented nearly a half-billion dollars in revenues .... which was good money at the time. Gutkowski also essentially had the idea for what became the YES Network. While that worked out well for the Yankees, and is still working out for the Yankees, Gutkowski didn't get a piece of the pie for his efforts and watched others profit from the concept. 

You don't land jobs like these without having a bit of an ego, and that's occasionally on display here. But Gutkowski comes across here as a rational man who can laugh at himself. He'd be a good companion over a nice dinner, if this is any indication.

There are a couple of obvious problems with the book. Sports business is a rather narrow of interest for most people. especially in the parts that are more business than sports. Some may get a little lost in the discussions at that end. Meanwhile, the most interesting portions of the publication deal with matters that are 30 years old or so. That leaves out quite a number of people.

Still, it's nice to have this side of the story down on paper. "Gut Punch" goes by quickly and sticks to the subject. Those who are interested enough in Gutkowski's stories to pick the book up in the first place will be happy they read it.

Three stars

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Review: The Why is Everything (2024)

By Michael Silver

Football fans no doubt have heard of the phrase "coaching tree" over the years. The concept centers on the idea that great football coaches often pick top-notch assistant coaches, who go on to work for other teams. Sometimes those assistants have learned their lessons and match or even top the accomplishments of their mentors; sometimes they fall short. But it's always interesting to trace the genealogy of a particular coach. 

The concept may have gotten off to a flying start in the late 1950s with the New York Giants. The head coach of the team then was a man named Jim Lee Howell, who won quite a few games and one championships back then. But he's been overshadowed by his two main assistant coaches, who would be called coordinators today. Vince Lombardi was one, and Tom Landry was the other. You can find out more about them by visiting the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton.

Bill Walsh has a coaching tree, thanks to his great work with the San Francisco 49ers. There's an indirect connection there between Walsh and Mike Shanahan, who popped up on the Niners' staff during the early 1990s. Shanahan had some success as a coordinator with the Broncos in the 1980s, and helped develop Steve Young into a championship quarterback with the 49ers in the early 1990s. From there he was instrumental as Denver's head coach toward the claiming of two more titles. 

Taking notes along the way was Mike's son, Kyle. If you look at the right footage from those good times, you sometimes can see Kyle hoping the cords to the headphones that his dad wore on the sidelines. (Soon that job disappeared when everything went wireless.) You could tell that Kyle had a strong interest in the coaching business, and you could guess that he'd be good at it. 

Sure enough, that's essentially what happened. Kyle was part of a group that has had a strong influence on football philosophy in the NFL. Author Michael Silver chronicles their story fully and completely in his frequently fascinating book "The Why Is Everything." 

These were coaches who worked hard and played hard, sometimes to their own detriment. If someone had came up with an idea about a particular aspect of the game, it was welcomed into the discussion no matter what the source was - but it had to be defended fully loudly from the comments of the rest of the coaches. In others, the presenting coaching had to explain why his idea was sound ... and the "why" was everything in that setting. It was almost a laboratory for coaching.

If you are a fan of the NFL, you know the names involved: Sean McVay, Raheem Morris, Matt LaFleur and Mike MacDonald. They all reached the exalted status of head coach in the NFL. McVay even won a Super Bowl, and Kyle Shanahan has come close. Today there is still a friendship there most of the time, but they also are rivals too. There's nothing better they like to do than beat the other guys.

What's fascinating, though, is that Silver does a great job of getting those involved and their associates to open up so much about the past decade. Little seems to be off the record here. Therefore there are plenty of great stories about such topics as Jared Goff's ups and downs with the Los Angeles Rams, Trey Lance's mostly downs with the 49ers, Tua Tagovailoa's emergence with the Miami Dolphins, and Aaron Rodgers' awkward departure from the Green Bay Packers.  Other tales about football come out as well, such as Robert Griffin's problems in Washington. 

In other words, this is like sitting down with some assistant coaches after practice over a few beers, and having them swap stories. Yes, the language is rather profane at times, although in some cases it seems to add to the authenticity of the feelings expressed. 

The one complaint that some might have about the book deals with the fact that it can be a little technical. Not all of the readers will be so well versed with football terminology that they'll understand the various schemes and plays that are outlined here. So this isn't really a book for the casual fan.

But for the others, "The Why is Everything" is as close as we'll get to finding out what's really happening in pro football. They'll enjoy every page.

Five stars

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Review: The Price (2024)

By Armen Keteyian & John Talty

Taken a look around college football these days? It's a mess. 

Players have started to make money, and they often aren't satisfied with what they get. Throw in the fact that if someone is benched because of a bad game, he starts to look into the transfer portal the first chance he gets. The rosters often change greatly from year to year. 

Meanwhile, the coaches often can't wait to move along to the next big job. Merely the threat of that switch is enough for their current employers to rewrite their contracts with some more zeroes involved. 

And scheduling has become a minefield. Rivalries that have been taking place for many decades are thrown by the wayside as conference affiliations seem to be rewritten on a yearly basis. That's led to such oddities as Stanford playing in the Atlantic Coast Conference, and the Mountain West Conference courting Northern Illinois to join as a football-only member. Bowl games are played before mostly empty seats with several players refusing to play because an injury might threaten their NFL draft status.

There's no rhyme or reason to all of this. It's a good idea to examine what's happening, and Armen Keteyian and John Talty help with this solid, long look at where we are in their book, "The Price." 

This sort of explosion was a long time in coming. The rules involving student-athletes had been exploitive for years. Their performances pulled in millions and millions of dollars to the universities, and all they saw out of it was a full scholarship. If they were in a bad situation for one reason or another, they had to wait a year to transfer ... which the coaches that picked them to receive grants-in-aid had no such restriction. The class example of the situation was when Doug Flutie walked around the Boston College campus in his playing days, and saw classmates wearing Flutie jerseys. His take from that purchase was $0. 

A group of lawsuits eventually worked their way through the system, and some of the rules disappeared. The phrase "Name, Image & Likeness" or NIL became ever-present around college sports, as there was a race to cash in on the opportunities. But any sort of system to standardize the rights of athletes hasn't been worked out. So no one knows what's legal, and no one knows what they can do. As Clemson coach Daby Swinney said, "There's no rules, no guidance, no nothing. It's out of control. It's not sustainable. It's an absolute mess and a train wreck, and the kids are going to be the ones who suffer in the end."

Keteyian and Talty have come along with a series of good-sized snapshots on events that have taken place in the sport recently. Some of the big names in the business are profiled nicely. Nick Saban, arguably the greatest coach of all time, was one of the most driven personalities in college football. Even he was worn down by everything around him, and retired from Alabama. That set off a chain reaction of coaching moves that affected several universities including the University at Buffalo, which lost its coach well into the offseason. Speaking of big names, Jim Harbaugh left Michigan right after winning the national championship, with something of a dark cloud following in the form of investigations. Jimbo Fisher was paid more than $77.6 million to go away. The way that coaches' agents try to manipulate the hiring process also gets a long look here.

The "haves" share some time with the "have somes." Maryland and Arizona can't keep up with Ohio State and Michigan under most circumstances, but it at least can have a winning record in the right circumstances. The catch is that if someone succeeds at that level as a coach, he may wind up elsewhere as soon as the season ends. And the midrange schools - Macy's instead of Sacks Fifth Avenue, in the authors' words - have to start over.

That's a lot to cover, and it certainly took some work to put it all together. Kudos to Keyeyian and Talty for their legwork. There's probably only one thing missing here. The subtitle of the book is "What It Takes to Win in College Football's Era of Chaos." That concept isn't really answered here, and it would have been nice if the authors had tried to guess what a workable system would look like eventually. 

We'll probably get to that point in the relatively near future. Still, "The Price" is a good snapshot at the state of college football today. 

Four stars

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Review: Globetrotter (2024)

By Mark Jacob and Matthew Jacob

The Harlem Globetrotters have a heck of an origin story. 

Sometime in the late 1920s, when basketball was essentially in its infancy on a national scale, a group of African Americans started barnstorming around the country in an attempt to make a living. They'd drive from city to city in cars that usually had a short shelf life, and take on all comers. They were good, really good - to the point that they usually beat most of their opponents handily. In fact, they sometimes had to clown around once the game was decided in order to keep the interest of the spectators. 

And the leader of the "band" was a 5-foot-3 Jewish immigrant named Abe Saperstein. There were a handful of sports promoters in those days who made a name for themselves, and Saperstein was as good as any of them. Somehow, the Harlem Globetrotters became nationally - and then internationally famous. 

That's the story that Mark Jacob and Matthew Jacob tell in "Globetrotter." It's billed as the first biography of Saperstein, which makes it a worthwhile enterprise right from the start.

The Globetrotters are still around today, which gives this story more relevancy. The fans who are still turning out to see the Trotters may not know just how good the team used to be. 

Let's face it - there weren't many opportunities for Black basketball players to earn a living in the pre-World War II era. There were some very primitive leagues back then, but they were mostly for white players only. Saperstein, once he formed the team, had his pick of some of the best players in the country who happened to be Black. And if you take a team like that and play several nights a week, you're going to have a very competitive squad in no time at all. Saperstein made it all work financially, setting up the games and publicizing the team as word spread about its exploits.

The Globetrotters were good, and at one point in 1948 even knocked off the powerful Minneapolis Lakers, who at the time were the defending champions of the National Basketball League. The Lakers had Hall of Famers such as George Mikan and Jim Polland on the roster, so that was quite a notch on the Trotters' proverbial revolver.

The National Basketball Association was created by a merger of two leagues soon after that, and African Americans started to show up on rosters in 1950. So the Globetrotters had to adapt, emphasizing entertainment first and basketball second. With the Cold War going on, the team even played a role in international relations. America's racial laws were the subject of a heavy dose of propaganda from the rival Soviet Union in those days, and the Trotters became something of ambassadors for the USA as they played overseas. They also spread the gospel of basketball along the way, helping the sport become second to only soccer in international popularity. 

Running the Globetrotters should have been enough for Saperstein, but he couldn't help himself. He was involved in an attempt with Bill Veeck in the early 1940s to buy the Philadelphia Phillies and turn them into an all-Black baseball team. Abe helped Veeck sign Satchel Paige for Veeck's Cleveland Indians in 1948. Saperstein was the guiding force behind the American Basketball League in the early 1960s, which introduced the three-point shot to basketball. The book tells about how the NBA offered Saperstein a franchise in San Francisco if he'd fold the ABL. He unwisely turned the deal down, and the new league lost a bunch of money before folding. 

The authors deserve some major credit for bringing up the major issue surrounding the Globetrotters, which concerns their role in the entertainment picture.  Some writers have described the team's antics as a modern-day minstrel show, in which Black performers travel around the country in performing for white audiences. On the other hand, there were few aspects of life - particularly in those early days - when Blacks could make fun of white authority figures like referees and opposing players and not start a riot. No matter where you stand on this issue, few people have anything but good memories of attending a Globetrotters game, particularly if they bring children along. 

If there's a small drawback to this book, it's that Saperstein has been dead for more than 50 years. That means there aren't many people alive today who worked with him. The authors did get the cooperation of family members, which helps, and uncovered some correspondence and records. But the story feels a little thin in details in spots, which is very understandable. 

Even so, Saperstein's life was a unique one, and deserves to be told. "Globetrotter" serves as a good way to catch up on a memorable character in sports history. 

Four stars

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Review: That Deserves a Wow (2024)

By Chris Myers

It's hard to say if sportscasters as a group are more interested in promoting themselves or their stories' subjects. I'd guess the latter, simply because I tend the change the channel when the other type comes on my television. But there are a few that certainly like to hear their own voice ... loudly.

That makes me predisposed to like Chris Myers, someone who has been on my TV set for more than 30 years. And that means a book by him is going to be pleasant to read.

That's the obvious reaction to his book, "That Deserves a Wow," which covers his broadcasting career to date in an easy-going way. And if you're wondering, the title is taking from one of the catch-phrases that he used when he was anchoring SportsCenters back in his days with ESPN in the 1990s.

Myers starts at the beginning, which was almost when he was a tyke. He used to call into talk shows in the Miami area as a teen, and turned that into some part-time work. Myers even had the chance to ask Muhammad Ali a question at a news conference in one of his first assignments, and he's still thrilled by that idea. One thing led to another, and Chris found himself on the air regularly. You probably know someone from high school that you said to yourself, "I know what he's going to be doing with the rest of his life." It's rare that such predictions come true, but it worked for Myers. Many years later you can tell he's more than happy about the way things turned out for him.

With that, we're off on a series of adventures. Myers landed a TV job in New Orleans, and then took a position with ESPN in 1988. That's where most of us were introduced to him. He did some work in California, and the network liked him enough to bring him to headquarters in Connecticut. That's where we got to know and like him as a viewer. He replaced Roy Firestone on the interview program, "Up Close," where his best moment might have been a long interview with O.J. Simpson shortly after the football player was involved in a couple of famous court trials. Interviewing challenges don't get much bigger than that. 

The chance to move back to California proved too tempting for Myers to refuse in 1998, so he accepted an offer to work with Fox Sports. He's been there for more than a quarter of a century. Chris has filled in a variety of roles with Fox, with play-by-play and sideline duties on NFL games, and some other duties concerning baseball and auto racing. 

The best part of the book are the areas that we know nothing about, which isn't surprising. Who knew that Myers was actually a friend of Bill Murray, to the point where they'd see each other on occasion socially? Charles Barkley also is in that category. Myers also writes about an unimaginable tragedy in his family, as his son died in an accident at a young age. 

Other sections of the book don't work quite as well. When Myers is recounting what it was like to be at certain famous events like the Super Bowl, the earthquake at the 1989 World Series, and the bombing at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, he's fine. Other portions consist of what feels like transcriptions of interviews from the past. There aren't many surprises disclosed that way, and that might cause some people to turn the pages a little quickly. 

Put it together, and "That Deserves a Wow" probably doesn't deserve a wow. But that's all right. It's an interesting look back at a solid career done in the right way. 

Three stars

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Review: The Lions Finally Roar (2024)

By Bill Morris

It's a lesson that should be learned by all fans of sports franchises. 

All teams lose for a reason. The more difficult part is trying to figure out what that reason is, and how to fix it. 

For example, the Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs were awful in the 1950s and early 1960s because they were slow to integrate fully, giving opponents a huge advantage in acquiring talent. Closer to my home, the Buffalo Bills probably suffered at times because Ralph Wilson was too loyal to certain members of his organization. Loyalty isn't a sin, but it can get in the way. The current Buffalo Sabres team changed the culture of the franchise by tanking in an attempt to draft Connor McDavid. It didn't work, and the Sabres are still paying a price for that years later.

All of that brings us to "The Lions Finally Roar," by Bill Morris.

The Lions won a championship in 1957, the end of a nice run in that decade which is ancient history to some football fans. Since then Detroit has been better than mediocre occasionally, average at times, worst than that more often, aimless most of the time. 

So what's gone on with the Lions over the years? Morris answers that question here. If I were writing a blurb for an advertisement, I'd describe the book as "wildly entertaining." Because it is. 

The biggest problem through most of those years, according to Morris, is the business practices used by owner William Clay Ford. He's the grandson of a guy named Henry Ford, who you might have heard about - particularly in the Detroit area. The Ford make a stockpile or seven of money over the years, leaving Bill Ford living a rather privileged life. He had a role at Ford, but he didn't play the internal politics game particularly well there, and wanted to something a little more fulfilling on the side. 

Therefore, he eventually decided to buy the Detroit Lions, the local NFL franchise. The problem over the years that he relied on his friends, who may or may not have known much about how to put together a winner in the NFL. Mostly it was the latter. Ford and Company were often making it up as they went along, and it showed.

A major stumbling block was represented by the 22-year tenure of Russ Thomas, the veteran general manager of the team. He became something of a scapegoat for the team's problems, and probably deserved it. Thomas was a tough negotiator who didn't seem to realize that you need to spend some money (relatively speaking) to earn some money in the football business. While Morris doesn't say so, based on the era it is certainly possible that Thomas received bonuses for keeping the payroll down. 

The Lions kept churning through coaches during Ford's tenure. While most of the players thought he was a nice enough person, it was quickly obvious that Bill wasn't going to figure out how to get it right. Some of the team's best players - Barry Sanders and Calvin Johnson - retired early rather than put up with the losing any longer. Meanwhile, Detroit's fans remained loyal during those years, even though the team was on a shrinking list of franchises that never reached a Super Bowl.

Just to add some drama to the story, Morris has some fascinating details about life among the executives at the Ford Motor Company. There's probably a good book out there about that part of the story, but Morris does a fine job of summarizing the situation here. Let's just say Shakespeare would be proud of some of the twists and turns of the story. 

And the Detroit area is a member of the supporting cast in the story. The city fell on some hard economic times after 1957; they didn't call it "The Rust Belt" for nothing. The Lions were one of the few unifying forces in a city that became greatly divided along racial lines. 

After all that, Morris - the son of an associate of Bill Ford - probably was relieved to see the Lions rebound in recent years. They reached the NFC Championship game in 2024, shortly before this book was published, and they have competent people in place in the key positions under ownership that is allowing them to do their jobs. 

Morris has written about the history of Detroit in the past, and even sat down with his father and recorded a long interview about the senior Morris's dealings with Ford. His writing style works extremely well. He's like most of the fans there. Morris isn't afraid to have fun with with the horrible turns the franchise has taken - it's almost felt like a curse was in place at times - but there's a rooting interest for for Detroit and its Lions too. 

There probably won't be a more entertaining book about football written this year, and even non-Lions fans will enjoy every page. I certainly did. 

Five stars

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Review: Out of the Darkness (2024)

By Ian O'Connor

Aaron Rodgers represents one of the great puzzles in American professional sports. 

Let's start with the fact that he certainly ranks as one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. Rodgers will skate into Canton's Pro Football Hall of Fame. He is a four-time Most Valuable Player in the National Football League, which puts him in very rare air, and he's a 10-time Pro Bowler. Aaron owns some NFL records, and he does have a Super Bowl ring - although it wouldn't have taken much for him to have many more. Rodgers is bright and articulate, making him a media favorite during large portions of his career. 

But there's a flip side. Aaron isn't really even speaking to most of his family members, and no one (besides Rodgers) seem to know what went wrong along the way. Lately he's never seen a conspiracy theory he couldn't embrace, and his anti-vaccination stance during the pandemic - and the way he handled it - certainly was an odd episode.

Does all of this add up to something? That's difficult to say, so full credit to Ian O'Connor for trying. The author of worthwhile books on such subjects as Bill Belichick, Derek Jeter and Arnold Palmer/Jack Nicklaus is here with "Out of the Darkness," a biography of Rodgers. Perhaps the subtitle is more interesting in a sense: "The Mystery of Aaron Rodgers."

O'Connor certainly put in a lot of effort to decipher Rodgers' behavior over the years. He went back to California to find people who could talk about Rodgers' childhood, which was dominated by sports. Nobody wanted it more, and there are plenty of stories about how he'd do whatever it took to get to the proverbial next level. That meant that if Division I college football programs weren't interested in him, well, he'd go to a junior college for a year and show what they missed. He did exactly that. Then it was on to California, where he surprisingly took no time at all to win the starting job, and then no time at all to become a star. 

That led to a very curious moment in Rodgers' life: the 2005 NFL draft. The San Francisco 49ers had the first overall pick, and the decision came down to Rodgers or Utah's Alex Smith. O'Connor does some of his best work here tracking down what exactly happened. While opinions differed on the two future pros, the Niners went with Smith even though Rodgers - who played a few miles from their offices - would have loved to have stayed close to home. Still, there were other picks in the first round, right?

But as the first round progressed, Rodgers' name continued to be unheard. With each pick, Rodgers became the talk of the draft. A chip developed on his shoulder that reached boulder proportions in no time. Finally, at No. 24, the Green Bay Packers ended the long wait and took him - which put Aaron in the midst of some new drama. Brett Favre, another sure-fire Hall of Famer, wasn't too happy that the Packers drafted his probable replacement and complained loudly. Rodgers had to sit and wait for his turn, and eventually Favre was traded to the Jets. Rodgers showed that he was worthy of the tam's faith.

The dramatic part of the overall story, of course, is that Rodgers wound up in the exact same position as Favre. At the end of a great career, he saw the Packers take a quarterback (Jordan Love) in the first round. Eventually, Rodgers needed to go elsewhere to play and he was traded to the .... Jets. Then Aaron suited up for Opening Night with New York, and he tore his Achilles in the first series of the season. His year was over almost before it started.

O'Connor couldn't wait to see how the last act of the story would play out. The author plays it up the middle, relaying stories about Rodgers' personal generosity and along with tales of beliefs in, shall we say, less-than-mainstream concepts. There's no solving this mystery.

"Out of the Darkness" will provide some insight into Rodgers' never-boring career (the book mostly avoids the personal side of the story, except about the family rift). But biographies often come down to how much the reader likes the subject, and Aaron Rodgers remains a strange figure after the last page. 

Four stars

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Review: I Love Baseball (2024)

By Wayne Stewart

Upon reading the title of "I Love Baseball," it was easy to guess that this was one of those books that is somewhat collective in nature. People with a variety of connections to the game check in with a reason about what they love about it. There have been a few such publications written along those lines over the years, so there's a place for such work.

This book, however, is not another one of them. It's more personal.

Wayne Stewart grew up in the 1950s in the Pittsburgh area, and he's always loved baseball. It's no wonder that he asked Vernon Law, a pitcher for the World Champion 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates, to write the foreward. And he still loves baseball, as he moves through his 1970s.

Stewart has had a chance to do some writing along the way, and now he's out with a compilation of items that can put a smile on almost anyone's face - at least for those who like hearing the words "play ball."

After a bit of an explanation for writing the book, we're off on a 200-page of a baseball highlight film. That may be good or bad, depending on the point of view, but it sure makes it difficult to review.

The items are broken down into 13 chapters. Let's see .... there are quotes from those around the game, unusual events, funny moments, the media, inspirations, ballparks, mascots, and so on. The research on this is obviously quite thorough. I only spotted a item or two that seemed to have a fact wrong.

The problem is that there isn't a great deal of flow or consistency to the book. For example, the media section has some quotes from baseball writers and some movie lines. It also has sections on walk-up music and baseball cards. That's a bit of a stretch. 

In addition, many of the items in the book were familiar to me. Granted, I do much more reading of baseball material than most fans, so maybe I'm not the best one to judge. That said, there wasn't much that was unfamiliar to me. So it wasn't really worth $24.95 for a paperback recap. 

However, your mileage may vary. I'm not going to say that this sort of book may not strike a chord with some people. So take my usual test - take a quick look at a copy at a bookstore, and base your purchasing decision about "I Love Baseball" on that. You'll at least get a few moments of enjoyment out of it, whatever your level of interest, and maybe the book will work out for you. 

Three stars

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Review: Dewey (2024)

By Dwight Evans with Erik Sherman

When it comes to sports autobiographies, the usual rule is that anyone who is in his sport's Hall of Fame probably deserves to write one. It's always good to hear what immortals encountered along the way, especially since their lives usually popped up in famous moments. 

So what do we do about Dwight Evans?

The outfielder played 20 years in the majors, mostly with the Boston Red Sox. What's more, he was very good during much of that time. Was he good enough for induction in Cooperstown? The answer so far has been no. But he's still on the radar of the Veterans Committee to some extent, and there's a chance that he'll be voted in down the road. His stats match up well with players like Luis Gonzalez, Torii Hunter, Chili Davis and Billy Williams - all good, solid players, but Williams is the only one of the bunch in the Hall of Fame. 

Evans isn't taking any chances with the book stuff, though. He's out with his life story, called "Dewey." (Give Erik Sherman the assist with the manuscript.) Right away, there's a story about his name that's a surprise. It seems that Evans never particularly liked the first name of Dwight, since he had no connection to a certain 1950s President of that name. So his friends used Dewey.

Evans mostly reviews his life in baseball in this book, which is to be expected and welcome. He broke in with the Red Sox in the fall of 1972 after a relatively short apprenticeship. Evans arrived shortly before a couple of rookies turned up in Boston by the names of Jim Rice and Fred Lynn. By the mid-1970s, the three of them comprised one of the best outfields in baseball ... if not the best. If Evans didn't hit as well as his teammates, he probably was the best fielder of the bunch. Right field in Fenway Park, a notoriously difficult place to play, was never patrolled better than when Evans was standing in the middle of it.

Still, there was a feeling that he had more to offer offensively. A couple of pitches to the head were part of the problem in the 1970s. But eventually he recovered, and he also changed his batting approach under the coaching of Boston's Walt Hriniak. When the 1980s arrived, Evans was ready. He piled up the numbers during that decade, finishing first in homers in the American League during that decade and playing in some All-Star Games. Some of his value was hidden by the fact that we didn't value on-base percentage and fielding statistics back then. You could argue that he's still underrated because of that. 

Along the way, he certainly teamed up with some great players and was involved in some memorable moments. Evans was right in the middle of the 1975 and 1986 World Series, which both ended in heartbreak for the Red Sox. At least Dwight was a member of the Boston organization in player development in 2004 when they finally ended the Curse. 

Evans always seemed like a friendly enough person from a distance, and there are good words about most of his teammates and rivals here. A very good friend was and is Carl Yastrzemski, a Hall of Famer who did write a couple of autobiographies. One exception that surprised me concerned John McNamara, the Red Sox manager in 1986. Evans says he had a good relationship with McNamara, but did say the skipper had a drinking problem - news to me. Even when Dwight took a misstep in his relationships with co-workers, he managed to apologize and repair the damage.

What you probably don't know about Evans is the full story of his personal life. He had two sons, Timothy and Justin, who were afflicted with Neurofibromatosis, (By the way, they also had a daughter, Kirstin, did not have NF.) The illness caused a variety of health issues throughout their lives, and it was a difficult life at times for Dwight and wife Susan. The ballpark sometimes was a refuge, even though Evans sometimes felt guilty for leaving the burdens of the situation on his wife. Both boys died in their 40s. The parents credit their faith in moving on to the next day, but it's tough to imagine their daily routine ... or lack of it. 

After retirement, Evans has had a variety of positions in baseball. I recall that one time in the 1990s, he turned up in the press box of the Buffalo Bisons when I was there. He came across as smart, knowledgeable, and nice in our brief encounter. (An aside: Evans said that day that if baseball writer Peter Gammons wanted to be a team general manager, he'd be one of the five best such people in baseball in that position. I always remembered that.)  

"Dewey" isn't filled with sensational details, but it seems as if it's an accurate representation of Evans' thoughts on his life. The Red Sox fan in your household will find it to be a quick and pleasant read. 

Three stars

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Review: Five Banners (2024)

By John Feinstein

"Five Banners" might not be John Feinstein's best book, but he probably "enjoyed" writing it more than most of his other works. 

Feinstein graduated from Duke in 1977, and began a career in sports journalism that exists to this day. He had a really good seat for the Blue Devils' success over the years, which includes the five championships that Duke had under legendary coach Mike Krzyzewski.

The University is celebrating its 100th anniversary, and the school's publishing arm decided to put out a book on the school's history-making basketball team. If you can't slap yourself on the book over such a terrific run, who can? 

Feinstein was the obvious choice to write it. He first visited the school in February 1973, looking for a landing spot for college. After seeing a basketball game in Cameron Indoor Stadium, young John decided that Duke was the place to go for a higher education. Feinstein writes that when he arrived on campus the following fall, the Blue Devils didn't even have a coach. In fact, Duke was in the process of reaching out to Adolph Rupp, the legendary coach at Kentucky who retired in 1972 after turning 70. But in one of those little history-making moments, Rupp's business assistant died and he had to stay on his farm to oversee operations rather than coach basketball in Durham, North Carolina.

From there, Bill Foster took over the Blue Devils and eventually built up the program. The fruits of that labor arrived just after Feinstein graduated as Duke reached the Final Four in the spring of 1978. Foster eventually jumped to the University of South Carolina in a few years, while Krzyzewski was hired as the new coach.

Well, you know how that turned out. The list of Coach K's accomplishments is almost endless; it's filled with regular-season titles in the Atlantic Coast Conference, plenty of ACC playoff championships, several trips to the Final Four (Krzyzewski finished one ahead of John Wooden's old record), and those five championships and the accompanying banners mentioned in the title.

Feinstein has written a lot about Duke basketball over the years, and he more or less empties the notebook from his observations of that era. Some of the stories mentioned here have come up in other books. Happily, the author also took the time to reach out to several of the players and coaches of the Krzyzewski Era. There is some fun information revealed along the way.

And it wouldn't be a Feinstein book without some strong opinions expressed along the way. The NCAA and CBS take the odd shot, as do a few others like Rick Pitino. We wouldn't expect anything less at this point. 

"Five Banners" is a short book, checking in at a little more than 200 pages. It's not as if Duke's long-run of success was under-publicized at the time, so some basketball fans - especially the ones in Chapel Hill - might not want to go back there. But this easy read is certainly a well-done assignment on Feinstein's part, and certainly those in Durham will love revisiting those times. In other words, the book signings ought to be popular.

Four stars

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