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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