Review: All Roads Home (2024)

By Bryan Trottier with Stephen Brunt

The New York Islanders had one of the great dynasties in hockey history more than 40 years ago. The Islanders ripped off four straight Stanley Cup championships from 1980 to 1983. It might not have been appreciated as much then as it is now, as the Montreal Canadiens had won four straight Cups immediately before the Islanders' run. Still it was a great team and a great accomplishment. No one has duplicated it since then.

Right at the center, literally and figuratively, of those Islanders teams was Bryan Trottier. He was one of the league's best players in his time, a top scorer who also could play some defense too. Trottier had help of course. Mike Bossy, Denis Potvin, Billy Smith, Clark Gillies and a great "supporting cast" helped out as well. But Trottier might have been the most valuable player of the bunch. 

It's always good when someone from a great team takes the time to write a book about his sports life. It took Trottier a while, but he finally got around to the task about 30 years after his playing days were over. The book is called "All Roads Home." 

Almost right from the start, Trottier comes across as an extremely modest and good person here. He'd be quick to give the credit to his family for that. It's not a story that pops up in the sports section too often. Trottier was the son of a First Nation (think Native) father and an Irish-Canadian mother. The family bounced around the West of Canada and the United States quite a bit, but Saskatchewan played a large role in the story. There were always chores to be done before and after school for the Trottier kids on the ranch/farm. It wasn't always easy, but the family seemed to have food on the table day after day. 

Trottier seemed to avoid some of the abuse and discrimination in sports that often comes with an Aboriginal background. (For more on that sort of life, read Ted Nolan's book.) It should be noted that Trottier was a very good player right from his teen-age years. He dropped out of school to concentrate on hockey, and finished as a second-round draft choice of the Islanders in 1974. It took him a year to reach the NHL, but he was an almost immediate smash in the pros. Bryan had 95 points in his rookie year, and in his third season he started a streak of five straight 100-point seasons. 

After staying with the Islanders through 1990, the relationship suffered from a genial split. Trottier became a free agent, and had some offers before deciding he wanted to play with Mario Lemieux. Good move. The Penguins won Stanley Cup in 1990-91 and 1991-92, bringing Trottier's total as a player to six. Not many NHL players can say that; no wonder he was once named one of the NHL's top 100 all-time players. 

Trottier moved into the coaching business after that, and he had the usual career there with a lot of different stops. The best one came in 2000-01, when he was an assistant with the Colorado Avalanche. That was Stanley Cup No. 7, as the air he breathed became even more rare. The worst stop might have been his one chance at serving as a head coach with the New York Rangers. It came in 2002, and it was odd for Islanders fans to see one of their greatest players coaching the team's biggest rival. The job only lasted 54 games. 

That brings us to an important point of the book. There's no score-settling here, no anger. Obviously 54 games aren't much in trying to evaluate a head coach, but Rangers' general manager Glen Sather gets off without a quick slash in passing from Trottier. Bryan's first two wives receive similar treatment - generally good words and no bad ones.

That's part of a wider discussion that can be made about Trottier's book. There are surprisingly few stories about his teammates and coaches, which is why we're reading in the first place. The playoff wins go by quite quickly.

A couple of other portions of Trottier's story are missing completely. If memory serves, he was involved in some sort of scam with an agent and at some point declared bankruptcy. Several hockey people were robbed that way, and it might be instructive to others to hear what happened there. Bryan also was hired as an assistant coach of the Buffalo Sabres in 2014 under Nolan. The head coach was fired at the end of that season, and so was Trottier. There's not a word about that entire experience in the book. The Sabres were in turmoil then, and it would have been interesting to hear about what happened from an inside perspective. 

If Trottier was your favorite player growing up, you were in good company. Steve Yzerman of the Detroit Red Wings wore Trottier's No. 19 in the NHL, and eventually joined Bryan in the Hall of Fame. There's enough material in "All Roads Home" that shows Trottier was worthy of such admiration during his hockey life. The omissions are a little troubling, but the autobiography still ought to please those who took enjoyment of watching Trottier at his peak.

Three stars

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Review: The Magnificent Seven (2025)

By Mark Mehler and Jeff Tiberii

Final Four Weekend in men's college basketball in an appropriate time to be reading "The Magnificent Seven." 

It's a book about the so-called "blue bloods" - the class teams that seem to be good year after year after year. Would it be a Final Four without them?

Not really. The history tells the story about Duke, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, UCLA, North Carolina and Connecticut. In the 2000s, there have been exactly two years in which none of those seven teams reached the Final Four - 2013 and 2019. Footnote: No one reached that round in 2020, due to the pandemic. 

Therefore, when picking up a copy of the book, there's a good chance that it's going to be relevant. Sure enough, Duke popped up in the Final Four this time around. The Blue Devils lost in the semifinals, but represented themselves well until the final minutes of a loss to Houston. It happens, especially against good teams. 

Mark Mehler and Jeff Tiberii probably could have written a book on these seven universities that could have served as a major doorstop. They wisely cut the size down to have a breezy, often fun look at the teams, all of which won four NCAA titles in the course of three decades. (That was the standard for inclusion; Villanova, Michigan State and Louisville were the near-misses.)

If there's a common denominator besides winning on this list, it's a great coach that set the standard. Sometimes that coach is followed by other great coaches, once the tradition was established, and sometimes he is not. 

Jim Calhoun set the stage for Connecticut's run after his arrival  in 1986; Dan Hurley has followed in his footsteps nicely. Mike Krzyzewski's record at Duke puts him with the all-time greats. You might have heard about Bobby Knight at Indiana. Kansas' first basketball coach was James Naismith, who merely invented the game. He's also the only coach in Jayhawks' history to have a losing record. Roy Williams and Bill Self have done better. Adolph Rupp became a legend at Kentucky, Rick Pitino and John Calipari had success of their own there. North Carolina plays in a facility named after Dean Smith for a reason, and John Wooden set an impossibly high standard for success at UCLA - as his successors often discovered the hard way. Yes, they all had great players, but the coaches were the constant in their runs of success. 

If a reader is particularly interested in one of the seven schools, a little digging should produce a library filled with possibilities. But that reader might not know that much about the other six universities. That's the fun part - it's not so in-depth that a reader can get lost in the weeds. You are almost sure to learn a few things about all of the programs included here, which is the idea. Mehler and Iberii also are willing to be judgmental when necessary. They've done plenty of research and talked to some people on the record in order to obtain some fresh perspectives. 

Sure, a 240-page book like this on such history-filled programs might be Basketball Lite for some. The guess here, though, "The Magnificent Seven" will be a fun and informative read that won't overwhelm most people. That's the goal of a book like this, and it succeeds nicely that way. 

Four stars

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Review: The Front Runner (2025)

By Brendan O'Meara

Fifty years?

Yes. Fifty years.

It has been a half-century since Steve Prefontaine died in an auto accident in Oregon in 1975. That means he'd be 74 in 2025.  

For those who weren't around yet to know who Steve Prefontaine was, it's tough to explain. He might have been one of the greatest runners ever produced by America. Steve, or as most people called him, "Pre," held almost all of the United States' records in distance running at one time or another. 

But it wasn't a case of what Prefontaine did. It was how he did it. Steve really was a front-runner. He usually took the lead in races rather quickly, and buried the hopes of the competition in virtually no time at all. None of this last-second sprint to the finish stuff for Prefontaine. Most of his races were well over well before that. It's almost as if he were saying, "Do you have what it takes to stay with me? No? Bye."

Prefontaine remains something of a legend in track circles, with some books and two movies covering his career. Now Brendan O'Meara has revisited that era with his comprehensive book, "The Front Runner."  

This starts at the beginning, with Prefontaine's family life. It sure sounds like it wasn't exactly a household filled with love and happiness. "Mommy Dearest" had nothing on Steve's mother, who used to beat him when he did something that was perceived to be wrong. Sometimes the mother asked her husband to take care of disciplinary business with a strap. Steve's older sister (nine years) often protected her little brother, taking the hits in his place.

It's easy to think of Frank Shorter while reading this. Shorter had what looked like a peaceful childhood from a distance, but the future Olympic marathon champion had a monster of a father who tried to abuse most of the residents of a small town. Running became an escape for Shorter and Prefontaine, as they literally could run away from their troubles - at least for a while. Were there many other runners who, pardon the expression, followed that path?

It took a little while for Prefontaine to figure out what sport would be a good fit for him once he reached the high school years. Eventually, though, Steve ended up in running, and - what do you know? - when he started winning races, the beatings stop. That sounds a particularly effective motivating force. Prefontaine quickly moved up the ladder, and by the time of high school graduation he was clearly on a different level than any one else in his native Coos Bay, Oregon - and perhaps most places in the country. 

By the time he arrived at the fabled running program at the University of Oregon with its legendary coach Bill Bowerman, Prefontaine was ready for the next step. Here's how good he was: Steve was on the cover of Sports Illustrated at the age of 19 in 1970. Prefontaine rampaged his way through the college ranks with the goal of reaching the Olympics. He did make the 1972 American team that went to Munich, and finished fourth in the 5,000 meters. That spot is always a good news/bad news spot. Fourth in the world in anything is very impressive, but no one remembers who finished fourth in an Olympic event. 

Prefontaine finished up his eligibility at Oregon after that, which must have been something of an anti-climax. Today he'd be making enough money from outside sources that he could continue to run competitively for many more years. But back in those primitive (or, if you prefer, just plain stupid) days, athletes in the so-called Olympic sports had strict rules about compensation or almost any kind. Most athletes had to get on with the rest of their lives by finding work, just to pay the bills. 

Prefontaine fought the old system as best he could, and caused a few cracks with his words and actions. Again, ever the front-runner. While his death in 1975 stopped his personal quest in that area, the Amateur Athletic Union lost most of its power to determine eligibility by the end of that decade. Remember the first rule of amateurism: it's a way to keep money out of the hands of the people who actually earned it. Maybe Prefontaine would have gone on to win an Olympic medal or set a world record, the two missing ingredients on his resume.  

Author Brendan O'Meara certainly put in an effort for this one. He found more than 100 people who sat down for interviews on the subject of Prefontaine, and mined a variety of other sources. Obviously some of the people who were part of Steve's life back then aren't around to talk about it now. But I can't say the finished product is missing anything obvious in that sense. 

"The Front Runner" portrays a man who in a sense could be called track and field's James Dean. Prefontaine and Dean were both big, charismatic stars as a young age who were taken from us too soon. The book might have lost a little of its potential audience after 50 years, but those in running circles who are looking for the full story will enjoy this thoroughly.

Four stars

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Review: Legends and Soles (2025)

By Sonny Vaccaro with Armen Keteyian

The cover of "Legends and Soles" raises an unusual question by the standards of autobiography. Who exactly is this "Sonny Vaccaro," the author of the book? 

That's not exactly an easy question to answer. Sonny was one of the great characters of the basketball world for decades, filling a variety of roles. He'd pop up in references to the game off the court, where he was quite influential in a number of ways. It takes a book to sort of answer the question of his identity, and this is that book.

Vaccaro grew up in the Pittsburgh area, and became something of a hustler in the sports world. That is to say, he put together a high school all-star basketball game that often attracted some of the best players in the country to participate. Vaccaro also used his "recruiting" talents for a basketball camp, in which top players squared off against each other while the nation's best coaches enjoyed the chance for "one-stop shopping" when it came to scouting and recruiting. 

After a while, Vaccaro knew everyone in the college basketball business. When Nike was just starting up and wanted to get into the apparel and shoe business for something other than track, Vaccaro became something of a representative for the company. Sonny seems to have gotten the idea that the way to start was to pay the coaches a fee and have them hand out free gear to the players. The coaches, who were relatively unpaid at the time, jumped at the chance. It was revolutionary. Nike got off to such a good start that it became the preeminent outfitter of college basketball teams in the country - much to the disappointment of the more established businesses in that area. Just Do It, indeed.

That eventually led to the biggest moment in Vaccaro's professional life. In 1984, Nike wanted to move into the area of player endorsements in a big way. The usual technique was to sign several players and hope one of them would break into the public eye. Vaccaro says he was the one that suggested the company go all in on one player, giving him the year's entire marketing budget. But it had to be a special player, and Vaccaro thought Michael Jordan was that player. He'd bet his job on it, he said.

Yeah, that worked out pretty well. There's a great story about how agent David Falk changed the terms of the deal with Nike in order to take more money in direct payments and less from royalties from a unique called "Air Jordan." Oops. That little contract change cost his client millions - not that Jordan was ever hurting from a financial  standpoint. The whole story received the Hollywood treatment in the movie "Air," which is quite watchable considering it's not exactly an action thriller.

Vaccaro and Nike eventually went their separate ways - in other words, Sonny was fired. He landed with another athletic goods company, Adidas, which was mostly connected with European soccer but had little presence over here. Vaccaro spent his time looking for the next big thing, and found one of them when he was still a ways from high school graduation. Kobe Bryant eventually signed with Adidas. Another star did get away, though, when LeBron James received a lower-than-expected offer from Vaccaro's bosses with Adidas in Germany and went to Nike. The two sides split up after that. 

Vaccaro did a little more marketing work, and then opted to spend his time working on a class action lawsuit against the NCAA. Ed O'Bannon was the lead plaintiff in the suit. It took a while, but O'Bannon and Company won. That opened the door to direct payments to college players, which has led to a massive change in college sports which is still sorting itself out years later. 

There is plenty of name-dropping here, as you might expect. A couple of generations of top players took part in Vaccaro's game. Sonny also made plenty of friends among the coaching fraternity, which you'd expect when you deliver money from almost nowhere. There also is some serious score-settling along the way, with Nike founder Phil Knight and basketball coach George Raveling (who was the best man at Vaccaro's second wedding before things between the two men fell apart). It's a little ugly to read this from someone who seems to have hugged every basketball name he's ever met, but it's part of the story - and it's his book.

People such as Vaccaro seem to work in the shadows a bit (that often happened to people who liked their gambling back then), and sometimes the truth can be a little cloudy. It is worth noting that Sonny's co-author is Armen Keteyian, who has an excellent reputation as a reporter. If Keteyian is involved, it seems more likely that the story is pretty close to the straight scoop.

Think of "Legends and Soles" this way: it definitely would be worthwhile to spend some time with Sonny over dinner, hearing his stories. As for those who couldn't figure out how to do that (including me), this is a good substitute. The audience for the book might be small, but it will entertain those who pick it up and zip through it.

Three stars

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Review: The Stith Brothers (2024)

By Sam Stith

A few things become immediately obvious after the first glance at this book. 

It's small. While it checks in at 145 listed pages, the actual type essentially ends at page 75. That's not much bang for the buck, even for those reading the paperback edition instead of the hard-cover version. Along those lines, it's about the only book I've seen where the odd-numbered pages are on the left side. 

It's about the only autobiography you'll ever read that is written in the third person. There are no quotes anywhere. Some of the type that goes with the photos in the back half require a microscope instead of reading glasses. 

As you might have guessed already, this is self-published - so some of this is understandable. The standards are a little different. 

More importantly, it's a little sad. Author Sam Stith has a good story to tell here, as he and his brother Tom turned out to be pioneers in a sense, that's not fully told. 

The Stith family grew up relatively poor in Emporia, North Carolina. Sam and Tom (born 18 months apart) had strike one thrown at them when they were infants when their father died. While the cause of death of listed as drowning, let's just say there's a good chance that a cause of the death in the early 1940s in the South might not be accidental. Sam's mother and grandmother did the best they could raising four children (there were two older girls in the family).

Eventually, the mother decided that the Old South was no place for a single parent, and everyone headed to New York City. There the brothers found time to pick up basketball, and discovered they were good at it. By junior high they were good enough to attract some attention, which helped them receive a scholarship at a private high school in Brooklyn. They integrated the school's basketball team in the process, and were all-New York City selections. Along the way, the mother and grandmother also died. The kids somehow banded together to get through each day. 

Sam and Tom were standouts at St. Francis Prep, and they both appreciated the help of the Franciscan order. When it came time to pick a college, they decided to pick another school run by the Franciscans. It was an odd choice in a sense. St. Bonaventure, in relatively tiny Olean south of Buffalo, was about as different a place from New York City as could be imagined. But the small school had a basketball tradition - although it was an all-white one at the time - and they signed up.

It worked out well. Tom Stith was a two-time consensus All-American for Bona, and brother Sam was quite good too. It was one of the great basketball eras in school history. Whenever the history of St. Bonaventure basketball comes up, Tom and Sam are mentioned. 

The brothers' basketball connections came to a rather abrupt end. Tom was the second overall pick by the New York Knicks in 1961, but came down with tuberculosis shortly after starting his career. Oddly, he never got much of a chance to play after recovering, even though Eddie Donovan, his college coach, had moved on to the same job with the Knicks. Sam was a late-round draft choice by Cincinnati in 1960, eventually floated to the Knicks for a brief time, and joined Tom in a minor league. Donovan acted in an enigmatic way toward Sam, just like he did toward Tom. He rarely even talked to them after they were done with Bona basketball. Sam still is looking for an explanation.     

Sam and Tom moved on from basketball, and both seemed to have good lives with happy families and good jobs. Tom died in 2010, but Sam is still around - with his own YouTube channel, of all things. 

That's the first half of the book in a nutshell. The rest of the publication has some photos and clippings, and some carry captions. But the pictures are really small in many cases, with unused white space surrounding them, and accompanying words have some serious typos. 

As you could guess at this point, there's a good story of persistence and triumph to be told here. "The Stith Brothers" doesn't really tell it fully. A good short biography written by a professional is in order here. Buying the book is merely a nice gesture toward a pioneer of the game who deserves better. 

Two stars

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Review: The American Game (2025)

By S.L. Price

I was first introduced to the game of indoor lacrosse in 2008, when I was assigned to cover the Buffalo Bandits for my newspaper. I had seen some games over the years, but I can't say I knew much about the sport and its history. I didn't even know that Canada played box lacrosse (same game, different name) over the summer. It seems that arena operators needed something to keep their buildings busy over the summer when hockey was out of session, and lacrosse was one of their solutions.

What I obviously needed at the time was a book that covered the history of the sport, with all of its particularities and quirks. "The American Game" now has come along to fill that gap - a little late for my purposes, but not for others. 

The book by S.L. Price is something of a big sandwich with many ingredients, with the world lacrosse championships (if you hear or read lacrosse by itself without a qualifier, the reference is usually to the outdoor game) in 2018 and 2023 serving as the start and finish. They become the launching point for discussion about this sport's history. More than any other recreational activity, lacrosse has an extremely complicated history and evolution. 

Is it our oldest game? Well, it's in the neighborhood. The Native population has been playing a form of it since the 12th century. That baseball and football newcomers in the neighborhood. The origin game had a spiritual aspect to it, and involved hundreds of people playing over vast stretches of land. Not only did it offer some pleasure, but it helped train people for warfare. French missionaries arrived in the 1600s and named the game lacrosse because of the shape of the sticks - which were always wooden and thus connected the player to nature. Organized versions of the game began with a club in Montreal in 1856. Once that happened, it was easier to make the game "portable" and demonstrate it to others. 

A funny thing happened along the way in terms of the game's popularity. It caught on at elite colleges in the Northeast part of the United States first. The Ivy League was partly responsible for that, but other top universities in that region were involved as well. So we had the odd combination of the sport being played by relatively uneducated Natives (discrimination and obstacles have been part of their lives throughout our history) and rich white young males. That's created a tension that exists to this day. The sport has done well in the Baltimore area and Long Island; it's interesting that the indoor game as a viable commercial entity has failed in both places over the years.

There are all sorts of issues that have come up over the years as lacrosse officials have tried to grow the game throughout the continent and the world, and Price gives them a long look. The Native population is very proud about its role in inventing the game, but has had to battle to earn respect for that fact for many years. In recent years, the aboriginal population has tried to field a "national" team made up of people on both sides of the United States-Canada border. That's very different than any other model for the creation of a team, and it keeps hitting road blocks. For example, the Haudenosaunee team (it went back to its original name from the adopted Iroquois) has tried to use its own passports to attend international events, which proved difficult in some cases. You'll be hearing a great deal about that as we close in on the 2028 Olympics, which will host lacrosse once again.

Growth of the game shouldn't be restricted to white males, of course. African-Americans have been on the fringes of the sport for years. That's in spite of the fact that Jim Brown - still considered one of the greatest lacrosse players ever even though he's better known for football - was a heck of a role model in his play. Imagine taking one of the greatest physical specimens in sports history, putting him a contact sport, and giving him a stick. As the author points out, Brown was also ambidextrous in his shooting, so it's really tough to believe anyone could even slow him down on the field. But Blacks have been a small minority, and sensitivity is not a word traditionally associated with lacrosse players. 

Then there's the matter of women, who are trying to find their way into the sport in increasing numbers. Even various tribes are split on that issue, as it goes against some ancient teachings. It really took Title IX to jump-start lacrosse in this country, and it has made some progress. We'll have to see how far it can move forward to becoming nationally popular, but there are already signs that its growth might represent a change of direction for attitudes within and outside of the sport.

The lacrosse culture also comes up here as well. Two famous incidents are covered here: the murder by a University of Virginia player of his ex-girlfriend, and a rape charge involving the Duke team that was later shown to be false. Surveys of college athletes in recent years have shown very high use of drugs and alcohol by participants. Officials have tried to change that, and the numbers are down a little. But that's allowed lacrosse to drop just below hockey around the top of the lists, rather than having a clear lead. 

On a personal level, I was a little disappointed that indoor lacrosse wasn't covered better along the way. My bias as a Buffalo-based writer comes through, since the Bandits of the NLL average around 18,000 per game. But some top players do play inside and outside. The Thompson family, which grew up near Syracuse, gets plenty of attention here. They have been around the NLL for years, and two of the brothers wore Buffalo Bandits uniforms. Other players with connections to Buffalo pop up here, including Tehoka Nanticoke, Josh Byrne, Dhane Smith and Brett Bucktooth. 

Price obviously put in many, many hours to write "The American Game." He talked to a great many people and learned about others, and it's certainly a comprehensive cultural history of the sport. That was the goal, I assume, and it was a success. The thought did come to mind than there's almost too much of a good thing here, as it checks in at 560 pages (although more than 100 of those are notes and sources). The story line jumps around a little bit along the way. Maybe a little more editing was in order, and obviously this big of a book on lacrosse isn't exactly designed for a mass audience. However, those with an interest in the subject will find the book well-done and comprehensive.

Four stars

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Review: Baseball Prospectus 2025

Edited by Patrick Dubuque, Bryan Grosnick and Ginny Searle. 

Baseball Prospectus 2025 starts out in an interesting way as it launches a 30th edition. The original founders of the book got together to tell the book's origin story. It explains that after the strike of 1994-95, there seemed to be a hole in the niche of books on baseball statistical analysis. Bill James had moved on to other things from his annual Baseball Abstract, and the Elias annuals had just ended in 1994. So a few guys got together and essentially started to put some ideas down on the paper. 

The result was the Baseball Prospectus 1996, with all of 250 copies printed. I suppose one pops up on eBay every so often, but you probably couldn't afford to buy one now. Yes, it was amateurish in some ways - someone forgot to include the chapter on the St. Louis Cardinals. But there is a quote in that first book that set the tone for the 29 volumes that came next: "Since we like to laugh as much as you do, we've tried to be entertaining as well as informative, but if you think we're just one or the other, we'll take it." James' secret weapon in his Abstracts was that he was such a good writer - and didn't take any prisoners because he didn't need day-to-day access to baseball people because he wasn't a journalist covering the sport. That approach has been a hallmark of Baseball Prospectus over the years - it was often quite funny. 

The book is now the biggest part of something of a baseball empire, including a website and some other publications. But this is clearly the flagship of the enterprise. It plops on the doorstep around the start of spring training, promising plenty of insights within lots and lots of pages.

Where are we in year 30? It's striking just how much more information is out there these days, and a lot of it pops along the way. Someone seems to be counting everything that happens in a baseball game, from what pitch is thrown to how fast it is to where it arrives around home plate to how hard it is hit to where it lands. And there are a lot of games, so that's a lot of data that is kept somewhere. Baseball Prospectus has a lot of smart guys looking at the data as they search for connections and conclusions.

The publication adds some new tools this year in the form of metrics like StuffPro and PitchPro. I'm not going to tell you I read much of it, or that I even understood it. But it's nice to know the brainy types are still poking around in all sorts of different areas. 

In going through this book, it seems as if the player descriptions often lean heavily on the site of data analysis and new statistics to come to conclusions. I found myself a little lost with some of the numbers, and that's speaking as someone who called himself a one-man analytics staff with his slow-pitch softball team in the 1980s and 1990s. (I'm confident we were the only team in the Malone's bar league to keep track of Runs Created.) 

In other words, the book is still informative, but perhaps not quite as entertaining as it used to be. That varies from team to team and writer to writer, but to be fair it's difficult to be funny in print. Maybe I skim the player summaries a little more than I used to do in the old days. On the other hand, the team essays usually offer some original thoughts and different perspectives, and they remain smart and fun. Some other articles on baseball are worthwhile as well.

This book usually finds its biggest audience with fantasy players, which is fine. I'm probably not as enthusiastic about the book as those in that particular group, but I still buy it every year and look forward to its arrival. "Baseball Prospectus 2025" will be in a convenient place for the rest of the baseball season, coming out of there's a trade of interest or if I just want background information when a game pops up on television. There's something comforting about that.

Four stars

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Review: Losing Big (2025)

By Jonathan Cohen

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Four stars

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Review: Giannis (2021)

By Mirin Fader

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Five stars

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Review: Selling Baseball (2025)

By Jeffrey Orens

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Three stars

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Review: The Last of His Kind (2024)

By Andy McCullough

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Five stars

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Review: The Basketball 100 (2024)

By David Aldridge and John Hollinger

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Four stars

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Review: The Ancient Eight (2024)

By John Feinstein

It could be argued that while the game of college football, as played on the field, has never better than it is now, the business of college football is something of a mess. 

Players and coaches are jumping around in a frantic attempt to accept a better financial offer from other universities, with no one completely sure of what the rules are any more. It's almost as if a player will be benched in a game on an October afternoon, and he's looking at the rules for the transfer portal that night. You really can't tell the players without a program. 

The idea of studying one of the major exceptions to that rule must have appealed to John Feinstein. The veteran sportswriter has tackled a variety of subjects in many different sports over the years, and he's frequently at his best when reviewing a specific length of time - like a season. 

The Ivy League must have seemed like a tempting target for him, then. The eight schools in the Northeast certainly are known for their academics and not their athletes. Realistically, almost anyone on a football team in the Ivy League probably isn't going to advance to a higher level - although there certainly have been exceptions. The players and the coaches tend to stay put, and that creates a level of stability that must leave the Big Ten coaches a little jealous except on paydays. And the people are generally interesting and articulate, which is helpful when it comes to writing.

Combine Feinstein and the Ivy League, and you have "The Ancient Eight." The author traveled up and down Interstate 95 during the summer of 2023 following all eight of the league's teams ... and in search of stability for a new book that doesn't quite come together in spots.  

The Ivys have a cute little set-up when it comes to football. It's only eight teams, so everyone can play everyone once a year. They all have a limited number of potential recruits, thanks to the high academic standards. That tends to level the proverbial playing field a bit. The facilities are a mixed bag but lean toward the sparse side. As a result, the teams go crashing into each other and play close games throughout the season. Some might do better than the others over the long term, but that can change every so often. Harvard and Yale have been doing the winning lately, but others often join them. Remember, there's no bowl game awaiting these teams, so they don't even have playoffs for conference championships. In case of a tie, the League simply manufacturers more trophies.

The coaches are under the spotlight for the most part here. That's because they are in a somewhat unique situation by college football standards, trying to win but in sense doing so with a hand tied behind the back. In 2023, some found out the hard way that there's pressure to win, while a couple of others were affected by unexpected tragedy.

With all that on the plus side, it's a little surprising that this all doesn't come out better in the finished product. Feinstein had a similar idea years ago when he wrote about Patriot League basketball, and that was quite illuminating. The personal stories don't resonate as well here, although it's difficult to say why. The games between the teams tend to grab the spotlight of the book, and a year later, they aren't why we're here. 

In addition, there are some surprising editing problems that come up along the way. I think the Harvard Crimson's headline about the 1968 Harvard-Yale game ("Harvard beats Yale, 29-29) is mentioned three different times along the way. Other passages are repeated as well. A few other typos pop up, such as calling Brown University the Bruins instead of the Bears at times.

This is book number 50 for Feinstein, and he said he enjoyed writing this one more than any other. Maybe so. But take it from someone who has read almost all of them and thus helped put his kids through college. This has some good moments in it, but not quite enough of them to make this a keeper (unless you have Ivy League connections). "The Ancient Eight" is well down my list of Feinstein's best work.

Three stars

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Review: The Wee Ice Mon Cometh (2024)

By Ed Gruver

It's rather easy to argue that Ben Hogan's accomplishment of winning three major golf championships in one calendar year is a little underrated among general sports fans. 

There's been talk of a "grand slam" in golf for about 100 years. Bobby Jones won the U.S. Open and British Open along with the U.S. Amateur and the British Amateur in 1930. Those were the big four events of the day, as the Masters and PGA events did not exist. The closest anyone has come to that is Tiger Woods, who won the modern-day Big Four tournaments within a year, although it spilled over from 2000 to 2001. As he put it, he's the only person to hold all four trophies at the same time. 

But Ben Hogan went three for three, which was rather good under the circumstances. He took the Masters, U.S. Open and British Open in 1953. No one has done that either.

Author Ed Gruver does his best to fill in some gaps for those who don't know that much achievement. He's written a book called "The Wee Ice Mon Cometh" about Hogan's biggest year. It's a tougher assignment that you might think. 

Gruver's job at the start is to tell what made Hogan's year all the more remarkable. He had already established himself as one of the world's best players after World War II. Then Hogan was involved in a horrible auto accident in which he simply lucky to be alive. His legs were damaged quite severely, and it seemed doubtful that he'd ever walk normally again ... let along play golf. But "Bantam Ben" (he wasn't the biggest of players) was as determined as he was good, and he worked hard enough to be back on teh course in November 1949. Hogan returned to the tour in 1950, and lost in a playoff to Sam Snead in his first event back. (A movie was made about Hogan's remarkable comeback called "Follow the Sun.")

Hogan went on to win the 1950 U.S. Open, and he remained a top player even though his legs limited his scheduled greatly. Hogan simply centered his preparation on top events. He peaked at 1953, but never won another major after that. Ben couldn't play in the PGA that year. The match-play format would have been too draining on his legs, and the dates of that event and the British Open essentially conflicted. By the way, the title comes from a nickname that Hogan received while in Scotland from the fans who thought the smallish but determined player's performance was more than admirable.

It is not easy to bring a sporting event back to life after 70+ years, and Gruver has a couple of problems in doing so - one of which couldn't be helped. Those watching pro golf today are familiar with the way the players are sent out on to the course. The leaders on Saturday and Sunday go last. That means the scores are coming in roughly together. 

But back in the "old days," the order was the order. At one point in the final round of the British Open, Hogan had to ask a radio reporter how the rest of the field was doing. The answer, of course, was good news for him. They didn't worry about television in 1953, but the old system certainly took away some of the drama. The round-by-round descriptions go by rather quickly.

The other problem centers on a lack of material. This checks in at a bit more than 200 pages of type, and it feels a bit padded. The sections written about Hogan and his play are fine. But Gruver fills in the rest with hole-by-hole descriptions of each of the three courses hosting championships that year (Augusta, Oakmont and Carnoustie). The major titles on those courses and the major championships they hosted also get a review here, even if they aren't particularly relevant to the story. Then there are mini-biographies of the other contenders. Most have been forgotten, of course, and so have many of the their tournaments scores also don't carry any weight now. (Can't say I knew about a Buffalo Open in the late 1930s, though.)

Under the circumstances, it's not easy to make the story flow too smoothly. There are portions here that don't carry much interest along, and some points are hammered a few too many times. (Yes, I realize that Carnoustie is a tough course, but ...) Certainly some are going to find themselves skimming some portions of the book in search of more lively material. The author does close well with some good opinions on how the three "slams" compare from a modern perspective. Even if the circumstances for Hogan's sweep are a bit different, he receives full credit by all for doing it considering his physical state at the time. 

It's tough to think that "Wee Ice Mon Cometh" is going to lure a great many people into its pages. But it at least should satisfy those who'd like a quick lesson in golf history concerning a great accomplishment in the sport. 

Three stars

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Review: The Racket (2024)

By Conor Niland

There is a basic "problem" with most of the individual sports (tennis, golf, boxing, etc.) on a professional level. The top players receive most of the attention. 

The average golf fan who watches the tour regularly on television might know the top 50 players on the PGA Tour. Tennis even is more limited in terms of publicity. The percentage of "upsets" in the major tournament is rather low, as the top seeds usually move gracefully through the draw to the final round. That leaves much of the field destined to wallow in relatively obscurity.

We know that there are tons of players out there who are really, really good at these sports, but they simply can't compete with the world's very best for one reason or another. For the most part, they compete in what Americans might call "minor league" events, such as the Challenger events in tennis or the Korn Ferry tour in golf. Those players probably are indistinguishable from anyone on the tours above them except for the top 30 in those sports.So they play before small crowds and smaller prizes, hoping for a break that will put them within shouting distance of a bit of glory and money. 

Conor Niland was one of those players. The Pride of Irish Tennis got his world ranking up to 129 at one point, which is quite an accomplishment in the grand scheme of the sport. But he was in a different world than names like Federer, Nadal and Djokovic, and he explains what that world is like very nicely in his book, "The Racket."

Niland grew up in Ireland and became one of the top junior players in the country. Now, to be fair, that's not the same as being one of the top junior players in the United States. There are fewer benefits to having that status in a small country not known for tennis. He competed in some international events, but wasn't dominating. Niland had to decide between turning pro and taking a college scholarship at Cal-Berkeley. He opted for the sure thing of college, since he just didn't know if he'd be good enough. 

Niland had some NCAA success and decided to try his luck on the pro circuit. The difference between him and Federer become pretty obvious. Roger had an entourage around him at all times, so he didn't have to worry about coaching and nutrition and medical treatment and equipment at any point. Conor was lucky to have a coach around him at times. As the young players chase points in order to climb the world rankings and thus earn a chance to play for more money in better tournaments, they must overcome horrible travel, high expenses, and the lack of medical supervision at an instant. In Niland's case, it didn't help that he was behind the eight-ball in a sense because of college; the ones who went straight to the pros were used to the lifestyle at the same age and better equipped to deal with it. 

It's not a spoiler to say Niland slowly climbed up the ladder a bit, and it's not a surprise to say that all the hours on the court took a toll on his body. His hips eventually started to give him problems, and he was out of tennis by 2012. Conor eventually moved into coaching in Ireland, where he still is no doubt admired by his countrymen and countrywomen for showing the world that an Irishman can compete on some big stages. 

It helps quite a bit that Niland is a good writer. He expresses himself quite well, and tells his story with honesty and good humor. That makes the pages go by quickly, and the reader quickly starts hoping for successes for him. 

The obvious unanswered question that might come up here is: what took him? Niland retired in 2012, so it took him about 12 years to finish his tennis autobiography. It's hard to know - and it would be helpful to know - if the landscape has changed at all since he retired. On the other hand, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal were in their primes during Niland's years on the tour, and Djokovic was making it a Big Three. The amount of contact between Niland and the all-time greats is very limited, but their occasional appearance does grab one's attention. A few photos of those days would have been good too. 

My favorite tennis book of all time is Andre Agassi's autobiography. "The Racket" isn't quite at that level, but it's not far behind on that list. You probably won't find a better description of what it's like to be close but not touching the top of a sport for individuals.

Four stars

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Review: The Year's Best Sports Writing 2024

Edited by Jane McManus

It doesn't take too long to figure out that this edition of "The Year's Best Sports Writing 2024" - the annual series of anthologies on top sports writing - is going to be a little different than some of the predecessors. 

Women have served as the yearly editor of this series (it's had some different publishers over the years) in the past, but Jane McManus has a somewhat different background than those in the past. She's done good work for a variety of publications, but also has some distinguished credits in the academic world. McManus has credits in the study of sports media at Seton Hall and Marist.

Then in the introduction, she comes out firing. McManus correctly points out that women's sports started to reach a turning point in terms of popularity in 2023 (when the book's articles were written). As we know now, that's a trend which if anything accelerated in 2024. I'm not going to suggest we've reached parity by any means, but the landscape is changing. As a result, McManus seems rather determined to make the point that good journalism is following that trend as well. 

It's not surprising, then, that quite a few stories in this book deal with women's sports - probably more on a percentage basis than any other year in series history. For those who might be worried that the selection might not be quite up to the usual standards, well, it doesn't take long to dispel those thoughts. In fact, it takes one story, the first in the book. Sally Jenkins' story on Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova's relationship is called "Bitter Rivals. Beloved Friends. Survivors." I remember how good it was when it first appeared in The Washington Post. It's just as good now, destined to be a classic forever.

Some of the stories obviously fit in nicely with the theme. You might not recognize the name Jenni Hermoso, but you certainly remember that a Spanish soccer player was kissed by a Spanish official after that country won the Women's World Cup. There's a story on Livvy Dunne, a gymnast at LSU who figured out a way to become famous and wealthy through social media. Catlin Clark is the subject from her college days, just as she was becoming one of basketball's greatest gate attractions. The Rapinoe sisters have quite a story to tell.

There are also some stories in the book that only happen to be about women, because the story is universal. The Harvard women's hockey team had a coach whose behavior danced around the line of propriety, while a Boston long-distance running coach went well beyond that line. 

There are plenty of other good stories here of all types. My personal favorite was a profile of baseball writer Peter Gammons, certainly on a short list of candidates for the title of best baseball writer ever. His complete story is quite compelling, as told by Tom Friend. There are good pieces on such subjects as Pele's funeral, Greg Oden's career after playing basketball, some Harvard football teammates from the past try to cope with the problems of one of their own, and the difficulty of a great Saint Joseph's basketball team from 20 years ago as it tried to cope with the problems of one of its own. There are also some unexpected delights, like a follow-up on a man who sank a half-court to win $1 million at a Bulls' game and the unexpectedly fascinating search for a brand of Barbie doll that's missing in action.

Reviewing a book like this always centers on the feelings toward a particular sport, and some of the less "traditional" activities receive coverage here too. It was tough for me to get through a few stories, including ones on surfing and climbing. Another one concerns one of the first women writers to work at Sports Illustrated. Virginia Kraft's professional story certainly is a good one, but the portions about hunting - her beat - left me skimming the text rather quickly. It's probably my loss.

Overall, "The Year's Best Sports Writing 2024" is another solid effort in a series that I've been reading for decades. If someone becomes a little more open-minded about women's sports in the process, all the better. 

Four stars

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