Review: The Year's Best Sports Writing 2026

Edited by Mirin Fader

It didn't take long for the latest issue of "The Year's Best Sports Writing" - an annual series that dates back a few decades in different forms and publishers - to be impressive. 

As in, the introduction. 

Guest editor Mirin Fader puts some early points by recounting her reaction to the news that the Washington Post was dropping its sports section: horror. You didn't have to live in Washington to be angry about that. A lot of experience and institutional knowledge about the Washington area, the country, and the sports world in general walked out the door when the Post gave up on sports. 

On the other hand, though, it's not as if we shouldn't have seen something like this coming. You only needed to reach each year's choices in this series of books to realize the landscape of sports journalism has been changing over the years. Go back 40 years to when the Sporting News was handling this assignment, and most of the stories were from newspapers and magazines. Now their appearances have become somewhat few and far between, replaced by outlets that are relatively unknown to mainstream readers.

Fader writes in her introduction, "I wanted this edition of The Year's Best Sports Writing to be a love letter. I want people to fall back in love. I wanted reading this to feel like we used to feel when our favorite sports writer put out a piece, and everyone would comment on Twitter, 'Appointment reading,' or 'Blind retweet.'" There is some good writing out there; it's just getting difficult to find it. 

There are 25 stories for the reader's consideration. The good news is that most of them are worthwhile. Last year's selections had a high percentage of efforts from out of the mainstream and was more hit-or-miss than most of the books in this series; that number dropped this time around. 

It's worth saying right at the start that there are a couple of patterns in the selections here that are interesting. The first is that Fader is a senior writer for the Athletic. Out of those 25 stories, seven are from the Athletic. That seems like a high percentage from a distance, although I have few complaints about the selections from that outlet. The second is that Fader is best known for her biographies of a couple of basketball players who grew up in the Eastern Hemisphere - Giannis and Hakeem. Therefore, some of the picks are not surprisingly international in tone. 

My usual standard for determining the possibility of interest in a particular story comes from the answer to a question: Would this be in the sports section of a newspaper? Admittedly, some of the ones here wouldn't be. There's a story about a skier who ended up as a crime boss, a tale of a woman who took her motorcycle and criss-crossed Africa with it, a report on women who essentially hiked across the top of the Canadian Rockies. A restaurant review by a noted critic caught me by surprise, but the review could have used a little whimsy when in this company. I struggled with these quite a bit. 

But there were plenty of other stories that carried me along. An old-fashioned profile of Cal Raleigh - "Big Dumper" - was nicely done. The dark side of sports betting as it affects the athletes themselves is eye-opening. Who knew that Robert Caro was the guiding unseen hand behind the rise of the Oklahoma City Thunder of the NBA?  It was fascinating to see what happened to former Dolphins' lineman Jonathan Martin. The story about the after-effects of the deaths of hockey's Gaudreau is sometimes haunting. 

Three of the stories stood out, and one was a natural for me. A 50-year anniversary story of Ali-Frazier III is as good as could be hoped - a moment that probably stands close to the peak of history of boxing interest. (Things haven't been the same since then.) It was a hanging curve ball that was slugged out of the park. A profile of Dale Earnhardt Jr., still trying to cope with the loss of his famous father, has tons of new information - at least to a non-NASCAR follower. But Tom Junod gets the "Best in Show" Award with a story about two high school quarterbacks who have much in common even though their tragic stories are 50 years apart. Junod asks all the right questions in this one, even if we'll never be really comfortable with the answers.  

You'll speed through the good stories and skim through the less interesting ones, which makes the 350-page length a little less intimidating. "The Year's Best Sports Writing 2026" has a very good batting average this time, and it's worth your time. 

Four stars

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Review: The Cruelest Game (2026)

By Matthew Futterman

This has been something of an unstable decade in the world of professional tennis - particularly compared to what happened before it.

For about 20 years starting in 2003 or so, it was easy to figure out what would happen in the major tournaments. Roger Federer was just about to start his run of greatness, taking Grand Slam #1 in 2003 at Wimbledon. Rafael Nadal became his biggest rival when he joined the Majors Club with a victory at the French Open in 2005. For a while there it seemed as if it wasn't a big tournament if Federer and Nadal didn't play each other - ideally for a championship. 

Then came Novak Djokovic in 2008, who captured the Australian Open then. He became a regular threat in the majors starting around 2011. Suddenly the Dynamic Duo became the Terrific Trio. All three have an argument as the greatest men's player of all time, and Djokovic is still trying to add to his reputation right now.  

The women's players also had a couple of all-time greats on the scene, and they were even sisters. Venus Williams won the first of seven Slams in 2000 - a year behind sister Serena's first big trophy. We didn't know that the win by Venus at Wimbledon in 2008 would be her seventh and last major title. But Serena was just getting warmed up then. She picked up her 21st and last Slam win in 2017. 

Once those eras ended, we've had some scrambling at the top. Matthew Futterman, a reporter for the Athletic who clearly knows the game and its people, takes a good-sized look at the participants who have been top players in recent years, and - in some cases, their struggles for consistency - in "The Cruelest Game."  The resulting book is one part tennis and one part psychology. Matches, it seems, are often won above the neck instead of below it. 

At least on the men's side, a big rivalry has developed. Carlos Alcaraz has seven Slams to his credit, and Jannik Sinner has six. They have won 10 of the last 12 titles, taking over the spotlight once Djokovic won three of four championships in 2023. It's a lot to ask for them to have the staying power of Federer and Nadal. On the women's side, no one has won more than six Grand Slam titles in a career since Serena Williams retired. The leader is Iga Świątek, who has four French Open crowns to go with a win at Wimbledon and Flushing Meadows.  

As Futterman discovers as he checks out the top players, their problems are unique in sports. Start with childhood, when the best players are usually identified and fast-tracked toward professional status. Care to move to a warm-weather academy and have your entire life ruled by a ball and racquet while leaving friends behind? Throw in the fact that families sometimes dedicate huge portions of their financial resources toward the goal of making tennis a nice livelihood for everyone involved. That's a lot of pressure on a kid. It's tough to make friends along the way, particularly if you aren't in the same country for more than a couple of weeks at a time. This is a sport where the various mental demands can become too much, forcing sabbaticals if not early retirements. This last part goes back at least as far as Bjorn Borg, who left the stage shortly after it seemed he was just starting to fall off the peak of the mountain. 

And speaking of pressure, Futterman makes a terrific point when he talks about personal finances. Yes, there's big money to be made in the sport, but only at the top. Players can get by if they crack the top 100 consistently, but the drain caused by travel, coaching, etc. doesn't let up through injuries and slumps. If you don't play, you don't cash checks. Do it enough and outside income drops off. The odds aren't too good. At least the men playing in pro basketball, football, baseball or hockey all can do fine simply by reaching the major leagues. Women don't have the same options available, and that merely adds to the pressure involved. 

Maybe that's why the last American male to win a Grand Slam title was Andy Roddick in 2003. The replacements for Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi, who were fading away at that point, never quite arrived. The women have done a little better, but only Coco Gauff has two majors to her credit since the Williams sisters faded out of the title picture. From an American standpoint, the tennis scene is at least a little more interesting if some U.S. players are at least contenders. 

It doesn't take much for a tennis player's state of mind to change, as Futterman discovers. It can happen in a snap - an injury, a fight with a relative, a search for a new coach. Sometimes when a player thinks he or she has an answer, the question changes. 

The author has some opinions about what's going on here, and sometimes this reads a bit like a psychology book with tennis serving as a case study. It's a side of the game that might not be as popular with audiences who simply want to see good athletic competition. But "The Cruelest Game" should work nicely for those who want to take the next step into understanding it all, but need a smart guide to get there. 

Four stars

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Review: Certified Beauties (2025)

By James Duthie

It's story time again in Hockeyland. 

Canadian sports reporter James Duthie had some success in 2020 with a book about some of the backstage moments for hockey players. He called it "Beauties." It should be mentioned that calling something or someone a "beauty" in the world of hockey is high praise, especially north of the border. 

The book seems to have done quite well - well enough to earn a sequel. Therefore, "Certified Beauties" arrived in the bookstores in 2025. As you'd expect, this is no time to break up a winning formula. The approach is about the same: talk to a wide range of hockey personalities, and collect some of the best stories that come up. 

Duthie throws out a rather big net to catch the tales, which is a good idea. There's the time that a summer beer-league hockey game had a couple of ringers turn up one day in an attempt to get in a good workout - Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. The time that Mike Johnson received some bad directions to the airport shortly after he was called to the NHL for his first game. How about Sam Gagner scoring eight points in a game out of absolutely nowhere? Then there's the moment when Nick Foligno was convinced to pay tribute to his father Mike by jumping after a goal. And there's a story about the rise of Kenyan hockey - as in Kenya in Africa, and its one rink. 

Since this is a book about hockey and its players, a few other elements pop up too. Hockey players are rather legendary for their consumption of alcoholic beverages, and that can cause some problems. Jeff O'Neill had just been recalled from the minors when he decided to try out the legendary nightlife of Los Angeles ... which caused him to sleep in the next morning, prompting a mad drive through the crowded city streets in order to catch the bus to practice. Then there is the matter of practical jokes. Hockey players have left behind a trail of sawed-off sticks and scissored ties and stolen suits and moved cars over the years. That's not my favorite subject, but others will enjoy those accounts.   

Two members of the Buffalo Sabres turn up here. Marty Biron had just missed out on making Canada's World Junior Team in December 1995 when he was called up by the Sabres for his first look at the NHL. It's around Christmas, and Marty had trouble finding out what exactly was going on. But he flies to Pittsburgh, expecting to have a good seat on the bench ... only to discover he was starting. Against Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr, and Company. The other Sabre is Zenon Konopka, who turned up for a half-season during the playoff drought to take faceoffs and get into fights. It was Team No. 19 in his personal hockey odyssey, starting in junior hockey in Ottawa. He broke his nose 14 times along the way. Ouch. 

Two of the stories here are a bit out of the norm from the rest of the book for all the right reasons. Duthie pays tribute to brothers John and Matty Gaudreau, who were killed in 2024 who were hit by a car when riding bikes. An excellent recollection is offered here. Later, the book recounts the last meeting between two old teammates, Darryl Sittler and Borje Salming. Grab a tissue.  

One little warning, courtesy of the author: Hockey players tend to speak in two languages: their native tongue and profanity. This comes uncensored - especially a speech by Bruce Boudreau. You can decide if that quality is a potential turn-off or a selling point.

"Certified Beauties" probably won't stay in the bookcase forever. It's an easy, fun read that will put some smiles on your face, even if you won't remember too much about it later on. If that, Mr. or Ms. Hockey Fan, sounds like it's in your sweet spot, by all means take a look at it.

Three stars

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Review: Mucking in the Corners (2026)

By Steve Currier

Many adjectives could be used to describe hockey in the 1970s. Stable is not one of them. 

No wonder Steve Currier found some areas for discussion in his book on the era, "Mucking in the Corners."

The sport grew up quite a bit in that decade. The National Hockey League was something of a small blip on the radar for about a quarter of a century. It had only six teams from 1942 to 1967, and two of those were in Canada. If it ever was going to become any sort of competitor with baseball and football in the United States, it needed a bigger footprint. That explains the expansion of 1967, when the NHL magically grew from six to 12 teams in one fell swoop. It wasn't a good move for the quality of play or competition for championships (the expansion teams figured to be poor for a while), but the move did come with a national television contract. 

Somewhat unexpectedly, though, the teams kept coming throughout the 1970s. Some were placed by the NHL in cities via expansion, while others became part of the action through an entirely new league - the World Hockey Association. Sports history teaches us that if an established league doesn't expand enough to fill a vacuum, a new league will come along to fill the void. That's more or less what happened here. The NHL also expanded in the 1970s, partly to bring in fresh money and partly to prevent the WHA from grabbing attractive cities first. Eventually we reached the natural conclusion that the two leagues need to merge in some form because the new league usually can't keep losing money indefinitely. The NHL grabbed four WHA teams in 1979 (Edmonton is the only one still in its original city, which says something), and the dynamic was changed forever. 

Still, it was fun in an odd way while it lasted. Anyone who could skate was a candidate to play pro hockey in that era, and the leagues and teams tried almost anything to attract attention and fans. The most obvious technique was to bring more fighting into the game in the hopes of bringing fans who like the rough stuff into buildings. It probably wasn't the best long-term strategy, since fighting probably turns off more fans than it turns on. But who cares about the long term when there are bills in that area that are past due?

That's the "macro" picture of the era in a nutshell. Currier is more of a "micro" sort of writer here. He's found 41 subjects for essays about hockey in the Seventies - loosely grouped into seven different departments. They are snapshots of a particular subject - some of which go on for some time, others that are covered in a few pages. Practically any hockey fan will read about some events that are completely new to them here. For example, the NHL experimented one preseason with a way to prevent forced stoppages by freezing the puck by giving the opposing team a free shot on goal as a start to play. It turned out to be a great way to drive goalies to learn how to go into some safer line of work, like bomb defusing. 

Currier runs into some good-sized problems in his effort along the way. Some of the subjects are mere curiosities - such as a run of ties, or a hat trick in which a player never did put the puck directly into the net (bounces, etc.) Some of the stories have a great deal of play-by-play involved, and it's a very tough assignment to make a game from 50 years ago come to life that way. (Currier's book on the California Golden Seals had that problem as well, as I recall.) Do people want to read a full description of a game by the London Lions in international play? Seems like a tough sell from here. That approach is going to lead to some skipped sections. 

Along those lines, the book checks in at more than 300 pages. That's probably too long for a project like this. It would have been an easy task to make the writing more compact and send a few of the less-interesting chapters to the cutting room floor.  

The research also comes across as a little superficial in spots. The Buffalo Sabres have a few chapters devoted to them here, and I'm familiar with stories about them. Our conclusions don't exactly agree. The tale of the Intra-League Draft of 1971 is portrayed as a somewhat maddening quirk instead of as a smart move by Sabres' general manager Punch Imlach that built up his roster as it entered Year Two. I was also surprised to see the team described as underfunded; the Sabres sold out the building for almost the entire 1970s, which was the way success was defined in that era for the most part. At least Currier does tell the stories of Al Smith's departure from the team and the drafting of Taro Tsujimoto - a player who never existed. 

Then there's the obvious issue of age. The two leagues merged in 1979 - 47 years ago, at least from the time of this writing. That's ancient history by now. It's tough to say how many people care about that era now, especially the ones under, say, 55 or 60 years old. That's a rather small slice of the market. 

No, "Mucking in the Corners" won't be on the best-seller list. Even so, there's something nice about the idea that Currier was a big fan of the oddities from this particular era of hockey history, and wrote a book that was published about it. Good for him; it's an accomplishment. I'm sure he has some company in his interest, and those readers will rekindle some memories here. 

Two stars

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Review: Crossroads (2026)

By Dusty Baker with Steve Kettmann

What was Dusty Baker's biggest, most unlikely accomplishment in baseball? 

In the early 2020s, Baker was managing the Houston Astros. As you might recall, the Astros were caught in a cheating scandal involving garbage can thrashing that tainted their World Series championship in 2017. The Houston team still isn't exactly warmly received around the baseball world, particularly in New York and Los Angeles. 

Baker was hired in 2020 to change the subject. He did that very nicely, softening the Astros' reputation to the point where many fans felt good that he finally won a long-awaited World Series championship in 2022 in Houston. His many friends and acquaintances were quick to point out how happy they felt that Baker could cap his career that way. 

And quite a career it was, and quite a life he's had. Dusty gets many of the highlights down on paper in his book, "Crossroads," and he keeps you turning the 400 pages (!) along the way. 

How far does Baker go back? Try 1967, when he was drafted out of a California high school at the age of 18. It was a long, interesting ride until he finally retired from managing after the 2023 season about 55 years later. Baker missed a few years along the way when he was between managerial jobs (often working in broadcasting), but it was rare to see him out of uniform for more than a half-century.  

Baker was drafted by the Atlanta Braves, and had a couple of cups of coffee with that team in 1968 and 1969 before sticking. That's the time that Henry Aaron was his teammate, and Dusty couldn't have asked for a better man for advice on life in the big leagues. Aaron even warned Baker that no matter how good he was in Atlanta, a segment of the population wouldn't accept him. The Old South hadn't gone away by the early 1970s.

Baker put up some good numbers with the Braves, but eventually he became a little expensive for them ... so it was off to Los Angeles in a trade. The Dodgers proved a better fit, as the outfielder became an All-Star and even an MVP contender in 1980 (fourth place). He was a big reason why Los Angeles won the World Series in 1981. Baker stayed with the Dodgers through 1983, when he moved on to the Giants and Athletics for the end of his career. 

Baker tried his hand at business after retiring as a player, but he couldn't stay away from the game. A coaching job proved difficult to refuse, and it eventually led to a position as manager of the San Francisco Giants in 1993. He won 103 games in his first year, and the National League pennant in his last. But the Giants opted for some reason to make a change. It was off to the Cubs for four years, which included the agony of a playoff loss to the Marlins in 2003. From there it was on to the Reds for six years and the Nationals for two before he finally arrived in Houston at the age of 71. Think he paid his dues? Yeah, that's fair. 

There seemed to be two constants in those years, at least according to the book. One is fishing. Baker seems to have done a lot of it over the years, and at some good spots too. The other is friends. He knows everyone. He had the chance to talk to Barack Obama a couple of times - once in Chicago, and once in the White House. Dusty hung out with everyone from Bill Walton to Miles Davis. He checked in with Bill Walsh and Al Attles for advice on managing. But he's also befriended people who aren't well known; they are merely good people. The acknowledgments in the back consist more or less of four pages of people's names, and he's probably only scratched the surface there. 

Baker explains the title at the end of the book too. He said his father always told him, "Son, when you come to a crossroads, take the road to the right." That doesn't refer to direction; it references correctness - as in right and wrong. Dusty even mentions that the book represented something of a crossroads for him, since he had to look back at the decisions he made. Some of them didn't work out well, but no one bats 1.000 in life. There's very little that's negative in the book. Heck, Baker even has good things to say about Barry Bonds. (The steroid era, which he obviously witnessed, goes more or less untouched here.)

Practically everyone in baseball has said how much they like being around Dusty, and this is a chance to experience those feelings from up close. "Crossroads" certainly will be loved by Baker's many fans, and enjoyed by others who appreciated him from a distance. 

Four stars

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Review: Touching All the Bases (2026)

By Dave Winfield with Alan Maimon

Here we go again.

Way back in 1988, Dave Winfield wrote an autobiography about his life called, naturally, "Winfield: A Player's Life." I read it and even reviewed it for The Buffalo News, saying that it caused a few headlines because it talked about how George Steinbrenner of the New York Yankees could be a difficult personality in his dealings with people. OK, maybe that's not breaking news, but it did fill the New York City tabloids with headlines for a few days. 

We're coming up on the 40th anniversary of that book, and Winfield is back with another autobiography. This time he more or less completes his life story with "Touching All the Bases." This one is an improvement over the first time around, although it's not the most dramatic book on the shelf. 

Winfield was by most standards an amazing athlete. He was big (6-foot-6), strong and fast, and drafted by three major sports. (Hockey somehow passed him up although a large, quick guy on skates might have terrorized opponents.) Winfield chose baseball, and didn't play a single day in the minor leagues. He was one of the first stars in the history of the San Diego Padres' franchise.

But in 1981, Dave was ready for free agency. He signed a huge contract with the Yankees, after considerable wooing from Steinbrenner. George made a big mistake in that record deal - not noticing that Winfield had a cost-of-living escalator clause in the deal that turned out to be a heck of a yearly bonus. Steinbrenner seemed to take it out on Winfield in an odd way - attack the outfielder's charitable foundation. That first book was written in the middle of that dispute. 

So Book Number Two tells the rest of the story. The controversy eventually settled on the story of Howie Spira, who had tried and failed to work for Winfield and then offered to dig up dirt on the star for Steinbrenner. George accepted. That eventually led to a ban from baseball for Steinbrenner, although he was allowed to run the Yankees again a few years later. 

By that time, Winfield had left the Bronx Zoo. He eventually played for the Angels, Blue Jays, Twins and Indians - winning his only World Series ring with the Blue Jays. He finished his career with 3,110 hits and 465 homers - skating his way into the Baseball Hall of Fame without a problem. Since then, Dave has worked in a few different areas. He did some broadcasting, but seemed to have trouble fitting into a niche. Winfield spent considerable time with the Players Association.    

He comes off here as a great player and a good person, with his heart in the right place in several areas. It's hard to say if he completely knew what he was about to go through when he signed with the Yankees. Winfield might have been happier had he stayed in a place like San Diego or Minnesota for almost all of his career, where he could have felt at home and worried about hitting and catching baseballs. But the association lingers, in part because of the disagreements with Steinbrenner. No wonder he's wearing pinstripes on the cover.  

It might have been better if "Touching All the Bases" had been published a little earlier in his life. You'd have to be at least 40 to remember him in his prime, when he was one of the top all-around players in the game. But what we have is quite readable, and it offers some insight into a baseball life.  

Three stars

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Review: Just Tackle, Baby! (2026)

By Phil Villapiano with Todd Schmidt

My introduction to Phil Villapiano: 

It was 1980, and I was covering the Buffalo Bills' home games on a regular basis for the first time. The team started the season with a winning streak that showed the previous five years, some of which had been truly dismal, had been put in the past. After games, the reporters gathered around the stars like Joe Ferguson, Joe Cribbs, Jerry Butler, Fred Smerlas and Jim Haslett for the most part ... with one exception. 

Phil Villapiano was a popular interview subject in those days, even though he didn't receive a great deal of playing time. Villapiano had been acquired for Bob Chandler in the offseason, and the idea was that he'd add depth and veteran leadership to the defense. Phil also was a good interview - funny, smart and honest. He didn't play that much at times, but it was always good to stop at his locker to see what he had to say. 

Here we are, more than 45 years later, and people still want to hear what he has to say. Villapiano is out with an autobiography called "Just Tackle, Baby!" If you are looking for stories about a crazy if bygone era of pro football, this is a good starting point. 

Villapiano grew up in New Jersey and went to college at Bowling Green - which was geographically close to the Big Ten but not in the Big Ten. Even so, the Falcons find some football players every year - and Villapiano was one of the best. He was a second-round draft choice of the Oakland Raiders in 1971. All of a sudden, Phil was in the midst of some of the great "personalities" in football history ... and fit in quite well with them. 

At the top was Al Davis, one of the most interesting personalities in NFL history. He did almost everything in the sport from assistant coach to league commissioner (AFL). Davis' slogan was "Just win, baby," which is where the title of the book comes from Life was never boring with Al around. The same could be said about John Madden, the coach of the team during much of Villapiano's time there. The Raiders were always very good under Madden, and even won a Super Bowl once along the way. 

When it came to players, the team featured names such as Ken Stabler, Fred Biletnikoff, Art Shell, Gene Upshaw, Otis Sistrunk, George Atkinson and Jack Tatum. The Raiders played hard and partied hard. They may have bent some rules along the way and broken a few others. It's impressive that the Raiders could do all of that and still be contenders. Villapiano has plenty of stories about those days on the field and nights in bars - you'd call the R-rated stories "examples of team bonding" today. 

Villapiano also is happy to voice an opinion about the most famous play in pro football history (well, at least in the top five) - the Immaculate Reception play in 1972 involving the Raiders and Pittsburgh Steelers. You might remember how Franco Harris caught a deflected pass and went in for a go-ahead touchdown in a playoff game. Phil is still angry about what he thought was overlooked on the play - rules violations, penalties, etc. - but the result seems unlikely to be changed 54 years and counting later. He and Harris, by the way, became good friends in spite of opposing views of one particular play. 

Villapiano was on the back nine of his football career when he got to Buffalo, and was part of some good times there. Let's just say that Conrad Dobler was quite a character. It might be worth noting to Bills' fans that the linebacker has plenty of good things to say about head coach Chuck Knox. He also praises Kay Stephenson, who was the offensive coordinator at the time. Stephenson was promoted to head coach when Knox left in 1983, and Villapiano's words make that action a better idea than it seemed at the time. (The Bills returned to their losing ways once Knox left.)

A serious knee injury ended Phil's time on the field. It was time to move on with life, and he chose to be attached to the - wait for it - container shipping business. Who knew? It sounds like he's done fine with it, although it's easy to guess that an ex-NFL player with some degree of fame ought to do reasonably well in almost any sales job. After all, his mere name is a heck of an introduction.  

The book comes with a couple of problems connected to it. Villapiano is closing in on 80 years of age these days. There are fewer and fewer of us who have first-hand memories of the Raiders of the 1970s. This could have been written 20 years ago without changing too much of the script. I also noticed some obvious typos that went uncaught along the way. Some names got garbled, and a few facts are wrong. 

Even so, "Just Tackle, Baby!" is easy to read and goes by smoothly. A book like this probably is designed to be a substitute for sitting down with Villapiano at a bar, ordering a couple of cold ones, and having him tell you what it was like to be a Raider when the team had a distinctive personality. It will work well, particularly for those in the proper demographic. 

Four stars 

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Review: Inside the Owner's Box (2026)

By David M. Rubenstein

It seems that David Rubenstein has written another book. That prompts a basic question - where did he find the time?

It takes a few pages of "Inside the Owner's Box" to list Rubenstein's accomplishments. At the top of the list, at least in terms of impact, is that he is the cofounder and co-chairman of the Carlyle Group, one of the world's biggest investment firms. It is said that the organization manages something like $477 billion in assets, which would seem to be a big task. 

From there, Rubenstein works on the boards of several organizations, and is a member of many more. He has made many philanthropic gifts to help maintain some national treasures, such as the Washington Monument, the Jefferson Memorial, the Library of Congress, and Mount Vernon. He hosts some television shows that run on Bloomberg and C-SPAN, and has written five other books. That's not everything, but you get the idea. 

That is probably enough responsibility for anyone, but he added to his list of responsibilities a few years ago when he became the chairman and CEO of the Baltimore Orioles. You'd think he was working on a clock that has 29 hours in a day.

Somehow he now has squeezed in the time to write another book, although "Inside the Owner's Box" sounds like a relatively easy project as these things go. 

Rubenstein starts out by reviewing the process that led him to take over the Orioles. The team was about to come on the market, and Rubenstein thought he had a chance of making a purchase work. He had some connections to the Baltimore area, and he certainly had the financial means to make an impact. It took some time, but Rubenstein thought he could help the community by purchasing the team. Such actions are complicated, but eventually everything worked out and the sale was completed. From there, the book moves on to what day-to-day life for a pro sports owner is like. 

Rubenstein quickly discovered that he'd have to be a relatively active participant in the team's fortunes, even though he had virtually nothing to do with the on-field product. He also found out that the procedures he followed in the business world, designed to minimize risk in many cases, didn't apply to a baseball team. A lot of work can go down the drain because of a bad hop on a grounder or a fluke injury to a player. 

With that somewhat covered, Rubenstein switches to the meat of the book - interviews with his peers. Owning a major league team no doubt helps get calls returned from other pro sports owners, and the author talks to 14 people who control teams. You'll recognize some of the names - Jim Crane of the Houston Astros, Robert Kraft of the New England Patriots, Ted Leonsis of the Washington Capitals and Wizards, Jeff Lurie of the Philadelphia Eagles, and Tom Ricketts of the Chicago Cubs. The one sort-of exception is Rick Hendrick of Hendrick Motorsports, which has four different groups of employees working on NASCAR entries.  

How does this all work? Moderately well. For starters, the stories are rather similar. Most of the people interviewed had some interest in sports growing up, but weren't good enough to play the game at a high level. They learned to do other things well, which turned their lives into spectacular financial success stories. I wish I could explain what some of those activities were, but they deal with high finance and aren't easy to boil down to a simple level - especially for a review without an MBA. All of them say that they enjoy the chance at trying to unite a community through sports, and the rewards are great. They also point out that while there's money to be made in pro sports, it comes at the back end when the sale of a franchise is made (values keep going up and up) and not along the way. That takes a different mindset for a businessman to have. 

Rubenstein stays away from anything resembling tough questions. We don't hear about the Astros' cheating scandal, or Kraft's personal problems. Therefore, we get the point rather quickly - even though the book goes by quite fast. If there's one happy conclusion to be reached, it's that the owners interviewed really seem to care about what's happening to the franchise and the surrounding neighborhood, and aren't in the business just to cash out at the end as values continue to rise. 

"Inside the Owner's Box" couldn't have taken long to compile, since it's mostly transcripts of interviews Rubenstein has done in recent years. In other words, this is rather harmless material. There are a few good stories from the subjects, and it might fulfill some curiosity about the responsibilities and demands of owners in today's sports world. Just don't expect much more than that.

Three stars

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Review: 60 (2021)

By Robert Khayat

A trip to the book section of a thrift store is always interesting, because quite often a surprise is waiting.

For example, I recently spotted a book by Robert Khayat. He was wearing a football uniform on the cover, with the No. 60 on it - which was the volume's title. I recognized the name Khayat because I remembered Ed Khayat from a football card from the 1960s. Yes, that was Robert's brother. 

Opening up proved to be fruitful immediately. The younger Khayat had autographed the book on a bookplate, which always generates a reaction. I quickly discovered when leafing through the pages that Robert also had played major college and professional football, and had gone on to become the Chancellor of the University of Mississippi for about 14 years. By that point, I was sold. Four dollars seemed like more than a fair price to learn about someone who obviously had had an interesting life. 

That proved to be a good idea. "60" is a worthwhile read about a key period in Khayat's life that would resonate with anyone interested in that time period. 

This book starts at the beginning of 1960, as Mississippi is ready to play LSU in the Sugar Bowl. The teams were ranked second and third in the country entering the game. A matchup between one of them and top-ranked Syracuse would have been an appropriate way to settle the mythical national championship of the era. The problem was that the Sugar Bowl was in New Orleans, and it wouldn't accept a team that had Black players on it. Syracuse did. The Orangemen went to Dallas to play Texas in the Cotton Bowl, and won the game and the national title. Khayat and the Rebels - easy winners in their bowl game - had to wonder, what if? 

It's interesting to read Khayat's point of view on the matter, even now. He had grown up in a small town in Mississippi called Moss Point (near the Gulf Coast), and played sports with whites and Blacks throughout his childhood. Robert wanted to face the best, but he was denied the opportunity. The state wouldn't allow Mississippi teams to play integrated opponents. That had kept the Rebels' baseball team out of the NCAA tournament, and had stopped a matchup between the Iona and Mississippi basketball teams. 

After the Sugar Bowl victory, it was time for Khayat to move on with the rest of his life. He had discreetly signed a contract with the Cleveland Browns of the NFL, but was traded to the Washington Redskins before a single practice with the Browns. The guard/kicker - an odd combination to us now - eventually arrived with a team that was the only segregated franchise in the NFL. But first, he worked out on his own back in Moss Point - essentially saying good-bye to some of the aspects of his previous life before college graduation.

Khayat was a bit undersized to be a guard, even in those days. On the other hand, he was a good kicker by 1960 standards.  A problem was that the Redskins were simply awful in those days, as not fielding the best possible roster took a toll. Washington finished 1-9-2 that season. Khayat wound up in the Pro Bowl at the end of the year, but even that didn't work out well. The rookie took an immense hit from the giant Bob St. Clair of San Francisco in that all-star game that eventually led to some serious health problems. His pro football days were over almost before they began. 

(Footnote: Ed and Robert were the only brothers who played in the NFL that season. Ed had the better year, winning the NFL title with the Eagles.) 

Many will realize that 1960 was the year that John Kennedy was elected president in a close call over Richard Nixon. That soon led attempts to enforce civil rights legislation that had been passed by the federal government. It was obviously a difficult time in Mississippi's history, which fought those efforts furiously. The University of Mississippi even was the scene of something of a riot on this issue later in the decade. 

You could probably argue that this was the starting point for the change in the politics of the Deep South. The state had been Democratic essentially since Ulysses Grant won reelection in 1872. The changes struck home for Khayat when his father ran for Congress and eventually paid a price for his "tolerant" views of civil rights. The Khayats were Lebanese and on the dark-skinned side by Mississippi standards, which probably affected the family's attitudes about such things. 

Khayat probably couldn't have guessed in 1960 where his life was going. The early retirement from football sent him to law school, which eventually led to the academic side of life. His return to Oxford, Mississippi, as chancellor was capped in 2008, when the university hosted the first Presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain.

"60" goes by quite quickly, as the pages are on the airy side and there are plenty of photos along the way. Khayat's concept that this single year of his life has "turning point" written all over it is  is exactly on target. Those who like their football mixed in with the rest of life ought to find plenty to consider here. 

Four stars

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Review: Portrait of a Hockey Scribe (2026)

By Gare Joyce

Here's a book that was right in my sweet spot before I opened a page. 

"Portrait of a Hockey Scribe" is the story about how Gare Joyce entered the business of writing about hockey. He was the columnist for the Toronto Globe & Mail during much of the 1990s. Meanwhile, I was involved in the NHL in one form or another (public relations and journalism) from the late 1980s through the early 2000s. 

I'm sure our paths crossed along the way. Joyce was close friends with Jim Kelley, a friend and co-worker of mine during that era. There were some group beer-drinking sessions in those days, and no doubt we crossed paths in some of them. But I was closer to Dave Shoalts of the Globe & Mail from that era, so I didn't know Joyce's creation story until now. It comes with some surprises. 

Joyce took the long way to his job in Toronto, as he outlines here. He did go to journalism school, and even worked some desk/clerical work at a newspaper while continuing with his studies. But it's not as if he lived and breathed hockey, which no doubt made him a bit of an exception among Canadian young adults in the field. At one point Joyce became a part-time bouncer at a local bar, and certainly wasn't getting enough sleep. 

The writer eventually joined an independent sports magazine in the Toronto area. Such publications usually seemed like a good idea at the time in big cities, and this one probably qualified. They didn't seem to last too long. There are always stories from such places about how things went wrong, and the author has plenty of them. It's interesting to read such tales from someone who became nationally known. It's not always easy to succeed in the business. 

Joyce's work caught the eye of someone in management, as the newspaper ended up hiring him to be the hockey columnist in 1994.  It was quite an upset, since Joyce had never even been in the Maple Leaf Gardens press box before. To demonstrate his orientation in the book, almost all of the chapter titles in the book begin with "Don't" - as in "Don't Let an 82-Year-Old Slip Your Tackle" and "Don't Try Too Hard To Do Too Much Too Soon." The exception is a chapter that starts with "Never" - to be more specific, "Never Drop Your Right Hand." In other words, this is real world stuff from the front lines, and everyone in the business has been through it at some point. 

The focus changes once Joyce reaches "the big time." There are stories about the problems that come with the job, such as near-fights with the people he covered. But other chapters are more typical of a sportswriter's memoir. If you've ever doubted that Jean Beliveau - who could have played hockey in a tuxedo - was just as elegant off the ice and on, a story about an interview with him will erase those thoughts. Joyce's visits to the final game of some Original Six buildings - in other words, Boston, Montreal and Toronto - are entertaining too. The Boston chapter might have been subtitled "How I watched the final game in the Boston Garden while sitting next to the organist." 

This isn't a short book - about 330 pages - but it's a comfortable read and there are a couple of related surprises at the end. Joyce left his job soon after the Maple Leafs switched arenas in 1999. And basically, the book ends there. If you are counting, that was 27 years ago. So some of the names and events are going to come off on the dated side. What's more, there's not really an update about what he's done in the 21st century. 

As a public service, Joyce has been busy. He's written 14 books, some on hockey and some that were novels. Gare has done some freelance writing for a number of outlets over the years on a variety of subjects, and so he's found a way to write and eat. Joyce also did have a knack for looking for non-traditional angles. That may not be a great fit for a hockey columnist, since that job concentrates mostly on the nuts and bolts of a given season. But it's served him well for the last quarter-century. 

"Portrait of a Hockey Scribe" is an unusual story of someone who is willing to look back at his professional life with a critical eye. That makes it worth your time - even if it may not be quite in your individual sweet spot.

Four stars

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Review: Everybody Loses (2026)

By Danny Funt

Here's a snapshot of America today: More people place a bet in a year than read a book.  

That's rather distressing news, since it would be nice to think that reading can be a constructive exercise while gambling is more on the destructive side. It's interesting bordering on ironic, then, to have "Everybody Loses" in the bookstores.  

Danny Funt has written something of a recap of the sports gambling business in this United States, which began on a formal basis with a Supreme Court decision in 2018. You may not like what betting has done to the sports business since then, and that's understandable. On the other hand, as Funt shows here in several ways, the situation is worse than you think.

At the time that gambling on our games became legal, the moral argument for not allowing it had more or less sailed out of port. Casinos and lottery games were growing around the country, and governments were more than happy to take in some of the proceeds - even though it usually proved to be less of a silver bullet for growing debt than was advertised.

But opening up betting on our sports events was a little different. People figured to start betting on matters that nothing to do with the final score, a category that started with point spreads but moved into areas like "prop bets" and "parlays" that tie a string of potentially unrelated events together in an attempt to convince bettors to gamble more money. Sure enough, that's the case. So-called experts or "touts" are happy to offer advice on how a particular game might play out, but they usually don't publish an honest review of their results - and it's probably below the breakeven line of more than 50 percent right. 

There were also fears that the fans would become more cynical, that they would suggest that foul play was at work when actions by players and officials caused them to lose money. That's difficult to quantify, but certainly the stories of death threats and the like toward players - particularly on social media - have made the rounds. You can't strike out, drop a pass or shank a drive without knowing about possible repercussions any more. 

With so many types of gambling, it's easy to guess how easy it is to fix an outcome. A player can quietly miss a few shots and throw away some passes and change a point spread for the first half. It allegedly happened in some University at Buffalo basketball games a few years ago, so it can happen almost anywhere.  

We've also seen how news outlets are anxious to play ads (and more ads) for the bookmakers and post odds near game schedules, and noticed how the leagues themselves have invested in those companies after decades of saying they were sticking up for the integrity of the games. It's tough to tune out, and Funt outlines it nicely.

But there's even more to the story, as outlined in the book. For example, you've probably seen advertising for special introductory offers for opening accounts, such as "First Bet Free." What you don't know unless you've been there is that the offer comes with enough catches to keep a team of lawyers occupied. 

You also don't know what happens to winners. Yes, some people do win consistently for one reason or another. But sometimes the company notices, and immediately limits the amount of money a bettor can gamble on a particular sport. The companies prefer losers, thank you. If that means making big losing bettors part of a VIP club that gives them bonuses and benefits to keep them around, well, that's not a problem. Yes, it would be nice if a company would notice that an individual is betting most of his income on games, but that gets in the way of profit and loss statements. 

The number of addicted gamblers is adding up quickly too. It's gotten far, far too easy to be able to bet on games, thanks mostly to phones. You almost don't even notice the losses adding up. It's particularly true for men in the 18-29 age group, who are full of false confidence that they know more than the experts setting the lines.  

And it's all been done in a haphazard way. After all, other countries like England have been allowing sports betting for many years. You might think it would be ask someone in authority over there about the pitfalls of starting such an operation here. Didn't happen. 

It's all rather ugly. Funt occasionally gets bogged down in legal and governmental bureaucracy (and accompanying anagrams) involved in the subject, but that's unlikely to be objectionable to those reading it. The research is solid, and the background stories are thorough and interesting. 

Someone once asked me if there was anything that could get in the way of the "gravy train" that is pro sports in this country. I said gambling might represent the biggest potential roadblock, particularly if game fixing became more common. There's a spot for athletic entertainment that has prearranged outcomes - it's called professional wrestling - but much of the attraction of pro sports to fans and - more importantly - television networks is that it's real life drama. That disappears if people don't believe everything is on the level.

Those with an interest in the subject will find "Everybody Loses" to be a very good guidebook to where we've been and where we're going.

Four stars

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Review: Miracle Gold, Four Stanley Cups ... (2025)

By Ken Morrow with Allan Kreda

It's easy to realize why a book by Ken Morrow might be of interest to hockey fans. After all, he had one greatest three-month stretches in hockey history. 

Morrow became nationally known as one of the members of the United States hockey team in 1980. You might have heard of the Miracle of Lake Placid. That team instantly became celebrated, and - as we might have guessed - the memories of a group of mostly college kids winning the gold medal will be cherished for a lifetime. That applies to those who merely watched in the stands or on television. 

Morrow was a member of that team, and he's one of the most recognized players outside of the stars like Mike Eruzione and Jim Craig. The reason is that he was the only player to wear a beard. It's not easy for a defensive defenseman to stand out otherwise.

From there, Morrow took less than a week off, and reported to duty with the New York Islanders. Those were the Islanders who had established a reputation at that point as "Tomorrow's Champions." They had spent most of the late 1970s as a contender, but the Montreal Canadiens of that era weren't about to let anyone else take the Stanley Cup home. However, the Canadiens had slipped due to departures in 1980, and the league was ripe for a new champion. 

Morrow was a good-sized addition to the Islanders, who were happy to have another steady defenseman on the roster. They made some other key acquisitions in that season, and went on to win their first championship in 1980. In other words, Morrow had won a gold medal and a Stanley Cup in three months. 

That period serves as the centerpiece for Morrow's book, "Miracle Gold, Four Stanley Cups, and a Lifetime of Islanders Hockey."  (There aren't many titles on this website that can match that one for length.) While it's nice to read Morrow's perspective on some history-making events, his version is on the thin side. 

Morrow grew up in the Flint, Michigan, area and quickly began a love affair with hockey. It led him to Bowling Green, where he helped that college program achieve some national recognition - including an appearance at the Frozen Four. The Falcons didn't win it all, but they did have plenty of talent. Morrow's teammates included future NHLers Mike Liut, George McPhee and Brian MacLellan.  

Then came 1979, and Morrow already had decided to try out for the U.S. Olympic team that summer. He knew that making the team was a once in a lifetime opportunity, and might help him - a fourth-round draft choice of the Islanders - in a possible professional career. Morrow made the team, and he was off on a long ride. Ken eventually added three more Stanley Cups to his trophy case - making it four in a row - and played until knee injuries ended his career in 1989. (He hadn't been able to play more than 70 games in a season after 1982-83).

That all has the makings of a quite respectable book, but something got lost in the translation. Morrow comes across as a very nice guy who has good thoughts about just about everyone he encountered. The descriptions of people he's encountered along the way come off as rather dry and one-dimensional. Later on, the chapters on the Islanders' championships are basic recaps of games with occasional comments thrown in. It's a difficult assignment to make such descriptions interesting, particularly 40-plus years later. It was odd, too, that Morrow's time as the Islanders' director of pro scouting (since 1992) was more or less ignored.

Morrow and co-author Allan Kreda probably sensed the book needed to be filled out, and enlisted a number of people to help. Therefore, there are several comments from a variety of people added along the way. It took some effort to round up the comments and the other voices help a bit, but many of them don't add much to the story past adding praise to those involved. This book also takes some time to get to the main story and is a bit slow to end. There's a foreword by Denis Potvin, an introduction by Kreda, a prologue and epilogue by Morrow, an afterword by Stan Fischler, and some acknowledgements. It all managed to get to 300 pages, although it's fair to note that the pages aren't a chore to read.  

"Miracle Gold" seems to have found its niche on the reading list of huge Islanders' fans rather quickly - based on reviews posted on Amazon and Goodreads - and it's easy to see why. They want to be reminded of the greatest era in the team's history, and they'll enjoy this. The same applies to those seeking more information about Lake Placid and 1980. Others might not be so enthusiastic.

Three stars

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Review: The Game (2026)

By Peter King

One of the best parts of becoming a young journalist is that he or she gets to sit around and talk with older journalists about their jobs. Most do so happily, and they are story-tellers at heart. Chances are good that they wouldn't be in the business if they didn't fit that qualification. Those veterans are happy to talk about experiences in the past and present, and wrap them up in bows with the perspective that comes with many years on the job. 

That brings us to Peter King. He's been lucky enough - and he'll admit to that - to have been in the right place at the right time to collect such stories. Peter started working for newspapers, but eventually graduated to Sports Illustrated when its influence was huge. Then it was on to NBC Sports near the end of his formal career. Therefore, he was perfectly placed to go to places even the average reporter didn't have the chance to see. 

Now he's gone back into his files and paperwork - his professional life, really - to examine those stories and bring them up to date. The result is "The Game" - a book that checks in at about 592 pages, and every single one of them is entertaining (at least if you follow the story even semi-closely).

Yes, King had some professional advantages at certain points along his career. When someone from SI called requesting an interview, chances are good that the message was returned rather quickly. When he had an idea to do something unusual, the concept was at least considered. 

In this review of his personal football history, every year from 1984 to 2023 gets a chapter - with a main story and a sidebar included. Add it up and you get a chatty, user-friendly history of pro football in that time period. It wouldn't be fair to call it the "modern era" (that probably should go back to at least 1967), but certainly it covers a period of spectacular growth. 

He starts out with his days with Sam Wyche, then coach of the Cincinnati Bengals, who was one of the great characters of the football business. Wyche was nice enough to leak the names of the players who the Bengals would take in that year's NFL draft. King wound up giving two of the top picks a ride to the team's offices from the airport. 

Ride with John Madden on a coast-to-coast bus ride? Check. Spend time with Deion Sanders in his playing days as he outlined his philosophy about publicity? Yup. Watch the Cleveland Browns prepare to leave their longtime home, and see Reggie White prepare as a free agent to leave Philadelphia and wind up in, of all places, Green Bay? Of course. Listen in on a team's work during the NFL Draft? Watch an NFL quarterback prepare for a game? Be with a head coach as he puts together a gameplan? All that too. You get the idea. 

There are even stories about people you don't know about. That includes the woman who has done considerable research into football players and their brain injuries, and the people behind the rise of NFL Films. As mentor Paul Zimmerman told King early in his career, "Stay away from the crowds." 

If that weren't enough, King even puts plenty of work into his appendix (the end of the book, that is to say). He has his list of the 100 most important people in NFL history, starting with George Halas, Pete Rozelle, Paul Brown, Joe Carr, and Vince Lombardi. The reasoning seems solid. By the way, O.J. Simpson checks in as the top Buffalo Bill on the list at No. 45, while Bruce Smith is No. 67. OK, I might have switched Buck Buchanan and Deacon Jones from their positions of No. 99 and "just missed," but it's a close call. 

King also comes up with a list of favorite locker room moments - bumping into Richard Nixon in one in the 1980s tops that list  - and his nominees for the five most underrated players. Bills' fans will be happy to know that Steve Tasker tops that list, and perhaps surprised that Antoine Winfield of the Bills made it too.

In the "best game I saw" section King opens by writing "Apologies to the Bills' Jan 1993 wild-card comeback from a 35-3 deficit, which is too easy." But he compensates by picking the Bills-Patriots game that was right after Damar Hamlin's injury in January 2023, highlighted by Hyheim Hines's two kickoff returns for touchdowns. King quotes Sean McDermott from that day: "When people can put their agendas aside for the greater and common good, how good we can be when we do that."

There's even a crossword puzzle in here. King likes crossword puzzles. A lot. They are a little tough to do on a Kindle version of a book. 

If you like books from superb sports reporters that serve as the valedictory address of their careers, we've got a couple of really good ones coming in the fall. Baseball's Peter Gammons wrote a book that was almost sweet in its love of the game. "The Game" from football's King is more scattered in its approach, but even more entertaining. You can count on both books being in my "best of 2026" list at the end of December.

Five stars

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Review: Be On That Hill (2026)

By Seth Wickersham

It's fair to say that Seth Wickersham is a little underrated in the world of sports writing. That's in spite of the fact that he has written a couple of books - "American Kings" and "It's Better to be Feared" - that were terrific. Both received five-star ratings here for what it's worth. 

But Wickersham is remembered more for his work for ESPN. He's a senior writer there, arriving at the outlet after graduating from college in 2000. It was easy to keep track of him at first, because ESPN was producing a magazine, so that was an obvious outlet for him. When that publication died, Wickersham simply moved smoothly over to the website.  

That's not a particularly easy position. ESPN sometimes gets a little too caught up in marketing hype for its various enterprises. In other words, it can be easy to wonder if stories get covered because the company is broadcasting its games somewhere. But it's easy for the network to point at Wickersham's work (as well as some others) and say "See? We do journalism here too." And that's true. Sometimes you may have to search for his stories, but that's a worthwhile project. 

A quarter-century is a good reason to look back at a body of work, and Wickersham had the chance to do exactly that with "Be On That Hill." It's an anthology of some of his favorite stories. (In case you are wondering, the title comes from a lyric of Bruce Springsteen's song, "Darkness on the Edge of Town.")

For someone associated with football, Wickersham throws a curveball at us with a good-sized story about a person who could be called an "extreme climber." In other words, he goes up the face of steep mountains without special equipment. That's a long way from the world of the NFL, and it may not be able to lure in his usual readers.

Happily for some, the subjects become more "conventional" for the rest of the 400-plus pages of text. There are profiles of such people as Sean McVay, Andrew Luck, Patrick Mahomes, Richard Sherman, and Tom Brady. Wickersham throws in a few change-ups along the way, which is nice. Care to know the backstory of the song "We Will Rock You" by Queen and how it came to be so popular at sporting events? It's here. I particularly liked a piece on an almost legendary if rare football book by Bill Walsh detailing what went into the job of head coach in the NFL.  

Some investigative stories are also included here. There is a seriously deep dive into what went into the not-so-simple transfer of the NFL's Rams and Chargers to Los Angeles. The anthology also contains a look at the demise of the Patriots' dynasty, which covers some similar storylines as his book on the New England franchise. Such stories do feel a little dated and complicated at this point, but it's impossible not to be impressed by the work involved. 

"Be On That Hill" is on the long side at more than 400 pages of text, and the attempt to emphasize mainly but not exclusively football in an anthology may not work completely for a few. However, those who take the time will find plenty of rewards along the way, and no doubt will take the time to seek out his work after finishing it. 

Four stars

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Review: It's All About the Players (2026)

By Peter Gammons

The title of Peter Gammons' book on his life as a baseball writer and broadcaster has something of a twist to it. 

If someone comes up to him and says, "I heard you have written a new book. What's it about?" he can answer "It's all about the players." Which it is. But he also gets to plug the title, which is a nice little literary trick. 

It would have been easy for this to be a straight autobiography. After all, Gammons might be the most significant sports journalist of his generation. He essentially pioneered a new type of baseball writing for his time, driven by information - piles and piles of it, every week. Gammons came out of college in the late 1960s and eventually found his way to the baseball beat at The Boston Globe in the 1970s. There he eventually became famous within the baseball industry for his Sunday Notes column, which became a must-read for everyone in the business. The idea actually was something of a throwback to the newspaper's coverage from more than a century ago, when baseball writers did something similar on Sundays. But Gammons gave it a more national frame and seemed to know everything that was going on in an age that made it possible.

Put it this way: One time I was talking with former Red Sox star Dwight Evans in the press box of Buffalo's baseball stadium in the 1990s (I forget which name the building had at the time). He said that if Gammons had been a general manager instead of a writer, he probably would have been one of the five best GMs in the business.   

Gammons certainly loves the game of baseball, from the seventh game of the World Series to a relatively meaningless game in the Cape Cod League in the summer. I would guess he got a huge kick about the time that he had his own baseball card published. But he makes it clear here that one of the biggest parts of his enjoyment of the sport is its people. We're off, then, on a tour through a variety of personalities that he encountered over the years.

That tour started in Boston, and so does the book. Gammons was around the Red Sox when they kept climbing the mountain in search of a world championship in the 1970s and 1980s, only to slip when it was often close enough to seemingly touch. Think Charlie Brown and the football that Lucy never let him kick. But the Red Sox mattered during those years, and stories about those teams are still fun. As a native Massachusetts resident, he joined in the thrill that was the 2004 season. 

From there, Gammons eventually moved on to the national stage, through work with Sports Illustrated and the ESPN television network. He didn't realize it at the time, but he was a pioneer among sports reporters who specialized in information and moved his act over to television. There was a stampede of TV people following in his wake. 

The switch meant that not only did Gammons' work have a national audience, but that he could broaden his scope beyond Boston and its Red Sox - although he seemed to have a soft spot for the team at all times. In the book, Gammons had the chance to tell the stories about his stories - riding the bus with Frank Robinson in the Caribbean, watching Japanese players cross the ocean and find success, being around Cal Ripken (Sr. and Jr.) during their remarkable times with the Orioles. There are even nice words about Barry Bonds - a rarity, it's safe to say - about how much of a student of the game he was, and how good he was. 

Along those lines, a chapter titled "Geniuses" was a great deal of fun to read. He has stories about such players as Greg Maddux, Johnny Bench, Robin Yount, Tony Gwynn, Wade Boggs, Mariano Rivera, and Billy Wagner. For example, one August Maddux was facing the Astros' Jeff Bagwell in a key situation of a game. Maddux had a rule not to throw Bagwell an inside fastball, but he did in this case - and Bagwell sent it into orbit. A teammate asked what happened to the rule, and Maddux said he did it intentionally ... because the teams probably would meet in October, and Maddux wanted to give something to think about. Sure enough, Maddux struck out Bagwell in a big moment of a playoff game ... with a change-up.     

The book also has stories about players who didn't quite make it, but were still memorable in their own way. Gammons' book ends with a collection of what he calls moments, with one of them centered on someone named Jeff Allison. He was a great, great high school pitcher in Massachusetts - a first-rounder by the Marlins. But he had a drug habit, and ended up in jail a couple of times. In 2006, Gammons received an email from Allison announcing that he had been clean and sober for two years. The ex-pitcher became a businessman in the Boston area with a wife and three kids, thus winning his own personal World Series ring.

There are a few redundancies that are told along the way in the proof version of the book. That can happen for a book that apparently was in the works for a long time; we'll see if they are fixed later on. There's also little about Gammons' life after the aneurysm he suffered in 2006. We find out that he got his memory back - important for a man who knew more about the game than a Google search. We don't find out much about its after-effects, or about his life away from baseball. 

"It's All About the Players" will remind its readers that there are plenty of good people out there in the game of baseball, and so its smile quotient is quite high. That's reflective of Gammons' approach to baseball and life. Be positive. To put it in a more appropriate way, tie goes to the runner. 

Five stars

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Review: The Chief (2026)

By Robert Parish with Jake Uitti

The Chief speaks ... finally.

If you followed Robert Parish during his pro basketball career, you probably know the story about how he became known as "The Chief." 

It starts with the movie "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," starring Jack Nicholson. One of the character was a big, tall, Native American who never said a word. (His name was Chief Bromden.) Well, Parish certainly was big and tall, and he wasn't particularly quotable during his days in the NBA. So it was an obvious move to call him "The Chief." Teammate Cedric Maxwell probably gets credit for coming up with it first, but it seemed pretty obvious that it was an appropriate nickname then and now. 

Now Parish has decided to talk, with a little push from his longtime partner, Esther. It's a bit of a surprise, but the 7-footer gives his life the once-over in his book "The Chief." 

Parish starts things off with his life in Louisiana. Yes, he was always tall for his age, but it took quite a while for coordination to set in. At one point in basketball practice, Parish managed to catch a pass during a drill ... and the team stopped the workout to applaud him. But eventually his body caught up to his brain, and he became one of the top college prospects in this country. That normally would mean that every coach in the country was coming to knock on his door, and that happened. But it turned out that Parish had a little secret in the form of a baby girl, and decided he needed to stay close to home. Robert landed at tiny Centenary College in his hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana. 

Parish was ruled ineligible for NCAA play shortly before his freshman year over a dispute over test scores. He argues now that the NCAA couldn't believe that someone that good would want to play in such a tiny college, and punished him and his teammates for it. The episode comes off in a cloudy fashion, but the team never did get off probation during Parish's time there. That meant no March Madness in spite of having a team ranked in the Top 20. 

Parish was picked eighth overall by Golden State in 1976 in the NBA draft, and spent four years developing his skills. The Warriors were falling down the standings after a title in 1975, and Parish got caught up in that. (Robert does write here about how good a player teammate Rick Barry was, and how bad a person he was. Hmmm.) Parish probably was something of a small disappointment, and the Warriors tried a major rebuilding plan that featured trading Parish and a No. 1 draft choice to Boston. The Celtics took Kevin McHale with the pick, and the swap became known as one of the most one-sided trades in basketball history. 

Parish arrived with Larry Bird and McHale in Boston, and the glory days returned to the Boston Garden. Robert couldn't be the lead scorer on those teams with those two around, but he was good enough to sacrifice a little offense in order to make the team better. That makes him a bit underrated in most circles, even though he's in the Basketball Hall of Fame and was ranked as one of the top 75 players in NBA history. Parish went on to win three titles in Boston, and fans of that era certainly will be interested to read about the legendary battles with the Los Angeles Lakers (or as Parish calls them throughout the book, the Fakers).

It was particularly fun to read about his time with Bill Walton, as the two teamed up for a one-two combination at center on the 1985-86 team - one of the greatest of all time. Their philosophies on the court meshed quite nicely, and Walton is always an interesting subject.  

Parish was the last man from that Celtics' dynasty to leave Boston, and he didn't even retire at that point. He spent a couple of years in Charlotte and one in Chicago as a reserve, adding a veteran presence to both teams. As a bonus, that last season gave him a fourth ring, thanks to Michael Jordan and Company.

It's a little difficult to figure out what Parish has been doing for the last 30 years. OK, he has done a little coaching, and worked on some basketball-related projects with various organizations. Mostly, it sounds like he's simply enjoying retirement. Nothing wrong with that. 

Parish has some moments here of surprising honesty in recapping his life. For example, he played with Larry Johnson and Alonzo Mourning in Charlotte, and he thinks they are Exhibit A on how stars shouldn't get along on the court. Robert also was willing to talk back to Jordan during workouts, which probably put him in the minority of mankind. 

There are some odd moments along the way here. Yes, he's been a big fan of marijuana for some time, and everyone in the NBA seemed to know it. Parish gives his side of the story about an assault complaint involving his ex-wife. He admits to pushing her; charges were never filed and the case was wrapped into a divorce settlement. 

Robert writes about his four children from three different mothers, which if nothing else must make certain holidays a bit hectic. Well, all families are different in their own ways. And while Parish sometimes apologizes for the use of profanity in advance here and in life, he's not too shy about cutting loose here. Well, the kiddies probably won't be interested in learning about someone who played in ancient times, relatively speaking. 

This is a pretty breezy effort, which can be read in a day or two. Parish does come off quite well in the basketball sense - someone who played the game the right way and was willing to sacrifice individual achievements in favor of the team. The book is filled out by favorite comments supplied by friends andfoes from his playing days. 

Add it up, and there aren't a great many surprises in "The Chief." If you enjoy reading stories about one of pro basketball's most interesting eras, this will leave you satisfied. 

Three stars

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Review: The Texas Rangers and Me (2026)

By T.R. Sullivan

It's difficult to say what comes to mind when trying to sum up the history of the Texas Rangers in a few words. The Rangers arrived from Washington in 1972, where the team usually had been perennial losers. You may have heard of the phrase "Washington - first in war, first in peace, last in the American League." The Senators only won one World Series title, and it took four innings of relief from Walter Johnson in Game Seven (after he pitching in Game Five) to wrap up the title. The franchise moved to Minnesota in 1961, only to be replaced by an expansion team that picked up the name of Senators again. The losing continued.  

This Senators' team also gave up on Washington and tried their luck in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in 1972, and things weren't much better. But eventually the Rangers figured out how to be good occasionally, which to be fair is about all anyone can ask of teams these days. 

T.R. Sullivan wasn't around for every pitch in the Rangers' history, but the reporter gave his best shot. He covered the Rangers for a newspaper and a website from 1989 until 2020. A 32-year run is pretty good in this business. Now he takes a look back at the franchise through some ugly lows and a few highs in "The Texas Rangers and Me."  

It takes some time to go through 32 years, and Sullivan launches through 38 chapters to review his career. The Rangers haven't had that many employees who might move the needle nationally. Alex Rodriguez, Nolan Ryan, Ivan "Pudge" Rodriquez, and Bobby Valentine might be the only ones who qualify. He had more than his share of characters and personalities, though. Pete Incaviglia, Ivan Rodriquez, Kenny Rogers, Josh Hamilton, Yu Darvish, and Ron Washington probably belong on that list - for very different reasons. Some of the others that come up along the way will test the memory banks of all but the most devoted Rangers fans. 

Sullivan does plenty of historical analysis of what went right and what went wrong. As far as I can tell from long distance, he is quite good at it. I'm sure his reporting was first-rate - to pay a nice compliment from someone else in the business. Texas had a two-year run to the World Series, falling in a particularly crushing manner in 2011. The team was one strike away from wrapping up that championship a few different times. The Rangers would have to wait until 2023 before getting that final out, but it came after Sullivan had retired. I'd bet he would have liked to have written about that moment at the time.

The book comes with a couple of issues. The writing approach means that certain names will pop up more than once in the text, and background information gets repeated fairly often. It's almost as if the chapters are self-contained, and the repetition is at best distracting. 

More importantly, Sullivan rarely puts himself into the story. In other words, there are a few tales about behind-the-scenes incidents and his reporting methods, but not too many.  More such moments - including the strain on the family - would have been nice. It would have been interesting to know how the author adapted when he switched from working for a newspaper to MLB.com. I'll throw in that there isn't much humor here, which is too bad. Veteran reporters usually have a zillion good stories to tell about life on the job.

It's easy to guess that a more personal approach might have made this a more enjoyable read for a wider audience. Even so, "The Texas Rangers and Me" ought to hit its target audience of baseball fans in that part of the world quite nicely. 

Three stars

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