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, asd 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 magazine 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 follow 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 this 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 guys 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 spots 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 Sr. of the Bills made it too.

In the "best game I saw" section King opens by writing "Apologies to the Bills' 1992 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 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 both 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, having arrived for 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 spot.  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 isn't a bad excuse 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. There is a tale of the person who is in charge of euthanizing injured race horses at tracks, an conversation with Kobe Bryant's Colorado prosecutor after the basketball star's accident death, a (mostly) gay rugby team in the San Francisco area, and a relationship turned ugly between a NASCAR driver and his girt friend. 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 obviously covers some similar territory to 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 "mostly but not completely" attempt to emphasize football 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 Old Days of 90 to 100 years 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 be ranked in the top five of those holding that position.  

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 as part of a set. 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 magazine 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 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 Cap Ripken (Senior and Junior) 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 than 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. 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 long-time 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 and 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 make it 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 not 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 covered 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/foes 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 Texas Rangers in a few words. The Rangers arrived from Washington in 1972, where the team usually had 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 threw a complete game in Game Five) to wrap up the title. The franchise moved to Minnesota in 1961, only to be replaced by an expansion team - which meant more years of losing. 

The Senators 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 Texas days for the team, 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, Iven "Pudge" Rodriquez, and Bobby Valentine might be the  only ones who qualify there. 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 stories were extremely solid - 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 when the team was one strike away a few times from wrapping up that championship. 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 few 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 the obtaining of information, 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 to 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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