Review: Dewey (2024)

By Dwight Evans with Erik Sherman

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

So what do we do about Dwight Evans?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Three stars

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Review: Five Banners (2024)

By John Feinstein

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Four stars

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Review: A League of Our Own (2021)

By Damien Cox and Andrew Podnieks

When you take a trip to Canada to visit a used book sale, you never know what might pop up. However, the odds are pretty good that there will be a selection of hockey publications. 

In this case, I noticed a book called "A League of Our Own," written by a couple of familiar names Not only does it follow an unusual story, but it does it in an unusual way. This, it turns out, is a book with a split personality.

Let's go back to the NHL's 2020-21 season, which to be accurate started in January of 2021. The previous regular season had been cut down by the Covid-190 pandemic, and a "bubble" was set up in the following summer for the playoffs. The league managed to crown a champion, but conditions hadn't improved that much by the fall of 2020. Eventually, the NHL decided to stage a shortened season that would begin in January of 2021 and finish, well, whenever it was finished. A variety of rules were put in place to try to prevent a league-wide outbreak of the virus.

But certain concessions were necessary under the circumstances. Travel across the international border of the United States and Canada was much more difficult than normal, if not impossible. The league opted to set up an all-Canadian division for the first time in history. Teams in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver sure saw a lot of each other during those months. The rest of the league consisted of three divisions filled with American teams. Therefore, no Canada-U.S. matchups were set until the final four teams of the playoffs were set, by which time everyone hoped travel would be a bit easier.

Somehow, it worked - more or less. Some games had to be postponed when too many players on a particular team were put on the Covid-19 list. The schedule was adjusted on the fly constantly, and everyone connected with the teams had to be very careful about accidental "bumps." But we had a season, and a champion was crowned.

We are in good hands here with the authors. Cox is a veteran hockey writers with some good books to his credit, while Podnieks is more of a hockey researcher who clearly knows his history. They split the writing duties here, as Cox wrote about the 2021 season while Podnieks stuck to bigger topics in the hockey history of the seven Canadian cities. I noticed a couple of facts that were wrong along the way that concerned the Buffalo Sabres (a quote from 1970 and goaltending duties in 1977), but they won't concern too many people besides me. 

Cox has the tougher assignment of the two, and it shows. He has to cover seven teams spread out over almost 3,000 miles (Vancouver to Montreal), all during a pandemic. At least the teams played each other a lot in the somewhat abbreviated schedule. Still, it's tough to make those games interesting in hindsight. Podnieks goes back to interesting portions of the seven cities' hockey history, and raises some excellent points about where some particular teams went right and went wrong. 

So ... why isn't this book on Amazon, even the Canadian version? The authors self-published the book, and made an exclusive deal with Indigo (think of a store like Barnes and Noble in Canada, eh?) for distribution. No wonder this is hard to find in America. It's a rather professional job as these things go, even if the sideways photos and their captions are a little jarring. 

"A League of Our Own" is an interesting little souvenir of a particular time and place. Maybe it's not a great fit for American audiences, but those who stumble across it no doubt will learn some things about hockey in Canada along the way. 

Three stars

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Review: Iron Mike (2024)

By Mike Keenan with Scott Morrison

I once had the chance to interview noted hockey coach Mike Keenan in a small group setting. In other words, I was in his office in St. Louis with one other reporter after a morning practice. After about 10 minutes with Mike, I have to say I was impressed. He was obviously a smart person with some interesting points to make about our questions. No wonder he won a lot of games - even if he had a reputation as Hockey's Machiavelli.

Therefore, it was an easy call to acquire a copy of his autobiography, "Iron Mike." What would he have to say about his entire hockey career?

It's fair to say that Keenan puts his various sides of his personality on full display here. He had an almost unmatched passion for winning, and drove all of his players hard toward that goal - too hard, in some cases. Keenan also generated plenty of opinions from all who knew him. It adds up to an unlikely but successful career.

Keenan first received a little notice in our part of the hockey world in 1981. He was an unknown junior coach from Ontario when Scotty Bowman of the Sabres tapped him to become the head coach of the team's minor league affiliate in Rochester.  Keenan won a championship in the American Hockey League with the Americans. From there it was on to the University of Toronto for a year before landing the head coaching job with the Philadelphia Flyers - a team that was supposed to be rebuilding.

Surprise. The Flyers reached the Stanley Cup Finals that first season, losing to the powerful Edmonton Oilers. Suddenly everyone knew that the man could coach. Keenan stayed through 1988, when some internal problems cost him his job. Note: That last part of the sentence will come up again. Keenan landed in Chicago, where he led the Blackhawks to the finals in the spring of 1992.... but was out of work before training camp. 

The Rangers eventually called at that point, and Keenan was behind the bench when New York ended a 54-year drought with a memorable Stanley Cup victory. However, he and Neil Smith never did see eye-to-eye, and Keenan eventually left for a job in St. Louis. From there it was on to Vancouver, Boston, Florida and Calgary in various capacities. There were other problems with people along the way. Keenan now is getting ready to coach the Italian National team in the 2026 Olympics. 

By the way, Keenan has a bit of a surprise for his old friends in the Buffalo-Rochester area. He writes that he was approached by the Sabres to replace John Muckler as the team's general manager in 1997. There aren't any details, but it's interesting to wonder how Keenan might have done in Buffalo. For starters, would he have coached the team? In any event, the Sabres' future would have been much different had Darcy Regier and Lindy Ruff not turned up to run the team in 1997.

Keenan spends a little time on some of his coaching techniques here, and they weren't for the faint of heart. Yes, he would exile players to the locker room during practice for a lack of effort, threaten them with trades to other teams, etc. Occasionally a player - or players - would rebel. There were some frequent quarrels with team executives over personnel, as Keenan always pushed to acquire certain types of players that he thought could help him. It could be said that he sounds like football coach Bill Parcells in that sense. Parcells used to complain about personnel moves, and then issued the famous quote, “If they want you to cook the dinner, at least they ought to let you shop for some of the groceries.”

The acknowledgements are quite revealing when it comes to Keenan's level of commitment. He knows he drove himself and everyone around him too hard during his NHL coaching days, and paid a price for it on and off the ice (a couple of failed marriages are a reflection of that). Keenan once ordered a change of hotels in Washington on short notice because the team had lost in its previous visit there. He asked to fire a national anthem singer because his rendition was too slow. So be sure to read the whole book.  

It's a complicated package to fit into one mind, and it seems as if the book could have been even longer than it is. Still, "Iron Mike" is a chance to listen in on the thoughts of a personality that has been anything but dull over the years. Those who encountered him along the way in one form or enough certainly will be interested in hearing his side of the stories in full.

Four stars

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Review: 1962 (2021)

By David Krell

It doesn't take long for readers of "1962" to realize that David Krell's book goes into unusual territory. 

As in, the first paragraph of the book, in the acknowledgments, on page ix - right after the table of contents.

Krell, who has a book about the Brooklyn Dodgers to his credit, at first wanted to write a book about baseball's two expansion teams in the National League in 1962: the Houston Colt 45s (later the Astros) and the New York Mets. But Krell's writing teacher proposed making the book all about America in 1962, and not just about baseball. I guess the teacher wasn't a big baseball fan. 

Therefore, this book covers a lot of ground. Let's put it this way - you don't read many publications that mention Dean Rusk, the Secretary of State, and Roman Mejias, the Colt 45s outfielder, within the same covers. 

Krell picked a reasonably good year to look at baseball in an historical sense. The 1962 expansion followed the 1961 action by the American League of putting teams in Los Angeles and Washington. Baseball was starting to catch up with the idea that the sport needed to land in new cities in order to grow as well as fight off attempts from rival leagues from providing expensive competition. This particular round of expansion put the proposed Continental League out of business. 

Houston and New York were attractive as membership candidates for different reasons. Houston was a growing Sun Belt city, thirsting for big league status. Until 1962, there were no major league teams in the South; St. Louis was the closest thing to it. Houston became the region's team, at least until other franchises ended up in such places as Atlanta and Dallas. New York had lost both of its National League teams after the 1957 season, but was clearly big enough to have another team join the Yankees of the American League. 

Of course, baseball owners being baseball owners at the time, they thought that the new teams would be happy with crumbs in their first few years. As a result, Houston had a bad team for some time, while the Mets were quite terrible until their memorable turnaround in 1969. 

In the meantime, it was almost business as usual at the top of the business. The Yankees returned to the World Series, as they did like clockwork. The Giants edged out the Dodgers (who had just moved into a new stadium) in a playoff to earn the right to compete for a championship, and the final game went down to the final pitch in memorable fashion.

That would seem to be the good start to a baseball book, even if it would need a good summary at what happened from there. But it's merely one of the points covered in a very diverse story. It is roughly done in chronological order, as each month receives a chapter and covers a couple of highlights. 

There was a lot going on in 1962. The obvious start was the American space program, which saw some of the original astronauts head into space. There was the Cuban Missile Crisis in October, which almost led to a nuclear exchange. Three women receive mini-biographies in August. You may have heard of Marilyn Monroe, but the story about a woman who became the host of TV's "Romper Room" - only to lose her job in Arizona because of her request for an abortion - will be unknown to most and quite fascinating in many ways. An African American woman who graduated from the University of Georgia also is quite enlightening. Books, television shows and movies are also covered. (By the way, no other sports besides baseball come up, which overlooks the rise of the National Football League in those years.)

As you may have guessed, there's a problem with all of this. There's no unifying theme. The anecdotes are well researched, and Krell is obviously a smart guy who makes some good points along the way. But what does it all mean? That's tough to say. 

Come to think of it, it's difficult to figure out where to put this book on my bookcase, which is arranged by subject. Baseball? Nonfiction? "1962" will be of interest to those who remember the year. I'm simply not convinced that Krell wouldn't have been better off sticking to his original idea.

Three stars

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Review: Undisputed (2024)

By Bruce Anthony

Welcome to Fantasyland, Boxing Division.

Boxing is a sport that lends itself to mythical matchups. It's simple enough that fighters can be compared relatively easily, even when they lived in different eras. Therefore, it's always fun to try to guess who might be the best boxer of all-time.

That sort of discussion usually comes up when discussing heavyweight champions. It's the glamour point of boxing, since everyone wants to know who can be the so-called baddest man on the planet. The names are legendary - Ali, Louis, Dempsey, Tyson, Marciano, Foreman, Frazier, etc. 

But who was the best ever? That's the tall order taken on by Bruce Anthony in his book, "Undisputed." 

It's a little tough to know how good Anthony's qualifications for this task are. He is from England, and has worked in the publishing industry for all of his adult life. There are no writing credits, boxing or otherwise, available. But he obviously has put some time and effort into researching this book.

 

Anthony has an interesting technique at trying to identify the best heavyweights in history. He starts by picking the top 20 boxers in the class, dating back to James J. Jeffries, and presenting some background information including some ratings. Then he gives his personal rankings from one to 20.  

From there, Anthony sets up something of a fantasy boxing league. All 20 fighters fight each other in the imagination in a round-robin format. The best record wins the mythical title, That's a lot of boxing - maybe the number could have been reduced to 16 relatively painlessly. 

 

And we're off. Anthony takes an important step right away to making such a tournament realistic. He realizes that a good big man usually can handle a good little man. This wasn't much of an issue from, say, 1910 to 1960. A heavyweight was at least 175 pounds, and it was relatively rare to see one above 200. For example, Jack Dempsey checked in at 187 pounds, while Rocky Marciano was a pound more. No matter how great their skills are, they would have had trouble with the best boxers of the past 50 years or so from a physical standpoint.

 

The author also eliminates champions after the Klitschko brothers. In some cases that's because they haven't finished building a record. But boxing's list of champions has become so fragmented in recent years that it's difficult to figure out who is the best at a given moment. Better to leave that judgment to future historians. 

 

Then it's on to fights, one man's opinion about how specific bouts might fare. We all carry a variety of biases into such discussions. For example, I think that history has underrated Sonny Liston and Larry Holmes a bit. Liston was a terror during his career but didn't get a title shot until his 30s - heck, we're not completely sure how old he was for his first match with Muhammad Ali. Holmes was just awkward enough to be troublesome for anyone, but he came along right after Ali and suffered in comparison. On the other hand, Lennox Lewis and Riddick Bowe seemed a little too inconsistent in their careers to rank highly. But a book like is designed to start discussions. We sail through the 190 fights, some mismatches only getting a paragraph while others receive several pages.

 

There is some chance involved in a boxing match, as outcomes can differ. That's why there are rematches. Anthony's outcomes at least are rational, and there are some surprises in the final rankings. (No spoilers here.) And that's fine.

 

There are some problems along the way. The book takes no time at all to zip through. There's not that much material to begin with, and there is some repetition in the information about the boxers that could have been lost quite easily. It might have been nice to have a few different voices weigh in on the subject. Perhaps some quotes could have been found on the particular skills of a given boxer, even if those experts couldn't give thoughts on how a particular matchup might go. 

 

The writing can be a little clunky and cliched. The longer descriptions of the fights used in the glamour matchups sometimes go a little bit over the top. The use of some of the nicknames like "Bear" for Liston and "Rabbit" for Patterson came from Ali taunts, and seem out of place. It's a little surprising to me that the phrase "pissed off" is used along the way in passing every so often; a larger vocabulary would have been nice even if the phrase is allowed on radio/television at times these days.

 

Add it all up, and "Undisputed" is involved in a split decision. It will provide some fun for those interested in the subject, and that's nice. Just don't consider it the definitive word on the subject. Because there really isn't one.

 

Three stars

 

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Review: Talk of Champions (2023)

By Kenny Smith

It didn't take long for Kenny Smith to tell the basketball world that he was a man who could work in a fast tempo.

Smith turned up at the University of North Carolina in the fall of 1983, and needed no time at all to claim a starting spot as a freshmen. Practically no one ever did that for the Tar Heels in that era. Smith was also smart enough to realize that he was on the same team as Michael Jordan and Sam Perkins, and as a point guard figured it out to get the ball to those two. It's a little tough to believe that North Carolina only made it as far as the Sweet Sixteen that season, losing to Indiana. 

When Smith became an author in 2023, he more or less took the same approach. In "Talk of Champions," Smith moves the focus from himself to other people who have played a part of his life. 

Kenny and basketball have had a long relationship, dating back to his time as a child in New York City. After North Carolina, he went on to play for 10 years in the NBA. Smith won two championships, helping the Rockets to titles in 1994 and 1995. 

Once his playing days were over, Smith moved smoothly into a broadcasting role. He became part of TNT's studio show, which is considered by some to be the best program of its kind in television history. Smith worked with Charles Barkley, Shaquille O'Neal and host Ernie Johnson on a show in which you never knew where they might wind up on a given night, but you always knew you'd enjoy the journey. 

The people who helped Smith along the way receive a chapter each. Some of the names are instantly known - Michael Jordan, Dean Smith, Barkley, O'Neal, Kobe Bryant, Magic Johnson, Isiah Thomas and Hakeem Olajuwon. There are a few others that are included too, such as Smith's parents and his high school basketball coach. The lessons are targeted at his children, but the stories are universal to work for almost everyone. 

The anecdotes are wide-ranging. Dean Smith talks about how he didn't recruit Charlie Scott to be the first Black basketball player at UNC; he simply recruited Charlie Scott. Barkley and Kenny may have different viewpoints on subjects, but that doesn't mean they can't talk about them in private and public. Johnson gave Smith some lessons about how he became a businessman. Kenny and Olajuwon knocked down some cultural barriers that were preventing their team from realizing its potential. 

Smith is particularly good when it comes to racial issues. When he graduated from high school, he received an award that came with a tag in the form of the principal's remarks. He said that Smith made everyone not think about color during his time at school. Smith points out that it probably was intended as a compliment in 1983, but couldn't be more insulting from a 2023 perspective. Then again, when Smith was complaining about Europeans coming over to America to claim NBA jobs, Russell pointed out that "as an African American, you should never disagree with inclusion." 

By the way, it's rather obvious that there's no sign of a ghost-writer here. This seems to be pure Kenny Smith, much to his credit. 

This all goes by faster than a successful fast break, which is only appropriate. Most readers will be left wanting more, which is OK. Maybe Smith will have more to say in the future. In the meantime, "Talk of Champions" serves up some tasty morsels that will be enjoyed by those who try them.

Four stars

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Review: World Class (2024)

By Grant Wahl

Grant Wahl was in the right place at the right time during his too-short professional career.

Wahl came out of Princeton University in the 1990s, and landed a job with Sports Illustrated magazine. You might recall that the Nineties were the time when soccer had just started to make an imprint on the American sports scene, thanks in part to the placement of the World Cup tournament here in 1994. There weren't a great many sportswriters who knew too much about the game and how it was played, especially on an international basis. It was a perfect spot for Wahl, who had "studied" under future U.S. National Coach Bob Bradley at Princeton 

Almost before he knew it, Wahl was writing SI's soccer stories. No, they were never too plentiful, and they were rarely on the cover, but if you went searching for them they'd turn up. He'd found his niche. Grant also worked on college basketball during his time at the magazine. Those assignments lasted for almost 25 years. 

Then Sports Illustrated started to shrink in staff size, and Wahl was one of the casualties. Eventually he wound up freelancing on Substack, writing for an audience of about three thousand instead of many multiple times that number. But the readers were rabid soccer fans, and Wahl even paid his own way to major events to add his informed commentary to the conversation.

Wahl's career was unique in that he was the single unquestioned authority in his area of expertise, soccer. So when he died in December 2022, it was a particularly painful moment for those fans. The outpouring of sympathy was quite impressive and well deserved

"World Class," then, is something of a good-bye present to those supporters. It was put together by Alexander Wolfe and Mark Mravic, both SI alumni. It's Wahl's greatest hits, presented in anthology form and broken into a variety of themes. Realistically, though, the groupings of articles don't really matter much. We bounce from one subject to another rather easily. We're in good hands here. 

One way to judge anthologies is to count the number of stories that hold the reader's interest all the way through. In my case, I'm not going to say I'm a major follower of the sport of soccer. I've only written about it a few times, and know most of the rules and few of the strategies. Still, there were only a few stories here that didn't compel me to keep reading to the conclusion - mostly on international soccer subjects. 

Then again, some of the non-sports articles were definite keepers. Wahl's profile of then-new North Carolina basketball coach Roy Williams was written at just the right time. Williams had just arrived from Kansas, and he had almost Shakespearean doubts about whether he was doing the right thing. Speaking of basketball coaches, Wolfe and Mravic reach back to Wahl's Princeton days for a column on why legendary coach Pete Carill wasn't quite the saint he was often portrayed to be by the national media. 

Perhaps my favorite piece in the book has never been published before. It was a paper written for a course taught by New Yorker David Remnick about Gloria Emerson, one of the only women who covered the Vietnam War for a major media outlet. The experience left some serious baggage on her psyche, and Wahl's profile of one of his mentors can stand up with any story of its kind done by more experienced reporters.

The proceeds of "World Class" are going to establish a journalism award at Princeton in Wahl's name, which is nice. Those who enjoy good writing and reporting certainly will find this book rewarding. Those who are big soccer fans will take that level of enjoyment up a notch.

Four stars

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Review: The 2,003-Yard Odyssey (2024)

By Joe Zagorski

The Buffalo Bills' 1973 season was unique. When did missing the playoffs ever feel so good?

The Bills had been more or less dead from 1967 to 1972, at least as far as the rest of the league was concerned. They didn't come close to a winning record in that time, and had the first overall draft choice twice in that span. At least they picked a good year (1969) to be terrible, as they "earned" the right to draft O.J. Simpson - perhaps the greatest running back in college football history. But those running the team couldn't figure out a way to use Simpson properly, and the Bills still were awful.

Then Lou Saban arrived to coach the team in 1972, and he knew what to do: Give Simpson the ball. A lot. O.J. won the NFL's rushing title for the first time that season, so there was a little optimism going into the '73 season. Simpson magnified those feelings in Week One with a 250-yard day against New England, setting a league record in a victory.

Buffalo went on to a 9-5 record, missing the playoffs by a game. As for Simpson, you might have heard that he finished the season with 2,003 yards to set a one-season NFL record. He still is the only person to reach 2,000 in the first 14 games of a season. Buffalo was never the most glamorous of sports cities, but at that point it had the brightest star in the sports universe playing within its area. 

Simpson's achievement still captures the imagination, since there's only one person who can be the first to reach the 2,000-yard milestone. That makes it a reasonable subject for a book, and Joe Zagorski has jumped into it with both feet with his book, "The 2,003-Yard Odyssey." The problem is that the author seems a little too enthusiastic about the subject to be at all objective. Not many discouraging words are written here, and the relentless praise feels overdone.

The framework starts off well enough. Zagorski reached out to speak with several members of the team, including Joe Ferguson, Dave Foley, Joe DeLamielleure, Reggie McKenzie, and Simpson himself. He also has charts that outline every single one of Simpson's rushing attempts. It's nice to have those quotes and stories as well as that reference material in a book like this. 

But there are some conclusions that don't really add up, and several paragraphs that could have been lost very easily. A little more editing would have been nice too; the number of "admitteds" and "Author's Notes" could have been decreased painlessly. . 

Here are a few of the problems that come up along the way:

* Quite a bit is made here about the team's preseason record of 0-6. That's a little strange, since no one probably can recite anything about those games the moment that preparations for a regular season game begin in September. 

* While the Bills' new stadium is mentioned along the way, its impact on the team and the community is underplayed. At long last, Buffalo had a facility that ranked with others in the National Football League, saying farewell to ancient War Memorial Stadium (born in 1937) in the process. The pride that came with showing off a new home added to the enthusiasm level of the fans and the team. 

* While much is made about the Bills' run-first offense, and deservedly so, Saban didn't really have much choice. His quarterbacks didn't offer much in 1973. Joe Ferguson started most of the games, but he was only a third-round draft choice from Arkansas and wasn't ready for prime time yet. He threw for four touchdowns and 10 interceptions in 12 games, despite having two good receivers in J.D. Hill and Bob Chandler.

Meanwhile, Dennis Shaw had no TD passes and four picks in a back-up role. It's a surprise that Shaw was even on the roster that year. In Chandler's book about his football career, he writes about a 1972 incident between Shaw and some African-American youngsters who were near the bench. That caused a huge problem for the Black players on the team, who had to be talked out of rebelling by Simpson. Therefore, Saban probably should have gone out and found a veteran quarterback for 1973 who could have served as a mentor to Ferguson.

* The book generally moves along chronologically, but the Monday night game with Kansas City is moved back in the narrative for some reasons.  That was a big game for the city, since national television audiences for the Bills in those days were relatively rare.

* In a discussion about the secondary, Robert James barely gets a sentence's notice - even though he had become one of the game's best cornerbacks at that point. He was even a first-team All-Pro in one vote, although usually he finished behind Hall of Famers Mel Renfro and Willie Brown on such lists.

* Walt Patulski's problems on the field in 1973 are outlined, but the fact that he didn't get along with Saban doesn't come up here.

 * Buffalo's weather gets a few shots, particularly concerning a rematch with New England in December. It feels quite over the top. The Bills have had more weather-related problems in the last few years than ever before, simply because the schedule now goes into January and the team has had some success in reaching the playoffs. 

"The 2,003-Yard Odyssey" comes up short of being a clear-eyed look at an interesting season in football history. Those interested in the subject might look to Sal Maiorana's book on that era, "When Buffalo Stood Atop the Sports World" for a more professional accounting. 

Two stars

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Review: Why We Love Football (2024)

By Joe Posnanski

There are a couple of references to the joys of repetition in Joe Posnanski's book, "Why We Love Football."

One centers on Jim Brown. He was/is the greatest fullback in the sport's history. Occasionally the Browns would try to get a little cute about their offense. Then the light bulb would go on, and the team would simply hand the ball to Brown and let him run with it a lot. Wash, rinse, repeat. Maybe, that should read - wash, rinse, repeat, win. Brown would lead them into the end zone for the score, and good times would follow.

Then there's the story of the Vince Lombardi and the Power Sweep. Football fans can still picture it in the mind, as Jerry Kramer and Fuzzy Thurston lead Paul Hornung and Jim Taylor around the end for a good gainer. Lombardi had specific assignments for that play, and one time at practice at one time he did nothing but go over that one play. It was tough to execute perfectly, but the Packers were really good at it in the 1960s. No wonder they won a lot of games. No wonder it's now called the Lombardi Sweep.

In 2023, Posnanski wrote "Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments." A year later, he has come up with "Why We Love Football: A History in 100 Moments." The first book went over extremely well. Why wouldn't you want to try something very similar a short time later? Of course, you would. So it's good to see this football version arrives, and it still goes down very smoothly - as most of Posnanski's work does.

There are a couple of differences between the baseball and football version of the same thought. In baseball, the book more or less sticks to the major leagues. But the football side of the coin covers all of the sport. That means that we hear about Stanford-California ("The band is on the field"), among other interesting moments. High school ball isn't completely ignored either. So maybe that's why we go from 50 moments in baseball to 100 moments. There was a lot of ground to cover.

Posnanski's writing style probably works a little better with baseball. He does sentiment and romance well, and there's a lot of that in the history of baseball. Football usually has a little less of those qualities attached to it, perhaps because it has been a major sport for a smaller amount of time. It's a minor point, one that won't get in the way of your enjoyment of the book. Posnanski starts with Aaron Donald (he reveals the reason why later in the book), and races through everything from trick plays to NFL Films, from a rendition of the National Anthem to Appalachian State's amazing win over Michigan. 

Once again, Posnanski doesn't get hung up in the order of the selections (although the football list has fewer gimmicks than its baseball counterpart). He simply has fun with the choices.  By the way, I never saw the No. 1 choice coming, and I'd bet you won't either.

Posnanski hasn't written a book that's not entertaining yet, and "Why We Love Football" continues that winning streak. If you see his name on the front cover, you'll enjoy it and get your money's worth. That's the type of consistency we can all enjoy.

Four stars

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Review: 976-1313 (2024)

By Scott Orgera and Howie Karpin

OK, children, gather around. You're about to learn a lesson.

From the mid-1970s through the mid-1990s, there was no Internet, no ticker on ESPN, and very few all-sports radio stations. So how did fans keep up with their favorite teams? 

By phone, naturally.

Huh?

Yes, you could call a phone number and you'd get 59 seconds of scores and sports news on a recorded message. It was called Sports Phone, and it was an interesting transitional method of getting information to people. There was a small fee involved, which could add up quickly if you needed a score for one reason or another. A lot of parents of sports-minded children received a monthly surprise when the phone bill arrived.

Not too many members of today's younger crowd have heard of Sports Phone, and they probably would have trouble grabbing the concept. Thus it's nice to see Scott Orgera and Howie Karpin come up with a book on the history of the service. Sure enough, it's called "976-1313." If you were a sports fan, particularly in New York City, you no doubt had it memorized.

Sports Phone used to regularly update its "programming," with the frequency of reports depending on what was going on. For example, for Sundays in the fall, those 59 seconds would be changed every couple of minutes. College football Saturdays were as busy as you'd expect, with extra numbers pressed into service to include more scores. 

But it wasn't just scores. Often they used audio tape to sweeten their reports. It took a small army of reporters and editors to do this constantly, and it was an excellent was for young people to break into the sportscasting business. 

It's amazing just how many people are familiar to me, as so many did so well in their chosen field later on. The list is a long one: Shelley Adler, Gary Cohen, Linda Cohn, Jack Curry, Brian Kilmeade, Don La Greca, Bob Papa, Howie Rose, Andy Roth, Ken Samelson, Peter Schwartz, Tommy Tighe, etc. Those are the ones I know; New Yorkers no doubt can add to the list.

And there was one other employee who didn't pop up on the list: me. I worked for them from 1980 to 1986.You can find my side of the story here. Don't look for me in the book, though. I was a very small piece of the puzzle from my lone outpost in Buffalo, although the face that Western New York was included in the service does come up a couple of times.

Based on this book, most of New York's broadcasters of a certain generation sharpened their skills by talking into a phone. Ever try to give 40 scores in 59 seconds? It made a typical broadcast on radio almost leisurely. Others have gone on to other things, but still remember their days with Sports Phone fondly. 

And that's basically the theme of the book. It's former employees looking back on their days with Phone Programs, which usually was the name of the company on paychecks. The company did several phone lines, depending on the era, which generated plenty of money and profits for those involved .... for a while. The owners of the company could see the end coming as soon as ESPN2 placed "a ticker" on the bottom of the screen in 1995. The scores were constantly updated there, and there was no additional charge to access it. The numbers for calls soon fell off a cliff. Well, it was nice while it lasted.

Karpin worked on Sports Phone from 1980 to 1992, while Orgera did/does a variety of other sports-related work in a variety of ways. Their enthusiasm for the subject is impressive. The two of them tracked down many of those who worked in the New York office, and grabbed a few other celebrities who used the number in their work. For example, agent Leigh Steinberg kept track of his football clients by calling for scores, while hockey player/horseman Ed Olczyk liked to call to catch up on the ponies. 

There are a couple of problems with the book from the reader's perspective. It's easy to guess that the book is self-published, since the publisher is listed as "Press Pass Chronicles" - which comes up on a Google search only in association with this book. So the layout has a lot of white space and isn't too efficient. (Note: Can't say I noticed many typos in it, so the authors did a pro-level job there.)

Meanwhile, a lot of the stories sound the same. Yes, the staff was happy to pay some dues there, and look back on it in a nostalgic way. But the tales of working in press boxes work much better than the stories from the office, which might fit into the "you had to be there" classification. Between those two points, we could have probably lost 100 pages and made it a little less intimidating to hold.

By the way, Orgera must have set the all-time record for using names in the acknowledgements. There are 13 pages on that particular subject. As he writes at the beginning, "Since this is my first full-length book and might be my last ..." I'm not sure how he missed his entire high school graduating class .... or maybe he didn't.

I definitely needed to read "976-1313" to complete my knowledge of the operation and to pay a small tribute to an important step in my career. New Yorkers who used the service will have similar thoughts about a unique moment in "broadcasting" history.  

Three stars

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Review: Locker Room Talk (2024)

By Melissa Ludtke

We're coming up on the 50th anniversary of one of the biggest issues in the history of sports media, one that changed a great deal about how we hear about our fun and games. 

The subject concerns allowing half of the population to be allowed to do their jobs. Yes, it's the "women in the locker room" story. Those who don't remember the beginnings need to be educated as to how difficult it was for women in those transformative times.

Melissa Ludtke comes to the rescue with her book,"Locker Room Talk." And why not? She was front and center at the biggest battle of them all in this area. 

Ludtke was a reporter in 1977 for Sports Illustrated magazine, and she did some work on major league baseball stories at the time. In those days, you could only do so much reporting without setting foot in a team's locker room after a game. That catch was that baseball players needed to shower, etc., after games, and for decades they had simply gone about their business while male - always male - reporters milled about collecting information. So the locker room was part personal space and part workplace. While male reporters probably would be willing to whisper that interviewing naked athletes after games left them a little bit uncomfortable - the people covering Congress didn't have to worry about that - it more or less came with the territory.

But in the mid-1970s, more women started to enter the sports media and covered teams in the NBA and NHL. All right, that was where newspapers and magazines sent promising beginners to learn the business, and there weren't many problems. But in 1977, Ludtke was assigned to cover the World Series between the Yankees and Dodgers, and baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn decided that Ludtke couldn't walk into the Yankees' dressing room after the game even though she had been given a pass. And thus started a loud and at times juvenile debate (at least from many of the men) about women reporters' rights and locker room.

Not surprisingly, the whole thing went to court. Ludtke and SI sued Major League Baseball, and a hearing took place for a couple of hours. A judge more or less begged the two sides to come up with some sort of compromise, such as having players wear robes when they were in areas of the locker room space that were open to reporters. But Kuhn wouldn't hear of it, relying on his call that an all-male space was "in the best interests in baseball." So the judge had little choice but to tell MLB to open the doors to everyone, using the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment along the way. .

Ludtke became embroiled in all of this, of course, and the entire affair took quite a toll. That includes some health issues and a failed marriage. Not too many of her journalistic peers rushed to her side of the story, and she received plenty of hate mail - even if she didn't see some of it until years later. It's rather striking to read some of the comments from male journalists, particularly from names such as Red Smith and Dick Young. (OK, you might expect that from Young, but not from Smith.) They had views that seemed straight of Jurassic Park. Ludtke went to Time magazine for a while, almost returned to Sports Illustrated in an episode that showed SI wasn't completely innocent here, and moved on to CBS. The details of Ludtke's life aren't detailed from there, although it looks like she had some academic honors from Harvard and Columbia. 

It's interesting how the subject of women in the locker room eventually became moot in many cases. I have covered a variety of sports in the past several years, and I've rarely gotten close to the inside of a locker room. In many sports, coaches and athletes are brought to a media room for interviews. Everyone has a chance to ask a few questions. It's even true when I'm the only reporter there. With the Sabres, the players change out of their equipment in one room that's open to the media, but then walk into an off-limits area to finish changing and take showers. 

Ludtke brings up some comments by veteran sportswriter Leonard Koppett from the time the controversy was raging. Koppett, as close to an intellectual as anyone in the business, pointed out that a system that only allows group interviews will hurt the quality of the journalists' product. That thought struck me as I was reading the book. I remember in 1997 when the Sabres won a playoff series in Game Seven, I went into the Buffalo locker room and saw Garry Galley sitting in his stall (the defenseman beat everyone into the room.) He recounted for me his pleasure in seeing his teammates come off the ice, one by one, trying to figure out a way to express his joy. It became my lead to the story, and under today's rules I might not ever had the chance to talk to Galley that night.

But I'm willing to give up a little access to guarantee equal rights for all reporters in doing their jobs. Press boxes have become a more civilized place since women started to arrive in good-sized numbers, and that's a step forward. And where would we be today without the perspective of such sports writers as Sally Jenkins, Helene Elliott, and Christine Brennan?

As for the book, the main framework of the narrative centers on the court hearing. Ludtke chose to review the proceedings at length, often quoting the principals and documents word for word along the way. It's a bid of a grind to get through it all, at least for those without bringing a law degree into their background while reading. Along the way, the author does a little jumping through time in reviewing her life. That leads to some redundancies, and maybe some editing decisions could have gone another way.

But it is great fun to read about how people reacted to the controversy along the way - and how silly they look in hindsight. It's nice to have Ludtke's memories of that time down on paper; it's always good to find out a more complete version of a significant story like this. "Locker Room Talk" will force many to shake their heads and say about the era, "What were we thinking?"

Four stars

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Review: Bernie Nicholls (2022)

By Bernie Nicholls with Kevin Allen and Ross McKeon

It doesn't take Bernie Nicholls long to set the tone in his autobiography, "Bernie Nicholls." 

After a brief introduction to his life in the first chapter, Chapter Two is devoted to the pranks and practical jokes that he pulled during his hockey career. If that gets the idea across that this book is not going to appeal to the crowd that reads Doris Kearns Goodwin's books, you're on the right track. It's a slightly curious literary effort in that it has two co-authors; it's hard to know if the pandemic got in the way of the process of producing the book.

Nicholls was a very good player during most of his hockey player. He piled up some good statistics, compiling 475 goals and 1,209 points in 1,127 games. Those sorts of numbers have him on the fringe of discussion for the Hockey Hall of Fame. Nicholls broke into the NHL with a bang in the 1981-82 season, and stayed through 1998-99. He played for the Los Angeles Kings, New York Rangers, Edmonton Oilers, New Jersey Devils, Chicago Blackhawks and San Jose Sharks. The highlight was a 70-goal/80-assist/150-point season in 1988-89, but he was quite productive whenever he played. Injuries hurt him in the second half of his career, which probably kept him out of the Hall of Fame in the second half of his career. 

His life seems rather unlikely considering his roots. Nicholls grew up in West Guilford, Ontario, a place that almost could put the words "Welcome to West Guilford" on both sides of the same sign. It actually was about a mile wide, and Nicholls was related to many of the town's few residents. His home didn't even have a street address. The town is northeast of Toronto and west of Ottawa in Ontario, and it's near a huge provincial park so there was plenty of open space - and not much competition for ice time among the kids.

So let's take a youngster out of that area and place him in ... Los Angeles, where Nicholls first arrived in the NHL. Welcome to Disneyland, indeed. Nicholls became known as someone who could play quite quickly, and he also spread his wings a bit. His reputation for loud clothes quickly spread, and by his own account was someone who took his hockey seriously but also played hard off the ice. Nicholls points out that he stayed away from drinking and drugs during his life, but wasn't so resolute when it came to the other major temptations of the hockey life, gambling and women. There are a few stories in the book about betting on NFL games for example, a matter that might have caused some conversation had it comes out at the time.

It's hard to talk about Nicholls without bringing up the name of Wayne Gretzky. When No. 99 arrived in Los Angeles in 1988, he brought massive amounts of attention to the Kings. Gretzky couldn't have done more on the ice for the team, and he was a great boost for Nicholls. Bernie thrived as teams couldn't afford to worry about much else but Gretzky's play, which helps explain Bernie's 150-point season. Nicholls here explains about how the two men became pretty close friends, surprising in that they seem a lot different in personality. 

But a little more than a year later, the Kings decided to trade one excellent player - Nicholls - to the Rangers for two good ones in an attempt to add some depth to the lineup. After that first season in New York, Nicholls never had more than 25 goals in a season. The bouncing around the league continued through 1998. He did a little coaching for the Kings in 2012, and played a role in that team's championship.

There are plenty of stories about games, teammates and opponents here, and they are fine. There are also stories about expensive houses and fast cars. Nicholls' salary reached a million dollars a year at one point, and it's fair to say he got his money's worth out of it. He does spent quite a few pages near the end talking about how much he respected his father. That's nice, although Mom doesn't get the same level of attention, which is at the least interesting.

The book is a very quick read; I got through it in a day without much effort. As you might guess, it's on the superficial side. Nicholls' wife pops up only briefly in the narrative, mostly because of a difficult pregnancy that led to Bernie not reporting to Edmonton for two months after he was traded by the Rangers. The twin children don't come up much in the story. Nicholls did have a child die shortly after birth, and certainly that level of tragedy must have put all sorts of stress on the family. The couple split at some point after that. Nicholls writes here that he never went to therapy after that tragedy, and didn't want to discuss his feelings on the subject. "I don't talk about my feelings," he says in the book. That's his right, although it's easy for bystanders to wonder from a distance if that was the best course of action under those horrible circumstances. 

Nicholls didn't have many great team moments in his career, but "Bernie Nicholls" will supply some background on the hockey career of this very good performer. Just don't expect more than that, and the book will work as the story of a fish that wound up way out of the Ontario waters. 

Three stars

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Review: Game On (2024)

By David Bockino

If you been following the sports media during recent times, you know that the business seems to be changing by the hour these days. It's tough to keep up with all of the methods and choices that are out there, partially because the options turn over so quickly. 

In other words - used an AOL account to sign on to the Internet lately?

I suppose all of this started with the rise of spectator sports in the 19th century, when people began to have enough leisure time to participate and watch in physical activities rather than worry most of the time about where the next meal was coming from. The newspaper industry was cranking up its mass production levels at the same time, and it was a perfect marriage ... for a while.

But then, around 100 years ago, the business began to change. That's where David Bockino's book, "Game On," comes in. He's taken a good-sized look at some of the highlights of the big moments of development for that industry, and has put together a relatively easy-to-read guide to the subject. 

Bockino, a former ESPN employee who now works as a professor at Elon University in North Carolina, begins with the rise of a couple of different vehicles for telling sports stories. One was film. The Johnson-Jeffries fight had such strong interest that there was a demand to capture the fight that way so that it could be replayed later for audiences. Jack Johnson's victory over James J. Jeffries (who played The Great White Hope in that drama) led to some problems in the America of 1910, which in some cases wasn't happy about the sight of a Black man beating up a white man - even in motion pictures. 

The other came a decade or so later, when a Jack Dempsey fight with George Carpentier was broadcast on radio on a network of sorts in 1921. We didn't know what the future held at that point, but we could see and hear it to a certain extent.

With that we go on a ride through some important moments in the history of the sports media. Television displayed its potential with a broadcast of the 1947 World Series. Sports Illustrated offered a different perspective soon after its arrival in 1954. The NFL was allowed to sell its television rights collectively after an act of Congress permitted it in 1961;. The first Ali-Frazier fight of 1971 displayed the potential of closed-circuit broadcast of big events; you can see the link to pay-per-view broadcasts from there. 

Then there's the birth of ESPN, the opening of college sports broadcasts on a much larger scale, the rise of sports talk radio, the birth of social media, and the spread of sports broadcasts nationally. Lately, the decision to legalize sports betting in 2018 is changing the landscape in unseen ways as we talk about it. It's worth noting that Bochino spends some time on "foreign" events, such as European and Latin American soccer, along with cricket and the opening of the Chinese market to outside interests.  

Let's give Bockino credit for doing his homework. This is a well-researched book. Even someone who has followed events closely will learn some things along the way. That should keep you reading if you pick it up in the first place. The events might not be all interesting; I had a little trouble figuring out why I should care too much about sports media in Argentina. I'm also surprised that the demise of newspapers doesn't receive some examination along the way.

It doesn't seem as if there's an overriding theme that unites the chapters of the book together. Bockino does make a fair point that the sports media seems to be racing toward more personalization as a rule. In other words, fans these days can stick to watching a particular team or sport exclusively if they wish. They also can tailor the news through certain outlets to reflect their own interests. Companies can still make lots of money focusing on one team, but it's not like 60 years when fans had to take what they were fed. 

There will be more of that in the future, naturally, and we'll be surprised again by how fast the changed arrived. "Game On" is done well enough to offer quite a few rewards to those who are willing to pick it up and read it.

Four stars

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Review: Magic (2023)

By Roland Lazenby

One of the unforeseen aspects of the rise of computers in the publishing industries is that some books are getting bigger.

Because they can be. 

A friend of mine in the industry once told me that it became much easier to write a mammoth publication when paragraphs could be bounced around the page like basketballs on the court. Since it's easier to put words in than take them out, it's only natural to see books on sale that are a heavy lift when carrying them out of the bookstore or when toted to your front door by the guy from Amazon.

That brings us to Roland Lazenby's book, "Magic."

This checks in at an impressive 832 pages. My edition was on Kindle, so no muscles were pulled in reading this book for a review. To be fair, there are some notes and a bibliography at the end, so the actual text probably under 800 pages. We're used to that when Robert Caro is writing about Lyndon Johnson, but basketball players usually don't get this sort of treatment. 

Still, the subject of this book is Earvin "Magic" Johnson, and he's in rare air. Magic certainly ranks as one of the best basketball players in history - a unicorn as a 6-foot-9 point guard who could make opponents' victories disappear. Even better, his absolute joy in playing and his flamboyant style made him one of the few players in history that just everyone loved to watch. They didn't call the Lakers' style in the 1980s "Showtime!" for nothing.

Lazenby goes well back into the past in opening the story of Johnson's life, climbing the roots of the family tree back to the Old South. The Johnsons eventually landed in Lansing, Michigan. By the time Earvin was a couple of years into high school, everyone knew he could be something special - although it was difficult to know how special. What's more, Johnson's infectious personality was on display right from the start. As Lazenby writes about, Earvin played a role in helping schools get through some difficult times when it came to integration. Johnson even made some speeches to his classmates along the way.

The man who picked up the nickname of "Magic" along the way in high school opted to stay close to home in college by going to Michigan State. He played in one of the most famous basketball games in history in 1979, the NCAA final against Larry Bird and Indiana State. It was the start of a relationship hat would last a lifetime in various forms. 

You probably know what happened from there. Johnson joined the Los Angeles Lakers, and helped them win an NBA title in 1980. The championships popped up regularly through the 1980, featuring some epic clashes with Bird's Celtics that did wonders for the NBA's image. But then Johnson tested positive for HIV, essentially and eventually cutting his career short. Magic moved into the business world, and perhaps surprisingly showed that he was a quick learner there too. Johnson's wealth is well into nine figures these days.

Lazenby certainly has the time and space to explore just about everything at length, and no one can dispute that the major moments of Johnson's life are fully covered. There are even quite a few "I didn't know that" moments that pop up along the way, and not all of them are flattering. Still, the author captures the player and his era quite nicely. That's not unexpected, since he's written a number of basketball books over the years, many of them on the Lakers in particular. 

The last word about "Magic" comes down to a simple question. If you are intently interested in the life of this Hall of Fame, then you're sure to go through this book in its entirety with enthusiasm. As for the rest of us, we probably could have lost a couple of hundred pages without much difficulty - but it's still worth the read.

Four stars

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Review: Finished Business (2021)

By Ray Didinger

Ray Didinger had been following the Philadelphia Eagles for essentially his entire life. It started with parents who had the idea that there was nothing better on a summer afternoon than to go watch the team work out under a hot sun in training camp.

From there it was on to college, where he decided to become a sports journalist. Didinger quickly rose up the ladder from one job and newspaper to the next, eventually becoming one of the youngest beat writers in the NFL and then moved on to become a columnist. Eventually he moved into other mediums, such as working for NFL Films and in radio and television. 

Along the way, eventually he became one of "those guys" that became the most respected opinion on local sports in the area. Every city has a couple. They seem to tap in to what the community is thinking, simply because they are so familiar with how the population thinks. 

When Philadelphia won its first Super Bowl in 2018, Didinger did a little celebrating too - famously with a big hug with his son on camera. And he thought to himself that an NFL championship was just the bow he needed to tie his life in sports together in the form of an autobiography of sorts.

That book is called "Finished Business," and it holds up very nicely as a readable look back at an interesting career. 

One of the good parts about books like this centers on the basic job of reporters. That is to say, they rely on the kindness of strangers for information. Yes, Didinger's life story is covered here. But it's basically a clothesline to hang stories about famous athletes and personalities. Since Philadelphia is a big town, its stars are well known nationally.

Therefore, there's information about a variety of athletes from an upclose viewpoint. Bobby Clarke. Mike Schmidt, Julius Erving. Dick Vermeil. Some other characters come up who might be a little less familiar to national readers, like Eagles' owner Leonard Tose and wrestler Sergeant Slaughter. 

The best chapter in the book, though, might have been the next-to-last one, though. It's the story of Didinger's relationship with Hall of Fame wide receiver Tommy McDonald. Ray first met him as a seventh grader at training camp as he walked back to the locker room after practice with him. It became a ritual that took place over the course of six years. Much later, the two were reunited in a different way - even if Didinger didn't immediately reveal the old-time connection to McDonald. Ray played a role in Tommy's induction in Canton, and they remained close until he died. Didinger even wrote a play about their relationship; it sounds like it would be worth seeing, even outside of Philadelphia.

There are a few excerpts from his writing here, enough to give you an idea of his style. But there's a book that's a collection of his work from 2007 that is available elsewhere. This is a more personal story, and the reviews of it on Amazon.com are downright rapturous.

Admittedly, I'm an easy target for stories from sportswriters, especially the veterans. But "Finished Business" goes down very smoothly - as you'd expect. Let's put it this way: You don't have to be from Philadelphia to enjoy it. 

Four stars

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Review: The Greatest Comeback (2022)

By John U. Bacon

Do you like oral histories?

Hockey fans who pass that test certainly will like "The Greatest Comeback," even if the structure of the book doesn't completely fit the traditional description of that technique. 

It's a look back at the famous 1972 hockey series between Canada and the Soviet Union. For those of you who weren't paying attention back then, there's never been anything quite like this in sports. Canadians essentially invented the sport and developed it and its world dominance hadn't been questioned for decades. But after World War II, the Soviets came along with a completely new way of playing the game. It featuring puck possession, speed and conditioning. They eventually began to dominate international competition, although the Canadians usually were excluded from such matches as the Olympics because of their professional status. (Yes, we know the Soviet team was paid to play hockey by the government, but it was all part of the gamesmanship going on.)

With nothing else left to prove, the Soviets challenged the Canadians hockey to a series of games Team Canada accepted the offer, figuring in many cases that they could simply cruise to an easy victory and maintain its reputation as the world's ultimate hockey power. Overconfidence is never becoming in sports, and it can come back to bite you. Ask the Soviet hockey team of 1980, which figured it would have no trouble with a bunch of college kids from the United States at the Olympics in Lake Placid. Some on this side of the pond, including general manager Punch Imlach of the Buffalo Sabres, in 1972 figured Canada would win all eight games easily.

But it didn't work out that way. Team Canada was an all-star squad at the start without much of a sense of team. The players had enjoyed the summer off and weren't in top shape. And the administrators had made some decisions about such factors as scheduling and officials that didn't help. It's tough to describe the reaction in Canada to Game One of the series - a stunning 7-3 loss in Montreal. It only took a dozen minutes in that game for Paul Henderson of Team Canada to note, it was going to be a loooooong series.

But as we know now, Team Canada eventually got its act together. It started thinking like a team, and playing like one too. Fitness came around, and the coaches made adjustments in reacting to the Soviet's approach. The result was out of a storybook - three straight wins in Moscow to capture the series, 4-3-1. Was it the Greatest Comeback Ever? Under the circumstances, you could make a good case for it. Meanwhile, there are open fields in Canada because of all of the trees that needed to be chopped down in order to print all of the books printed on this matchup. 

What was it like for Team Canada to go on that ride? Answering that question was Bacon's biggest task. He managed to talk at great length to just about everyone connected with the squad, as well as a few others. Even the players' wives chipped in with some valuable memories. Bacon also had books by Harry Sinden and Ken Dryden that were written as the series progressed, and he talked some others such as Wayne Gretzky - who was watching as a youngster back in Ontario. It's all edited together nicely with a ton of quotes along the way, supplying the same effect as an oral history.

It's that effort that makes this book a winner. We read about what all of the players were thinking along the way, on and off the ice. As an example, the NHL players rarely even spoke to opposing players in that era - even at All-Star Games. That created some walls that had to be broken down. By the end of the series, though, they realized that they were forever linked as participants in what was voted as one of the most significant events in Canadian history. The Soviets are kept at a distance here, and that really doesn't hurt the story much. There are books out there that cover that angle if you are interested.

There are all sorts of details of the series here that hadn't come up elsewhere. For example, four players left the team about halfway through as something of a protest about a lack of playing time. Two of them were Sabres - Gil Perreault and Rick Martin. I can't say I've read much about that particular aspect of the series, but the departure is covered quite thoroughly here. The reaction of the rest of the team, by the way, seems like it could be summed up with "good riddance." Bacon even comes up with the answer to a great Buffalo trivia question - what were Perreault and Martin's uniform numbers for the series? (It's 33 and 36 respectively.)

Bacon hasn't received enough acclaim for his work over the years. That's probably because he has written several books about the University of Michigan. That's a rather limited audience, particularly in the state of Ohio. But I've read a few of his books, and they've all been extremely well done. His name on the cover means you'll get something good. 

Meanwhile, the effects of that 1972 series linger to this day. The game we see today on the ice is a hybrid of the two styles that clashed back then. The skill level and pace of the game has improved drastically as a result. "The Greatest Comeback" is a full and readable account of how the road taken by the sport began. Even more than 50 years later, it's more than worth your time.

Five stars

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Review: Out of Left Field (2024)

By Stan Isaacs; edited by Aram Goudsouzian

This is one sports book that starts off with a mystery - and it's one that's difficult to solve.

Stan Isaacs had a nice run during most of the second half of the 20th century as a sportswriter. Most of that time was spent with Newsday, a daily newspaper that served Long Island. Eventually, he retired, and died in 2013.

Now, 11 years later, we have his autobiography, "Out of Left Field." That was the name of his column at Newsday for much of his time there. So ... where has it been? Sitting in a file cabinet or on a computer disk somewhere? There's no apparent explanation either in the book or elsewhere.

What is known is that Aram Goudsouzian did some editing to the manuscript, and convinced the University of Illinois Press to publish it. Now everyone can read "Out of Left Field."

And that's a good thing. Isaacs always wrote with a distinctive voice, and it's good to have a book full of his thoughts on an eventful career. He influenced such people as Tony Kornheiser and Keith Olbermann.

The title gives an indication of the way that Isaacs thought. When an idea comes from "out of left field," it's considered away from the mainstream and unconventional. That's Stan. This is a man who was always on the lookout for different ways of telling a story. 

For example, the Kansas City Athletics one time put sheep on a grassy section of their ballpark just beyond the outfield fence. He went out and watched a game with them one time. For example, Isaacs happened to be near the spot where George Washington allegedly threw a dollar over a river. So he investigated, and found with it probably could have been done with a metal coin and someone with a good arm (which Stan didn't quite have, although he missed by only a few feet). It's a narrow river. 

Isaacs had some company in that part of the sports world. He was part of the relatively famous "Chipmunks" of the early 1960s. This was a group of baseball writers who followed the Yankees at a time when sportswriters were expected to be so thrilled about following such a mighty institution that they didn't write anything critical and were content to consume free food and drink. Leonard Shechter and Larry Merchant were also a main part of that unconventional approach, and they picked up the nickname because of the protruding teeth of one of their fellow writers. Shechter, by the way, became famous as the coauthor of Jim Bouton's "Ball Four." 

In his job, Isaacs covered a variety of big events around the world, from league championships to the Olympics. He also encountered a variety of big-name personalities. Did you hear about the time the Beatles met Muhammad Ali? Stan was in the room. And he wasn't above having a little fun along the way. Like the time he made up a trade rumor involving Yogi Berra if only to see if it would come back to him. (It did.) Or the time he "liberated" the championship banner of the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers after the team moved to Los Angeles. Isaacs helped return it to its original home, where it hangs in a museum. 

There are some fun stories along the way, too. I particularly liked how someone had the idea of writing a somewhat sexy novel, and enlisted a couple of dozen members of the Newsday staff to write a chapter each. After some editing to eliminate the rough edges, the book was published and sold some copies. Then word came out about the backstory ... and it popped up on the best-seller list. Isaacs and all of the other writers split the proceeds, which came out to be several thousand dollars each. A movie version wasn't quite as successful.  

There are a couple of points that a potential reader should know going in. First of all, Isaacs was an unabashed liberal throughout his life. That occasionally popped up in his work, but it certainly influenced his thinking from childhood (a big fan of both Roosevelts) until the end. For example, he felt a little guilty about posing for a photo in 1969 with President Richard Nixon for decades. If you have trouble with that, you've been warned.

Second, the target audience for a book like this skews old. Some of the fun is hearing about Isaac's impressions of the people he encountered along the way. But those names are going to be ancient history to most people reading now, and the delay in publication probably worsened that issue. Some of the issues have changed too. A chapter on hypocrisy and the Olympics feels dated now. All of the scandals that Isaacs mentions have taken a bit of a toll on the Olympic movement and its popularity, although it's still a very valuable piece of television programming property.

The key point, though, is that Isaacs and his unique approach to sports writing always has been worth reading, and it remains so today. "Out of Left Field" is a brisk look back at an original thinker. Most sports fans will enjoy it on some level, although the older crowd represents the sweet spot of the main demographic.

Four stars

Learn more about this book from Amazon.com. (As an Amazon affiliate, I earn money from qualified purchases.)  

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