While a sports fan, I've never been partial to sports books (a) as a genre, or (b) for the most part, from a specific author. Many baseball fans wax over Roger Kahn, or Red Smith talking about Enos Slaughter, and there are always specific books that I like. But the two sports book authors I like just because are David Halberstam and John Feinstein: and I'll explain why .....
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While the works of David Halberstam and John Feinstein vary - in no small part because Halberstam mostly wrote about current affairs, geo-politics and history - the two men have these traits in common in their sports books:
* Neither were prominent athletes in their own right
* Neither focus on "X's and O's" ... comparatively little between-the-lines
* Both describe the business aspect of sports, and who calls-the-shots
* Both tell you a lot about the make-up of the central characters
* Human interest stories abound, making figures real people in your mind
* Both also write about smaller leagues/teams/sports (with names not often heard)
* Both mention their liberal politics (albeit in often subtle ways) and
* Even if it's a person/sport I don't care about: by the end, they make me care
Like many of you of-a-certain-age, I first became aware of the writing of David Halberstam via his 1972 best-seller The Best and the Brightest - about the debacle that was the Vietnam War. The phrase referred to President John F. Kennedy's "whiz kids"— leaders of industry and academia brought into the Kennedy administration (such as the Ford Motor Company president Robert McNamara, who became defense secretary).
David Halberstam was born in 1934 and grew up in Connecticut, where he was a classmate of Ralph Nader before graduating from Harvard in 1955. And so of course, he set out for a job at the Chicago Tribune ..... New York Times ... well, he wound up there later: but first, as he perceived that the coming civil rights struggle was going to be a major development in US history ... he took a job at the smallest daily newspaper in Mississippi, then later worked at the Nashville Tennessean along with John Seigenthaler (the paper's future editor).
He wrote an excellent 1999 book The Children about the young people he covered in the civil rights era. Halberstam joined the New York Times in 1960, and went to Vietnam in 1962, which led inexorably to the aforementioned "Best and the Brightest" ten years later. Among his other works was 1979's The Powers that Be about major media newspapers and TV. And my favorite book of his was The Fifties - in which he argued that the 1960's were the manifestation of what took place during the 1950's.
But it was his branching out into sports books that made me a true follower. His baseball book The Summer of '49 - about the Yankees/Red Sox pennant race - was a best-seller, yet it swam in the somewhat-crowded-pool of post-war New York baseball (which having grown up in the New York region was old news for me).
It was his later baseball book October 1964 - describing the 1964 World Series taking place between the st. Louis Cardinals and New York Yankees - that I truly enjoyed. Halberstam saw it as the beginning of a new era in the game (with racial minorities now making their presence felt). The Cardinals' long-time broadcaster Mike Shannon told Halberstam that when he joined the big club he lived in a young single-man's part of town and was surprised that he received (a little) questioning about why he didn't settle in a family-oriented area.
The style that he exhibited there was a part of his other sports books: "The Breaks of the Game" (about the Portland Trail Blazers in the NBA), "The Amateurs" (about Olympic rowers), "Playing for Keeps" (about Michael Jordan), "The Teammates" (about four old Red Sox players) and "The Education of a Coach" (about the New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick).
Some of these books are better than others, and you may not care for the subject (or sport) of these efforts. But if you pick-up a David Halberstam sports book, eventually, you'll wind up caring.
And it is fitting that when he was killed in a horrible car crash in April, 2007 .... he was on his way to interview Y.A. Tittle - the quarterback for the N.Y. Giants football team in the 1958 NFL Championship Game against the (victorious) Baltimore Colts. Halberstam had in mind a book about that game, which historians look back on as - at the very least - the beginning of the modern pro football era, when it began to surpass college football (and later major league baseball). Halberstam was thus unable to complete the book, but for which one of the game's players Frank Gifford later did.
Two weeks before his death at age 73, Halberstam appeared at an April, 2007 event where he met a writer for New York magazine. And here is one question he was asked:
What do you think about President Bush?
Very simply, it's a national tragedy. It's not just a tragedy for him, that he will have gone down as such a failure. It's a great national tragedy to have at that moment somebody who has been so deeply, so much in over his head. It's so sad for us, as a country, for him. It's really dark out there. And we have a year and a half to go. This will be seen as a tragic moment in American life.
At age 55, John Feinstein is still very much with us. He writes an occasional sports column for the Washington Post and has occasional posts to his blog and has other duties on the Golf Channel, plus being a commentator on NPR up until a few years ago.
And in his latest book One on One - which amounts to his memoirs - he recounts many of the books he has written, and the people who made them memorable.
I had not realized that he spent part of his early career not as a sportswriter, but covering Maryland politics for the Washington Post. He said that he had stuffed envelopes for Bobby Kennedy as a twelve year-old, and enjoyed covering political stories from a warm and cozy Annapolis ballroom or bar, rather than trudging through snow for a college basketball game or enduring 100° temperatures at baseball games. But he said it was listening in the car radio to the finish of an early-season hockey game that convinced him that sports was his calling.
And a notable portion of the book is recounting his first book, the one that he says "bought my house". That was A Season on the Brink - in which he was granted extraordinary access to the Indiana University basketball team by its coach Bob Knight. Knight said publicly he was upset he was quoted using swear words - according to Feinstein, only 2-3% of them - and the two have had a difficult relationship ever since, even though nearly everyone agrees the book answered the question Knight hoped it would: "Why do his players put up with all of his crap?!?" After Bob Knight was fired by Indiana after one-too-many temper tantrums, Feinstein wrote a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed (no longer online) where he noted the many people expressing sorrow that 'it had ended this way' - but he then asserted, "It had to end this way".
And that has been the M.O. for most of his sports books (excluding some novels) - obtain near-complete access to a certain team(s) or an entire league - and try to capture the essence of what happens. These include two main areas:
College basketball - "Forever's Team" (about the 1978 Duke University team, his alma mater), "A March to Madness" (about a season in the ACC conference), Last Dance" (about college basketball's Final Four) and The Last Amateurs - about the Patriot League, with teams such as Bucknell, Colgate, Lehigh and other schools trying to compete yet maintain high academic standards, which he says is among his favorite books.
Golf - he had great success with his first book A Good Walk Spoiled - supposedly how Mark Twain described the game. Delighted with the access he has received from golf pros - despite the fact that most do not agree with his politics - he has gone on to write several more books, such as The Majors and the heartfelt story of Bruce Edwards - Tom Watson's caddy.
But he just might describe his most important golf book as Tales from Q School - which is the year-end qualifying tournament to be allowed to play in next year's PGA Tour - as the most nerve-wracking one of all, that few people know about. And he covers the participants exceptionally well, as it is their livelihood that is at stake.
He has other books, including two on major league baseball ("Play Ball" and "Living on the Black"), one about the pro tennis tour ("Hard Courts"), the NFL ("Last Man Up" about a season with the Baltimore Ravens), and one called Let Me Tell You A Story - about attending the weekly Chinese luncheons hosted by the late NBA coach Red Auerbach and a large circle of friends, discussing college and pro basketball and just about any other subject under the sun.
But he has said that he's most proud of his book A Civil War - covering the 1995 college football season for Army and Navy and how their year-end game is unlike any other, as the seniors realize their opponents will (shortly) become their comrades in battle. He notes that - for most college football players - football practice is the most difficult thing they'll do all day. For Army and Navy players: football practice is the easiest thing they'll do all day. And yet, the boosters at each school still ask when the next Glenn Davis or Doc Blanchard is arriving - star position players unavailable to the service academies for decades, now.
Along with Bob Costas of NBC, John Feinstein will be inducted into the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association’s Hall of Fame this summer. A Good Walk Spoiled and A Season on the Brink are the top two best-selling non-fiction sports books in history. But whereas I'm unsure what David Halberstam sports book to recommend first for a reader: for John Feinstein, it's his new book One on One as it covers his career, speaking of many sports.
My favorite story from it? He was in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1986 to cover Martina Navratilova's return for the first time to her homeland (before the Iron Curtain fell) when a story broke about a Czech hockey player (Michal Pivonka) had defected to the West, and Feinstein was able to garner an interview with his mother, being a Washington Post reporter from the city where her son would play. He was detained at the airport the next day by the Czech KGB authorities, just long enough for him to miss the only Lufthansa flight of the day. Except the flight had been held ... at the request of Martina Navratilova to the German pilots.
To sum up: if you get tired of reading political books (because they terrify or depress you, the way they do me) then before you have a long flight: go to the library and borrow one of these two men's books. Even if you're not a sports fan: you'll like the way they write. And your flight, train or bus ride will be more advantageous to your blood pressure level.
Now, on to Top Comments:
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From blue aardvark:
In her own diary about John McCain's 2008 opposition research on Mitt Romney (the discovery of which was excellent news for John McCain), AnnetteK responds to a comment by mama jo ..... by coining a new monicker for the former Alaska governor.
And in my own diary about one aspect of that research: crystal eyes delivers a zinger on McCain's "support" of the Autobot Decepticon.
From lineatus:
In the front page story about how Republicans feel they are underpaid: after burnt out calculates Mitt Romney's speaking fees .... a follow-up by Khun David brings the Gingrichian math to the fore.
From belinda ridgewood:
In the diary by Desert Scientist about Southwestern bird species extending their range as a result of climate change - Julie Waters posts a hilarious and fascinating video of a Russian crow - and links to an article about it.
From Dragon5616:
I had to send in this thread, featuring slksfca and JanF from today's J Town. For logophiles only (apologies to Purple Priestess).
From MixedContent:
In the diary by Socratic Method about how he is now all in for the Obama re-election: expatjourno goes to to speak for his disenchanted former supporters.
From indiemcemopants:
In tonight's KosAbility diary on the subject of Seasonal Affective Disorder written by Clytemnestra - this comment by wide eyed lib is an awesome and true comment about the effects of depression.
And from Ed Tracey, your faithful correspondent this evening .... ....
In the diary by Cartoon Peril about the disgraced captain of the wrecked Italian cruise liner Costa Concordia - commenter kat68 marvelled (like others in the thread) at the radio transcripts, but said that she was not surprised given her awful experience with that cruise line nine years ago.
In the front page story asking why Mitt is suddenly attacking Newt: susan in sc notes the increasing activity on her Facebook geiger counter about Newt's racial overtures.
Similarly, in the diary by chaunceydevega about dog whistle politics - noting a Q&A encounter between Newt Gingrich and a woman today, justmy2 noted that things are moving so fast, Newt thanked her for her praise about Gingrich "putting Mr. Juan Williams in his place."
Next: yesterday's Top Photos (as compiled by Jotter each day) - click on the photo to see the story behind it.
And finally, yesterday's Top Mojo - with mega-mojo to the intrepid mik ...... who rescued this feature from oblivion:
1) And here's a pic! by ATL Dem — 189
2) We have to embrace it, too. by Giles Goat Boy — 134
3) Ohio Here Tipping Our Repeal Hat Back Atcha! by Gooserock — 125
4) I don't like January. by Lightbulb — 124
5) {{{{{Julie}}}}} by rserven — 123
6) This is good news for John McCain. by psilocynic — 107
7) Labeling the boxes that way is great! When by Tamar — 92
8) Tip'd and Rec'd for Janitors. It is good honest by mrsgoo — 86
9) Feel better Julie by ivorybill — 85
10) Picture of my Cleo and some web pooties by Ender — 84
11) Thanks for posting that by Puddytat — 83
12) And he is supposed to be the best they have to by LaurenMonica — 79
13) Wow. I'm unemployed, the real kind by BoiseBlue — 78
14) Hi again Julie. Since I can tell from our diary by HoundDog — 78
15) President Obama opposes Citizens United. by TomP — 77
16) He played to the crowd...and that crowd... by David Kroning II — 76
17) For Julie, by ruleoflaw — 76
18) So typical of you guys in WI! by cany — 75
19) Get well soon. by eataTREE — 73
20) Well, I believe it's completely absurd. . . by Kascade Kat — 72
21) And in other news... by Brit — 69
22) Imagine my surprise by Dallasdoc — 68
23) The hand holding... by Giles Goat Boy — 67
24) please let us know what is happening by entlord — 67
25) Because we are a human community by Horace Boothroyd III — 67
26) Ouch! This is gonna hurt by MKSinSA — 66
27) Thanks for keeping in touch and letting us by beach babe in fl — 65
28) i heard John 'maven of madison' nichols on by dear occupant — 64
29) just let Mitt Romney keep talking by LaurenMonica — 64
30) The Commonmass household has a new moggie: by commonmass — 63