Third Reading Circle (Of Hell!!!)

Today's review is of two recent books that focus on baseball - although to varying degrees. Feeding The Monster: How Money, Smarts, and Nerve Took a Team to the Top by Seth Mnookin is a detailed history of the Boston Red Sox from their purchase for a record $660 million in 2001 to their World Series victory in 2004 and beyond. While generally they cannot match their hated rivals for soap opera, Mnookin shows enough behind the scenes vignettes to make it clear that there was always a lot going on in the Sox clubhouse and in the front office. It seems amazing that the team was actually able to play well on the field, considering the distractions, but in 2004 the Sox had the correct mix of "Idiots" to ensure that nothing bothered them.
No detail is spared and the Boston media doesn't come out looking too good in the book, but at some times a reader feels that maybe they are missing the forest because every single detail of every single branch of every single tree is being described. One of the important points of contention in the book revolves around a proposed trade for Larry Bigbie, yeah, that Larry Bigbie. The guy I hadn't thought of in about five years - if I'd even thought of him at all. While it is nice to know the backstory about such an interesting team, one feels like if there is an overarching theme or synthesis that allowed the 86-year-old streak to be broken, one has no idea what it is. But then again, I may just be a poor audience for good writing. I can recommend this book, Hard News, also by Mnookin, and his blog, which is great because it takes the New York Times' baseball writer Murray Chass to task for his nonsense.
It is quite illuminating to read the book now - as the Sox streak toward what could be another championship. It seems general manager Theo Epstein and the front office learned a lot from losing in 2003 and even winning in 2004. The current Red Sox are heavy on pitching, have good guys to put around Manny and Ortiz and seem to be focused on little beyond winning games. (Schilling can still be a bit of a pain, but clearly Beckett is the #1 now, which is good). The '07 Sox are a sabermetric dream and have their pitching in order - whereas the Yankees have kept buying bats with little concern about who is actually on the mound.
Now the heartbreak will probably be worse this year if Boston doesn't win the series because they are so good, but the management has set up a team that can compete long-term. While 04 was crazy, 07 seems relatively sane. I like Boston's chances even more this year, and maybe that is just what the book meant for me to figure out.
In the last reading circle (which I'm sure you all read numerous times and took notes on) I criticized the book that focused on too many different topics and lauded the one with focus, well this week, the tables are turned, because while I like "Monster," I'm going to recommend Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bronx is Burning: 1977, Baseball, Politics, and the Battle for the Soul of a City by Jonathan Mahler. The book is about just what the title says, and while I haven't visited New York and was not around in 1977, I feel like I know quite a bit more thanks to Mahler. Reading the tales about Ed Koch, Reggie Jackson, the blackout and the Son of Sam effectively brings one there to feel the heat and fear the looting.
As a baseball player, Jackson was a force that I never really got a handle on because I never saw him play and didn't quite understand the mystique. But reading the book reveals a conflicted character who had a perfect foil in Billy Martin. The trope is that only teamwork can deliver championships, but Mahler shows that the Yankees Steinbrenner purchased in 1977 who not pulling in one direction (more like about 10 different directions), but had the talent to overcome this fact and win. I wouldn't recommend it as a training manual, but it is a fun read. And it briefly includes Murray Chass (from 30 years ago doing his same job) seemingly a little bit better at that time.
Some of this territory was covered in Spike Lee's film (or joint, if you will) Summer of Sam, which I saw, but don't really remember that well. But the sections on Berkowitz are limited in the book, which focuses more on the mayor's race, the blackout and the Yankees.
For those who prefer the written word in visual form, a miniseries adaptation of the book will be airing on ESPN starting next month. Of course, remember this is ESPN, the studio(?!) that brought you Junction Boys (horrifically unentertaining, according to those who braved it), Playmakers (cancelled at the NFL's urging if ESPN wanted to keep airing the league's games), A Season on the Brink (which included Brian Dennehy eating his way through all of Canada's scenery as Bob Knight) and probably some other bad ones I'm forgetting.
However, the cast sounds somewhat promising, especially John Turturro as Billy Martin. Shooter McGavin as Joe DiMaggio? Maybe not, but DiMaggio isn't really a huge part of the book. I can't really recommend the series or not recommend it, but at least you have the information.

Second Reading Circle (Of Hell!)

I have made it known that my interest in the NBA is over, but some, for good reason probably, believe that I will relapse. As part of the cleansing process to ensure the end of my fandom, I chose to read two books devoted obsessively to the topic as sort of a "you have to hit rock bottom first in order to get cured" gambit.
The books were Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer: A Journey into the Heart of Fan Mania by Warren St. John and To Hate Like This is to be Happy Forever: A Thoroughly Obsessive, Intermittently Uplifting, and Occasionally Unbiased Account of the Duke-North Carolina Basketball Rivalry by Will Blythe. The beauty of writing reviews of these two books is that once you've actually listed the titles, you need only about 100 more words and you're done.
Hammer is the story of how St. John followed the Alabama Crimson Tide football team around during a season among the group of RVers who traveled to all of the games. It is a rollicking account that shows a rather absurd level of fanaticism on the part of the fans. Of course, these are the same people who showed up 92,000 strong at the recent Spring Game to get their first look at the spawn of Saban. St. John's book is simply a lot of fun. The tales of drunken Tide fans is enough for numerous laugh out loud moments that are the kinds of stories one sees on Cops. Despite the cursing, the drinking, the spitting, the fighting, racism and the all-around distasteful activities of those portrayed, St. John shows that at heart they love their team. They are driven (literally hundreds of miles each weekend) not first and foremost because they hate the other side (although they do), but it seems rather because they love the Tide.
This reason for being a fanatic, love rather than hate, isn't the point of Blythe's book. He is looking at why hating Duke is for him, a UNC grad, basically nothing more than a bodily function. Excusing the double negative, he can't not do it. But being driven by hate isn't a happy experience - it makes wins relief and losses tragic. Blythe has to live this fact for every UNC game and especially their clashes with Duke. While his book is more of a "writerly" investigation (longer, more flowery, more likely to invoke the memories of dead relatives) it isn't more fun.
St. John captured what it is to be in the moment - to be a fan when your team surpasses even your wildest dreams. Blythe focuses on being outside the moment and thinking of the myriad twists and turns that can turn happiness to disgust.
While nothing in either of these books can be considered healthy, I think love is better on the soul than hate. I can recommend both for an interesting read, but if you only have time for one, go with RJYH.
So where does that leave me? I never hated any of the teams in the NBA - I just liked the Suns the best because they were a good and entertaining team. But I think my interest has ended. A positively atrocious NBA Finals closed the book on my fandom for the Suns, the league and probably televised basketball in general. I think I'll always enjoy playing, but I don't think watching will ever be what it once was.
Letting go isn't easy, but reading the stories in this book make it easier for me to let go. I don't want to be anything like what I was reading about.

Reading Circle

I just finished A Season on the Brink by John Feinstein, the bestselling sports book of all time. It was its fame as a great sports story that led me to want to read it. For the last few years I've sort of felt like a person who hasn't read To Kill A Mockingbird - you know you should have read it a decade ago, so that has sort of kept you from even reading it now. However, since I have spare time - it's seemingly all that I have lately - I decided to revel in the books series of Knightmares (did you see what I did there? Yeah, that's why I'm a writing legend in my own mind.)
Anyway, the book is good but not great. I think so many people read it because it is like watching a car crash. Following Bob Knight around would be frightening. When you are finished with the book all you've really found out is that Knight does care about his players and he cares that they graduate, but you also konw that he is an extremely moody psychopath.
You can also see - even in 1985-86 - what is still Knight's problem in the college game. It doesn't seem that he can recruit or that he cares to. What is interesting is that it seems that Knight would be a better NBA coach than in college. In the NBA, he wouldn't have to worry about getting his players to class or about ensuring he had good players, he could do what he clearly likes - just coach the game. That is why he enjoyed his time as the Olympic coach in 1984.
ASOTB discusses Knight getting Isiah Thomas, but beyond that he shows little interest in recruiting. The best part about reading the book 20 years later is that it talks about Knight recruiting Damon Bailey when Bailey, now enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame, was only an 8th grader. Check that, Bailey was a middling point guard for IU, but Knight clearly loved him. Knight has yet to make a splash on the recruiting trail at Texas Tech, and I don't know if he'll be able to. The bottom line is that this book is scary. I don't know how Steve Alford survived - or why he would ever talk to Knight after what he dealt with. The book also clearly foreshadows Knight's future meltdowns, however, it doesn't take a psychic to know he would go over the edge.
If you care about sports non-fiction and haven't read this book, you should. Otherwise, your resume as a hardcore sports, and especially basketball, fan is in jeopardy.
Final note for those who may think it: Yes, obviously Knight would have a tough time coaching in the NBA because young men being paid millions of dollars wouldn't put up with his nonsense the way college players do. Maybe a team Knight coached would have to circulate its players out every four years no matter what. However, the underlying point about Knight just wanting to coach basketball, I feel, is accurate. In some ways, Gregg Popovich does a bit of a Bob Knight impersonation with the Spurs, but he is different in some important ways - such as not quite as moody and prone to bouts of craziness.
Final, final note: Coming into the halftime show, ABC chose to play Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" over the highlights. What does this mean? Is it A) support for the Cavaliers and their fans and their dream of winning four straight, B) a ploy to keep fans watching by encouraging them that one of these games will actually deliver something watchable or C) a wry meta-comment on the Finals' horrible television ratings by using the song that accompanied the final scene of the Sopranos finale? Choices or your own explanation is welcomed in the comments.