Book Review: The Swinger

Rusty takes a break from NASCAR to look at Michael Bamberger and Alan Shipnuck's new novel, The Swinger.


If you don't pick up on it reading the dust jacket or reviews like this one, you will just a few pages into the book. This is Tiger Woods' story. The Swinger, a novel by Michael Bamberger and Alan Shipnuck is a work of fiction, though any sports fan will quickly see the parallels between the book and reality.

The story is told from the vantage point of down-on-his-luck sports writer, Josh Dutra. Dutra makes the move of his career when he joins the team of super star golfer, Herbert "Tree" Tremont Jr. Tree has carved out a nearly picture perfect existence at the top of the U.S. golf game, including a hot trophy wife, perfect kids, and more money and endorsements than Donald Trump. From the inside, Dutra watches Tree's life spiral out of control when his perfectly manipulated public image is shattered.

Even though this book was as nearly predictable as a children's comedy, it kept me turning the pages, and quickly. Bamberger and Shipnuck have crafted an inside view into the modern world of sports media and golf. Their easy writing style and goofy humor - Tree's home is called Tree House - make this an easy-to-read page turner. The story balances between real life and complete fabrication seamlessly. Tree's little marital fracas involving a fire poker was lifted right from the headlines. How he ends up dealing with his ultimate downfall is complete fiction, though, and in my opinion the best part of the book.

SPOILER ALERT

After he hits complete rock bottom and has been outed as a promiscuous pill popping sex freak, Tree takes his writer friend to rehab and undergoes a transformation never before seen in real life. Throughout the book, the authors keep you turning the pages looking for the next shoe to drop or the next scandal to unfold. At the end, though, they tell us a story of how life could and should be. It becomes a story of forgiveness and redemption. You turn the pages with a smile on your face and hope in your heart.

Don't get me wrong, the book doesn't have a fairy tale ending with Tree and Dutra marching off into the sunset. His pain and suffering remains real. His redemption is stronger though, and the authors make that clear as they weave the final threads of this great story.

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Blogs With Balls Radio, Episode 31

This week we interview Bogs With Balls 3 panelist and author of the recently-released The Extra 2%.

Blogs with Balls Show - Episode 31 by Blogs with Balls

Jonah, with the distinction of being both a baseball and financial journalist, was the perfect choice to pen a book that looked at how three baseball neophytes (two owners and their GM) took the lessons and strategies they learned on Wall Street to turn the Tampa Bay [Devil] Rays from a perennial cellar- dweller to a legitimate contender in the powerhouse AL East.

Playing a central roll in the story of the Rays is former owner Vince Naimoli, whom Keri paints as squandering all goodwill the had in the St. Pete’s community upon the team's inaugural season due to his penny-pinching, ego-maniacal ways. He dug a hole out of which his successors are still struggling to climb.

In addition to several of those personalities (new and old management) and their quirks and approaches, Jonah talks about the process of researching and writing a book on a team that now prides itself on secrecy.

We also talk about some of the baseball philosophies employed by those individuals such as the Ray’s practice of “arbitrage,” which - in a nutshell - is signing young players for long term, inexpensive deals with clauses giving the team a ton of leverage and value.

Jonah was able to find a Michael Lewis-esq balance in packaging a business book into a baseball book without drifting too far in either direction so that it would off-put partisans, and may even will leave you rooting for the Rays.

This week’s links of interest:

• The Extra 2% (Amazon)
• JonahKeri.com
• Jonah Keri Podcast (iTunes)
• @JonahKeri
• Baseball Prospectus

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Remembering Fenway Park - A Book Review

On Truck Day of all days, we received an advance copy of Remembering Fenway Park: An Oral and Narrative History of the Home of the Boston Red Sox by Harvey Frommer. We enlisted CK, a Red Sox Rooter of the highest caliber, with a fancy English degree to boot, to provide HHR with her review:

GUEST POST by CK

Since 2004, a plethora of Red Sox coffee table books have popped up on bookstore shelves, tempting the Nation with glossy photos of Papi and Papelbon. This coffee table book is different because it’s not a simple tribute to a team (after all, as my father loves to remind me, you’re just rooting for laundry); rather, it’s a tribute to a place. To Fenway Park itself, the open-air, time-battered, peanut-shell-carpeted cathedral that is the Rome, the Jerusalem and the Mecca of this very odd religion. Although the Red Sox existed before Fenway, this book begins in 1912, just a few days after the Titanic sank, when Boston Mayor Honey Fitz (grandfather of JFK, RFK and Ted Kennedy) threw out the ceremonial first pitch of Fenway’s inaugural season.

In Remembering Fenway Park, Harvey Frommer, a historian with a slew of books to his name (including, incidentally, one titled Remembering Yankee Stadium [Link Redacted. Go Sox! --Ed.]), has undertaken the ambitious task of chronicling Fenway Park’s colorful life of nearly a century. There were probably a lot of different formats he could have used, and most of them would have been horrifically boring. But the book’s organization renders the formidable subject matter manageable. First, the book isn’t exclusively focused on the place, but it does constantly strive to place the story in its unique physical setting, exploring how time has shaped the place, and how the place has shaped the team and the game. Second, Fenway’s story is told in ten chapters -- one for each decade -- enabling fans to flip to the era they’re particularly nostalgic for. Each chapter focuses on the main events in the life of Fenway Park during that decade -- the highlights of each season, the changes to the physical structure of Fenway, the doings of the main characters (the ownership, management, and players), and the team’s waxing and waning fortunes on the diamond and at the turnstiles. All of this is placed, at least in broad strokes, in the context of larger events across these decades -- how the Depression impacted the club, how World War II and Korea impacted the game as players headed to war, how the move toward racial integration came late to Fenway. Each chapter is generously accompanied by beautiful photographs from the decade, and the pages are littered with images of period ticket stubs, baseball cards and other ephemera, giving you the feeling of flipping through a scrapbook.

I am not sure how many people will read it, as I did, cover to cover; it’s long and physically a large book, and I suspect that many will flip to their favorite time periods, skimming the rest and enjoying the photographs. But reading the history of Fenway from start to finish is a unique experience, because it gives a sweeping sense of the evolution of the city, the park, the team and the game. What the Yawkeys did for the franchise during their long ownership; what Teddy and Yaz meant to their teammates and fans; how Pesky became an institution; how the park, through additions of lights, the Citgo sign, extra seats and a hundred other tiny changes, finally became the place you see today. The book also gives you a sense of what doesn’t change. For example, I chuckled at the account of the media hype leading up to a 1912 pitching battle between two marquee names; the frenzy around Boston’s Smokey Joe Wood and Washington’s Walter Johnson is the same frenzy we’ve seen before a Clemens-Pedro matchup, among countless other pairings. And it’s not trying too hard to be a “serious” history book; it contains smatterings of the jokes, nicknames and urban legends that spring up around the Sox, courtesy of their colorful fans.

The defining feature of this book, however, is the voices. It tells the story of Fenway in part through traditional historical narrative, and in part through direct quotes from those who were there. For the early decades of the twentieth century, the author often relies, by necessity, on quotes from newspaper accounts and similar sources to recreate a soundtrack to accompany the historical facts. But as the book progresses, he is able to weave in more and more quotes from recent interviews with people who can offer their own impressions of Fenway and the events that shaped it. And this is where the book shines.

The interviewees include the usual suspects: former Red Sox players (from 1930s pitcher Bill Werber to recent favorite Lou Merloni); players from elsewhere, recalling their experiences as the “away” team at Fenway; former coaches and managers; sports journalists. Names that echo in the legends of Fenway: Bobby Doerr, Pumpsie Green, Luis Tiant, beloved radio announcer Joe Castiglione.

But it’s the unexpected voices that charm you. Frommer has compiled the recollections of the folks behind the scenes, whose names you never knew -- the longtime groundskeeper, the scoreboard operator, the front-office staffers. He’s compiled memories from ordinary mortals who managed to weave themselves into the life of Fenway Park as ushers, tour guides and vendors. And he’s even given a voice to the fans themselves, those who made the pilgrimage to Fenway Park and just love to tell the story. Some of the fans interviewed have achieved some measure of fame for reasons unrelated to the Sox: former Massachusetts governor Mike Dukakis, Congressman Ed Markey, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Walter Mears, musician John Pizzarelli. But they’re only here in this book to tell you about their memories of Fenway; Dukakis recalls taking the bus to Kenmore Square with his big brother in the late ‘30s, while Markey recalls the feverish anticipation (and ensuing heartbreak) of the 1999 playoffs. The recognizable names are democratically interspersed with the Everyman voices -- schoolteachers, clergymen, a dermatologist from Vermont and a car salesman from Connecticut -- literally dozens of Fenway faithful who were in the stands for big games or for insignificant ones. These are the voices I loved. They are glimpses of generations of fans and how they felt as they made the trip to Kenmore by subway or in the family station wagon; as they navigated the turnstiles and the dark hallways, up the ramps into the light, and laid eyes on that green little island in the middle of the city; as they left the park dejected or elated.

The book is at its best when it lets these voices speak for themselves. Truth be told, some of the prose that fills the gaps between the interviews is unwieldy, at times marred by awkward syntax and occasionally bordering on unreadable. Granted, Frommer had to synthesize mounds of historical data and try to create a narrative arc from it, but I was frustrated by the sometimes tortured results. A few choice representative passages:

“The unusual throughout the decades seemed to always be a part of Fenway action. Case in point was on September 21 [1958] as the Red Sox completed a three-game sweep of the Senators all by 2-0 shutouts spun by Tom Brewer, Frank Sullivan and Ike Delock.”

Oof. Or this:

“Three days later, after the last man to hit .400 anniversary, the Red Sox defeated the White Sox, 9-6, in a night game that stretched on through 4 hours and 11 minutes -- a new league record for a nine-inning night game, 9 minutes longer than the previous nocturnal marathon.”

Guh. The English major in me had to periodically resist the urge to get out a red pen. The narrative struggles to pack in stats and historical trivia, sometimes at the expense of readability. At other points, it unsuccessfully tries for a too-cute transition from one anecdote to the next. There’s even at least one error (that stuck out even to a non-stat-obsessed gal like me); Frommer’s write-up of Jon Lester’s 2008 no-hitter refers to Lester as a rookie, when Lester’s rookie season was in 2006.

Despite its foibles, though, this book managed to stir my crabby, cynical little Red Sox heart. It took me back to my own favorite Fenway moments -- taking the train in from the ‘burbs to watch Mo Vaughn; attending the game where Trot Nixon made his debut and deciding, completely arbitrarily, that he would be my favorite player; standing at the microphone by home plate with two friends, giddy at our good fortune as we led the crowd in singing the national anthem in the summer of 1997; feeling like a big deal as a young professional when I was treated to good seats by a business client, only to be humbled by a few hours of sitting in a cold May rain; standing glued to the television screen as Jon Lester pulled off his no-hitter on my father’s birthday. And I think that’s what this book will do for most fans. It reminds you of all of the other crazy people who have soaked in that Fenway magic too; from Bill Lee sneaking out of the park to a nearby pub for a beer during a rain delay, to Clemens jogging the streets around the park, to the cigarette vendor who had a schoolboy crush on Johnny Pesky’s wife, to the Archdiocese employee who fondly recalls socializing with her fellow nuns at Fenway’s “Nuns’ Day.” And it gives you some perspective on the not-so-magic moments, the ones that didn’t have that perfect ending. It reminds you that there have been a lot of years where great players didn’t necessarily make for a winning season, but that maybe that’s only part of the equation. It reminds you why you keep coming back.

--CK

Remembering Fenway Park: An Oral and Narrative History of the Home of the Boston Red Sox by Harvey Frommer

foreword by Johnny Pesky
$45.00 U.S./ Stewart Tabori & Chang (March 2011)

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Interview with Gary Andrew Poole: PacMan Biographer on Manny, Mayweather, Margarito and More

On the eve of what was to be supposed to be the date of the fight of the century - a mega-fight between offense vs. defense, humility vs. flashiness, Manny Pacquiao vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr - the sporting world is instead gearing up for Pacquiao/Antonio Margarito.

While the matchup might not be one for the ages, the main attraction is. Pacquiao, widely regarded as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world - perhaps ever - goes for his unprecedented eight title in eight weight classes.

Early last year we were fortunate to be able to interview Red Grange biographer Gary Andrew Poole.

We jumped at the chance to pick up his latest book, PacMan: Behind the Scenes With Manny Pacquiao (Da Capo), and talk with the author about not just tomorrow's match-up, but the experience of documenting one of the most iconic sports figures in the world.


HHR: Who is to blame for a lack of a Pacquiao-Mayweather superfight? Mayweather, De La Hoya/Golden Boy or Pacquiao’s pride and/or hypochondria?

GAP: At this point, I think you have to wonder what's going through Mayweather's mind. The $40 million question is--why won't he fight Pacquiao? But there is plenty of blame to go around: hypochondria or not, Pacquiao decided not to submit to an Olympic style blood test when they were initially trying to make this fight happen. During the second go-around, Pacquiao agreed to the blood testing, but it appears that Mayweather had no desire to fight the PacMan. Negotiations were taking place and then, in another bizarre twist, Mayweather said no negotiations took place, then the racist video emerged on YouTube and his current legal issues....


HHR: Is Mayweather’s gamesmanship a way of escalating the anticipation for an eventual bout or is he truly afraid that he would lose the fight, and not only blemish his record, but also be remembered for being on the losing end of the most anticipated and hyped fight in generations?

GAP: I used to think it was gamesmanship. Perhaps that was his goal. But is he really increasing interest in the fight by delaying it, like, forever? I don't think so. Most of the public doesn't really care about boxing, but they wanted to see this fight. There was really great momentum. But we're approaching a who-cares moment. Has this really increased the drama or is it just a bad, weird and increasingly irrelevant soap opera? As for Mayweather's record, I do think he is worried about losing to Pacquiao. Mayweather really, really cares about being undefeated.

HHR: What can we expect this Saturday in Texas from Pacquiao-Margarito?

GAP: I think it will be an exciting fight. I have seen both fighters train. They both looked good. Pacquiao had difficulty at the beginning of his training camp as he tried to gain weight. It hurt his speed. But that's behind him. He is in great shape. Margarito is much slower and he was almost lethargic when I watched him in camp. But he seems fresher now. He is a pressure fighter and comes forward and he will try and corner the PacMan. Pacquiao comes in quick, attacks, and then escapes at different angles. I think Margarito will have a difficult time catching him. Pacquiao has a tendency to take crazy risks: he will let an opponent hit him just to test his strength. Margarito, who has a five-inch height advantage, has a vicious uppercut and Pacquiao has to worry about goofing around inside too much and getting banged around by his much larger opponent. That could be dangerous. But I think Pacquiao is just too fast and skilled and powerful.

HHR: Given Pacquiao and Freddie Roach’s relationship, besides tasteless, how tactically stupid were the cheap shots by the Margarito camp against Roach’s illness?

GAP: Margarito spent the Wednesday press conference apologizing, and then he came unannounced to the Thursday press conference to apologize again. Freddie was upset. He told me that he didn't want to tell Pacquiao because he was worried that Pacquiao would be upset and it would hurt his focus. I think Pacquiao will try and make Margarito pay by punishing him in the ring--I think he will consider Team Margarito's mockery as violating Roach's honor. Pacquiao takes honor very seriously.

HHR: There are parts of the book that indicated that you’ve followed the sport previous to this project. How did you writing the biography come about?

GAP: I have always been a fan. I have written about boxing for a few publications (TIME, Esquire, The Atlantic). And I like reading about boxing--one of my favorite books is The Sweet Science. One day, several years ago, I was sitting in the Wild Card Boxing Club talking with Freddie Roach, and he kept going on and on about Pacquiao. That's where this book started.

HHR: Did he truly let you inside?

GAP: Manny Pacquiao is an icon in the Philippines and elsewhere. He is considered the greatest boxer alive, and he is also a Congressman. Pacquiao is inundated with requests. It's a circus around him at all times. I was given some pretty good access. I told Freddie I wanted to write a book and he let me hang out in the gym. Then I was given chances to interview Pacquiao. Then I went to the Philippines to cover him. It was a combination of interviews and fly-on-the-wall reporting. I think the book has great detail and scenes, and all those come from spending time reporting it. Not just doing a few Internet searches, or interviewing Pacquiao a couple times, but hanging out at the gym, going into the jungles of the southern Philippines, traveling to Manila, watching his fights ringside, interviewing people around him. I was trying to write an honest take on this guy and I wanted it to have nuance. I went out and did some old school long-form journalism.

HHR: Horse fighting, cock fighting, boxing. What is the infatuation of Filipinos with such seemingly violent sports - how much of that is a reflection of the poverty the societies in the country face? Is it a metaphor for life there?

GAP: I think violent sports are a reflection of poverty, yes.

HHR: Manny’s entourage seems to serve many purposes, not the least of which is entertaining him, but also to fulfill his charitable nature. How is he able to separate the true inner circle from the ridiculously large number of hangers-on? In other words - those he truly needs, from those who truly need him.

GAP: Manny might seem aloof, but I think he knows what's going on around him. A fellow boxing writer, Gareth A. Davies of the Daily Telegraph, compared him to a shark; not in a pejorative way, just that Pacquiao is super-aware of what's going on around him. He might not seem like it, but he knows who to trust and who not to. He keeps a check on people more than anyone knows. He does have a tendency to be overly generous, even with people who have not always had his best interest at heart.

HHR: Pacquiao is in many ways a living, breathing, walking contradiction - simultaneously noted for both his humility as well as his lust for lavish pleasures; both disciplined at times, while also unengaged with things and people around him; deeply religious, while deeply sinful.

GAP: That is one reason he is such a great subject for a biography.


HHR: What is undeniable seems his want to better his country. Recently Roach was on television indicating that Manny is distracted by politics. Throughout the book, its noted that he feels public service is his true calling. Is there any credence to him being ill prepared to fight because of his “other career?”

GAP: I think he is slowly losing his focus on boxing. At the beginning of this camp, he went to visit the president of the Philippines. Roach graded this camp a B instead of the usual A. He has worked his way into his old fighting shape over the last two weeks. I think he is back to his old self for this fight, but you have to wonder if his career is winding down. He told me a month or so ago that he would fight three or four more times, but I wonder if it might be closer to two more times.

HHR: Manny is repeatedly compared, mostly by Bob Arum, but others as well, to Muhammed Ali - being a transitional figure that can transcend beyond a boxer into something larger and legendary. With the state of boxing nowhere near where it once was, is it realistic to claim any boxer can become a global icon much less compare to an Ali?

GAP: He is a global icon. Boxing is a global sport. It's just not a popular American sport anymore. We are seeing a globalization of sports. Looks at all the foreign stars in the NBA. Pacquiao is big news in the UK, Asia, Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Middle East...Obviously there is only one Ali--and no one can really compare--but Pacquiao's back-story, his humility, and his interest in helping the poor speak to millions upon millions of people. There is a chance Pacquiao could be the president of a country of 94 million people, many of whom live in abject poverty.

HHR: Who can you compare PacMan to?

GAP: We live in a world in which sports figures are neatly packaged and almost robotic. Pacquiao breaks this mold. He wants to stand for something, like an Ali or a Jim Brown. Because he is from a developing country, I think a fair comparison might be Pele.

HHR: Does PacMan have the voice of an angel?

GAP: God bless him--and his voice coach is a really nice person, I just saw her at a Pacquiao workout--but I am not a big fan of his singing. The only miracle? That he has sold so many records.


HHR: Where does Pacquiao go from here? Reality TV? Filipino president?

GAP: He is serious about his congressional duties. He has worked on anti-human trafficking legislation, and he is desperately trying to get a hospital built in his district. All joking aside, he comes from abject poverty. This is developing world poverty. A can of sardines was a luxury. He had to leave school in sixth grade to hawk donuts and cigarettes on the street. I don't want to make him out to be a saint, but people who can't afford to pay their medical bills, who have walked barefoot for several days, line up at his house and he pays their bills. I have seen it. He has a desire to bring a better life to these people. I think that's one thing that's pulling him away from boxing. It will be fascinating to see what happens to Manny Pacquiao in the next decade or two. He is only 31.

HHR: Prediction for Saturday…?

GAP: Pacquiao wins by the eighth. He overwhelms Margarito in a fight that won't be dissimilar to Pacquiao-De La Hoya.


HHR: And finally, will we ever see a Pacquiao-Mayweather fight while they are still in their prime?

GAP: Unfortunately, I don't see the fight happening anytime soon, if ever. The non-fight of the century hurts the sport of boxing. And it hurts both of their legacies.

To get a copy of PacMan, click here for Amazon US; here for Amazon UK; and here for the Kindle.

You can follow Poole on Twitter @orangerose.

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Blogs With Balls Radio, Episode 20

This week’s Blogs With Balls Show on the JoeSportsFan Radio Network is now available.

Download Episode 20 here, or subscribe via iTunes.



Welcome to the big 2-0.

While everyone's looking at staying ahead of the curve and taking advantage of the "next big thing" to market themselves or their products, we bring on two people who have been cashing in on the first big thing - email.

We are joined by "the third head of the Blogs With Balls three-headed monster," Kyle Bunch. Kyle aggregates his Daily Bunch right into subscribers' inboxes. We ask him the hows and the whys.

While we have him on, we thought what better time than to finally let people know the venue of BwB 3. You'll have to listen to find out.

Our guest this week is Aaron Karo. You might remember getting "Ruminations" emails at some point over the course of the last dozen or so years. Hell, you might still get them.


With the success of his electronically disseminated tales of college, Karo was able to forgo his Wall Street career in favor of one on the road (and rich in adventure) as a standup comedian, author and a business-owner whose product is himself.

Ruminations is now in book form ("...on College" and "...on Twentysomething Life"). He has another book now out "not intended for married people" - I'm Having More Fun Than You. You can also find his comedy album "Just go Talk to Her" on iTunes - recorded live in Boston on the night before Chris' single worst hangover, ever.

We talk a little about sports and a lot about his online marketing strategy and tools and multi-platform approach.

This week's links of interest:

• aaronkaro.com
• ruminations.com
• I'm Having More Fun Than You
• Just go Talk to Her
• @aaronkaro
• The Daily Bunch
• @dailybunch
• Trojan Wire
• Mail Chimp

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Blogs With Balls Radio, Episode 16

This week’s Blogs With Balls Show on the JoeSportsFan Radio Network is now available. Download Episode 16 Here.



Without further ado, we finally tip our hand and offer a few details on the location and time for Blogs With Balls 3.0. Listen to the podcast to find out where and when, and sign up for more information on the BwB Site.

HHR co-founder @chrisilluminati's new book, A**holeology: The Science Behind Getting Your Way - and Getting Away with it, is teetering between #50-60 on Amazon's humor list during presales. This proves one thing - if you want to sell books (or anything for that matter), pimp it on the Blogs With Balls Show.


The book makes its official release on January 19, so go get yourself one.

This week's guest is John Christie, who serves in the dual role of EVP of Content Partnership with XOS Digital and as General Manager of the SEC Digital Network.

The company and conference made waves last summer when the New York Times ran a piece that highlighted their seemingly restrictive policy that made it difficult for bloggers and fans alike to share and distribute SEC content.
Since that time, we've followed the SEC's progression and the role XOS has played in it on the Blogs With Balls blog, and have also maintained a steady and honest dialect with the company's representatives. We also conferred with some top college football bloggers to get their thoughts. Most noted the lack of functionality and embeddablity of video and accused the SEC as serving as a clearinghouse, and hoarding and filtering content.

While the SEC's policy may not be at the level bloggers would like to see it, John indicates that it is constantly evolving and they are taking feedback seriously.

A first step they say is the recent availability of the SEC Digital Video Widget. Christie tells us about what the widget entails and specifically if and how it might address these previous blogger
criticisms.

We appreciate his willingness to address bloggers' concerns head-on and we came away with better understanding of both why and how the policies are being implemented.

Says John:

"It was never about keeping the content from the fans. It was about developing that comprehensive strategy to get it out there to the fans through all these different mechanisms."

This week’s links of interest:

• Blogs With Balls 3.0 Mailing List Sign-Up
• @BlogsWithBalls
  
• XOS Digital
• SEC Digital Network
• @XOSDigital
• @SECSportsUpdate
• Leagues See Bloggers in the Bleachers as a Threat (NYT, 8.20.09)
• NYT: Leagues See Bloggers in the Bleachers as a Threat (BwB Blog)
  
• ChrisIlluminati.com
• @ChrisIlluminati
• A**holeology

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A**holeology: Can You Top This?

Yesterday we posted a contest to win a personalized, autographed copy of HHR co-founder @chrisilluminati's new book A**holeology: The Science Behind Getting Your Way - and Getting Away with it by Photoshopping it into a sports image.

The submissions have been too hysterical so far not to share. As more we like come in, we'll post and later put up for a vote. In the meantime, see if you can top these and email them to us:

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Blogs With Balls Radio, Episode 13

This week’s Blogs With Balls Show on the JoeSportsFan Radio Network is now available.

Download Episode 13 Here.



Lucas is South of the border this week, so we get a pinch hit from HHR co-founder @ChrisIlluminati.

Chris has a harem of sites that we talk about, but also will soon be a published author with his NSFW-titled A**holeology that's due out in January.


Our guest is MetsBlog.com's Matthew Cerrone. Matthew is a full-time blogger who, despite an advertising agreement between the site and the New York sports cable station SNY, fully owns his product with complete editorial control over content.

Cerrone talks about how he was able to turn what started as a hobby and a way to follow his team when living out of market into his full-time job. We also talk about the Mets' prospects for this coming season and their focus during the current Winter Meetings.

This week’s links of interest:

• MetsBlog.com
• MatthewCerrone.com
• @MatthewCerrone
• ChrisIlluminati.com
• @ChrisIlluminati
• A**holeology
• On the Black
• GadJunk.com

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A Giant Investment: The Complete Illustrated History of the New York Giants

I don't know this man but he is wearing my father's sweater.

This is all I remember about the Super Bowl victories of the New York Giants; two years ago the Pats were undefeated, Tom Petty played halftime, the Tyree catch and the Burress touchdown. Also, brother-in-law made this outstanding taco dip that I can still taste today but only because I haven't brushed my teeth since January 2008. In 1991 Whitney Houston sang something, there was a war going on, Norwood missed wide right and my father and I ran around the house screaming and crying. The Super Bowl in 1987 is really hazy but I was nine-years-old. Umm...Jim Burt. Elway. Gatorade. My new Giants jacket. Ran around screaming and crying for a different reason. Storm Shadow from G.I. Joe got stepped on in the celebration.

I've got a horrific sports memory. Games, plays, and players stay in my head for about two year and leak out of my skull to make room for useless information about horrendous movies and the door code to my office building. Ironically both are 1408. My father calls me up twenty times every Sunday with sports questions like "who was that guy that played for the Giants that ran really fast?" He thinks I'm some type of idiot savant with sports knowledge and the less information I have to work with the better.

It's for people like my father and me that books like New York Giants: The Complete Illustrated History are created. Also, for the true hardcore fan but I don't care about you people at this moment. Selfish.

A thorough and entertaining book, it covers the history Giants from its origins in 1925 (Purchased in 1925 for $500) through the 2008 season. It's broken down by decade, highlighting the three memorable Super Bowl seasons and even covered the cringe-worthy moments in the team's history like the near death of Frank Gifford after the Chuck Bednarick hit, the Miracle in the Meadowlands, the booing of Phil Simms on draft day and the time they stopped serving my friend beer because he lost his pants. My favorite part is the foreword by Pat Summerall because I like when I can hear a writer's voice in my head. Summerall also sometimes narrates my sex dreams.

I was sent a copy to review for this website and I can't recommend it enough to Giants fans. There are editions available for other franchises like the Steelers, Bears and Packers. I recommend it for hardcore and casual fans. The book is worth it for the pictures alone.

So who was the "really fast" Giants player my dad was thinking of? Joe Morrison. I gave my father the copy of the book. He hasn't called in weeks. Now to find a book to keep my mom from calling.

Chris Illuminati is Giants fan and an asshole. Funny how that works. He is the author of Assholeology: The Science Behind Getting Your Way - and Getting Away with it

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Our Boys: Q & A with Author / NYT Columnist Joe Drape

While it can be argued that amateur athletics are quickly becoming professionalized in today's day and age of television coverage, multimedia and million-dollar endorsements, high school sports reflects more than simply the games themselves, and often are an extension of a community's heritage and cultures.

In Friday Night Lights, Buzz Bissenger peeled back the curtain on Texas high school football and examined the resonating social issues surrounding the Permian Panther team and the town of Odessa.

In The Miracle of St. Anthony, Adrian Wojnarowski looked at the inner city HS hoops dynasty Coach Bob Hurley looked to preserve with a group of unproven, underachieving, now-seniors.

Joe Drape's Our Boys: A Perfect Season on the Plains with the Smith Center Redmen reflects both of these themes - a town with an identity directly tied to its football team, and the pressures faced by adolescents held to standards on and off the field of play in the shadow of teams before them.

The Smith City Redmen of Smith City, KS, currently has the longest active win streak in high school football.

With that distinction comes pressure and jealousy.

Yet, head coach Roger Barta instills the notion in his teams that the game is more than a game. That it isn't football players he is developing, it is men and future leaders, husband and fathers: "None of this is really about football....What I hope we are doing is sending kids into life who know that everyday means something."

After going on location to pen a front page article on the team for the New York Times in 2007 ("A Football Power in a Small Kansas Town"), the article's popularity and his own fascination with the team and the town lead Drape back to Smith Center to follow the Redmen's continuing journey toward perfection.

Photo: Chris Machian for The New York Times

The resulting book is a beautiful portrait of spirit and community.

We caught up with Drape to talk about Our Boys and his experience.

HuggingHaroldReynolds: Buzz Bissenger drew criticism from Odessa residents after Friday Night Lights was published when they felt he portrayed them unfairly, namely on the social front. Conversely, "Our Boys" paints Smith Center in almost an entirely positive light. As someone who admittedly became so entrenched in the Smith Center community, do you feel you were able to remain entirely objective given your relationship with the town, players and coaching staff?

Joe Drape: I got there with the mission of being fair and accurate and to let the reporting lead me to wherever it went. I checked with the police and the county attorney and around town to make sure I wasn’t missing some huge scandal or dark side. What’s between the covers is the story I left with: About a small community that takes its children seriously, and emphasizes values like love patience and hard work. Did I like the people and way of life? Absolutely. Did I make friends for life? Yeah. But I can look anyone in the eye and say that Our Boys is a fair, accurate and objective look at Smith Center, Kansas and it’s football team.

HHR: Does the book's subtitle ("Perfect Season") take away from the drama unfolding in the chapters?

JD: This was a point of spirited discussion at the publishing house with folks on both sides. I suggested adding the “perfect,” because a) I thought we were burying our lede. The Redmen do have the nation’s longest winning streak, and in this day and age of information over load I didn’t think we should act like nobody knew that. b) I believed there was enough tension in the narrative to keep the story moving. c) I thought it worked metaphorically. My family and I had a perfect season, too.

It’s funny – I’ve heard from readers who totally missed that word in the title, and were surprised and satisfied when they end up reading. I’ve heard from some who thought the picture of “67” in the photo section ruined it for them.

HHR: You talk about how a loss would affect the book's narrative/story - not necessarily in a bad way. In retrospect, how different would "Our Boys" have been if the streak was snapped in the beginning of the season or in the playoffs?

JD: I thought then, and now more than ever, that when the Redmen lose, it will be one of Smith Center’s greatest hours. I think the town will rush the field and hug those guys and give him a big ovation. Coach Barta and the community really don’t focus on winning and losing. It’s about competing and being proud of their town and their way of life. It may have been a more poignant ending, but perhaps not as a well-read one. I think people are picking “Our Boys” up and it’s a New York Times bestseller because they are still winning, and folks want to read and be engaged by a successful team and town that has it’s priorities straight.

HHR: Coach Barta has been accused of running up the score. He, the team and town have been accused of phoniness in relation to their wholesome, classy image. How would you address the coach and Smith Center football's critics? Is there even a hint of truth?

JD: The Redmen are like the Yankees , the Red Sox and Notre Dame – you either love them or hate them. In the book, someone at a national coaches clinic accused him of running up the score after Smith Center gained national attention for the 72-point first quarter. The coach of the opponent that day, Plainville, was the first to come to his defense and said his team did it to themselves.

If you go on, youtube.com, you’ll see fumble and interception returns and one calamity after another. It’s mainly message board folks who make the accusations. There’s no truth at all to it.

HHR: You and your family wholeheartedly embraced the small town living you experienced. Why head back to the Big Apple after the experience? How has your young son adapted?

JD: I have a job, and a good one, at a time when too many very good journalists can’t say that. Job-wise it would be impractical, right now, to live there. So I’m following the example of my 4-year-old Jack who is happy anywhere we go. He cruises into Smith Center and picks up with his friends. He scooters between people on the sidewalks of New York City smiling all the way. We got a foot in both places.

HHR: What sort of pressure do the players feel to live up to on-the-field standards of perfection - from their peers, to their schoolmates to the townsfolk? Is it a fair expectation of 15-17 year olds?

JD: They do feel the pressure, especially the seniors, because that winning streak is handed down like Excalibur in King Arthur. It’s all part of growing up, and I don’t think it is unreasonable for anyone to want to be the best. I think we all should want to that. At the end of the day, though, they do realize it is only a game.

HHR: How closely do you follow the seniors in their collegiate careers? Do you remain in touch?

JD: I just got back from Kansas, and I met three of the seniors Marshall McCall, Kris Lehmann and Trenton Terrill in Salina and we all had dinner. Marshall and Kris are playing at Hutchinson Juco in the Jayhawk league; and Trenton’s playing baseball at Bethany. I also went to the Redmen’s opening game and caught up with some other seniors. We’re all in good touch, and they know they have a friend in New York.

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Warren Moon: Never Give Up on Your Dream

In 2006, Warren Moon was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility, becoming the first African-American quarterback to be honored in Canton.

I never viewed Moon as anything but a great quarterback, and certainly never looked at him as a "black quarterback." In fact, I wore #12 in my youth league quarterbacking days in honor of my favorite player Randall Cunningham. To me, a great player was a great player. But to Warren Moon, this racial distinction was ever apparent.

With that distinction came many personal, emotional hardships that I or most HHR readers can never fully grasp. And while he comments several times that he never wanted to be remembered as such (a "black" quarterback), he spends most of the 250 pages of his autobiography, Never Give Up on Your Dream, reminding readers that he is a black quarterback.

Literally, nearly every page makes mention of this.

Granted, Moon clearly uses the book as a therapeutic devise to get things off of his chest that he's held in for decades. Unfortunately, some of his arguments about his race contradict other things that he points out in the text.

For instance, Moon notes that despite his high school success, he was never actively recruited as a quarterback by a major D-1 program. In the same breath he notes that his senior year he stood a Flutie-esq 5'11", 165 pounds. Not many big-time recruiters are looking to fill their QB position with someone of that stature.

When finally getting a shot at the University of Washington, he noted that the offense catered to his strengths, moving the pocket, rolling out. He found a fit where the program was willing to change to meet Warren Moon's desires, rather than he himself changing to meet those of the programs he was looking to lead.

Moon rolled the dice, signed with the CFL out of college - a league whose wide-open field and spread offense favored Moon's skill set. While he signed north of the boarder, an NFL team could still have drafted his rights, albeit as a gamble. Moon expresses shock that this didn't happen. Of the fourteen QBs drafted in 1978, Moon noted "It stunned me that I wasn't included in that group somewhere...Although I knew I wasn't going to get drafted, it was still a major shock when my name wasn't called." This statement doesn't even make sense and tells me Moon is either being disengenuous with him memoir or realy has a warped sense of reality - he had just signed a 3-year deal with Edmonton.

Moon notes at the time of the draft the difficulty of being a black quarterback, that most bolt to the CFL and others become wide outs or d-backs. Yet, Doug Williams of HBC Grambling was the first quarterback selected that year.

Truth be told, like Tim Tebow today, it was Moon's ability and skill set that befuddled pro scouts and coaches, as much as his skin color. Neither Tebow nor Moon are/were viewed as "pro-style" quarterbacks.

When Moon finally signed the richest contract in history to land in Houston, the entire offense was adapted to him, incorporating 4 wide receivers and a spread set hardly seen anywhere in the NFL.

The first 200 pages of Never Give Up... are really a recap of Moon's career, with very little revealed. By the time Moon gets around to talking about his missteps - his failed first marriage, domestic abuse accusations, DUIs - they are brushed over in a manner that seems Moon, while saying he accepts responsibility, more paints the incidents as misunderstandings for which he was wrongly characterized.

This isn't to say that the combination of his race and position weren't accompanied by bias or predjudices, but I question Moon's motives, both now and in his playing days. While Moon was always viewed as a person of high character and class, always managing to say the right things as a player, perhaps this was a carefully-calculated approach to not rock the boat and for self-perserverance. With his legacy now secured with a bronze bust in Canton, he is more at liberty to speak his mind on social issues still relevant in the League than he was prior to his enshrinement.

I feel this book was more written for Warren Moon himself, rather than the football fan/reader.

Super Bowl title or no Super Bowl title, Warren Moon was one of the best quarterbacks of his or any era. Few will ever be able to comprehend the added scrutiny that being a black quarterback presents. But Moon doesn't do readers any justice by helping them to understand. Few examples can be viewed as anything other than the author's personal assumption and/or speculation. He could have really pounded home some tangible examples with additional testimony from others in the picture. But rather, Moon internalizes and focuses on #1.

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FreeDarko Collaborates with adidas

Blogs With Balls panelist Bethlehem Shoals, known as “Nathaniel Friedman” to stuffier editors, is the founder, chief contributor and editor-in-chief of FreeDarko.com, whose Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac was published last fall by Bloomsbury, USA.

This week, Shoals, with FD artist Jacob Weinstein, teamed up with adidas “on two fully animated videos highlighting the inner-workings of Dwight [Howard] and Derrick [Rose].”

Reads an adidas press release: “FreeDarko’s uncanny analysis of both Dwight and Derrick spotlights their roles as the ultimate Commander and Creator, leading their teams and the performance revolution of the game. ”

The videos, like Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac, are a thing of beauty. But more specifically, the collaboration is a testament to the idea of companies working with online influencers to reach targeted markets in creative new ways and mediums.

Dwight Howard: The Detailed Mechanics of a Commander



Derrick Rose: The Inner Workings of a Creator

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"'78": Boston, Busing, Baseball and Bucky Fn Dent; Q&A with Author Bill Reynolds

In the Spring and Fall of 1978, Red Sox fans saw their beloved team lose a 14-game lead over the hated New York Yankees, which included a four-game sweep at Fenway by the Yanks and forced a one-game playoff for the AL East title. Fans were fixated on the October 2 game, which would go on to earn light-hitting shortstop Bucky Dent his endearing (and enduring) profane nickname. The city was also burning under the national spotlight over the politically and socially volatile issue of forced busing over which the otherwise liberal-minded city and its residents became viewed as racially hostile as the Deep South.


As violent protests raged, though eventually subsided even as the issue persisted, baseball served as a unifier, an escape.

In Boston, where politics and baseball are inherited religions, author Bill Reynolds takes us back in '78: The Boston Red Sox, a Historic Game, and a Divided City, and examines the dual relationship of the city with its communities and its team during the tumultuous era.


HuggingHaroldReynolds: Was your intention to write a historical/social issue piece or a baseball book? Where did the idea come from to marry the two?

Bill Reynolds: My idea was to write what I hoped would be an interesting book, one that used a great baseball game as the thread to get at larger issues. I’ve long believed that sports are not an island unto themselves, but an integral part of the culture. The idea came from going to a Red Sox game a couple of years ago and speaking to some fans – one at about 40, the other in his early 30’s, and both from New England – who had no idea that the busing crisis had ever existed.

HHR: The busing order came about in '74, and you go on to characterize the '77-78 school year as "relatively tranquil" - why then draw the parallels between these two particular events - busing & the '78 playoff game? Why not, say, the '75 Series?

BR: I liked the fact that even though things are starting to quiet down, the furor over busing and the ramifications of it remain. I also liked the fact that it had already gone on for four years, and felt like in ’75 it had just been a year.

HHR: Save a few Bill Lee quotes and a random PSA or two, the players were both physically disconnected and vocally silent on the busing and race issues and accompanying violence. Given the view of Red Sox baseball as an escape from these harsh realities, were the players better served remaining politically neutral despite local volatility?

BR: Even though with the exception of Bill Lee the players avoided speaking about the issue, busing was like the elephant in the clubhouse, to the point that for several of them it took over a decade to speak about it, specifically for Jim Rice, Luis Tiant, and Fred Lynn. I’m not surprised, though—busing and race was such a volatile issue then that there was no way they could win back then by commenting on it.

HHR: How at fault were politicians and community leaders, many of whom have gone on to successful political careers - others who saw their aspirations extinguished, in stoking the fires?

BR: I feel that that many of the political and community leaders also were caught in a no-win situation, especially Mayor Kevin White, who had national aspirations and saw them blown up by busing. The issue was simply too ugly and too divisive to have any political figure emerge from it unscathed, regardless of where they were on the issue.

HHR: In 2004 Barry Bonds noted his unwillingness to play in Boston because it was "too racist," and an article as recent as last year MLB analyst and scribe Ken Rosenthal highlighted the team's current lack of African-Americans (while reminding us of the Sox's notorious racial history). How much of the recent perceptions are based on the city's past as opposed to present realities? Has the city actually come that far?

BR: I think those perceptions are all based on the past. In the past decade you can make a case that the three most popular players in Fenway were Pedro Martinez, Manny Ramirez, and David Ortiz, and that the perception of Boston as being a racist city is also in the past. That doesn’t mean race is not an issue in Boston, but then again race is an issue in America, and I don’t think Boston is unique in this regard.

HHR: After years of his coming up short, what are both your professional and personal thoughts on Jim Rice finally gaining enshrinement to Cooperstown. Which was a bigger factor that held him back - his perceived attitude amongst sports writers or his lack of coming through in any notable big, clutch moment?

BR: There’s no doubt that Rice’s miserable relationship with the media through the years didn’t help him, but he also never had those huge signature moments in his career that arguably would have gotten him inducted earlier.

HHR: Can you elaborate on the notion that fans can cheer on players of different races and nationalities, when they perform for their respective teams, but still hold a NIMBY view of others when it comes to their communities?

BR: I think that’s the nature of fandom and, on a deeper level, the more we get to know people the less we are bothered by race, and we feel we know athletes.

HHR: Can baseball really serve as a healing salve for social issues?

BR: Sports can help be a healing salve for social issues, in that they can bring people of different races and backgrounds together for a while in a common cause, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to eradicate all the problems.

HHR: What have the lessons of '78 taught the city of Boston and the country as a whole that watched the actions transpire?

BR: That’s a great question, and one I really don’t have an answer for. I do think, though, that one of the lessons learned from Boston’s busing tragedy was that nobody won, that all the years and all the hate and all the violence and in then end everyone lost. Maybe that’s the enduring lesson.

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