by Bruce Weber ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2009
Thorough research, crackerjack reporting, pinpoint control.
The largely untold story of professional baseball umpires, perhaps the most secretive sect in the most sectarian of sports.
New York Times reporter Weber, who initially became interested in umpires when he wrote some articles on the subject, tried entering the umpires’ mysterious world through every wardrobe he could imagine. He attended a five-week umpire training program at one of the two sanctioned schools. He interviewed every umpire who would talk with him; few were candid, some refused, most offered only platitudes. He attended countless games and watched hours of video, especially those with controversial plays (e.g., Robby Alomar spitting on an ump). He spoke with players, managers and owners, some current, some retired. He umpired some amateur games and called some innings at an intrasquad Major League spring-training contest. It was all part of a largely successful attempt to chart one of the last frontiers in sports reporting. One of the author’s most appealing qualities is self-deprecation. He continually makes fun of his clumsiness as an umpire, twice comparing his called-strike gesture to an awkward girl’s ball-throwing motion. His text proceeds somewhat like a baseball game. There is organization, a beginning and an end, but things can drift along for awhile without much apparently happening. Then, suddenly, action erupts, the unexpected occurs and people are screaming. The text evokes a gamut of emotions: hilarity (a pregame encounter at home plate between manager Ralph Houk and umpire Jim Evans); outrage (a crackling chapter on the 1999 umpire labor dispute); excitement (thoughts and worries pinballing around Weber’s head the night before he works behind the plate at spring training); frustration (the refusal of hotheaded, umpire-baiting former manager Earl Weaver to speak on or off the record). It’s educational too. We learn the rules for player-ejection, the history of the rulebook, the choreography required of an umpiring crew as a play unfolds and so much more.
Thorough research, crackerjack reporting, pinpoint control.Pub Date: March 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-7432-9411-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2009
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by Larry Bird & Earvin “Magic” Johnson Jr. with Jackie MacMullan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 4, 2009
Doesn’t dig as deep as it could, but offers a captivating look at the NBA’s greatest era.
NBA legends Bird and Johnson, fierce rivals during their playing days, team up on a mutual career retrospective.
With megastars LeBron James and Kobe Bryant and international superstars like China’s Yao Ming pushing it to ever-greater heights of popularity today, it’s difficult to imagine the NBA in 1979, when financial problems, drug scandals and racial issues threatened to destroy the fledgling league. Fortunately, that year marked the coming of two young saviors—one a flashy, charismatic African-American and the other a cocky, blond, self-described “hick.” Arriving fresh off a showdown in the NCAA championship game in which Johnson’s Michigan State Spartans defeated Bird’s Indiana State Sycamores—still the highest-rated college basketball game ever—the duo changed the course of history not just for the league, but the sport itself. While the pair’s on-court accomplishments have been exhaustively chronicled, the narrative hook here is unprecedented insight and commentary from the stars themselves on their unique relationship, a compelling mixture of bitter rivalry and mutual admiration. This snapshot of their respective careers delves with varying degrees of depth into the lives of each man and their on- and off-court achievements, including the historic championship games between Johnson’s Lakers and Bird’s Celtics, their trailblazing endorsement deals and Johnson’s stunning announcement in 1991 that he had tested positive for HIV. Ironically, this nostalgic chronicle about the two men who, along with Michael Jordan, turned more fans onto NBA basketball than any other players, will likely appeal primarily to a narrow cross-section of readers: Bird/Magic fans and hardcore hoop-heads.
Doesn’t dig as deep as it could, but offers a captivating look at the NBA’s greatest era.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-547-22547-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2009
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by Bill Walton ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 8, 2016
One of the NBA’s 50 greatest players scores another basket—a deeply personal one.
A basketball legend reflects on his life in the game and a life lived in the “nightmare of endlessly repetitive and constant pain, agony, and guilt.”
Walton (Nothing but Net, 1994, etc.) begins this memoir on the floor—literally: “I have been living on the floor for most of the last two and a half years, unable to move.” In 2008, he suffered a catastrophic spinal collapse. “My spine will no longer hold me,” he writes. Thirty-seven orthopedic injuries, stemming from the fact that he had malformed feet, led to an endless string of stress fractures. As he notes, Walton is “the most injured athlete in the history of sports.” Over the years, he had ground his lower extremities “down to dust.” Walton’s memoir is two interwoven stories. The first is about his lifelong love of basketball, the second, his lifelong battle with injuries and pain. He had his first operation when he was 14, for a knee hurt in a basketball game. As he chronicles his distinguished career in the game, from high school to college to the NBA, he punctuates that story with a parallel one that chronicles at each juncture the injuries he suffered and overcame until he could no longer play, eventually turning to a successful broadcasting career (which helped his stuttering problem). Thanks to successful experimental spinal fusion surgery, he’s now pain-free. And then there’s the music he loves, especially the Grateful Dead’s; it accompanies both stories like a soundtrack playing off in the distance. Walton tends to get long-winded at times, but that won’t be news to anyone who watches his broadcasts, and those who have been afflicted with lifelong injuries will find the book uplifting and inspirational. Basketball fans will relish Walton’s acumen and insights into the game as well as his stories about players, coaches (especially John Wooden), and games, all told in Walton’s fervent, witty style.
One of the NBA’s 50 greatest players scores another basket—a deeply personal one.Pub Date: March 8, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4767-1686-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
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by Bill Walton with Gene Wojciechowski
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