by Mike Gastineau ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 7, 2013
An entertaining, thoughtful examination that will appeal not only to soccer fans but to anyone interested in the business of...
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A behind-the-scenes look at the successful launch of a Major League Soccer franchise.
After being founded in 2007 and playing their first game in 2009, the Seattle Sounders have been a model franchise not only for MLS but for sports in general, setting league attendance records and building a uniquely devoted fan base while avoiding the growing pains faced by other expansion teams. As the author writes, before the team was put together, Seattle had just experienced the loss of the NBA’s Supersonics, and “the thought that Seattle, of all places, could be the home of the most successful sports franchise launch in American history was beyond rational belief.” But the Sounders blossomed through the visionary efforts of three men in particular—movie executive Joe Roth, CEO Tod Leiweke and general manager Adrian Hanauer—who recognized the importance of forging a unique relationship between the team and the community. So tight is that bond that after the Sounders once lost badly at home, the team offered ticket refunds to every fan who attended the game. Management also bowed to the fans’ wishes by agreeing not to have Budweiser sponsor the traditional pregame march to the stadium. “In almost every way they forged interactions with their fans that were different from anything that had been seen in American professional sports,” Gastineau says. The author effectively captures the key signings of veteran goalkeeper Kasey Keller and Colombian forward Fredy Montero, who was so young at the time that his first question to management was, “If I go to the U.S., can I get medicine for my acne?” He also details the out-of-the-box contributions of comedian and co-owner Drew Carey, who, among other things, suggested fans vote on whether to keep the general manager in office. “It’s great because the fans are invested in the team no matter what happens good or bad,” Carey explains. The Sounders have yet to win an MLS Cup, but Gastineau has scored with this vivid history.
An entertaining, thoughtful examination that will appeal not only to soccer fans but to anyone interested in the business of sports.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2013
ISBN: 978-1491068342
Page Count: 270
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by John Gierach illustrated by Glenn Wolff ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 2, 2020
In these insightfully droll essays, Gierach shows us how fishing offers plenty of time to think things over.
The latest collection of interrelated essays by the veteran fishing writer.
As in his previous books—from The View From Rat Lake through All Fishermen Are Liars—Gierach hones in on the ups and downs of fishing, and those looking for how-to tips will find plenty here on rods, flies, guides, streams, and pretty much everything else that informs the fishing life. It is the everything else that has earned Gierach the following of fellow writers and legions of readers who may not even fish but are drawn to his musings on community, culture, the natural world, and the seasons of life. In one representatively poetic passage, he writes, “it was a chilly fall afternoon with the leaves changing, the current whispering, and a pale moon in a daytime sky. The river seemed inscrutable, but alive with possibility.” Gierach writes about both patience and process, and he describes the long spells between catches as the fisherman’s equivalent of writer’s block. Even when catching fish is the point, it almost seems beside the point (anglers will understand that sentiment): At the end of one essay, he writes, “I was cold, bored, hungry, and fishless, but there was still nowhere else I’d have rather been—something anyone who fishes will understand.” Most readers will be profoundly moved by the meditation on mortality within the blandly titled “Up in Michigan,” a character study of a man dying of cancer. Though the author had known and been fishing with him for three decades, his reticence kept anyone from knowing him too well. Still, writes Gierach, “I came to think of [his] glancing pronouncements as Michigan haiku: brief, no more than obliquely revealing, and oddly beautiful.” Ultimately, the man was focused on settling accounts, getting in one last fishing trip, and then planning to “sit in the sun and think things over until it’s time for hospice.”
In these insightfully droll essays, Gierach shows us how fishing offers plenty of time to think things over.Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6858-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 21, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
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by Dave Lowry ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 7, 2005
A broad and deep look at Japan’s medieval referents, and a capable illustration of a martial art form steeped in rich...
A reflective and entertaining journey through Japan, as the author seeks to reconnect with his martial arts sensei.
Lowry is a student of koryu (not to be confused with kendo), a style of Japanese classical swordsmanship. Koryu is a medieval art, like Noh and the tea ceremony, a style of combat born on the battlefield–but more importantly, it’s a way to address the world (though an esoteric one: Lowry may well be the only American practicing the art in the United States). Indeed, present-day practitioners refrain from exercising its fatal possibilities. Lowry’s sensei left the U.S. to return to Japan, urging Lowry to follow. Though his life headed in a different direction, he never forgot his training–when the time was ripe, he journeyed to Japan to join his sensei. The narrative revolves around this pivotal decision, and it provides a warm center from which the author expounds on such topics as the glories of a Japanese bath; the evolution of the Samurai caste; the peculiarities of Japanese landscape architecture; the elements of proper sandal-tying; the custom of the premarital shenanigans called yobai; and the teachings of mikkyo Buddhism. He also includes the vital story of the sword–what it reveals about Japanese life and technology, social structure and aesthetic values, etiquette, apprenticeship and the process of education. Lowry’s seriousness lends an earnest cast to the proceedings, but he’s not without a sense of humor–commenting upon his accomplished slurping of noodles, a friend’s wife notes, “He really sucks!”
A broad and deep look at Japan’s medieval referents, and a capable illustration of a martial art form steeped in rich tradition.Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2005
ISBN: 1-890536-10-5
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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