The lowdown on how NFL teams obtain college players; by Whittingham, a novelist (State Street, 1991) and sportswriter (Saturday Afternoon, 1985, etc.). Meat—talented meat—has always been the indispensable athletic ingredient, and, Whittingham explains, each graduating college class is that year's prime source, via the draft. As the author follows the Chicago Bears through their draft, he clearly and accurately describes its elements—the scouts and scouting combines, the computerized evaluation of players, the role of intuition, the strategies that evolve, and the security precautions that resemble the protection of major industrial or military secrets. Whittingham also catches the wheel-and-deal mood of coaches and managers as they trade ``picks,'' try to read opponents' minds, and play computerized ``mock-draft'' war games based on what other teams are expected to do. Finally, the team must sign the player, and while, Whittingham says, this is very much a business, it's one in which the tone is set by the high testosterone levels, sometimes augmented, of participants on and off the field. Unpredictability is a constant, and when Notre Dame's #1 choice, Raguib ``Rocket'' Ismail, dodged the draft and shot off to Canada for $18 million last year, his move was not so unprecedented—holdouts are common, and a draft pick might decide not to turn pro at all. (Or a player might decide to play both football and baseball, as Bo Jackson did.) The vignettes are memorable: William ``Refrigerator'' Perry eating six chickens at a sitting and cutting a deal with McDonald's for each day's leftover hamburgers, or George Halas scooping Red Grange out of his undergraduate Illinois uniform for the Bears back in the 20's. Definitive work for couch-potato grid fans but—as it grinds through the endless details of the 1991 draft—too much of a good thing.
Pub Date: Sept. 11, 1992
ISBN: 0-02-627662-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A meticulously researched and occasionally moving biography of the man judged by many to be the greatest baseballer ever. Although his on-field exploits were well known and highly praised by admirers ranging from Casey Stengel to Ernest Hemingway to Paul Simon, Joe DiMaggio was always something of an enigma to his adoring American public. Here, in text and a collection of rare photographs, DiMaggio emerges as a ballplayer of unmatched elegance whose growth as an athlete far outpaced his social growth. This early relative immaturity coupled with prejudice against Italian- Americans, still prevalent in the 1930s, helped set DiMaggio at a distance from his fans. Yet due to his immense prowess, Joltin' Joe quickly became the game's biggest draw since Babe Ruth. Throughout his career, DiMaggio exhibited a less tangible greatness than the Babe or even the contemporary with whom he is most often paired, Ted Williams (who wrote the foreword to this volume and who is the subject of a 1991 illustrated life by Johnson and Stout). Apart from his 56-game hitting streak in 1941 (a record that still stands) and his nine World Series and ten American League pennants in 13 seasons, DiMaggio set few records. But as Luke Salisbury and Tom Boswell point out in essays contributed to this volume, statistics mean little in assessing Joe DiMaggio. As a symbol of the game in an uncertain era that began during the Depression and ended at the dawn of the Cold War, DiMaggio was a constant and comforting presence for a nation that found little comfort elsewhere. Joe's life away from the game kept him in the limelight- -he was briefly wed to a rising starlet named Marilyn Monroe and later was a baseball instructor and a pitchman of outstanding success (in the '70s, kids knew him as ``Mr. Coffee''). Today, DiMaggio appears to be a man at peace with both himself and his legend. In their thoughtful treatment, the authors make it clear that he has earned that peace. (180 b&w photos)
Pub Date: Dec. 7, 1995
ISBN: 0-8027-1311-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Walker
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1995
A mix of giddy admiration and honest reporting that's as wobbly as a junior skater attempting a triple flip. Brennan, a sports reporter for the Washington Post, organizes her book around the cycle of one competitive year, yet the narrative is all over the place, jumping from quick portraits of various up-and-coming skaters, such as 12-year-old media darling Tara Lipinski, to the effect of AIDS on the skating community, to sometimes fawning, sometimes critical, sometimes informative portraits of stars such as Brian Boitano and Katarina Witt. The chapter focusing on the 1995 US national and world championship competitions has the momentum and drama that show what this book might have been. Here Brennan follows some of the top junior and senior amateur skaters as they fall prey to, or triumph over, the vicissitudes of competition and the prevailing attitudes of judges. One of the most poignant losers is 14-year-old Michelle Kwan, who skated two flawless programs at the World's yet finished in fourth place. ``The only thing Kwan couldn't do in front of the judges was grow up and become sixteen, which is what they were waiting for,'' Brennan sharply concludes. Brennan does convey the upheaval wrought in the skating world by the sport's newfound popularity and notoriety: intense media attention, the lure of big dollars; the rush of agents to cash in on a new group of sports celebrities. But Brennan is much more forgiving than Joan Ryan (Little Girls in Pretty Boxes, p. 542) of those who control the fates of these young athletes. After pointedly reporting the frequent injustice of the judges, Brennan then protests that, after all, they are only human. Ironically, she is harder on the skaters, who divide into good girls and boys (e.g., Kwan, Todd Eldredge) and bad (Nicole Bobek, Christopher Bowman). Best read both Ryan and Brennan for a balanced picture of a grueling yet beautiful sport. (8 pages b&w photos, not seen) (Author tour)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-684-80167-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1995
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