Engaging, entertaining, and more laid-back than many sports books.
Wry essays on sport and its enthusiasts by an agile writer (Road Swing, 1998) who’s likely to discern the human-interest story behind the statistics.
Rushin, a four-time finalist for the National Magazine Award, has traveled worldwide for the “Air and Space” column in Sports Illustrated, where these 24 essays and shorter pieces originally appeared. Along the way, he’s developed an appealing style that combines deadpan humor with a focus on offbeat events (lucrative darts championships, an amputee golf championship, competitive eating) or unusual settings (the Topps baseball-card company offices, Germany’s most dangerous racetrack). Some pieces give prominence to Rushin’s personal misadventures; the title essay, for example, describes his “June golf tour of Scandinavia,” which brought him near the Arctic Circle, a region where one can “banana-slice a ball so badly that it not only travels backward but also travels back in time.” Elsewhere, he takes a broader, historical view: a piece rife with period details and hilarious pseudo-nostalgia examines the bizarre circumstances that made the 1962 Mets the worst ball team ever. Similarly, the 60-page “How We Got Here” explains how TV and personalities like Roone Arledge transformed spectator sports from a regional, blue-collar phenomenon into the “axis on which the world turns”; Rushin is observant, but arguably pulls his punches here. “Tour de France” offers a pungent snapshot of European soccer, as embittered English rowdies clash with colorful French, Italian, and Brazilian fans. “High Rollers” covers roller-coaster cultists who ride for days on end, a breed of enthusiasm also seen among the amateur racers on Germany’s “Green Hell,” the Nurburgring track deemed too dangerous for Formula One. “Planet Nagano” argues that the 1998 Winter Olympics was well served by Japan’s constant blending of normality with the perverse. At his best, Rushin is reminiscent of such other tart commentators on American leisure as Carl Hiaasen and Padgett Powell; his skillfulness enables him to wring entertainment even out of such chestnuts as the epic Yankees–Red Sox fan rivalry.
Engaging, entertaining, and more laid-back than many sports books.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-87113-878-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2004
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
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
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