Existentialism of the purest sort—that is, it includes laughter.
New York Times reporter St. John spends a season road tripping in an RV with the University of Alabama football fan club
Who are these people, the journalist wonders, who follow the Crimson Tide literally week to week, stadium to stadium? How do they do it—haven’t they got jobs? Why do they do it—haven’t they got lives? So the intrepid St. John joined their ranks, a move made easier by his status as an old Alabama fan and the confounded but enthusiastic new owner of a low-rent RV. From time to time the author feels the need to spout a little sports psychology (sports fans are brighter than non-fans! they pop more endorphins, are more fulfilled and physically active!), and he doesn’t do much better when trying to get a bead on what makes the fans tick (“just love,” remarks one gentleman; “the bug bit me,” says another). Thankfully, the whole angle of trying to understand things gets lost under a fabulous wash of incidents and encounters. A paramedic administering to a heart-attack victim in the stands is told to get out of the way. An RVer offers St. John a tomato with the warning, “ ‘Thems ’maters so hot they’ll make you wanna slap yo mamma’. . . . It takes me a moment to realize that the man means this as a good thing.” Bigots will catch the author off guard, and scalpers will become his friends; he is able to capture them in startling, frozen images, or to build up a long-term portrait as this gallery of rogues and acquaintances reveals itself over the season, adoring football, their team, and its traditions, wishing to give it all a long embrace. St. John is never mocking and has no intention of turning the RVing Alabama football fan pack into a freak show, but he ushers their fleeting, intense, Manichean world before the limelight to trip its weird stuff.
Existentialism of the purest sort—that is, it includes laughter.Pub Date: Aug. 24, 2004
ISBN: 0-609-60708-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The more things change, the more they remain the same in the world of baseball—that’s the lesson that emerges from this exemplary look at the game of a century ago. Baseball was a mess then, too: players’ salaries were skyrocketing, cheating and hooliganism ran rampant, owners pondered schemes to “protect” the game (mainly from themselves). No team was safe; even the reigning world champion was dismantled, with the pieces going to the highest bidders. Solomon’s crackerjack account chronicles the game’s coming of age, both for better and for worse, through the story of the National League’s Baltimore Orioles of the 1890s—1900s. The archetype for modern baseball, a team built on speed, fielding, and smarts, the Orioles were powered by a core of future Hall of Famers that included “Wee Willie” Keeler (whose hitting mantra isi evoked in the book’s title) and hot-tempered John McGraw, later a great innovator in his own right. They executed revolutionary plays: the “Baltimore chop” (hitting a ball downward and running out the hop) and the hit-and-run, to this day a strategic mainstay that was devised by manager Ned Hanlon. Beloved by Baltimore, the Orioles stitched together a run of campaigns that earned them the mantle “the greatest team ever” from writers of the day. About the only thing that could sink this juggernaut was a greedy owner, who came in the guise of Harry von der Horst, a profligate brewing scion with a huge ego and legal bills to match. Like his counterparts, Harry loathed the idea of paying salaries commensurate with players’ performance. Long story made short, he and the other owners tried several schemes to keep salaries in check and control the game, including syndicate ownership (simultaneous ownership of more than one team by a single ownership group). The result of this was the merging of Brooklyn’s nine with the Orioles, with the southern team serving as a virtual farm club. The inevitable losers in all this, naturally, were the fans. Baltimore soon folded its National League tent. A club in the upstart American League took its place, only to move a few years later to New York, where they eventually became the Yankees. An outstanding blend of lore, social history, and canny insight, redolent with detail and the language of the day. Tonic, albeit a bitter one, for fans who think baseball today is at its nadir. (Radio satelite tour)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-684-85451-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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