Last review of 2024 - "The Most Incredible Boxing Stories Ever Told"

As mentioned in my last post, I am working on a resolution to utilize my Kindle Unlimited more often to find books - this was an interesting one I discovered when returning my last one.  Here is my review of a very good boxing book.

Title/Author:

“The Most Incredible Boxing Stories Ever Told: Inspirational and Legendary Tales from the Greatest Boxers of All Time” by Hank Patton

Rating: 

4 of 5 stars (very good)

Review:

Boxing fans love to talk about great fights they have seen, either in person or televised, and recap some of the best rounds or exchanges during those matches.  This book by Hank Patton recaps some of those great moments across the years and weight classes in the sport.

Some of the fights are well-known by not only boxing fans but even people who don’t follow the sport but are aware of some of the more famous bouts.  These include the Joe Louis-Max Schmeling fights that had social and political ramifications, the “Rumble in the Jungle” where Muhammad Ali regained the heavyweight title in Zaire and Jack Johnson vs. Jim Jeffries where the former became the first Black heavyweight champion.

 There isn’t always one fight described.  There are a couple chapters on fighters who fought with an illness.  Another one that was really touching was about Dewey Bozella, whose story may be familiar to moviegoers as it was made into a movie.  Bozella spent many years in prison for a crime he was eventually found to be innocent.  He took up boxing in prison and wanted to have just one professional fight in his life – which happened long after he was released and was in his fifties.  It was a very inspirational story.  

Each chapter is written in an easy-to-follow format with descriptions of the boxers and the circumstances leading up to the fight or fights.  While they are short, they are informative.  Even if one is familiar with that fight or has read about it in other books, these descriptions are brief but complete.  A boxing fan of any level should enjoy this take on some of the most famous bouts and boxers in the sport.  

 Link: Amazon.com: The Most Incredible Boxing Stories Ever Told: Inspirational and Legendary Tales from the Greatest Boxers of All Time eBook : Patton, Hank: Kindle Store

 

Review of “Rivals on the Track”.

I’m getting an early start on one of my New Years resolutions - to use my Kindle Unlimited account more frequently and read more of the books available through that service. I found a series of books on sports rivalries that looked interesting so I checked out the first one I saw on my feed - this one on F1 rivalries. It was very good and so I will check out the other 4 in the series as well. Look for those reviews soon, but today I’ll post on the first one I read in the series. 

Title/Author:

“Rivals on the Track: 15 Greatest Formula One Rivalries of All Time” by William Whitfield

Rating: 

4 of 5 stars (very good)

Review: 

Formula One (F1) racing has produced some great rivalries in its history between many of its top drivers. This short book by William Whitfield highlights 15 of these rivalries with good background information on each one.

Several drivers are listed in more than one rivalry and they include all time greats like Alain Prost, Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton. The rivalry between the latter two and the one between Prost and Arytan Senna were probably the fiercest and therefore the two that I felt were the best chapters in the book. 

This is not to say the others are not as good as in each one, Whitfield provides background information on each driver, the teams on which they compete and the reason the two drivers became such rivals. These can range from an incident on the track to a driver who didn’t appreciate his status as second to another driver on the team who should be given leeway to win or at least make a podium finish or points toward the championship. No matter what the circumstances were to cause the friction between drivers, Whitfield’s writing about the rivalry was informative and easy to digest.

The book is fairly heavy on recent rivalries, but there is a good chapter on Juan Manuel Fangio versus Alberto Ascari, covering the early days of F1. He also has a good write-up of the Niki Lauda-James Hunt rivalry of the 70’s, brought to the screen by the movie “Rush.” 

While some of the information gets repetitive (mainly on drivers involved in more than one rivalry) this is a very good book for readers interested in more about some of the best rivalries in the sport and some background information on the drivers involved. It’s a quick read and one that F1 fans of any level of interest should enjoy.

Link:  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CKTNZDJ3?ref_=dbs_m_mng_rwt_calw_tkin_2&storeType=ebooks  

Review of "Mike Donlin"

As we wrap up 2024, there were a couple more books I wanted to get to before starting a new TBR list for 2025 and this one was on that list.  It is a Casey Award finalist (trying to read all of them as well) and it would be worthy of the award should it be selected as the winner.  Here is my review of "Mike Donlin."

Title/Author:

“Mike Donlin: A Rough and Rowdy Life From New York Baseball Idol to Stage and Screen” by Steve Steinberg and Lyle Spatz

Rating: 

5 of 5 stars (excellent)

Review:

Very few people can claim that they left a job or profession in which they excelled for a person they love, then have a new career along with that love that will be just as good and even more profitable.  In the early 20^th century, Mike Donlin had this opportunity and he made good on both careers – baseball and acting.  His story is told in this excellent book by Steve Steinberg and Lyle Spatz.

After briefly describing Donlin’s early life, the authors get into his baseball career early in the book.  Donlin’s first professional games were in the California League in 1897, which soon led him to the major leagues. He started in the majors with the St. Louis Statistics in 1897, but he really blossomed as a player when he joined the Baltimore Orioles in the newly formed American League in 1901 under manager John McGraw.  The professional relationship between Donlin and McGraw lasted a long time, including when McGraw went to the New York Giants and Donlin joined him after a two and a half year stint with the Cincinnati Reds. While he was productive with the Reds, he was a better ball player with the Giants and the authors do a wonderful job of illustrating how much McGraw’s influence had on Donlin on the field.

Off the field, however, Donlin had many issues with drinking and carousing.  This also affected his temper on the field, as he was often ejected for arguing with officials.  However, this all changed once he met Mabel Hite, a vaudeville performer.  Not only did Donlin court and marry Mabel, but he also decided to try his hand in vaudeville with her.  His fame as a baseball player helped attract people to the shows and one could say he got the “acting bug” as he would often use his work on stage as a negotiating ploy to obtain a higher baseball salary.

One tidbit that should be noted is that the authors make an interesting comparison to the life of a baseball player to that of a vaudeville performer. Both occupations required the perfomers to often travel – baseball players for road games, vaudeville performers to various venues.  At that time, unlike today, baseball players did not stay in fancy hotels or eat the best meals, and vaudeville performers had a similar lifestyle.

Nonetheless, Donlin continued to perform in both areas until his beloved Mabel died in 1912 from a long-term illness.  Losing his love at such a young age crushed his spirit, but he eventually was able to return to the baseball field for a couple years although his performance was slipping mainly due to old age.  He eventually remarried and enjoyed a good career in acting, both on stage and eventually in motion pictures as well. 

 Every aspect of Donlin’s life – the baseball, the stage performances, his appearance in motion pictures, his love for Mabel and his marriage to his second wife Rita – they are all well written, well researched and enjoyable to read.  The book is lengthy and there are many details in all of these areas that require the reader to read carefully and not skim in order to understand the full life of Mike Donlin. This book was well worth the time and effort as one will learn much about both baseball and stage performing in the early 20^th century.

 Link: Amazon.com: Mike Donlin: A Rough and Rowdy Life from New York Baseball Idol to Stage and Screen: 9781496238962: Steinberg, Steve, Spatz, Lyle: Books

 

Happy Holidays!

For this holiday season, I will leave you this take on “The Twelve Days of Christmas” courtesy of Baseball-isms.  

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me:

12 fastballs humming

11 pitchers pitching 

10 runners sliding

9 fielders creeping

8 coaches yelling

7 K’s a-swinging

6 bats a-breaking

5 World Series rings

4 knuckle curves

3 bullpens 

2 catcher’s mitts

And a white pearl on a hitting tee!

Review of “All the Way”

 It’s not often that I’ll be able to post reviews on consecutive days, but after finishing Magic in the Air, I started this one and not only was it a quick read, it was an excellent book. Here is my review of ”All the Way.”

Title/Author:

“All the Way: The Life of Baseball Trailblazer Maybelle Blair” by Kat D. Williams

Rating: 

5 of 5 stars (excellent)

Review: 

“A League of Their Own”, the highly successful and popular 1992 movie about the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL), brought attention to women’s baseball and the effects of this movie have been felt ever since. Women are gaining more opportunities in the sport, both in competition against other women and for career opportunities in non-playing roles. There are women in MLB front offices, coaching boxes and manager offices. This is thanks to women like Maybelle Blair, whose life is chronicled in this book by Kat D. Williams. 

Williams is a talented writer on women's sports and this book is no exception. Most of the book is really Blair telling the story herself with Williams adding in items from research about people or stories shared by Blair. Blair played only one year in the AAGPBL, in 1948 with the Peoria Red Wings. It should be noted that was the best season for the Red Wings, their only season with a winning record. Leg issues forced Blair to not come back for the 1949 season. However, the book covers Blair’s love for the game, her many years playing softball as both an amateur and a professional, over much of her life. 

There aren’t a lot of stories from games on the field shared by Blair, but it’s clear that baseball was an important part of her life. Even though the stories concentrate on Blair’s life off the field, she has many baseball accomplishments in her life. Two of them she is rightly proud of doing is creating baseball and softball teams at Northrop Corporation where she enjoyed a long and successful career. The other, in partnership with longtime friend Shirley Burkovich and the author, opened the International Women’s Baseball Center in 2016 in Rockford, Illinois. The struggles they had in overcoming objections from many fronts showed the dedication Blair had for every aspect of her life.

This includes her personal life and sexuality as while she lived as a lesbian her entire life, she did not officially “come out” until she was 94 (she is now 98) and these stories are fun to read as well. For men’s baseball, there are plenty of stories about some of the shenanigans the men do when not playing - Blair shows that women can also have some fun. Blair shares many stories about her loves, her “episodes” as she call them but mostly about her family and friendships that are all connected in some manner with baseball.

It’s a fairly short book, but it feels just right as if there was much more it really would have been filler material and not about the wonderful life of Maybelle Blair. It’s a perfect blend of baseball and awareness for both women’s issues and those of the LBGTQ+ community. 

I wish to thank Rowman and Littlefield for providing a copy of the book. The opinions expressed in this review are strictly my own. 

Link: https://www.amazon.com/All-Way-Baseball-Trailblazer-Maybelle/dp/1538186365/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr= 

Review of “Magic In the Air”

What basketball fan doesn’t get excited when a player on their favorite team goes in for a high flying dunk?  This is a very good book on the history of that crowd-pleasing play.

Title/Author:

“Magic in the Air: The Myth, the Mystery and the soul of the Slam Dunk” written by Mike Sielski

Rating: 

4 of 5 stars (very good)

Review: The dunk is one of the most exciting plays in basketball. Players who may not have great skills or statistics in other facets of the game but can dunk with flair can become legendary anywhere from playgrounds to NBA arenas. Of course, superstar players can also add to their legendary status with dunking prowess. This book by Mike Sielski takes the reader on a journey through the history of this shot and how it not only affected the sport, but how it also became a way to introduce Black culture to a mostly white fan base. 

The story of the dunk really begins with Jack Inglis, who was considered to be the best professional basketball player of the early 20th century, long before the birth of the NBA. The stories that Sielski found about Inglis and some of the shots and jumps he made are at times hard to believe and make up one of the best parts of the book. 

There’s also a good write up about Inglis’ life, which is something Sielski does for most players featured in this book. They do include the legendary stars whose dunks are famous (Michael Jordan and Julius Erving) but also some other players whose names may well have been forgotten save for one famous dunk or a win in a slam dunk contest. Lorenzo Charles and Mac McClung are two examples of these types of players in the book and their stories, especially that of Charles, were also very good. 

The linkage between the dunk and Black culture, and as an extension of that’ its influence in the sport, is also well documented and researched in the book. Here the reading can be a little more tedious and slow paced, but that doesn’t take away the quality and depth of the research. The best example and illustration of this is Sielski’s chapter on the famous 1966 NCAA championship game between Texas Western and Kentucky. Basketball fans will recall its place in history as Texas Western won with five Black starters against Kentucky’s team of all white players. What isn’t as well know is that David Lattin decided to send a message to Kentucky by dunking during Texas Western’s warm ups. Stories like this one make this book a very good source of information for anyone who wants to learn more about the dunk.

I wish to thank St. Martin’s Press for providing a copy of the book. The opinions expressed in this review are strictly my own. 

Link: https://www.amazon.com/Magic-Air-Myth-Mystery-Soul/dp/1250287529/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr= 

Review of “Baseball: The Movie”

 With the nominations for the 2024 Casey Award for the best baseball book of the year, I have decided to give each one of them (or as many as I can) a look. This one about baseball movies is a finalist and I admit to having mixed feelings about it. Here is my review of “Baseball: The Movie.”

Title/Author: “Baseball: The Movie” by Noah Gittell

Rating:  3 1/2 of 5 stars (Okay)

Review: As one who will watch any movie with a baseball theme, when I saw that not only there was a book about baseball movies, but it was also a finalist for the Casey Award for the best baseball book of 2024, I had to check it out. After reading this book by Noah Gittell, I have mixed feelings about it at best. 

I’ll start with my disappointment to get that out of the way. Some of the critiques felt very preachy to remind the reader about baseball’s racism and sexism in its history and also to pick apart some of the movies to find anything that might not stand up to 2024 moral and social scrutiny. I’ll use two of my favorite movies for this section. While Mr. Gittell mostly praises “A League of Their Own” he did have to mention that the baseball scenes had to be realistic since the mostly male establishment would criticize it if those portions didn’t seem realistic. Couldn’t we just enjoy the movie for the excellence it had without that comment?  He also was very harsh on his chapter on “The Sandlot.”  While yes, the scene where Squints fakes drowning in order to kiss lifeguard Wendy Peffercorn can be labeled as sexual assault, I guess it’s not okay to just enjoy a movie with scenes that many people MIGHT fantasize about. And of course, even though the best player is a Latino, the lack of a Black player seemed to bother the author enough that he had bring that into the discussion.

This kind of commentary is a shame to me because when he is writing just about the movie or the baseball, he has excellent commentary. I felt the best of those are about two other movies I really enjoyed, “Pride of the Yankees” and ”Little Big League.” While my enjoyment of the latter might be biased since I am a Twins fan, I really liked how Mr. Gittell mostly praises this movie for its use of today’s analytical thinking in the game before it was common. His description of the scene where young Billy, while managing the Twins, is talking to one of his coaches on situational baseball. More text like this and less about the social shortcomings in the movies would have made this book much more enjoyable for me. At best I give this 3 1/2 stars. 

Link: https://www.amazon.com/Baseball-Movie-Noah-Gittell/dp/1637272642/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Review of "Losing Big"

No matter what sport you enjoy, if you watch the games, you have seen ads for sportsbooks and betting.  This book is a great look at the state of this industry and the health crisis (in the author's words) that has arisen from the ease of betting.  

Title/Author:

“Losing Big: America’s Reckless Bet on Sports Gambling” by Jonathan D. Cohen

Rating: 

5 of 5 stars (excellent)

Review:

When the Supreme Court legalized sports gambling in 2018, it opened a floodgate of ways and sportsbooks for gamblers to bet on sports.  As of this review, 38 states have legalized sports betting – this book by Jonathan D. Cohen is a great insight into what this onslaught of betting has done for sports, for the sportsbook industry and also to those who became addicted to gambling.

For the latter, the most heartbreaking story is that of “Kyle”, whom Cohen frequently refers to when describing the way that offers made to gamblers will hook them into more betting.  Cohen goes as far to describe this as a public health crisis (he notes this is especially the case for young men) and provides Kyle’s story and that of others who suffered losses as cautionary tales.  The stories of upping bets to try to get back to even money or even regain self-esteem. 

Cohen also writes about attempts to regulate gambling industry at both the state and federal levels, much of which has either been defeated or has been weak attempts to address this.  The notices on ads for “responsible gambling” is one of these attempts to help gamblers with addiction is one that Cohen describes in great detail and also explains why it is not working as desired.

Cohen’s account of how Colorado’s bill that allowed sports gambling eventually made it into law is also very interesting – tying the revenue that would be realized into a more sustainable water supply to the state was an excellent piece of writing and research.  This was the best example shown into the theory that states saw sports betting as a means of obtaining much revenue without increasing taxes.

The last subject that this review will touch in which Cohen provided the reader with an excellent description is the sportsbook industry and its mechanisms. Focusing primarily on the two biggest sportsbooks, DraftKings and FanDuel, Cohen will take the reader inside their industry and the means in which that while they claim to be helpful to the gambler in avoiding addiction, the opposite occurs when there are the promises of big payouts on parlays, offers of free bets for a win or even a loss for a first-time bettor (much to the chagrin of states, since free bets are not subject to collections by the states) and other ways that the industry keeps their steady customers.

This book is mostly factual and eye-opening, but there is even a little bit of humor at the expense of the New York Jets (I am figuring the author is a long-suffering Jest fan).  It is a quick read and one that should be widely circulated to let all know about the current state of sports betting and the risks as well as the benefits.

I wish to thank Columbia Global Reports for providing a copy of the book. The opinions expressed in this review are strictly my own.

Link: Losing Big: America's Reckless Bet on Sports Gambling: Cohen, Jonathan D.: 9798987053706: Amazon.com: Books