Review of “Losing Isn’t Everything”

On a recent business trip to Boston, about a 2 1/2 to 3 hour drive for me, I had time to listen to an audiobook and chose this one as it sounded interesting- it was.  Here is my review. 

Title/Author: “Losing Isn’t Everything: The Untold Stories and Hidden Lessons Behind the Toughest Losses in Sports History” written and narrated by Curt Menefee 

Rating: 4 of 5 stars (very good)

Review: Whenever a memorable moment happens in sports in which there is a winner and a loser, the winner is usually remembered over the years. But not always - sometimes the losing team, player or in individual sports, a performance where the athlete failed to perform as expected, is remembered just as much. This book by Curt Menefee, who also narrates the audio book, tells their story.

Each one follows a pretty standard format - the setting is set, the athlete featured is highlighted. Then the moment happens and how he or she handled that ignominy is the bulk of the material. This would include not only in the immediate aftermath of the event, but how that person has carried on in the following months and years. Many of the stories also started to feel the same as most of them were able to do fine, but almost to a person, it did upset them at least a little that that particular play was all that was remembered. 

The best example of that last statement would be Everton Walls, who was the safety pictured on the famous photo of “The Catch” by the San Francisco 49ers receiver Dwight Clark. The other extreme example of this - where the athlete is perfectly fine with what happened - is Jean van de Velde, whose infamous 72nd hole at the 1999 British Open cost him a major title. Van de Velde has always maintained that yes, he lost, but he lost by attempting the shots he wanted to do. 

This book is interesting in not only the content of all of these stories, but for the wide variety of sports that is covered. Snowboarding (Lindsey Jacobellis, whose extra move cost her a gold medal in the 2006 Winter Olympics), speed skating (Dan Jansen, who fell at two Olympics before finally winning in 1994) and track (Mary Decker and her fall in the 1984 Summer Olympics) and covered as well as football, baseball and basketball. 

From Craig Ehlo to the 1992 Kentucky "Unforgettables" and from Rodney Harrison to Calvin Schiraldi, many memorable moments are covered and this book covers the other part of them 

Link: https://www.amazon.com/Losing-Isnt-Everything-Stories-Toughest/dp/0062440071/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0 

Review of “Marinovich”

This was one of those books that I wish I didn’t let sit in my TBR pile for so long. Former USC and Raiders quarterback Todd Marinovich has penned a memoir that is very different than other books in this genre. This is my review.

Title/Author: “Marinovich: Outside the Lines in Football, Art and Addiction” by Todd Marinovich with Lizzy Wright

Rating: 4 of 5 stars (very good)

Review: Todd Marinovich was seemingly born to be a football player. Not only did he show great promise as a quarterback in his days playing youth football, his father was Marv Marinovich, a former NFL player and coach. While he achieved success in high school and college football (the latter at USC) and was a first round draft pick of the then-Los Angeles Raiders, there was a demon Todd was battling: addiction. This memoir is a very good account by Todd of his struggles battling the disease.

I used “disease” because that’s how Marinovich described it for both himself and his father, although that didn’t occur until near the end of the book. He said Marv’s addiction (what he always called his father, never “Dad” or something similar) was physical conditioning and coaching while his was drugs and alcohol. While his story is not unique, this was written with quite a different tone than other sports memoirs. 

This is because Marinovich doesn’t focus on his childhood or his playing career. Due to his addiction, his time with the Raiders was brief, but did have some good games. After several attempts at recovery, he caught on in the Canadian Football League, but that didn’t pan out. He played one season in the Arena Football League and was named Rookie of the Year but like with all his other football teams (even at USC) he never could stay away from drugs.

Instead of football, Marinovich concentrated on telling the darker side of his struggles. He gives some very detailed and painful accounts of his arrests, failed rehabilitation sessions, and failed relationships including with his family. Even though he currently is living a decent life in Hawaii coaching youth football and crafting his artistic talent, he makes it clear that addiction is something he is still fighting every day. This is what makes this such a powerful book. It’s clear that he has many regrets and knows his issues but is trying every day to overcome them. Todd Marinovich must receive at least some praise for opening up like this to the world. 

I wish to thank Ben Bella Books for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley. The opinions expressed in this review are solely my own.  

Link: https://benbellabooks.com/shop/marinovich/ 

Review of “Baddest Man”

This book grabbed my interest because of the author. Mark Kriegel wrote excellent biographies on two of my favorite childhood athletes, Joe Namath and Pete Maravich.  Knowing this and also that he covered boxing for a New York City newspaper during Mike Tyson’s era, I felt this would be an excellent book on him - I wasn’t disappointed.

Title/Author: “Baddest Man: The Making of Mike Tyson” by Mark Kriegel

Rating: 5 of 5 stars (excellent)

Review: Mike Tyson is probably the most talked about boxer in the history of the sport aside from Muhammad Ali. His life has taken so many twists and turns. Despite all that has been already said and written about him, this book by bestselling author Mark Kriegel is excellent in not only its portrayal of Tyson, but also in its ability to make even those readers who think they can’t read anything new about him will find something they didn’t before.

While the book is about his life from his childhood in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn to his 91-second knockout of Michael Spinks in 1988 to unify the heavyweight championship of boxing, the prologue will grab a reader right away. Kriegel writes about Tyson, the father who is watching his daughter at a tennis match. From just this passage, it will be clear to readers that this will not be a typical sports biography.  

From there, Kriegel takes the reader on a journey that will not only reveal much about Tyson, but also provide in-depth looks at a variety of topics: poverty, crime, gang activity, the media’s love of celebrity issues, the crookedness of the boxing business and its characters, the greed of the 1980’s and so much more. None of these topics will be new to anyone, but the depth to which Kriegel writes about these topics, especially the business side of the sport, is excellent. It should be noted that Kriegel was a long time boxing writer for the New York Daily News, so his knowledge of this side of the sport is well-grounded.

While the fights Tyson had in the ring as an amateur, his failed attempt at making the 1984 U.S. Olympic team, and those as a professional are well covered (including the famous bout with Spinks), the work on Tyson’s life outside the ring is what makes this book so good. Kriegel writes about the myths on Tyson, especially in his days in Brownsville and those when he was taken in and mentored by Cus D’Amoto. Also noteworthy is Kriegel’s accounts of Tyson’s marriage to actress Robin Givens, his relationship with her mother Ruth Roper , his lack of business acumen when dealing with Jim Jacobs, Bill Clayton and especially Don King. If one remembers this time as a tangled, salacious time for what Tyson was doing, the reader will find out even more twists as Kriegel navigates then through all of the lies, deception, stories and craziness.

But one conclusion that one will make, no matter their view on Tyson as a person, is that it’s very clear that he was a person who lacked the love and support he wanted and would accept it from whomever would provide it. Nearly every person mentioned in the previous paragraph was doing that in some way and Tyson was always seeking it, no matter what it would do to him later.

Since this book only covers Tyson’s life up to that June 1988 night in Atlantic City and the anticipation that accompanied it, I am hoping Kriegel writes a sequel covering some of the other events that made Tyson such a compelling character. This book is highly recommended for any reader who wants to read about any aspect of Mike Tyson’s first 22 or so years of life. 

Link: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/552034/baddest-man-by-mark-kriegel/ 

Review of “The Golf 100”

Having read many books over the years of “the greatest” whatever, I found this one a little different, mainly due to avoiding saying how one era was better than another. This is explained in my review of this book, “The Golf 100” 

Title/Author: “The Golf 100: A Spirited Ranking of the Greatest Players of All Time ” by Michael Arkush

Rating: 5 of 5 stars (excellent)

Review: Anytime a book will try to list the greatest athletes or teams in any sport, it will generate debate by readers. Many will disagree with the author and many will argue amongst themselves about who should be ranked where. This book by Michael Arkush, an accomplished golf writer, is one of the better ones that takes on this task.

What I like best about this book is that Arkush bases his rankings and opinions on how each golfer fared against their competitors during their era and their gender. He didn’t try to compare Tiger Woods against Bobby Jones or Anika Sorenstam against Babe Diedrikson. If the golfer was great during their time and won major tournaments (this was Arkush’s main measuring stick) they would make these rankings. 

Why he used this logic in grading these legendary golfers was best said by one of the all time greats, Bobby Jones:  “I think we must agree that all a man can do is beat the people who are around at the same time he is. He cannot win from those who came before any more than he can from those who may come afterward.”

Of course, this book would not be as good as it was without the excellent stories told about each golfer. Whether it was about Old Tom Morris and the early days of the sport, Mickey Wright’s swing that many consider to be the most pure one ever, or some of the biggest errors of judgement made that cost some of these great players even more major victories. Greg Norman and Phil Mickelson both rank fairly high on this list but Arkush would often refer to their bad moments, especially Norman. He also would mention when he felt golfers actually were underachieving despite all the wins they racked up. 

Even with these criticisms of golfers, this was one of the best books on ranking athletes I have read. Between the avoidance of comparing different eras, the excellent stories on eac one and the conversational style of the writing, it is one that is recommended for any golf reader.

I wish to thank Doubleday Books for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley. The opinions expressed in this review are strictly my own. 

Link: https://www.amazon.com/Golf-100-Spirited-Ranking-Greatest-ebook/dp/B0D8KBRHHR/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0 

 

Review of “Death of a Childhood”

This was a different type of memoir to finish off the month of August. It covered one year of the author’s life - his 11th year. Here’s my review of “Death of a Childhood.” 

Title/Author: “Death of a Childhood: A Memoir of 1989 and the ‘Why Not’ Baltimore Orioles” by Ryan Basen

Rating: 3 of 5 stars (okay)

Review: It’s not unusual for an 11-year-old boy to have troubles in his life as he is moving up from elementary school to middle school or junior high. Add in a change from public to private school so he will not have the same friends at school, a grandmother and beloved pet with health issues and growing apart from his parents and you have that particular year for the author of this memoir, Ryan Basen.

However, Basen did have one thing going for him in that year of change, In 1989, his favorite team, the Baltimore Orioles, made a surprise run in the American League East division and Basen was faithfully following his team. Even though the Orioles fell short in the final weekend to the Toronto Blue Jays, both Ryan and the baseball world got caught up in the “Why Not?” story of the team after an awful 1988 season. 

The book follows the timeline of the 1989 Orioles season and Basen does an admirable job of intertwining his personal life and the fate of the Orioles that year. It did feel strange to be reading dialogue of an 11-year old thoughts with language one expects (mostly - he does curse a few times) and then suddenly to be reading baseball text that is clearly written by an adult. While I enjoyed reading both stories (Basen’s life changes and the Orioles) it just felt a little strange to be reading in different voices, although very appropriate. Overall, a decent book that is an easy read to pass the time on a lazy late summer day. 

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

Link: https://www.amazon.com/Death-Childhood-Memoir-Baltimore-Orioles/dp/1958861545/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1IJAVHWT4GRIA&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.440xh3RYJt3Oaph2J4-qTVk1UqS9sy5kToJlRaEDsO7gPpvX8tbq6Inzx0ogb2lIzd8uwzHvNyMCCXShQNf61PRX9pieiQgOMHuoFJAQPCYbro2SSHjGylLXKv7gfHq0.1HziZAbRfXPcLP-L2SdSI5SRyQ8JECjLqNoa8Pr9gcg&dib_tag=se&keywords=death+of+a+childhood+ryan+basen&qid=1756690207&sprefix=Death+of+a+childhood+%2Caps%2C123&sr=8-1 

Review of "The Bandana Express"

 High school football teams are usually the subject of some of the best football books and this one is no exception.  Here is my review of the story of the 1980 Giles Spartans, "The Bandana Express."

Title/Author:

“The Bandana Express: The True Story of the 1980 Gilles Spartans” by Jeremy Heymore

Rating: 

4 of 5 stars (very good)

Review:

One of the great characteristics of sports is that any athlete or team can be a “rags to riches” story when they achieve greatness after a period of struggling.  The Giles Spartans, a high school football team covering a swath of southwestern Virginia, can qualify as one of those stories when they unexpectedly won the 1980 Virgina state championship. Their journey is chronicled in this book by Jeremy Heymore.

Inspired by seeing Ragsdale Field in nearby Narrows, Heymore gathered information and conducted interviews with key people on that 1980 team and penned a story that many compare to Friday Night Lights. I found it similar – but very different in that a forbidden piece of headgear – a bandana – ended up being a symbol of a team and fan base that came together to bring joy to the Giles school district.

The portrayal of coach Steve Ragsdale and his father Harry are the best personal stories in the book – but that doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty of good information on players on the team as well. This includes players like Leon King, who was certainly the star of the team and was a big reason why the Spartans were able to have the success they had.

Readers who like the X’s and O’s in their football books will love Heymore’s write up of the Giles games.  Most of the games have an excellent play by play description. Much like the play of the Spartans, I thought the writing about each playoff game got better and better up to the championship game.  That was very entertaining – not just for the action on the field, but also for the description of Coach Ragsdale’s halftime speech that truly worked. 

Any football fan, regardless of level of interest or which level of the game they follow (high school, college or professional) will enjoy this book on a great story of an underdog team coming together to win a championship.

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

Link: The Bandana Express: The True Story of the 1980 Giles Spartans: Haymore, Jeremy: 9798888247693: Amazon.com: Books

Review of “It Happened!”

While I certainly knew about Jim Lampley before reading this book, I admit to having forgotten that he covered so many different sports before he became known for his work in boxing that earned him enshrinement into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. This book has a story about that day and so much more. Here is my review of “It Happened!”

Title/Author: “It Happened! A Uniquely Lucky Life in Sports Television” by Jim Lampley with Art Chansky

Rating:  4 of 5 stars (very good)

Review:  Jim Lampley had a long and mostly successful career in sports broadcasting, most notably for his work in boxing for HBO. He writes about his life and his ups and downs in both his professional and personal lives in this very good memoir.

 

Most memoirs and biographies will follow the timeline from childhood to either the present or death. This one does not do that at all, aside from the beginning, when Lampley describes his childhood and early adulthood. I found that the biggest drawback of the book because unless one is a fan of Lampley and followed his career closely, it was hard to determine where in his life or career he was at. It felt like he wanted to jump to the next story or topic that was on his mind, whenever it might have occurred relative to the last one. 

But the stories he can tell are so good, especially those from his days of covering “Wide World of Sports” and the Olympics (both Summer and Winter Games). His accounts from his vantage points of Frank Klammer’s exciting downhill skiing gold medal run in 1976 and the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” in Lake Placid were two of my favorite stories in the entire book. But the excellent stories are not limited to the Olympics. His account of the George Foreman-Michael Moorer fight and the upset of Mike Tyson by Buster Douglas are also great. Especially the Foreman-Moorer bout where Foreman told Lampley before the fight what he was going to do to his opponent. That was the fight in which Lampley exclaimed his famous line whis is the title of the book, “It happened!”

What makes Lampley’s career even more interesting is the sheer variety of sports he has covered in his career: college and NFL football, Major League Baseball, college basketball, golf, tennis to name just a few as well as boxing. Just about any sport a reader enjoys could be covered in this book.  

There is also plenty of material on his personal life, which is not quite as successful, starting with the fact he has been married four times. To his credit, no matter what happened in his relationships with those women or his children, he never criticized them or had anything bad to say about them. When it comes to stories about this part of his life, the best ones involve his daughter Brooke, whom he had with his second wife Joanne. 

Overall, I felt this was a very good, entertaining and easy to read memoir even if it jumped around at times and felt like it needed more boxing since that is what Lampley is best known for. Nonetheless, if a reader wants to learn more about this very interesting and versatile broadcaster, it is highly recommended. 

I wish to thank Ben Bella Books for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley. The opinions expressed in this review are strictly my own.

Link: https://www.amazon.com/Happened-Uniquely-Lucky-Sports-Television/dp/1637746431/ref=sr_1_1?crid=7MOKRPPA7IJA&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Rkx2FHEvcoTBEetamWkLLpTGUImrdou6KJhMQK7H0WcHA7UFjeu9oohix8pEyp4-.fq14ZizGJ7kYuJIs50kHL7FM7pgZzcoCDUCcAvIGejE&dib_tag=se&keywords=it+happened+jim+lampley&qid=1755970311&sprefix=It+happened+jim%2Caps%2C120&sr=8-1 

Review of "The Whiz Kids"

With summer winding down, I'm trying to catch up with copies of books sent to have reviews posted before the fall season of new publications.  Here is one that was sent that was a good look at the 1950 Philadelphia Phillies.

 

Title/Author:

“The Whiz Kids: How the 1950 Phillies Took the Pennant, Lost the World Series and Changed Philadelphia Baseball Forever” by Dennis Snelling

Rating: 

3 ½ of 5 stars (good)

Review:

Before 1950, the Philadelphia Phillies had not won a World Series and had only been to one other Series in 1915.  They certainly played second fiddle in their own city to the Athletics and Connie Mack who had 9 pennants and 5 championships under their belt.  But a surprise National League pennant in 1950 changed the perception of the team and this book by Dennis Snelling gives a good look at the team and at Philadelphia baseball history.

The book can be considered to have three separate sections.  The first third of the book deals with Philadelphia baseball prior to the mid 1940’s, primarily about the Phillies of course.  I found this section to have some good information but was somewhat dry.  Admittedly, I was getting antsy to read about their magical 1950 season, especially when Snelling would talk about members of that team in their performance before they gelled that year.

Then came a complete rundown of the 1950 season up to game 4 when the New York Yankees completed a four-game sweep of the Phillies.  From spring training to the last out, Snelling gives a thorough and excellent look at the team, their performance on the field and their chemistry and interactions during the season.  Far beyond focusing on the stars of the team like Robin Roberts and Curt Simmons, just about anything you wanted to know about the “Whiz Kids” are covered there.

The third part of the book then describes how baseball in Philadelphia changed after that 1950 season.  It started off by describing what each player, coach, manager and owner did during that off season.  Also covered is the departure of the Athletics to Kansas City, Connie Mack stepping down as manager and then further talk about Philadelphia baseball.  Much like the first section, I found the information good, but the reading fairly dry, especially when compared to the actual baseball talk in the second section.

Any Philadelphia baseball fan will enjoy this book, dry or not, as this will cover just about anything they will want to know about that team that is one of the most beloved teams that lost a World Series.

I wish to thank University of Nebraska Press for providing a copy of the book. The opinions expressed in this review are strictly my own.

Link: The Whiz Kids: How the 1950 Phillies Took the Pennant, Lost the World Series, and Changed Philadelphia Baseball Forever: Snelling, Dennis: 9781496242686: Amazon.com: Books