This is one well-traveled, well-connected sportswriter that I have never ever heard of. Happened upon this book at the Hoover Barnes & Nobel. He is a former columnist for the Washington Post and a former senior writer for TIME. He must be a jillion yrs old given how far back he goes. Actually I think he started in 1966. I Google the author but cannot elicit any useful info. This book was published in 2020. I assume the author is still alive but I do not know for sure.
There is no sequential narrative. He goes from one subject to another with stories interacting with the leading sports figures every sport generally not giving dates. If you did not know already that Ali-Foreman in Africa was 1974 you wouldn't know it from this book. The author seems to have known and interacted with every person in every sports during his career.
This author is a reporter, reporting with dash the athletic events that he has seen though not with any spine-tingling excitement, just reporting the facts, reporting the interactions with most every sports figure of important regardless of the sport in the last fifty years, with occasional comments like offering that Ali was a cruel fighter example how kept Floyd Patterson on his feet too long just to torture him.
One surprising thing right off the top is that he says that the best baseball player he ever saw in person was Roberto Clemente because he never saw Mays in person although he offers that Mays was the best based what other people have told him. Tambien, he doesn't mention Mickey Mantle. Strange if you ask me. How could have had a 50 plus career sportswriting and not having seen Willie Mays at the end of his storied career?
Speaking of Ali-Foreman he was there although he doesn't say much about the fight except that Ali was a dirty fighter and Foremen punched himself out. It seems the author doesn't like the globally admired Muhammad Ali.
I have never understood the supposed greatness of Kareem. P. 36
He has a story about visiting Walter Alston, call him Smokey, friend of Weeb Eubank, joking that he was colorless yet Smokey picked him up on his motorcycle.
One of the best contents of the book is his discussion of chess and Bobby Fischer. I knew that Fischer was eccentric but not as bad as portrayed in this book. He ended up living in Iceland unable to return to the States due to an outstanding warrant.
He has a brief mention of being at a practice with Bear Bryant with the coach telling him how he won his libel case against the Saturday Evening Post.
He talks about Paul Brown, a brilliant coach and football mind, for whom the Cleveland Browns are named because he owned the team as it came into the NFL, a man who had his likes, coaches he promoted, and coaches he despised, like Bill Walsh, whom he tried to block from becoming a head coach but without success in the case of Walsh.
Brown, says the author icily, who taught English when he started coaching in high school, "I can define a gerund. Can you?"
The author responds, "A verb that acts like a noun, kind of like a football coach who acts like a sportswriter."
A daily column with the Washington Star. P. 133
He talks about the sordid mess that is Johnny Bench who makes Pete Rose sound like a saint. Perhaps the greatest catcher of all-time, but a total jerk as a human being.
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