The Bromance Book Club

The Bromance Book Club by Lyssa Kay Adams (2019) 339 pages

Gavin is a major league baseball player whose marriage is in trouble. Thea, his wife, made an admission to him which crumbled his sexual confidence, and instead of talking, he clammed up. He spent a month in the guest room and finally moved out. She wants a divorce, fed up with the life that baseball wives have to endure, her own dreams deferred, and a husband that has just proven that men cannot be trusted to stay and work things out. Gavin hits bottom, drinking himself into stupidity after moving into a cheap hotel. A group of his baseball team friends intervene. When Gavin tells them that he wants to save his marriage, his friends counsel him to win back his wife using a romance novel as a guide. The novel pivots between Gavin's and Thea's points of view, along with a storyline from a romance novel that Gavin's friends think mirrors the issues in the marriage. The result is a merry-go-round of relationship ups and downs: Will Thea even give Gavin another chance? Will Gavin quit saying things that make the situation worse? Will Thea's sister quit encouraging her to file for divorce? I had to see how it ended.

We Ride Upon Sticks

We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry, 384 pages

It's 1989 in Danvers, Massachusetts, and the varsity field hockey team is having their first winning season in AGES. The team's turnaround dates roughly to their summer camp, in which the goalie wrote a dark pledge and signed her name in her Emilio Estevez-adorned journal, soon pressuring her teammates to do the same. Are the two related? The team certainly thinks so, given their town's history as the original location of the 1692 witch trials. But is it that or just young women starting to stand up for themselves?

This is a funny, sharp, and surprisingly complex look at teen life in the late 1980s. Barry follows each team member for a chunk of the book, by the end, giving the reader a full scope of their lives. It's equal parts The Cruicible and My Best Friend's Exorcism, with a bit of Heathers thrown in, and it's absolutely fantastic.

The boys in the boat

The boys in the boat: nine Americans and their epic quest for gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics / Daniel James Brown, 404 pgs.

The depression was raging, the dust bowl blowing and a team of rowers at the University of Washington made up of hard scrabble, working class kids dared to dream.  Their coach saw something in them that none of them detected and he worked them HARD and LONG and made them winners.  Joe Rantz was third seat in the boat and this book tells much of his story.  His mother died when he was young and his step mother could not stand the sight of him.  He was basically kicked out of the house at age 10 and had to earn his way and figure things out with very little help.  Joe made his way by working hard and making a life on his own.  This resilience helped him when he joined the team and he worked harder than ever to excel.  My brother recommended this book and it is really a great story.  More than just a triumph of sport, it shows how a group can come together and accomplish something bigger than any one of them.

The Legends Club: Dean Smith, Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Valvano and an Epic College Basketball Rivalry

The Legends Club: Dean Smith, Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Valvano and an Epic College Basketball Rivalry by John Feinstein, 404 pages.

So this is a book for you if have an interest in Duke basketball, North Carolina (University) basketball, North Carolina State basketball, any of the coaches in the title, any of their legions of famous players over the years, or if you just like reading the works of John Feinstein. And he is a pretty good writer; almost every vignette he relates comes across as very interesting, even if at its core it's not. I found over the course of this book that I don't care all that much about North Carolina (the entire state) and its basketball teams, and would have preferred to read these gems as the individual magazine pieces that they seem they should be; other than the fact that these teams play each other several times each and every year of the thirty-some years this book covers, and that each of these coaches (like their predecessors and those that follow them) would prefer to defeat the other, there's not really a sustaining narrative.And everything and everyone in the book, for those thirty years, with the exception of Valvano when he is on his deathbed, is consumed by college basketball.

The Underdogs

The Underdogs by Mike Lupica  280 pp.

This was the last book for this season's Treehouse Book Club. Twelve year old Will Tyler is an amazing running back whose whole life is football. When the town he lives in can no longer afford to fund their team Will finds a way to get a major sponsorship for their team. Then the challenge was having enough players for the team. They manage to get the bare minimum by including one girl player and convincing his hard-working, disabled dad to be the coach. The Bulldogs are up against a season battling fully funded and manned teams while all the players do double duty on both offense and defense. Lupica includes lots of detailed game descriptions along with the personal drama going on in the players lives. This is a good one for sports fans.

Babe Conquers the World

Babe Conquers the World: the Legendary Life of Babe Didrikson Zaharias by Rich Wallace  272 pp.

When he was a teenager, my father used to caddy at the local courses in and around Normandy. He frequently talked about the celebrity golfers he caddied for and/or saw play including Babe Didrikson. I remember him saying that she hit the golf ball harder than anyone he ever saw. (He also said baseball player Leo Durocher was the worst golfer he'd ever seen, but that's another story.)

This book is a very good juvenile biography of the great woman athlete, her determination, and the controversies around her. While she helped to fight against those who believed women should not participate in sports like basketball and track, her personality and "I'm in it to win" attitude was frequently off-putting. After making her name in amateur basketball, Mildred Ella "Babe" Didrikson trained in track and field events and went on to be the first winner of the Olympic gold medals in women's javelin and 80m hurdles.  Her real fame came as a golfer, winning 10 major championships. She even met her husband, wrestler George Zaharias, on a golf course and they later owned a course together. After cancer surgery left her with a colostomy, she was told she would never play golf again but made a brief comeback before dying at the age of 45. This book is packed with photos, illustrations, and sidebars with commentary from fellow athletes and coaches. It's an interesting read and packed with plenty of facts to make it useful for kids doing reports for school.

Swimming Studies

Swimming Studies / Leanne Shapton 320 pgs.

Leanne Shapton writes about swimming from her serious competitive days when she was in the running a the Olympic trials but did not make the team to her lifelong pursuit of swimming as a form of exercise, a time for meditation and a source of relaxation.  This is sort of a memoir of swimming around the world, what it means to be weightless in the water, powerful in the pool, feeling lost in open water. Swimming has been an important part of the author's life almost forever.  Like other athlete's stories that I've read, she touches on but does not overwhelm with the motivation to train, the need to compete and win through the pain.  The dedication to sport takes away many opportunities for other activities.  There is a price to being good and getting better and it isn't easy to know when to move on with your life. 

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Michael Jordan: The Life by Roland Lazenby

Michael Jordan: The Life by Roland Lazenby, 708 pages.

Lazenby provides what appears to be a fair and unbiased portrait of the basket ball legend, but who really knows? Was Michael Jordan an unreasonable bully to many of his teammates? If that is what it takes to be the greatest player of all time, and of be one of the highest paid athletes of his and several succeeding generations, then wasn't that an acceptable trade-off? Anyway, Lazenby starts out with how the Jordan family came to settle in the Cape Fear, North Carolina area, tells some interesting tales about Jordan's grandparents and parents and then tells the story of MJ's life. The legendary story of how Jordan didn't make the cut for his high school varsity team during his sophomore year is re-evaluated (or re-re-re-evaluated) with the author casting no particular stones, and showing the affect the decision not to play the future star may have had on Jordan's high school coach in later years. There is a great section on Jordan's time and North Carolina playing for Dean Smith. But the bulk of this massive bio focuses on Jordan's years as a Chicago Bull. It's a fascinating, multi-layered tale, and in every part, Lazenby gives the differing sides to the story. We hear from friends, family, opponents, teammates and coaches. Some of the stories show Jordan in a good light, others, not so much.

Jordan's life is well-documented and filled with controversy. Lazenby ably shows that little of the tale is settled history

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Murder on Ice

Murder on Ice by Alina Adams 299 pgs.

Rebecca "Bex" Levy is a research assistant for 24/7 Sports.  She does research on Ice Skating competitions and competitors and wrangles the on air "personalities" Francis and Diana Howarth...a long retired couples team that have been married for years but can barely tolerate each other.  The World Championships are going mostly as planned but when a seasoned Russian skater wins the gold over the favored American, there is a bit of a scandal.  The situation becomes much more interesting with Italian judge Silvana Potenza turns up dead in what might be a suicide but is more likely murder.  Bex has a domineering boss who assigns her to solve the mystery in time for prime time coverage a few days away.  Always willing to figure out answers, Bex starts her investigation and deals with the the crazy world of amateur international skating. A fun little mystery. 

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Game Day

Game Day: Meet the People Who Make It Happen by Kevin Sylvester, 95 pages

This book was actually 188 pages, but I only read about half of it. There are only so many formulaic interviews I can handle. OK, backing up a bit... The premise of this book was actually pretty cool. Each chapter features a different person involved behind the scenes in professional sports, like a Zamboni driver, a NASCAR mechanic, the head groundskeeper for Camden Yards, the guy who schedules the professional lacrosse league games (who knew we even had a professional lacrosse league???)...

I liked the information, but the presentation was a little off. I mean, there was no attribution for the direct quotes! The only way we knew the interviewee was speaking was a change in the font style and color. That's just not right! And EVERY. SINGLE. CHAPTER. followed the exact same arc. I could have written the questions for each interview easily, and they were all the same: How did you get in this job? How did you get interested in [sport]? What's your average day like? What's the hardest thing you do? What do you do during the games? I do not exaggerate when I say that I could have written this, and in my sleep at that. Not bad to flip through, but definitely not great.

Don't put me in, coach

Don't put me in, coach:  my incredible NCAA journey from the end of the bench to the end of the bench / Mark Titus 257 pgs.

Mark Titus was a walk on to the Ohio State basketball team.  He never had much chance to be a star...he abruptly stopped growing before he hit his 6'9" predicted height and he is a good but not great player.  He does, however make use of his talent for giving his team mates trouble and pranking them (and his coaches).  He ends up starting a club for benchwarmers everywhere and developing an award.  It seems like he probably had more fun in his four years of college than any other five of us combined...and I know LOTS of people who had fun in college.  Fun book that talks a bit about the basketball but doesn't overwhelm you with the sports stuff.

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The Whore of Akron: One Man's Search for the Soul of LeBron James by Scott Raab

The Whore of Akron: One Man's Search for the Soul of LeBron James by Scott Raab, sports 302 pages.
Ancient, crabby-guy sportswriter Raab discovers that some professional athletes are self-centered and just in it for the money. Sure LeBron leaving Cleveland was a big deal in Cleveland, but it is rather an insignificant thing to base your life around, to seek and swear revenge for, to pray that someday LeBron is brought to justice to atone for this heinous act. Raab's overly long, splenetic diatribe against LeBron James is whiny, self-contradictory, and yet still somewhat fun to read.

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Superman vs. Muhammad Ali/Neal Adams

Superman vs. Muhammad Ali by Neal Adams and Denny O'Neil; graphic novel, superheroes; 96 pages

I'm not generally a huge fan of Superman. In fact, most of the time I'm lucky if I can make it through a single issue of a Superman story without getting a toothache. But when this came across my desk, I knew I had to read it.

The premise of this story (recovered from the awesomeness that is the 1970s), is that an army of warrior aliens from the planet Bodace (yes, as in "bodacious") arrives on Earth, demanding that we choose a champion to represent us in a fight with their best warrior. To prove that they're serious, they launch a few bombs at St. Louis (!!), which Superman has to stop with great drama and flair. Anyway, the people of Earth are torn on who to choose as their champion: Superman, or Muhammad Ali. Yeah, I know. So the Bodacians decree that Superman and Ali should duke it out to see who gets to fight their guy, an 8-foot tall green menace with impenetrable skin. The fate of the world hangs in the balance. Oh, and did I mention that the Bodacian emperor wears a purple leisure suit for the whole book?

To be fair, the match between Ali and Superman gets a lot more even when we learn it's taking place beneath Bodace's red sun, which nullifies Superman's powers. Still, the whole thing stretches my comic credibility so far that it just goes right into the "camp" category. And really, we all know how much I love camp. It's probably the reason I was able to finish this in a single sitting.

I will say that the parts about Ali were much less campy than the overall story. He's represented as an American hero, much like Superman, but knowing that he's a real person puts a different spin on it. Also worth checking out is the original cover, in which the crowd is entirely peopled with celebrities, both real and from the DC universe (though, sadly, Batman was not actually in this book). Overall, this was an awesome trip back to the '70's. Highly recommended.

When the Game Was Ours by Earvin "Magic"Johnson and Larry Bird

When the Game Was Ours by Earvin "Magic"Johnson and Larry Bird, 340 pages, sports.

Two of the best NBA players of all time recount their time playing basketball against each other. The book traces the relationship between the two fierce competitiors from the 1979 NCAA championship game when Johnson's Michigan State team played Bird's Indiana State, through their storied professional careers and each man's induction into the Hall of Fame. A story of friendship and a great account of 1980's basketball.

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