Editor's Note: The Snooze Button Generation originally published "100 Nonfiction Books I Recommend" in 2019. As we read more books worthy of recommending, the list continually updates. Today, "Levels of the Game" by John McPhee enters the Sports category.
Blown away.
It's been a while since I've felt blown away by a book, but John McPhee's Levels of the Game (1969) did it to me. I must admit that right off the bat, I was skeptical because of the publication date.
One Hundred Nonfiction Books I Recommend overflows with 21st century books. Levels of the Game is only the 13th book I recommend from the 20th century, and only the fifth prior to 1990. Y'know, it goes back to how our reading minds have contorted in the digital age and how many 20th century books can't compete with our 15-tabs-open, notification-receiving, Podcast-listening digital minds.
Upon publication of Levels of the Game, Robert Lipsyte of The New York Times wrote: "This may be the high point of American sports journalism."
This is not hyperbole to say that Lipsyte was correct. It just very well may be the high point of sports journalism. Of the 10 categories of books I recommend, sports books are the weakest. It's not out of not reading these books, or giving them chances, but they too often are mere commercial products extolling heroes. Then, when I read the sports books that supposedly have chops, I react with: "Eh, doesn't do it for me."
In Levels of the Game, the narrative thread is genius. It follows just one match, a semifinal in the 1968 U.S. Open between Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner. This was the first U.S. Open in the open area, and that means it was the first time pros were allowed to compete against amateurs. It used to be only for amateurs.
Both Ashe and Graebner had amateur status and earned no prize money from their matches. It was a time when they both arrived at their match via subway, and Ashe was a lieutenant in the Army while Graebner was — and still is — a paper company executive in New York City.
The match is significant because two Americans are facing off in the semis whereas no American had won the U.S. Open at Forest Hills in 13 years. The winner would have a shot at defeating either a Dutchman or Australian for the title.
McPhee reports the path of the match and highlights significant points throughout the 150-page book. Early on, the reader realizes that McPhee has traveled to Richmond, Va., to interview and report on Ashe's background and Cleveland, Ohio, to report on Graebner. By the way, as a Cleveland native, I had quite a bonus to hear about him graduating from Lakewood High and his family moving to Beachwood as his dad attended dental school at Case Western Reserve.
One way I approached the book was to not look up the result to keep it a bit of a cliffhanger. I assumed Ashe probably was going to win because, honestly, I had never heard of Graebner. But Graebner won the first set 6-4 and had a pretty untouchable serve, so let's just say this, if you don't want a spoiler's alert, stop reading here.
The match itself is secondary to exploring the lives of the two, who were Davis Cup teammates and comrades. On Ashe's side, we see what life was like, training under Dr. Robert Johnson, who created a tennis academy for African-Americans in Lynchburg, Va. We also see glimpses into Ashe's father, Arthur Sr., and learn that Arthur Jr. lost his mother at age 6 when she was 27 and had complications from a pregnancy.
In Graebner's world, we see how he was an only child, and he and his father were obsessed with tennis. Graebner, who wore black glasses and had a striking resemblance to Clark Kent, was a power server in a time in which players still used wooden rackets.
When the match gets tied 6-6 in the second set, the narrative shifts to the players' assessment of each other as well as their different ideologies. Then, a lengthy quote from Ashe that extends beyond a page explains his relationship with Graebner, his humanity for the Clevelander and the complexity of Ashe's empathetic position in culture, despite facing many oblivious to society's ills.
The nuanced quote is so insightful that it probably doesn't serve it well to take any of it out of context, but here goes: "(Graebner's) a nice guy, but he has become accustomed to instant gratification. As soon as he wanted something, he got it. Put all this on a tennis court, and the high-strung part, the conservative, and the need for instant gratification become predominant."
In era before tiebreakers, the match gets tied 6-6 in the second set. Graebner finally loses his serve for the first time in the match to conclude the second set, 8-6. So weird to think of that game, that moment. Where would we be if Graebner holds on?
In the third set, Ashe leads 6-5. It's Graebner's serve, and Ashe takes a love-15 lead. McPhee points out that at this juncture, the two have played 186 points. Each player has won 93 points. But from then on ... it's all Ashe. He wins that game and the match in four sets.
Ashe goes on to win the U.S. Open final the next day, and he also wins the Australian Open (1970) and Wimbledon (1975) in his career — three Grand Slam titles. Beyond tennis, Ashe had a gift for diplomacy and leadership, and even when Levels of the Game was published, he had visited the White House four times by age 26.
Toward the end of the book, Ashe says a few memorable things, including the constant judgment and stress he faced. "It's a great feeling to away from all this crap in the United States. Mentally and spiritually, it's like taking a vacation. It's like going from New York to the black world of Richmond and Gum Spring. Your guard goes down. Everywhere else I go, my sensors are out. Everywhere."
A few pages later, McPhee explains a lot of the criticism Ashe endured. Then Ashe, who we lost at age 49 in 1993, answers the criticism with an eloquent, three-page quote in the final few pages of the book.
My favorite part of the quote is this: "We'll advance by quiet negotiation and slow infiltration — and by objective, well-planned education, not an education in which you're brainwashed. Education reflects a culture's values. If that culture is warped, you get a warped education."
For 12 years of my life, I was employed as a sports writer for Newsday and the Long Beach Press-Telegram. It was quite a learning experience, and it was cool to realize that sports stars and celebrities are just real people.
Yeah, many of them have egos, are self-important and self-absorbed, but they're just people. I never was really into the celebrity culture, but a whole bunch of folks in L.A. and our country are into that stuff — that fake stuff.
So I have my own view on sports writing and believe that a lot of the most popular books on sports are actually over-hyped and not too readerly. Like any book that I might enjoy, a sports book needs to find subtle truths or look at things in a different way or be so well-written that I can't put it down. Honestly, I haven't run across many sports books like that.
But I do have my favorites, and here are 10 sports books for 100 Nonfiction Books I Recommend:
1. A Pitcher's Story (2001) by Roger Angell
2. Why Baseball Matters (2018) by Susan Jacoby
3. String Theory (2016) by David Foster Wallace
4. Little Red Book (1992, with 2012 anniversary edition) by Harvey Penick with Bud Shrake
5. Zen Golf (2002) by Joseph Parent
6. The Big Miss (2012) by Hank Haney
7. The Whore of Akron (2011) by Scott Raab
8. Back from the Dead (2016) by Bill Walton
9. Word Freak (2001) by Stefan Fatsis
10. Relentless (2013) by Tim Grover
We are now 80 books into this project with the categories of leadership and readers' choice left. We'll kick off with our first leadership book tomorrow. Enjoy!
In the middle of a year-long leadership program I attended, our leader suggested the book Relentless by Tim Grover. I had gobbled up the other books in the program, so I couldn't wait for this one.
Grover is the former trainer of Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade and many more superstars, and his book focuses on what elite athletes do that others don't.
Cleaners. That is Grover's terminology for the elite of the elites. A cleaner is someone who has the mentality to win at all costs. A cleaner has a definite dark side. A cleaner is more than just a clutch player. He is a strong-willed leader who is never satisfied with his accomplishments.
The other types of elite athletes are coolers, who are followers and hesitant to take initiative. Another is a closer, who often needs to be congratulated after accomplishing something.
When I read this book, I was like, "Hey, yo, I'm a cleaner!"
Funny, the person I met who recommended the book struck me as one of the most relentless people I've ever met. Intense! And, maybe, to be elite in certain arenas, a relentless mindset is a prerequisite.
I was drawn to Relentless because I sometimes have lacked a killer's instinct in sports. I can have a big lead, then led up and let the opponent back in the game. I used to overthink key moments, and I'd like to close out games like Kobe.
But y'know what struck me most about Grover's book is his personal stories? If I remember correctly, his father was a pathologist who performed autopsies, and at an extremely young age, Grover saw these bodies and even helped his father in that setting. Egads.
It made me wonder about what spurs people to even want to be "cleaners." Are cleaners overdoing it? Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I'm a big fan of work-life balance and put love of self and others above being a cleaner. What drives cleaners? On one hand, I respect the focus, discipline and work ethic, but on the other hand, I wonder: What are you truly missing?
So I do recommend Relentless. But at what cost? Humanity supersedes being "the best" at something. However, in an ultra-competitive situation, I respond to some of the lessons in Grover's book, and I just win, baby.
Man, I used to be an avid Scrabble player. It wasn't competitive Scrabble against strangers, but it was among friends and family. I think I'm a pretty good player.
So back in 2001, when Word Freak by Stefan Fatsis came out, I was all over it. It's about the bizarre world of competitive Scrabble, and then in 2004, the documentary Word Wars came out.
I hardly play Scrabble nowadays, and I blame the phone. At first, I was mesmerized by Words with Friends, played hundreds of games, but then was like, "Uh, why am I wasting my life with this phone and this game?"
So Word Freak follows the world's best Scrabble players, and we quickly realize, "Oh, wow, this is another level."
These elite Scrabble players have lists and lists of words memorized, and they get bingos (playing all seven letters) constantly. The book takes us inside of their worlds and minds, and it got me to rearrange the letters in words when I saw them to form other words. Sometimes, I still do that.
Because I read it so long ago, a lot of the details escape me. I do recall it following a few key figures and seeing how obsessive they were against the game. Oh, and if you're wondering, how is this a sports book? Well, Fatsis is a sports writer, and, hey, I say it works!
I did learn a couple key tips from the book that helped my Scrabble playing, and they are: 1) If you don't know all the two-letter words, you might as well play something else, 2) Of course, you got to know all the Q words without U after it, and the words that begin with X, and 3) The best rack management is to have all different letters. Why in the world would you have three I's in your rack?!?
Eh, thinking about Word Freak wants me to play some Scrabble. And, Dad, stop looking at the dictionary!
For seven years, I covered the Los Angeles Clippers and NBA for the Long Beach Press-Telegram and a chain called the Los Angeles Newspaper Group. During that time, I'm not sure I ran across a more colorful dude than Bill Walton.
Bill did color commentary for the Clippers in my first year on the beat, and he took the time to know me a bit. It wasn't like we were best friends, but our exchanges were real. He knew me, treated me like a human being, and I liked his vibe.
So I recommend Back from the Dead (2016) by Bill Walton, who has lived an outside-of-the-box life and has incredible stories about growing up, John Wooden and his horrific injuries.
One thing that first struck me about Bill was how he was such an individual, not afraid to be "out there" and entertaining. He typically arrived to Clipper games in a track suit, then dressed with the players into his commentating suit, then changed back after the game.
On one terrible Clipper night, the team gave away a huge lead, and players fought among themselves. It was not far from the time when a player referred to playing for the Clippers as being in jail. Among an ugly post-game scene, I asked Bill, why he still commentated and put up with the constant losing.
"Joe, you have to remember that basketball is a ballet, poetry in motion," he said. "These are the greatest athletes in the world. Every night is a celebration of life."
In his book, Bill details his terrible injuries, and I found his insights on John Wooden to be captivating. He repeatedly points out that Wooden called him the slowest learner of all-time. But, you know what, at least he did learn.
It's hard to be an individual in the sports world nowadays. I think a lot of times individual becomes synonymous with selfish, but those are two entirely different words. We have a lot of selfish people, but not necessarily individuals.
So Bill Walton was indeed an individual, and the next time you happen to watch a sporting event, remember that above anything else, it is a "celebration of life."
I argue that the Cleveland sports narrative is more captivating than any sports tale out there. Of course, I am biased being a native Clevelander and a maniacal Cleveland sports junkie.
This stuff runs personal, and to me, all good stories go personal — crazy personal. So out of the myriad books on Cleveland sports, I recommend The Whore of Akron: One Man's Search for the Soul of LeBron James (2011) by Scott Raab as hitting at our city's collective feelings more than any other book.
Shoot, man, Cleveland is America. I feel in my bones that there isn't a more American city than Cleveland and maybe no American state than Ohio. Y'know, the presidential election has gone with whom Ohio has picked every time but once (JFK) since 1944. Talk about political diversity!
Cleveland's economy has been through the ringer and back. We were a huge steel town, only to see that industry die, and then we slowly pieced together a livable city and economy.
Through it all, our sports teams have been our salvation. The teams are pastimes that unite our city and bring us together. No need to go through our painful sports history, so go ahead and watch Believeland from ESPN if you either got the urge to relive it or know it.
So The Whore of Akron was written at a low point in Cleveland sports lore, when LeBron James announced that he would take his talents to South Beach. What?!? Our city was up in arms, and we were burning LeBron jerseys in effigy.
Venomous, crude, unforgiving and honest — that's the best way I can describe the book. Even with the knowledge of LeBron returning and miraculously bestowing Cleveland's first championship to the city since 1964, I still recommend the book.
Did we forgive LeBron? Why, yes we did. Did he have to come back to the city and get us a championship? Yes. ... Deal. LeBron, you are now the champion of Cleveland or the basketball Jesus of Cleveland. But you used to be, for lack of a better word, a whore.
What a story! Any sportswriter worth his salt understands that the better story typically comes in the losing team's locker room. Had LeBron not left to stupid-ass Miami, Cleveland would not have the extra layer of its championship story. Honestly, looking back on what happened, our story could happen no other way.
Of course, the Cavs would have to knock off the team with the most regular-season wins in NBA history with Golden State going 73-9 that year. Of course, we would have to come back from a 3-1 deficit and win the championship on Golden State's home court.
Yeah, it's Cleveland, baby. It's the only city I know where a whore can become king.
When Tiger Woods won the Masters last year at age 43, I was rooting for him. I loved that he won, and it was an awesome story and in the conversation of "the greatest comeback in sports history."
The next day, though, I lost those loving feelings. I was thinking back to Hank Haney's 2012 book The Big Miss, and I was thinking his life of over-the-top cheating. To me, character matters in sports, and I guess I'm supposed to forgive Tiger. But let's get real. A lot of his off-the-course life has been less than admirable.
Of course, we need to give Tiger his just due when it comes to his golf career, his 81 PGA wins, his 15 majors and for being the most dominant player in history. His stretch from 1999 to 2009 is just ridiculously amazing.
It was Thanksgiving 2009, when his personal life and golf career took its dramatic tumble. We're talking a decade ago.
So Haney used to be Tiger's coach, and he is famous in his own right, even having his own show on the Golf Channel called The Haney Project at one point. I could not put down his tell-all about Tiger and the madness of what made Tiger tick.
On one hand, I give props to anyone who has the amazing dedication to be an elite athlete, musician, artist or business mogul. To be at the top of one's game in a competitive sport or discipline is highly difficult, and we cannot underscore the life that is given for that pursuit.
However, a lot of unhealthiness can come the way of the driven elitist, and it's hard not to fall into a lot of the unhealthy traps. Tiger fell into a myriad of them.
Tiger's dad was a military man, and he became obsessed with Navy Seals and training with them. He repeatedly trained with them, frequently hurting his body, building up muscles that were irrelevant to golf and most likely tearing his ACL with them. Say wha'?
Tiger really didn't have anyone close to him. He also was so self-centered that if he were eating with others, he would walk away when he was finished, regardless if the others were still eating. He also is cheap and a notoriously terrible tipper, and somehow he finds that funny. At least, this is all from Haney's book, and it sounds like truth to me.
So Haney got a first-hand look at Tiger, but we all have been watching Tiger on TV for decades. I have seen him up close a few times and did a story on him once when he did a p.r. thing with the City of Long Beach.
But what I know about Tiger is what I believe is the truth. Insecure. Driven. Cold. Why is it that our world lauds ideas of "the best" for something like golf, but we don't really look at the actual person? Eh, The Big Miss made me do that, and it's going to be hard for me to laud Tiger again.
I used to be a basket case on the golf course, and sometimes I revert to that madness. I would overthink a zillion things, get in my own way and be my own biggest hazard on the course. Something had to give.
Finally, I took a different approach, to get out of my head, and Zen Golf by Joseph Parent helped a lot.
Golf can be a game of inches, a game of details and a game of thought. While golfers need to keep their head in the game in terms of course management, what types of shots to take and strategy, I find that the head often gets in the way of being loose, having fun and actually playing better.
I used to have a lot of ideas about golf truisms that turned out to not even be true. First off, nobody gives a shoot about your score. We care because we have been conditioned to think it matters, but does it? Nobody really cares.
Second off, I don't really care about my score. Of course, I want to improve and shave off strokes, and I brag about the one time I broke 80. But score is a manmade interpretation. It's much more important to play golf than golf score.
Some of my best rounds have had average scores. How do we judge a good round of golf?
I judge it by feeling good out there, enjoying it, not feeling any bit of pressure, not trying so darn hard and by stringing together some good shots. If the score is worse than my average, I no longer care as long as I felt it was worth the hours I was out there.
One of the chapters in Zen Golf is titled "How to Enjoy a Bad Round of Golf," and honestly, I wish all amateurs enjoyed their junky rounds, too. Sadly, because I see that most amateurs believe they're better than they actually are, they tend to not enjoy their rounds. They live in a delusion that their best round is their normal round.
Zen Golf (2002) opened the door to a slew of golf psychology books that I devoured. Anyone who plays the game realizes that negative thoughts creep in, and we must accept that on the golf course but let those come through and pass. Too often, we seize on the negative thoughts, make them bigger than just a notion, and then bad things happen.
Golfers also understand that we need total commitment to the shots we take. If we ever doubt a club selection or decision, those will come back to haunt us. And what exactly are we ever afraid of on the golf course? ... We're playing freakin' golf.
The adage of "golf does not build character; it reveals character" may be true. But I must give the game some credit for helping me develop grit, get my head on straighter, understand myself better and learn how to be more Zen.
Mark Twain's famous quote of "a good walk wasted" comes to mind, and nowadays, golfers are amidst a swirl of golf-ball technology, golf-club technology, talking about swing plains and so much hullaballoo, that the average golfer's mind can be cloudy.
Thank God for Harvey Penick's Little Red Book with Bud Shrake. It came out in 1992, three years before Penick passed away, and is a big seller with a 20th anniversary edition in 2012.
Penick is one of the most famous golf instructors ever. He was based in Austin and coached at the University of Texas from 1931 to 1963. Some huge names studied under him, including Tom Kite and Ben Crenshaw.
What is so refreshing about the Little Red Book is that it simplifies the game with truths that many amateurs just don't get — or don't practice.
"When I tell you to take an aspirin, don't take the whole bottle. In a golf swing, a tiny change can make a huge difference. The natural inclination is to begin to overdo the tiny change that has brought success. So you exaggerate in an effort to improve even more, and soon you are lost and confused again."
"If the average golfer hits the 3-wood off the tee, the shots on the whole will be more successful. What you will miss is maybe that one good driver shot in a round, and it's not worth it."
I must say that not hitting the driver off the tee has helped my game immensely. No more guessing. No more erratic shots. No more random duffs. I actually play with some guys who consistently smoke their drivers. But most players aren't like that.
I believe that golf is a game that connects us with nature and ourselves. Back in Ohio, so many of the courses are absolutely beautiful. They were carved out of existing trees and greenery, and they receive a lot of rainfall. Fresh air. Sun. It's good to get outside.
Perhaps golf is "an old man's sport." It's the only sport I know that I can actually get better at my age, and that doesn't entail me hitting the ball farther. Working with my unique, goofy golf skillset, I have learned how to maximize what I got, and I am proud of my course management.
I have learned that most golfers think they are better than they are. It takes humility to understand that, yeah, I shouldn't be playing the blue tees. Or, y'know what, I did indeed get an "8" on that hole. People lie to themselves on golf courses, as they do in real life, but I don't care. I'm there for the nature and to connect to "Joe the Golfer."
"For two weeks, devote 90 percent of your practice time chipping and putting, and only 10 percent to the full swing. If you do this, your 95 will turn into a 90."
"Play games on the putting green. The more time you spend there, the better golf scores you will turn in."
It might be a little sneaky for me to get David Foster Wallace into the project 100 Nonfiction Books I Recommend. The literary icon is known more for his fiction and Infinite Jest. But his essays on tennis belong on this list because String Theory is indeed the best book I've ever read on tennis.
Wallace died at 46 from suicide in 2008, and String Theory was published in 2016. There are only five essays in the collection, and so it's a bit short yet worthwhile, insightful and meaningful. He was a relatively successful junior player in Illinois, and in his first essay, he writes about how he sees the angles and geometry of tennis.
A lot of his writing is OCD on display and from a mind that speeds fast. Some have labeled Wallace "a genius." Maybe. But to me, the real geniuses are the ones who can balance life and art and have their minds actually work for them. I'm not sure he had that part of the genius equation. However, I am naive when it comes to mental illness, and perhaps the point I'm making is simply it's a shame we lost David Foster Wallace.
Because he was a tennis player, he boasts a ridiculous abundance of knowledge on the game, and I find it impossible to not want to go hit some balls after reading String Theory. Of the five essays, I found the one on obscure player Michael Joyce as the most meaningful.
I'm a casual tennis fan, and I know that Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic have dominated the men's game for more than a decade. But what about everybody else?
Wallace follows Joyce at the Canadian Open in 1995, and for me, as a former sportswriter, I loved that Wallace went to the side courts to focus on a player in the margins to analyze and report on what was happening there. I learned real fast as a newspaper journalist, covering pro sports and the NBA for god's sakes, that I had to find killer stories within the context of what the readers and editors wanted.
Wallace already was on the path to literary icon when the story on Joyce dropped in Esquire. It looks like he had carte blanche with his story on Joyce, so we can see what it's like to be the 79th ranked player in the world.
Think of how elite that is — 79th in the freaking world! But a player like that typically lives a life of obscurity, qualifiers to get into tournaments and dedication and practice that is out of this world. In the world of sports journalism, we often focus on the last-second shot, the superstars, the glamour.
It turns out for most of anyone pursuing sports, it's not nearly as glamorous as the fans think. Wallace's story on Joyce offers truth that we don't often notice, and those types of truths can be mighty powerful.
It's an absolute pleasure for me that my daughter, Sophie, actually likes baseball. We watched Game 1 of the National League Championship Series, riveted by a close game and no hitter that moved to the eighth inning.
Baseball is a game of subtlety. It is utterly American, and I love watching and listening to it more than any sport. However, the average viewer of a baseball game is 53, and 50 percent of the audience is 55 and older.
When Why Baseball Matters by Susan Jacoby came out last year, I was all over it. I like to think of baseball as a unifying American pastime. Does it matter if we have different political views or different backgrounds? I like to think we can unite with baseball.
One unexpected point that I respond to in Why Baseball Matters is how generations don't intermingle as much as they used to. Jacoby spent time growing up in her grandfather's bar south of Chicago. I conjecture that she learned more about life and relationships there more than she would have in school. So often, families find themselves on different devices and looking at different entertainment. I find it refreshing when we all are looking at the same thing.
Baseball is a backdrop. It is meant to have pauses and dead time. It's OK to converse during the game. With our image-driven world now, baseball has become a throwback. Jacoby argues that it is more important than ever now because the lowest-common denominator of American culture of disruption, distraction and interruption is prevailing.
In many ways, major-league baseball is lost. Smart phones punctuate the stands, and huge scoreboards entertain throughout "down time." I see a countdown clock at games in between innings and batters. Do we really need that?
No matter what ESPN does, I don't believe baseball is made for highlights. Yes, we can see diving catches and home runs or even walk-off mobs at home plate. But the drama of the game lies in scenarios like the 2-2 count. After four consecutive sliders, here comes the fastball.
The drama is in the details — grounding out to second base and advancing the runner to third or getting to a ball quickly in the outfield to prevent the runner from going to third or blocking a pitch in the dirt with a runner on third. The irony of modern day living is that somehow baseball is the most American pastimes but, strangely, it has become un-American because of its slower pace and subtlety.
Baseball certainly matters to me. It looks like it matters to my daughter, too. We get the game, and we love it. We love each other, too, and baseball reminds us of that.
As 100 Nonfiction Books I Recommend moves to the sports category, I feel that the longtime New Yorker writer deserves the accolades he receives. I was a sports writer at Newsday and the Long Beach Press-Telegram from 1996 to 2008, and I typically found sportswriting completely not literary, often cliche and to be gobbled or discarded.
The adage that "journalism is unreadable and literature is not read" comes to mind. As an idealistic sportswriter, I did my best to bridge that gap, and perhaps no one does this better than Angell.
It was not a huge book, but I am recommending A Pitcher's Story: Innings with David Cone (2002). Baseball is such an utterly psychological game that Angell's discussions with Cone delved into that better than any other book I know. Angell typically wrote essays, and the full-length book with Cone delivers.
I've been out of New York for two decades, but I was not surprised when I learned that Cone has been a color commentator in New York since he retired in 2001. He even came out with another book this year with Jack Curry. In a few games I covered at Yankee Stadium, Cone held court and was a journalist's dream when he was there 1995 to 2000. I remember him breaking down games in an intelligent, witty manner on days he didn't even pitch.
Angell followed Cone for the 2000 season, when Cone was 37. It probably was Cone's worst season, and he was in the twilight of his career. He had overcome an aneurysm and was back on the mound. All of this added up to insights, perspective and the wisdom from an accomplished pitcher.
My lord, so much has been written on baseball, and so many movies are out there. Bull Durham, The Natural, Field of Dreams, Major League — OK, look, I can go on forever, and I find baseball to be the most American of pastimes. It might be even more American than online shopping!
Sports can be crazily extreme. We can go from the worst possible loss to the best win and back to the worst loss in a matter of moments. A Pitcher's Story starts with Cone's perfect game in June 1999, only to follow him struggling ridiculously the next season. That was only the 16th perfect game in major-league history.
The book explores Cone's upbringing in Kansas City, where his dad was a night-shift mechanic. The parents scraped together enough money to send Cone to a Jesuit high school, and I can relate to that because I, too, attended a Jesuit high school — St. Ignatius in Cleveland.
But the thing that is so superb about A Pitcher's Story is that neither Angell, nor Cone, fall into baseball cliches. They tell the gospel truth of how it actually is to go through glory and defeat and aging in the sport, and life.
Of course, baseball can be life. It can be painful, unfair, quirky, change by chance. It can be jubilant, gut-wrenching, gleeful. It is quite rare, practically impossible, for it ever to be perfect.
