books Page 9 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
True Grit
Mark Kram Jr's heart-breaking book, Like Any Normal Day is now out in paperback. Check out this excerpt from SI.com:...
You Need that Spalding Touch
Fans of a certain age will remember this ad...it was in the back of almost every Marvel and DC comic for years. ...
The Magic is Back
Well, not yet. But for Greg Prince, co-author of the fine site, Faith and Fear in Flushing, the glass of Mets fandowm is always half-full. Check out this Q&A with Greg as he talks about volume 1 of a 4-part book sereis: The Happiest Recap....
Let it Bleed
Head on over to the Columbia Journalism Review for this appreciation of Red Smith by his son, Terence Smith:...
Troy Hennum, The Softball Coach Who Used His Players To Pick Up Girls, Has A Side Job Handicapping Sports
We told you on Friday about Troy Hennum the newly-hired and quickly-fired softball coach at Roosevelt high school in Seattle. He used his athletes to help score him dates with other girls in a self-described "genius" use of his coaching position. He was also let go from a previous position for send...
How To Watch Football On Television, According To 1964
Spend enough time on sports boards and you start to absorb a multimedia shorthand. Someone asks why Raul Ibañez is a defensive liability, and you automatically post an animated gif of his laser-like throw from the outfield right into the dirt eight feet in front of him. Someone wonders why people di...
The Betting Public Killed Las Vegas Sportsbooks In The 2012 NFL Season
So the NFL did its ouroboros thing again this year. Lots of parity. Or so it would seem. But 2012 mostly just brought us a handful of excellent teams—Football Outsiders says three of the 12 best teams since 1991 (Seahawks, Broncos, and Patriots)—and some supremely terrible ones. The result is that, ...
Gift Guide Roundup: Last-Minute Gifts For People Who Read
We asked you, our scholarly readers, to let us know what books would make for great Christmas gifts. We had some suggestions of our own, too. Here's what to buy for the bookworm in your life—there's still time!...
All The Mystery Of Kobe Bryant, In One Photo
From Kobe's Facebook page: "Still not feeling well, it's a day in bed for me. Nothing like a good book to take my mind of last night's tough loss. I'm lovin this one!" The book is, per Amazon, a funny memoir of a father's descent into poverty and alcoholism. This guy. [Kobe]...
Holiday Gift Guides: For People Who Like To Eat Meat And Cheese
We suggested bacon-themed gifts last Christmas, but now we're opening things up a bit, because your arteries aren't all the way clogged yet: What do you get for someone who likes to eat meat and cheese? Cookware suggestions, meat suggestions, whatever—we want all of it. Just none of that Williams-So...
Holiday Gift Guide: Gifts For People Who Read
Books! Everyone loves them, and they can make for great Christmas gifts, so long as they are not written by Mike Lupica or Mitch Albom. With that in mind, we'd like to know what books you read this year that you think other people should read. They don't have to be sports-themed, but those are cert...
These Hockey Players Do Not Like <em>Cloud Atlas</em>
Last week, Edmonton Oilers winger Taylor Hall went to see Cloud Atlas, and he did not enjoy it. Hall went on Twitter to express his displeasure with the film, at which point this exchange with his teammate Ryan Whitney took place:...
Local News Anchor Randomly Slips An "Overrated" Into A Segment About Dwyane Wade's Book Signing
It would have been so easy to get through this by just reading off the teleprompter. Few segments require editorializing less than the "sports star promotes book about fatherhood" segment. But the teleprompter's not enough for the anchor of WJLA in Washington DC, who calls Dwyane Wade "the overrat...
Who Really Hits The Homers In <em>The Kid Who Only Hit Homers</em>? The Depressing Message Of Matt Christopher's Classic Book
Is The Kid Who Only Hit Homers a fable about the value of teamwork? Or is it a tale of using magic to get ahead, in which Babe Ruth is to Sylvester Coddmyer III as the devil is to Robert Johnson? The book, Matt Christopher's 1972 chef d'oeuvre, introduced the world to young Sylvester Coddmyer III, t...
Why Did We Like Matt Christopher So Much? Introducing The Rebooted Deadspin Book Club
Sports has never been about, well, sports—at least not in fiction. Athleticism is moral worth. A slump is karma. Winning, losing: just metaphors. If the score's the only thing that matters, you might as well watch a real game....
Report: Jerry Sandusky Is Writing A Book While In Prison
Television station WJAC in Johnstown, Pa., is citing sources who say that's what Sandusky's been up to since he was taken off suicide watch sometime after being put behind bars in late June....
Why All Pro Sports Would Be Better If They Were Rigged
Your letters:...
How R.A. Dickey Fixed His Own Glitches And Found One In Baseball
Before the 2012 season started, Mets knuckleballer R.A. Dickey published his memoir, Wherever I Wind Up. It was the best baseball book I'd read in ages. And now that literary surprise dovetails with a baseball one: Dickey, after back-to-back one-hitters, is pitching better than anyone else in baseba...
The Perfect Comic-Book Movie. <em>The Avengers</em>, Reviewed.
1. The Avengers is a superhero movie so fun, full of so much pure fanboy-wank joy wrapped up in an accessible, relentlessly entertaining package, that I'm not sure anybody needs to make any more comic-book movies; this one might wrap it up. (One suspects they'll still find a way.) Made by and for—bu...