Open Tennis

Evans, Richard. Open Tennis: The First Twenty Years, the Players, the Politics, the Pressures, the Passions, and the Great Matches. New York: Bloomsbury 1988. Print.

First Sentences:

 

His [Pancho Gonzales'] favourite exercise now is to stand on the back porch of his Las Vegas home and drive golf balls out into the Nevada desert. Then he strides out amongst the scrub and cacti and picks them up.

Description:

Having just watched Richard Evans be inducted into the Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island in 2024, I was intrigued to look into his most famous of his twenty-three books, Open Tennis: The First Twenty Years, the Players, the Politics, the Pressures, the Passions, and the Great Matches. Evans, a longtime writer of tennis articles who covered over 200 grand slam events, dozens of Davis Cup Challenges, and countless tournaments, is a brilliant observer and interviewer of tennis players, agents, administrators, investors, sponsors, and anyone else who existed in the developing world of open tennis during the 1960-1980s and decades later.

 

Evans started off as a newly-hired sports reporter in 1960 for London's The Evening Standard. As the youngest newcomer, he was assigned to cover Althea Gibson, the first black woman to win Wimbledon. 

Watching her play and even attending the champions' dinner as her escort hooked Evans on the sport. He began his long journalistic career covering tennis, eventually becoming the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Press Officer and later European Director, and therefore privy to an insider's look into the game which he narrates to us lucky readers in Open Tennis.

I was their age, so I had this huge advantage of being able to travel with a group of players.…There were no coaches, no managers, no agents, no wives or girlfriends, except for the odd occasion, traveling the world,” Evans said. “You can imagine the Aussies knew how to travel the world. They knew how to enjoy themselves on court, very competitive, and off court less competitive.

Prior to the Open Era, tennis tournaments, especially the Grand Slams, were reserved for players who were "unpaid" amateurs only. To survive, amateur players took appearance money under the table from sponsors and tournament directors. 

Some superstar players like Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall, Pancho Gonzales, Lew Hoad, and Bobbie Riggs joined Jack Kramer's new pro tour to make any sort of money. Other pro tours, especially the WCT created by Lamar Hunt, soon emerged, and drew paying fans, luring Arthur Ashe, Charles Pasarell, and Stan Smith away from the amateur events. 

But the majority of players opted to remain amateurs to protect their eligibility to enter the more prestigious Grand Slam tournaments and other tour events, even if those tournaments did not include all the world's best players. 

 

But in 1968, Wimbledon announced it would include all the top players, pro and amateur, in its draw. Evans was there to cover the angst this opening of tennis caused among the tournament directors, international tennis administrative associations, and purist fans who felt their heroes should only play for the love of the game (despite their public "secret" that these heroes were accepting appearance money). 

But when ATP pro and amateur players alike began boycotting tournaments that did not allow professionals to play, tournament directors and governing bodies reluctantly gave in and the Open Era, where amateurs and professionals alike could compete on the same court, was born.

 

Evans describes highlights of this era in wonderful, gripping detail. The rise of the professional women's tour with Gladys Heldman and Billie-Jean King, the great matches of Gonzales-Pasarell, Laver-Rosewall, Borg-McEnroe, Ashe-Connors, and Evert-Navratilova. There are chapters on the behind-the-scenes negotiations between tennis governing bodies and players (with Evans as reporter), the unusual World Team Tennis tour, and Davis Cup matches. There is even a chapter on "Sex and the Single Player" detailing the demands on players and their behavior on the tour at a time where few had coaches, much less the entourages of today with girlfriends, managers, trainers, publicity agents, and friends to support them.

 

I will not attempt to explain the various organizations (ATP, WCT, WTT, ILTF, USLTA) covered in Open Tennis, or major movers and shakers of this era (Kramer, Dell, Heyman, Drysdale, Tinling, Heldman, Hunt). But Evans, in his genius manner of making readers feel present at important meetings, introduces these key players and governing bodies, relating the influence each has on tennis, both positive and negative. 

He explains the current ATP point system where each player receives a per-determined number of points for his/her record at a tournament, with point tallies used to determine rankings, future seedings, and entry into the end of the year championship tournament. For the first time, I understand the bones of the tennis organization, the major people, and the events leading to the creation of the today's Open Era game.

While everyone in not the tennis enthusiast that I am, this book is an important history of a worldwide game as it moved into the modern era, told by one man who was there to see it happen and be in close contact with the figures who encouraged or blocked this progress. 

Open Tennis will help readers understand what previous as well as current players have to deal with every day to even play in tournaments, compete at the highest level, and possibly win or gain enough points to improve their ranking, future seeding, and therefore potential prize money.

 

It is a strong book, written with attention to detail, impartiality, and a genuine love of the game and its players. Read it, skim it, or just dip into portions that interest you. But if you enjoy watching/playing/understanding tennis, this is the definitely book for you.

 

[If this book interests you, be sure to check out:] 

  

McPhee, John. Levels of the Game.   

Simply the best description of two men, Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner, as they play a grueling match in the 1968 US Open. Breathtaking shot-by-shot examination of the thoughts, emotions, and strokes, along with the resulting triumphs and failures of each play throughout the match. In one word: Riveting.

Happy reading.

Fred

 

Click here to browse over 465 more book recommendations by subject or title

(and read the introduction to The First Sentence Reader).

 

A Life Impossible

Gleason, Steve. A Life Impossible: Living With ALS: Finding Peace and Wisdom Within a Fragile Existence. New York: Knoff 2024. Print.

First Sentences:

I sat naked in the shower while a twenty-four-year-old man washed my armpits.  Across the bathroom, my three-year-old daughter, Gray, sat in the middle of the floor, cross-legged like the Buddha, with one difference. She was wailing hysterically and incessantly. Inconsolable. And I was incapable of helping her.


Description:

It is almost impossible to comprehend living day to day, hour to hour, a life where every voluntary muscle in your body is unable to function. You are robbed of the ability to walk, raise your arms, close your hands, speak, even breathe. Smiling and blinking are denied. 

Yet such is the ongoing existence of author Steve Gleason for the past thirteen years (and counting) since his diagnosis of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS, i.e., Lou Gehrig's Disease).

He thoughtfully, emotionally, and openly discusses his journey from his boyhood through years as a professional football player, to young married trying to understand his fatal ALS diagnosis, and on then his continuing struggles with his restricted life today in his memoir, A Life Impossible. 

To call him a survivor is too passive a label. He is a battler. Throughout his life he has deeply contemplated his life, his personal situation, his emotions, and his future. His brilliant writing in this book are transporting. Gleason allows readers into the deepest parts of his mind, from denial of the diagnosis as a 33-year-old man to a firm confidence he can beat the disease; from despair as his relationships crack under the strain of his needs for constant, intimate care, to occasional peace of mind as revelations occur to him that give him even temporary triumphs in communication or action.

I'd spent most of my life seeking the sacred and extraordinary, but [meditation] was showing me that the sacred is within us....I'm not sure how much it was improving my "real life," but for a guy who was living with ALS, to have an hour a day of peace and even bliss, it was a welcome change.

During Gleason's New Orleans Saints' football career, he played on special teams. In 2006, he blocked an opposing Atlanta Falcons' punt on their first series of downs which was quickly recovered for a Saints' touchdown. This was an incredibly gutsy play by Gleason which surprised everyone on the field, the stadium, and in the Monday Night Football audience, and led to a Saints victory. 

It was an historic play as this was the first game held in the New Orleans Superdome, a beloved landmark for the citizens, which had finally opened after the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. Gleason's block and eventual Saints' victory signaled the beginning of the city's recovery. There is now even a statue of Gleason blocking that punt residing in front of the stadium, so important was the symbolism of New Orleans' triumph.

But ALS soon robbed him of his dream to live off the grid with his new wife, Michel, in an isolated spot somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. Slowly and unceasingly, he awoke each day to another loss of strength and function. "Most people awake each day from a nightmare. I awake to a nightmare," he stated. 

He also lost all his savings due to an investment with friends in an alternative real estate company which went bankrupt. He repeatedly tried for a different diagnosis, experimented with every type of possible cure from faith healers to diets to meditation. His eventual failures to walk even a few steps, swim, have sex, or swallow forced him to realize that ALS was progressing relentlessly.

But although he writes of his discouragement with his situation, he also created "Team Gleason" with friends and families to explore treatments, medical devices, and opportunities to expand horizons for other ALS patients. 

He wanted to prove to himself and others that life can still be lived, and began to travel, give speeches, fish for salmon in Alaska, and even reach the top of Machu Picchu in Peru sitting in an electronic wheelchair that had to be carried over foot-wide pathways.

Gleason proved to ALS sufferers and others that the world could still be expanded . While he still could speak, he recorded 1,500 English phrases for a company called CereProc which then created a customized voice similar to his own for oral expression of his typed words.

Team Gleason grew and donors contributed to ALS research. The highly popular ALS fund-raising Ice Bucket Challenge was started by a Team Gleason member. Other ALS patients formed discussion groups to share stories, coping techniques, and understanding hearts with each other and the world. Through Gleason, others learned they were not alone, had options, and could lead expanded lives.

Gleason received the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest United State Civilian honor, in 2019. Then in 2024 he was presented with the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage given for "strength, courage and willingness to stand up for their beliefs in the face of adversity.” Upon receiving this award, Gleason delivered a brilliant speech (created before the ceremony using only his eye/laser letter-by-letter composition program) verbalized through his synthetic voice to the ESPY audience. A documentary film, Gleason, was recently finished (available on Amazon Prime). His social media site has over half a million followers today.

 

A wonderfully powerful book that spares readers no emotion, thought, or dream that enters author Gleason's mind and world throughout his journey. Highly recommended.

Now I realize this: Life gets ugly at times, so when we have the chance to do something amazing in the midst of ugly, go for it.

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

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          (and an Intro to The First Sentence Reader) 

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Bauby, Jean-Dominique. The Diving Bell and the Butterflyh: A Memoir of Life in Death.   

One man's memoirs, painfully written using only the blinking of his one working eyelid, revealing how he experiences the "Locked-In Syndrome" where nothing on hiss body can be moved, no words can be spoken, yet his mind and awareness are still present in his seemingly lifeless body. Absolutely astonishing and powerful. (previously reviewed here)

 

The Baseball 100

Posnanski, Joe. The Baseball 100. New York: The Athletic. 2021. Print.

First Sentences:

There are many words we sportswriters use way too often. We might write that something quite believable is 'unbelievable" and that something that falls well into the realm of the possible is actually "impossible." But, if I had to guess, I would say that most of all we use the word "unique" too often.

    [Comments on Ichiro Suzuki, the first player profiled - rank #100.]


Description:

It never gets old to discuss the greatest baseball players of all time. Ranking the Top 100 adds an even greater challenge. But backing up an all-time greatest list with statistics, first-hand observations, comparisons, and commentary from articles, books, interviews, and other relevant resources makes a strong case for which players and rankings shake out in a convincing Top 100 list.

In The Baseball 100, writer Joe Posnanski of Sports Illustrated, The Athletic, New York Times, etc. fame, presents his own well-researched list of choices for the greatest players of all time. And it is a compelling, convincing, fascinating, detailed, and astonishing lust. While I personally am no longer the biggest baseball fan, I absolutely loved reading about the players I have heard about or even watched play in my younger days.

The book is more than just Ruth, Cobb, DiMaggio, Berra, Mays, and other familiar names. No, Posnanski introduces the cases for less-famous (to me, at least) Bullet Rogan (#92), Charlie Gehringer (#87), Kid Nichols (#82), Monte Irvin (#69), Smokey Joe Williams (#62), Arky Vaughan (#61) and Oscar Charleston (unbelievably #5!). Each player gets 5-8 pages of stories, stats, quotes, media coverage, and interviews to substantiate Posnanski's case for their inclusion on this list.

And what a page-turner this book it, all 869 pages of it. I couldn't stop myself from reading about childhood heroes and learning about unknowns who with their dazzling skills made significant marks. I loved reading about their childhoods, with overbearing (Mantle #11) or gentle fathers (Mathewson #36); rich (Cobb #8) or poor (Aaron #4); naturally gifted (Mays #1) or driven but possessing fewer skills (Rose #60); good-looking (Williams #6) or short and squat (Berra #43); Jewish (Koufax #70) or racist (Collins #29); young (Feller age 16 #55) or Paige (age 58+ #10). Every player is given a detailed analysis and a recap of his moments of glory.

  

[Probably just listing these players' rankings might raise some arguments in any dedicated reader's mind, but that what makes this book wonderful.] Here are some highlights:

• Reggie Jackson #59 - "I didn't come to New York to be a star. ...I brought my star with me."
• Warren Spahn #49 - always wanted to be a hitter, not a pitcher until he saw his high school team's first baseman (Spahn's position) and said, "That guy is a lot better than I am" and decided then and there to become a pitcher.
• Yogi Berra #43 - had only 12 strikeouts in the entire 1950 season.
• Nap Lajoie #39 - under "fixed" conditions, went 8 for 8 on the last day of the season to beat Cobb for the batting title and win a new car.
• Satchel Paige # 10 - threw rocks as a boy to protect himself from gangs. "Rocks made a real impression on a kid's head or backside," he said.
• Jimmie Foxx #33 - after retirement from baseball at age 37, coached a women's baseball team and was the inspiration for the Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks) character in the film, A League of Their Own.
• Johnny Bench #30 - caught a fast ball bare-handed just to convince his pitcher he had no speed that day.
• Pop Lloyd #25 - played catcher one game for the Macon Acmes. Since the team couldn't afford catching equipment, he played without a mask, knee or chest protectors, winding up with two swollen eyes and bruises all over his body. That was when he became a shortstop.
• Ricky Henderson # 24 - Jim Murray wrote of Henderson's squatting batting stance, "He has a strike zone the size of Hitler's heart."
• Lefty Grove #22 - in his first game, age 19, he pitched seven inning and struck out 15; in the second game he threw a no-hitter and struck out 18
• Tris Speaker #18 - played so shallow in center field that he made 450 assists (a record never to be broken - second is Mays with less than half that number). He also made six unassisted double plays.
• Stan Musial #9 - would go up to strangers celebrating in a restaurant, borrow a $1 bill, fold it into a ring, and slip it onto the fan's finger just to add to their fun and memories. He also carried a harmonica with him everywhere, but could only play four songs.
• Ty Cobb # 8 - in 1947, age 60, he was asked at an old timers' game what he would hit in modern baseball. "About 300," he said, "but you've got to remember I'm 73 years old."
• Walter Johnson #7 - A batter who faced him "saw (or didn't see) two fastballs go by for strikes and headed back to the dugout. 'You've got another strike coming,' the umpire shouted to the player. 'I don't want it,' the hitter said. 'I've seen enough.'"
• Ted Williams #6 - could "hear a single boo in a Fenway Park filled with cheers."
• Henry Aaron #4 - as a kid practiced hitting with a broomstick and a bottle cap.
• Babe Ruth #2 - in 1920 was sold by Boston to the "lamentable New York Yankees who had never won a single pennant in their entire existence."

I have dozens more of quotes I'd marked while reading, but I'll stop here. Suffice to say, it's a fantastic book for any baseball aficionado or even for a casual fan interested in human stories, history, culture, jargon, and even a bit of baseball. Get it now to read or pass on to someone you love. They will love you back for a long time as they work their way through the players' profiles ...each and every one of them.

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Peterson, Robert. Only the Ball Was White: A History of Legendary Black Players and All-Black Professional Teams.   

Simply wondrous oral history of the Negro Leagues as told through interviews with the men who played the game in those days of segregation. Real baseball lingo, lore, and memories here. Fantastic peek into that era, its players, and their baseball lives.

 

The Church of Baseball

Shelton, Ron. The Church of Baseball: The Making of Bull Durham: Home Runs, Bad Calls, Crazy Fights, Big Swings, and a Hit. New York: Knopf. 2022. Print

First Sentences:
 

Bible stories were a big part of my growing up. The dramatic tales of Moses parting the Red Sea and coming down from the mountain and Jesus routing the money changers in the temple and the whole fantastic narrative still live loudly in my DNA.

Description:

If you have never seen the minor league baseball movie, Bull Durham, stop reading this right now and find that film somewhere ... NOW!  And don't come back until you have watched this cinematic gem, certainly one of the best sports movie of all time.

Ron Shelton, the screenwriter and first-time director of Bull Durham, walks us through the process of making his film in his delightfully entertaining The Church of Baseball: The Making of Bull Durham: Home Runs, Bad Calls, Crazy Fights, Big Swings, and a Hit.

The book is divided into four parts: "Development" where Shelton discusses his personal history playing professional baseball and his experiences as the seeds to create the original script; "Preproduction" that details the interviewing and hiring of actors, identifying shooting locations, etc.; "Production" with the ups and downs of the actually filming, along with the challenges of costumes, lighting, and weather; and "Postproduction" when the movie actually hits the public screens and the response by reviewers (lukewarm) and public (wildly enthusiastic). 

Each stage has its unique nerve-wracking pitfalls, missteps, and obstacles which threaten to stop production. The ballpark had to be re-painted to a preferred color, the frosty breath of actors during the Durham cold weather had to camouflaged, and hundreds of extras had to be found (without pay) to fill the stands. But each trial has its own humorous moments (taken in hindsight by Shelton who probably did not find them funny at the time). He walks us through scene by scene, decision by decision, to really help us understand the entire film-making process. I only have room to present a few interesting items to whet your interest.

• "Crash" Davis, the film's main character, was actually a real person whom Shelton read about while looking through minor league records. Davis had hit the most doubles (50) in a minor league season. Ebby Calvin LaRoosh was a bright-eyed waiter who served Shelton at a restaurant with the introductory words, "Call me Nuke" (but he didn't know how to spell it when asked by Shelton). "Annie" is a generic name given by players to female groupies. "Savoy," Annie's last name, was on a matchbook that Shelton found in his pocket from a dive bar in Los Angeles.

• Costner wanted to audition for the part by demonstrating his throwing and hitting. Both he and Shelton found that they each "kept a glove and ball in the trunk of our car for reasons neither of us questioned.' Turned out Cosner was a switch-hitter with a beautiful swing;

• Throughout the shooting, the studio heads did not like Tim Robbins as Nuke and repeatedly tried to replace him. One unnamed head felt Susan Sarandon was completely wrong as well. About half way through shooting, Shelton received a phone call from the studio saying they were unhappy with Cosner's performance and they were immediately sending Kurt Russell down to replace Cosner and re-shoot everything fresh. (Turned out to be Russell on the phone making a prank call.)

• Studio producers tried, right up to the film's release, to remove the pitcher's mound scene where the players discuss the curse on a player's glove, what to get Millie and Jimmy for a wedding present, and how to align Nuke's chakras. (Preview audiences, however, on comment cards consistently rated that scene as their favorite);

• When they needed to fill the stands with extras, a production assistant contacted a friend working with the Pink Floyd concert nearby at the University of North Carolina. The band then announced to their fans that there would be a great after-concert party at the ball park, so concert-goers all trooped over to sit in the stands, waiting for Pink Floyd to show up (which they never did), and were unknowingly briefly filmed as background;

• Paula Abdul did the choreography for Nuke's bar dancing scene in exchange for a promised speaking role, a deal which Shelton did not know about and was not added to the film;

• After the film was public, Shelton met the pitcher Milt Pappas, who held a grudge for being included in Annie's speech about the worst trade ever in baseball ("Who can forget Frank Robinson for Milt Pappas, for God's sake?");

• [Shelton recalled]: When I signed off on the final cost of the movie, I believe we were ten cents under budget.

•  When Bull Durham opened, it faced competition from current movies including Big, Die Hard, Coming to America, Cocktail, Midnight Run, Rambo III, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit. It grossed $5 million the opening weekend, then shockingly grossed more the next weekend and the third as well. After 28 weeks that summer, the film grossed the equivalent of $120 million in today's dollars.
  

 

What's not to love about a well-written memoir full if eobderful stories about likeable people, while gently walking us through the steps and decisions around constructing a delightful movie? I loved it and gobbled it up in only a few reading session. Can't wait to see the movie again and remember the process, choices, fights, and joy behind each portion.  

[Writer/Director Shelton]: My interest in baseball isn't analytical, romantic, or even patriotic. I like the game -- it's nuanced and difficult and physical-- but it has a appealing vulgarity, an earthiness...

Happy reading. 

Fred

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Elwes, Cary. As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of the Princess Bride

Recollections from the star of the wonderful adventure comedy, The Princess Bride, about the making of the movie, from ad-libbed comments by Billy Crystal that made Mandy Patinkin laugh so hard he broke a rib, to the weeks of sword fighting instruction, to Andre the Giant plowing around the landscape on a motorcycle, breaking Elwes toe in the process. Delightful.

Jim Murray: An Autobiography

Murray, Jim. Jim Murray, An Autobiography. New York: MacMillan 1993. Print.

First Sentences:

I was a Depression child. With all that connotes. That means you never trust the system again. You know what can happen to it. That means you  go through life never able to fully enjoy it. That means you have a ever-present sense of foreboding....I never quit a job in a huff. I swallowed guff. I don't recommend it. It's just the way I was.

 

Description:

Growing up in Southern California in the 1950s through the '70s, every day for me started with reading Jim Murray's sports column in the Los Angeles Times. He introduced me to the back stories of athletes, games, and sports history, all with wry wit and biting comments that made sports so much richer. What a wonderful introduction for a kid into the world of great writing, humor, and sports (or even today as an adult).

I recently discovered Murray had written his autobiography, cleverly titled: Jim Murray: An Autobiography. In this fast-paced book, Murray only sparingly writes about himself beyond his early life, preferring to focus on stories about the sports figures he had encountered and the condition of various sports themselves. 

Notable among the few stories about his youth are recollections about when he saw Babe Ruth hit a homer, or arranged neighborhood boxing matches among kids, or learned about the reality of sports from his Uncle Ed:

Never take money from an amateur -- unless he insists ...

Never play cards with a man with dark glasses or his own deck ...

Never make change for a guy on a train ... 

Murray prefers to throw the spotlight on the athletes he encountered and commentary on various sports throughout his career on the LA Times, Time, Life, and Sports Illustrated.

Time didn't linger at what happened. They wanted to know why it happened....They wanted the globally significant. And the writing had to be of a high literary order.

It's quite a world of people he covers in depth, including Walter O'Malley. Muhammed Ali, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Sam Snead, Pete Rose, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Henry Aaron, Al Davis, Jack Kent Cooke ("a man in a hurray...as unstoppable as a glacier"), and so many more.

He offers several brief anecdotes about Elgin Baylor, Wilt Chamberlain, Ty Cobb, Magic Johnson, Sonny Liston, A.J. Foyt, Mario Andretti, Ted Williams, and on and on. Each tidbit is a gem of insider info into what makes that person unique, funny, talented, or ultra-driven.

The longest portions and best observations are reserved for the sports themselves that he loves: 

• Golf -
• Golf is the most maddening of games....The bleeding is internal in this sport.

• Auto racing - 
• [column headline] Gentlemen, Start Your Coffins 

• Baseball - 
• Baseball was always loath to enter the twentieth century. Baseball will always be three of more decades behind the rest of society. That's part of its charm.

• Boxing - 
• Jake LaMotta used to say he fought Sugar Ray Robinson six times and won all but five of them.

• Basketball -
• At the college and high school level, it used to be just something to go through to get to the dance afterward. The pros used to play wherever they could pass the hat and make bus money.....

There are pieced aplenty about my favorite Southern California teams (the Rams, Dodgers, Angels, Lakers, and Kings) and my boyhood baseball idols: Maury Wills (companion to Doris Day, who knew?), Jim Gilliam, Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Steve Garvey, and Tommy Lasorda. 

I liked baseball. It was the right mix of competition, contemplation and calibration for me. A ball park is still one of the great relaxing venues. It is a great place for the leather-lunged fan to work out his aggressions but there is an undertone of "I'm just kidding' in the baseball fan's torrent of abuse. 

There is a really funny chapter detailing his columns which contained disparaging reflections about the cities hosting sporting events that he was covering.

• Long Beach, CA - The seaport of Iowa

• Los Angeles - Underpoliced and oversexed. Its architecture has been (accurately) described as "Early Awful"

• Philadelphia - A town that would boo a cancer cure...a place that even the British gave up without a fight.

• Oakland, CA - You had to pay fifty cents to go from Oakland to San Francisco. Coming to Oakland from San Francisco was free... that's all you have to know about Oakland.

• Cincinnati - If the Russians ever attacked, they would bypass Cincinnati, as it looked as if it had already been taken and destroyed.

There are some serious portions as well. He devotes a chapter each to his onset of blindness, his son's battle with drugs, and the death of his beloved wife. All are presented with genuine emotion and thoughtfulness as he contemplates the reasons behind these situations and his own role in each.

If you are a sports fan or just an admirer of clever, witty, insightful, and always humorous writing, I highly recommend getting to know Jim Murray and his brilliant observations of the games of the world.

There is no cult in the world like a busload of fans on their way to a home game....The home team wins, the world's gonna be all right. Food tastes better. Wives look prettier. Work gets easier. 

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

More book recommendations

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Murray, Jim.. The Jim Murray Collection.   

The best collection of his columns covering baseball, boxing, tennis, hockey, strikes, and sport figures.

 

Rough Magic

Prior-Palmer, Lara. Rough Magic: Riding the World's Loneliest Horse Race. New York: Catapult 2019. Print

First Sentences:

It was May 2013 when I wa cooped up in an attic in Austria, au pairing for a family with six Ferraris.

They lived in a converted hotel in the jaws of an Alpine valley 

Description:

Sometimes an absolutely fascinating plot and setting can make up for an average writing style. Such is the case for me with Lara Prior-Palmer's exotic tale of competing in the 1,000 kilometer Mongol Derby, Rough Magic: Riding the World's Loneliest Horse Race.

I had never heard of this fascinating race, much less that it was an ongoing 10-day race over uncharted barren lands. I also didn't know the Mongolian Derby re-enacted the pony express mail delivery system created by Genghis Khan in the thirteenth century. The speedy ponies of then and now allowed letters from Siberia to arrive in Poland within twelve days across a route flanked by the Gobi Desert, the Altai Mountains, and Siberia. 

With a last-minute decision to enter leaving author Prior-Palmer only one month to "prepare," she set about learning about the ride, seeking advice (not forthcoming) from previous riders and her Aunt Lucinda who was a famous distance rider (and who gave her a can of Anti Monkey Butt power for sore bottoms), and preparing her meager supplies. 

Why do human put so much thought into some decisions yet plunge into others like penguins into freezing ocean....Maybe I had a simpler desire to settle something unsaid, away from home. Or a longing to be wild and snort about like a horse 

Competitors would be allowed only a horse, five kilos of clothing and supplies, and a unreliable GPS. The entry form was ominous:

By taking part in this race you are greatly increasing your risk of severe physical injury or even death....If you are seriously injured you may be hundreds of miles away from the nearest hospital.

Thus begins this engrossing narrative of Prior-Palmer's ride of a lifetime. She was the youngest person to ride in the Mongolian Derby, and certainly the least prepared. When her first horse (provided by hundreds of Mongolian herders throughout the route) went lame and refused to run, she knew she was in for trouble. 

The race required she change mounts every four hours, provided at 25 relay stations where officials checked the horse's heartbeat to make sure he hadn't been overworked. A high heart rate meant the rider had to spend time in the station until medics deemed the horse fit, a loss sometime of hours.

Along the way, Prior-Palmer describes the vast, trackless plains she had to navigate; the herders she met; the hamsters and marmot holes that threatened to break a horse's leg or at least throw its rider; the 4,000 year old bronze carvings of animals in the middle of nowhere; and of course, her profound boredom. 

It's a fascinating read, a personal challenge to the author that she conveys to us lucky readers in clam, concise descriptions. Through hills and plains, as well as constant downpours, she perseveres towards the finish line and a very surprising ending.

On a related note, The New York Times had an article today about the latest running of Mongol Derby and its 70-year-old winner. Check it out at:     www.nytimes.com/2019/08/21/sports/mongol-derby-winner.html 

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Curtis, Wayne. The Last Great Walk.   

In 1909, walking was the most popular sport in many countries. Here is the true account of one of the greatest long distance walkers, Edward Weston, and his world-famous walk from New York City to San Francisco at age 70. (previously reviewed here)

The Grand Slam

Frost, Mark. The Grand Slam: Bobby Jones, America, and the Story of Golf New York: Hachette 2004. Print.

First Sentences:

On September 20, 1913, America welcomed a new hero into its sporting pantheon and for the first time the broad middle of the country embraced with curiosity and enthusiasm the exotic game he'd mastered.

Description:

Bobby Jones was not only one of the best golfers ever (and that include Palmer, Nicklaus, Woods, and anyone else you can name), he competed his entire career as an amateur. That right, he turned down all prize money for every tourney, contenting himself with trophies and the self-satisfaction of playing the game for the love.

In Mark Frost's engulfing The Grand Slam: Bobby Jones, America, and the Story of Golf, Jones' career is documented in well-researched details and interesting anecdotes. Jones played during the early 1900s (when golf relatively unknown in America) through the 1930s. In his childhood he was a club-throwing, swearing, self-taught golfer who displayed enough brilliance to regularly beat adults on his home course, East Lake, in Atlanta, Georgia.

Those were the days of clubs with hickory shafts and nicknames like "Calamity Jane" (Jones putter). Courses were such a new phenomenon that A.J. Spaulding hired a consultant to freely advise local cities on course design simply to provide places where the public could purchase and play with his golf equipment. Interest in this new game grew with exhibitions rounds between immortals like Walter Hagen, Harry Varden and Ted Ray. It was such a match played on East Lake course that ten-year-old Jones watched that inspired him to pursue the perfection of golf.

Talent, nerve, a relentless mentality. Not many players had all these weapons in their arsenal.

From his first tournament in 1911 at age nine to his teen years when he flirted with winning  international championships, Jones steadily improved to achieve his ultimate triumph in 1930: winning the four greatest tournaments in the same year. Holding the trophies for the British Open, the British Amateur, the U.S. Open, and the U.S. Amateur in the same year was nicknamed "The Grand Slam" and Jones was the first and still the only person to reach that pinnacle

Author Frost carefully details each step along the road to greatness, introducing the major golf tournaments, players, and courses, along with Jones' disappointments and record-breaking low rounds, and information about world figures during the World War I, Prohibition, and the Depression. A sports-mad world made him headline news worldwide and the subject of the biggest ticker tape parades New York City had ever hosted.

Even if you are not a golf fan, Grand Slam is a great read, a fascinating look at the intensity of an athlete to could work and will himself to success under a plethora of conditions, and then step away from the game at the height of his fame. He had a successful career designing golf clubs including the fabled Augusta National Course in Atlanta. He even had a motion picture presence, creating 18 short instructional golf films where he worked with celebrities on a specific shot. HIs films played to movie houses between feature pictures and were wildly popular. 

Grand Slam depicts an era and public just discovering a new sport and its heroes. It was the age of sports coverage by radio and newspaper giants like Grantland Rice, Paul Gallico, and Pop Keeler, Jones' best friend throughout his playing days.

I just couldn't get enough of the details of that age as well as the stroke-by-stroke play of Jones throughout his tournament days. For example, when given the honorary citizenship by the the city of St. Andrews (the only other recipient was Benjamin Franklin), he learned that he now had the ancient rights to "catch rabbits," "dry his washing on the Old Course," and "take divot whenever he pleased." Who can't love details like this that Frost dug up?

During the 1920s [Jones] played an average of only four tournaments a year against full-time professionals, generally practices for only a few weeks to prepare himself, and was still, without argument, the greatest player who ever wore cleats....Bob had played in twenty-one majors championships and won thirteen of them.

Readers are immersed in the era and personality of Bobby Jones and the daily effort required to become a champion ... as well as what that road to greatness takes away from anyone seeking to pursue excellence.

Some may discount his legacy by saying he only played a game, but what he achieved remains in its own right as powerful and permanent an expression of the human longing for perfection as any poem or song or painting. Greatness is rare and a solemn responsibility, and because he offered himself in service to his talent with a strong mind, a committed heart, and every ounce of strength in his being, he deserves a lasting place in our memory.

Amen to that. 

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Hogan, Ben. Ben Hogan's Five Lessons: The Mdern Fundamentals of Golf  

Simply the best, briefest, and most clear golf instruction book. Period

Yogi, Count. Five Simple Steps to Perfect Golf  

Offbeat, clever, but solid, proven tips from golf's self-proclaimed greatest player, Count Yogi. Never heard of him? Well, take a look at this book for the most down-to-earth instruction and biography you ever will read. (previously reviewed here)

Wodehouse, P.G.. The Golf Omnibus: 31 Tales by the Green from the Maser of Comic Fiction: 

The funniest, drollest, and odd-ball golf stories with completely unexpected plots and outcomes, (such as the two men playing a 16-mile long hole in order to win the favor of a girl). Unmatched reading.