1 comments about Brett Favre: America's Quarterback.

1. Book arrived quickly, but we were disappointed to take it out of the package and see a large (about an inch long) red ink mark on the very front cover of the book (upper right hand corner). Even after getting the red pen ink off, the scratch/indentation of the line from the pen mark still was there, and quite noticeable.
   It was too close to Christmas to mess with returning it, so we kept it and hoped, since we were giving it to a guy, that he wouldn't notice or care as much.
   Very disappointed in a product that was not in "new" or perfect condition.
   The book itself has some neat photos and is a quick read.

5 comments about Hermann Maier: The Race of My Life.

1. Hermann Maier's story is inspiring. He tells us all just what it might take to be a world champion. No one has had the same mountians to climb to stand on the top.
   
   A must read



2. This book gave me insight into the competitive world of ski racing and I found it very informative. Maier's comeback from his horrible accident is indeed inspiring, but I found the book way too long and detailed to keep my interest from waning. I finished it, but it was tedious. A good editor and a little more flair could have made this a great book.



3. Herman's book can be subtitled "Don't count me down and out just yet...." And this is the recurring theme throughout.
   
   Perhaps it's the translation into English, but the Herminator comes across as not only a great athlete, but a little too self-centered! It's as everything revolves around his being and return to winning, no make that crushing his competitors and not just the race hill. You can almost "see and hear" the snorting, growling, grimacing in the start gate as you read this book - yet you don't really get a true feeling of what all this means to him other than competition, endorsements, and being the all conquering focus for the Austrians - not even his team mates. But somewhat like Bode Miller, Maier came from "outside" the alpine racing mainstream and perhaps that's why he appears to remain somewhat outside the norm.
   
   I read Bode's book at the same time and in the end, you sure know which guy you want to sit and have a beer with or ski a run with.



4. I have always been a fan of Hermann Maier - not many have the ability to bounce back like he can. I bought the book for my son who is just learning to ski and he really enjoyed the biography. It is a good against all odds story and I would encourage anyone looking for a gift for an aspiring skier to send them a copy.
   
   We have learned that Hermann has a talent for skiing but the guy can write too. The book also teaches good sportsmanship and I want my son to grow up respecting his team mates and have a good attitude. Being a good sport is not just about big sponsors.
   
   We really enjoyed watching him ski and win medals at the Olympics!! And we really enjoyed his book!



5. I thought that Hermann Maier wrote a very candid and authentic book about his victories and struggles in the world of expert skiing...a help to the layman and an inspiration to the professionals about not giving up and how to reach for those goals/dreams!
   
   This book is a realistic perspective of a true hero and athlete and it's a great read for young and old!
   
   I enjoyed it very much and I applaud Hermann for his perspective on life and on skiing.

5 comments about Still Pitching: A Memoir.

1. This is a confusing book. It purports to be a coming-of-age literary memoir about a young man yearning to be a baseball player. However, it's confusing for the following reasons: the more psychological coming-of-age moments are cliched, superficial, and juvenile, offering nothing new, insightful, or fresh to this theme. In addition, it purports to be literary, which is misleading, because the writing is wooden and dull, in many places boring. Lastly, on some level (especially since the bookjacket cover shows the author in a baseball uniform in front of Ebbets Field), it's about being a baseball player--or wanting to be one. But mainly the author is a wannabe, and certainly never played for the Brooklyn Dodgers--so don't let the bookjacket fool you. But even so, I never connected with the author's striving to be a baseball player or a writer. The emotional content felt hollow. In short, this memoir isn't at all what it advertises. It's not worth the price of admission.



2. Just because the title refers to baseball doesn't mean this book is strictly for baseball fans. Anyone who delves into this sincere memoir of high school days filled with dreams, ambitions, and the opposite sex will recall their own bittersweet recollections. For most of us, high school was like being exposed and trying like hell to cover our insecurities, and fein the confidence that 'everyone' else seemed to have. Truth is, we were all in the same situation, just different levels of adolescence. This book will take the reader back to days of classes, competition, the cliques, the teachers, and delight at the author's belief in himself.



3. Michael Steinberg's "Still Pitching" is a terrific book, filled with the excitement, energy and determination of youth. He skillfully re-creates the quality of adolescent life in the 1950s and 60s. There are so many memorable scenes and moments captured in these pages, but I would like to point out for special emphasis his remembrances of the last game played at Ebbets Field,and the subsequent demolition of the field, both scenes rendered with such tender and heart-breaking precision we feel we are right there beside the author witnessing the events. Another striking moment occurs when he discovers a photo, taken by his girlfriend, of himself taped to his locker. For the first time in his life he sees himself as he's always wanted to be seen, handsome, confident and desirable. It is a transformative moment in his emotional development. Perhaps the most striking element of the book is that the author's determination to succeed--at baseball, at life--actually enables him to achieve the success he was in search of. This book is not only for those who love baseball and 50s nostalgia, but for anyone who has struggled to realize the dreams of youth.



4. Still Pitching: A Memoir is the autobiography of Michael Steinberg, a successful writer who has had an especial love for the game of baseball ever since his high school years. From how the game transformed Michael from an introvert into a popular pitcher during his high school years, to how the game helped him grow into the confidence needed to pursue his writing career, Still Pitching is a positive, entertaining, and occasionally inspiring recollection guaranteed to resonate with fellow baseball fans.



5. Michael Steinberg's, Still Pitching, is set in New York in the 1950s, against the backdrop of Ebbets Field, home to yet another team of loveable losers, the Brooklyn Dodgers. The boy we meet in Still Pitching is sensitive, thoughtful, and inward, someone for whom baseball quickly becomes synonymous with longing. His entire body and mind yearn to play and understand the sport. For the boy in Steinberg's memoir, the accouterments of the game -the rules, the statistics, and, finally, the delicate science of pitching-offer order and meaning in a time made trying by the indifference and distance of his parents, institutionalized anti-Semitism, and an oft-thwarted desire to be admired by his peers. And this is the triumph at the heart of Still Pitching: that Steinberg gives us not simply a story about a game, but a young man's life with a moving emotional honesty and clarity reminiscent of the works of Tobias Wolff and Frank Conroy.

   While it would not be fair to say that the art of pitching is the young Steinberg's salvation, his love of baseball leads to other gifts, as it fuels his development as a writer. Like so many boys-present company included-for all his desire, Steinberg would never toe a major league pitching mound, but his prose, like the games he pitched in his youth, is characterized by the same finesse, precision, and gentle pacing.

No comments about Un sueno americano: Mi historia.

1 comments about Taylor (Icons of the NFL).

1. Great stuff! TAYLOR really puts you in the shoes of the greatest defensive player ever to step onto the field.
   
   It's a different kind of LT book. First of all, it's a big, coffee-table edition with all the gorgeous color photos; shots I've never seen before. Second, this book mostly stays away from LT's off-field troubles. I'm a big LT fan and have read the other autobiographies he's done with other people, but the focus here is on the football. You get lots of action sequences that really put you on the field with LT. It's a "cleaner" version of his career, without any bad language, even. Maybe that's a little weird, given that it's LT, but then you can share this book with your kid.
   
   The thing is, it's a great read. I liked it better than his other books -- it feels like you really get LT's voice. The story's exciting, funny and sticks to the point. Informative, too. He explains a lot about the way he played linebacker, how Parcells turned him loose and how that changed the way the game is played.
   
   I think it's a must-get gift for any LT or Giants fan. But LT's such a character, the story's so good and the football stuff is so real, I think anybody would like it. (Even a Redskins fan.)

2 comments about The Ultimate Canoe Challenge: 28,000 Miles Through North America.

1. ... full of practical informations, especially, if you are plannning long expedition paddling trips.
   
   The entire story is told from the Verlen's perspective. It's a pity that Brand Frentz didn't try to include any views of other participants of the ultimate canoe challenge. A short interviews with Steve Landick and Valerie Fons would be really interesting.



2. Verlen Kruger was a single minded modern day adventurer. He started paddling at 41 and before he died (On August 2, 2004, at age 82) he had covered over 100,000 miles by canoe, a world record. His last major expedition was celebrating his 80th birthday while paddling 2000 miles down length of the Yukon River with family and friends.
   
   This book details Verlens' "Ultimate Canoe Challenge". He and his new son in law Steve Landick decide to paddle up and down almost every major watershed in North America including the Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico the Pacific and the Sea of Cortez. They are the only people to paddle UP the Mississipi and up the Colorado river including the Grand Canyon! Three years and innumerable hardships later the job was done. But not without personal and financial costs.
   
   One of Verlens' favorite quotes was, "Happy are they who dream dreams ...and have the courage to make them come true."
   
   Brand Frentz has done an admirable job of telling the tale, the dream and the courage. It is a facinating read and I highly recommend this book to people who enjoy the "ultimate" in anything.

3 comments about Charley Burley and the Black Murderers Row.

1. This is a great history not only of Charley Burley's career but of other great forgotten black fighters of the 1940s such as Eddie Booker, Holman Williams, Jack Chase, Cocoa Kid and many more.
   
   To the question of why these great fighters never got a shot at the title, or at most of the top contenders, the answer is both overt and covert racism. The overt racism is primarily based on the false notion many promoters had that white fans (the ones with the money) wouldn't pay to watch black fighters. Joe Louis and Henry Armstrong had already disproven this myth, as Ray Robinson would later.
   
   The more covert form of racism was the fact that black fighters were so underpaid and so limited in the bouts they could get that they usually ended up fighting very often and usually fighting each other. There developed an ethic among these fighters that they generally would not try to knock each other out. There were two reasons for this: (1) Promoters were less likely to match you with someone you had beaten badly before; and (2) A fighter who had been knocked out might not be able to find another fight again soon, and if knocked out too often may not find fights at all.
   
   Archie Moore discussed this phenomenon in later life, and even talked about how he and other black fighters would be ostracized, and perhaps "punished," by their colleagues if they knocked one of them out. This was, in large part, a consequence of the economic realities black fighters faced during that era. Consequently, they tended to fight safer, and hence more boring, fights out of a sense of economic self-preservation. An unintended consequence of this is that they were less attractive to boxing promoters as a drawing card.
   
   Henry Armstrong never bought into this philosophy and was a big drawing card, as was Louis, of course. The economics of the fight game worked to their advantage, even as it worked against Burley, Booker, Williams, et al.



2. As a boxing historian I disagree with the review below. There simply is no cut and dried answer as to why Burley never received his title shot. There are several factors, many of which the author not only goes into but does so in detail. The main reasons I personally advocate:
   
   1. Burley was good. No, GREAT. He was a maximum risk, minimal gain proposition for the champions and best avoided if they wanted to keep their titles.
   
   2. Management/connections. Burley didn't have good connections in his career and had a habit of changing managers.
   
   The above mentioned reasons are why many fighters throughout history never received a title shot or a chance at a fight with another great. A more recent example would be Mike McCallum who, like Burley, changed managers often and also represented a max. risk/min. gain proposition. But luckily for McCallum he was able to benifit from the multiple "championship" belts floating around and snagged one. Had there been only one, as was the case in Burley's day, he may have found himself shut-out of the title picture as well.
   
   The only place I disagree with historians regarding Burley was his race being a factor. Blacks had been fighting for world titles since the 1800s(Joe Walcott, George Dixon, etc) and there were black titleholders at the time of Burley's prime. So I don't see race being a factor here. The problem is that when a white titleholder ducks a black it's called "racism". When a black champ does it(as Ray Robinson, Jack Johnson, Henry Armstrong and Joe Louis all did) it's called "smart business".
   
   What shines through mostly in this work is the author's love of his subject, which is always nice in the case of a bio. If you're interested in Burley, the fighters and the climate of the times then you will enjoy this opus enormously. I highly recommend it.



3. Hadn't heard of Charley Burley before this so I hoped to get a look at the fighter that was ducked by the very best (Sugar Ray Robinson). While I think the author did his best with this book, it still came across as a bit boring and didn't hit the level that I would have hoped.
   
   The writer gives a runthrough of Burley's life and discusses each of his fights in chronological order. The thing is that the mystery why Burley didn't get a world title shot is not solved. If he was so good, then surely the powers-that-be in boxing at the time would have seen dollar signs in him and taken him onwards and upwards.
   
   There is a feeling that there is more than meets the eye with the Burley story and this book doesn't clarify what it is.
   
   The book is worth a read but it isn't a classic.

5 comments about Marco Pantani: The Legend of a Tragic Champion.

1. Informative book of a great climber who was destroyed both professionally and personally with never proven claims of doping. Like probably almost all of his generation Pantani almost certainly doped yet he was the one who was singled out. Such a sad story of a great climber who eventaully died from non-performance enhancing drug abuse.



2. This is an excelent chronicle of one of history's greatest climbers. Because it presents both sides of the story, this book is worth a read. Contains scientific data as well as multitudes of tabloid-ish material. However, because it does, it tells the whole story. Marco Pantani, while an outstanding athlete, was the Britney Spears of Italian Cycling. This book captures that scene well!



3. One does not expect great literature in a sports biography and this book meets those expectations. However, it does succeed in making you feel like you do get to know Pantani - and it does give a lot of facts that help you to piece together the story and, probably, what was behind it.
   
   Anyone who still thinks that "certain riders" didn't take performance-enhancing substances should read this book (especially the interview with his ex-girlfriend).
   
   Anyone who wants more insight into the TDF should read this book.
   
   Anyone who knows even a little about Pantani and wants to understand his tragic story should read this book.



4. Beginning with Marco's own words written on nine pages torn from his own passport mere months before his tragic death, "Marco Pantani: The Legend of a Tragic Champion" both starts and culminates with his final goodbye to the world with his last defiant act fired back at those he felt were ultimately responsible for his demise. The book retraces Marco's remarkable assent to the top of both his sport and life starting from his meager upbringing as a plumbers son in Cesena, Italy to his drug induced death on valentines day 2004.
   
   Aboard his first racing bike, a bright red Vicini, Marco won his first race at the age of 14 and never looked back. Although a quick read at only 181 pages, the authors not only rekindle Marco's spirit in the reader, but allow one to step back in time and relive some of the most memorable exploits in modern cycling history when many of us sat riveted in front of our televisions, saying to ourselves, "There he goes", as the mountains pitched upward. For how welcoming these memories are however, the tragic side of the plot is intertwined throughout, reaching a climax with the only published interview to date of Marco's estranged girlfriend of seven years Christina Jonsson.
   
   Although Marco's ultimate public demise might have begun on June 5, 1999 at Madonna di Campiglio.... "that black day when his Giro d'Italia pink jersey was tarnished with blood", Marco's fall into his own personal abyss ran far deeper than most would ever know. Christina openly acknowledges in her interview of Marco's competitive doping practices. With nothing held back beyond the tears, she goes as far as telling how she would assist in holding his arm while he injected himself and of the "products he had forever in a sealed container in the fridge". The beautiful sport of cycling has become, she states, "an incredible hypocrisy..... Marco had to accept to race in a system that didn't allow him not to dope". She goes on to say what most of us choose not to or simply hope isn't the case when adding up the current state of the professional peleton..... "To dope means searching to improve your performance to give a better show and to feed dreams. They pay these athletes because they allow people to dream, that's all. If there is no longer a show there's no more emotion and nothing to relate to."
   
   Governing bodies need to make a statement from time to time to legitimize their ability to turn a blind eye to he true reality of the situation. One might have hoped that the circumstances behind Marco's passing could serve as a wakeup call for both cycling and the greater sporting world, but it seems that history does in fact tend to repeat itself and the cancer in cycling only continues to grow. One only needs to look at the recent expulsion of Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso (among others) from starting the 2006 Tour de France. Marco wasn't the first tragic story and he will by no means be the last. Let's just hope the stories of others don't end with the same misfortune as that of Marco. Tragic yes... champion even more so.
   
   The thumb screws were tightened in Marco's case such that his tragic spiral downward appeared to be of his own hand from outward appearances. Is it natural for speeds to increase steadily from year to year far beyond the pace of enhancements in technologies and/or training methods? Or was Marco simply a scapegoat of the system in which he found himself entangled in the web of cycling's programmatic unfairness. This book gives a compelling argument toward the latter through the life and times of Marco Pantani: The Legend of a Tragic Champion.



5. It's always sad when something has a wonderful opportunity to be great but settles for being merely average. That was never the way of Italian cycling icon Marco Pantani, but it is, sadly, the only way to look at Marco Pantani: the Legend of a Tragic Champion.
   
   Pantani deserved better. He was obviously -- and fatally -- flawed, but through his flamboyant personality, dramatic cycling moves, and unmistakable appearance he also brought much-needed color to a sport increasingly dominated by single-minded robot-like riders. He died a dramatic, tragic, and pitiful death, and the world of sport was left poorer for it.
   
   Pantani's persona is just one of the reasons this volume should have been much, much better than it is.
   
   Another equally important reason is that editor John Wilcockson assembled a virtual Dream Team of cycling writers for the project, from venerable Italian journalist Pier Bergonzi, the chief writer with the pink-paged La Gazetta dello Sport, to his insightful friendly rival Sergio Neri at BiciSport. Add France's Guillaume Prabois, and the staff of the U.S.-based VeloNews. Even Graham Watson, the best-known photographer in the business, contributed some of his signature images.
   
   These guys pulled out all the stops, tracking down the Ukrainian maid who cleaned Pantani's room in the hotel where he died of a drug overdose (he kept he very warm, she said) and the tourist who was the last person to see Pantani alive (he said Pantani told him, in a local dialect, "I don't know if there will be another day"). Swiss journalist Michel Beuret even manages a thoughtful interview with Christina Jonsson, Pantani's former girlfriend, who avoided the press in the wake of the cyclist's death.
   
   But I think Mr. Wilcockson fails the effort just as a team captain fails his support riders when the pace is too much for him, despite their hard work and preparation.
   
   There are many problems. Sloppy editing means that there are contradictory bits scattered all through the text: at one point the book says only four men ever won the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France in the same year; in other parts it says there were seven (seven is correct). At several points it says the 2003 Giro was Pantani's last race, but in the appendix is points out (correctly) that he competed without distinction in the challenging Tour of the Basque Country five weeks later.
   
   What's more, the writing is uneven, plodding, and predictable. Of course, one reason for that is because the bulk of the book was written in Italian and much of what's left was written in French. But giving it a more unified feel and level of quality has to have been on Mr. Wilcockson's list of duties as editor. Don't blame the translator: he got it to this point. Someone needed to finish the job.
   
   And don't get me started on the title. The world "legend" first and foremost means something "presented as history but unlikely to be true." While, technically, the word can also refer to someone so admired they seem to be the stuff of a legend, this is referring to the story. Besides, why the confusion? Why not simply call it "Marco Pantani: The STORY of a Tragic Champion"? Or "The LESSON of a Tragic Champion"? "Or we could get alliterative with "The Tragedy of a Troubled Champion." Should I go on?
   
   I must say I am very tempted to award this review only two stars, but I think its subject earns it a gentleman's C. Still, I had hoped for much more. Chances are, you do, too.

5 comments about Rayzor's Edge: Rob Ray's Tough Life on the Ice.

1. We all think of professional athletes as pampered stars who believe that the world revolves around them. Rayzor's Edge shows what it is really like for a kid growing up in a small town in Canada, working his way through junior hockey, dreaming to one day play in the NHL. What I liked most about this book was the honest and open way the authors described the fears and insecurities of Rob Ray, not just as he was on his way to the NHL, but once he got there, as well. From his first day at junior hockey to his last day on the ice as a Buffalo Sabre, authors Ray and Bailey expose the human side of the ups and downs of a professional athlete - what scares them and what drives them - first, as a green rookie putting on a team sweater for the first time and later, as a seasoned veteran. The book is engaging, thoughtful and very well-written and I highly recommend it to all sports fans.



2. This book is great. As far as I can tell, it's the best thing to come out of the Sabres this season. Rob Ray and Budd Bailey have given us a great real life story. This is a book for fans and players. Gene F.



3. As a former Buffalo area resident and Sabres fan who has been somewhat distant from the team for quite awhile, I found a couple of sections of Rob Ray's book particularly interesting. First, he discusses the controversy surrounding star goalie Dominik Hasek's injury during the 1996 - 1997 playoffs. Later in the book, Ray offers some new (to this reader, at least) thoughts regarding the mysterious departure of Buffalo Sabres Coach Ted Nolan. If you are a Sabres and/or Rob Ray fan, you will undoubtedly enjoy this book.



4. Sports superstars write books all the time, often after only one good season. Mostly it's the same story: How I overcame (insert minor setback here) by being blessed with incredible talent to become rich and famous.
   
   Rob Ray's story is a bit different. Ray had to struggle his whole life to make it in hockey. It is refreshing to see a sports biography written by a role player, by someone who watched many of his team's greatest moments from the bench or even in street clothes. And it is also refreshing to read the story of a player who made it by being the ultimate team player, a guy who had to struggle through the minors to make it.
   
   The book's main weakness is the Ray may be too nice a guy. While he would happily deck anyone on the ice, he seems to hesitate to say anything that might offend anyone he played with (with the notable exception of a certain Czech goalie), or even fought against.
   
   Enjoy this book for the story of a player who did his job as best he could, and still can't seem to believe he got to play in the the bigtime.



5. When I found out that Rayzor had the book coming out, I was quick to order it. I'm a life-long Sabres fan, and enjoyed watching him contribute to the team over the years. He was always fun to watch, and a smart player.. (I don't know if there ever was an enforcer better at goading his opponent into a penalty.)
   
   The book left me wanting something different. Rob tells about the history of the Sabres, from his perspective.. He tells some interesting stories, but I was left wanting more. I wanted to know more about the off-the-ice antics; who were the best/worst fighters in the league, and why? How about some stories from the lockeroom? Nights on the town in Buffalo? Overzealous fans?
   
   I must also note that the copy editing in the book was not great. Similar to Keith Jones' book, there are multiple errors in text that should have been caught. (Although there were many more in the Jones book.)

5 comments about Miracle in the Making: The Adam Taliaferro Story.

1. The book "Miracle in the Making" is an inspirational story about Adam Taliaferro, a former Penn State football player who was paralyzed in a game. He was told he would never walk again and this books lets you travel with Adam in his personal story of his road back after being completely paralyzed. This boo is a truly motivational book in which i recommend anyone, not just Penn State fans, to read.



2. This truley is an excellent book. I grew up in the same neighborhood with Adam, attended the same HS (graduate a year after) and every bit of information (names, dates, etc) are all correct. All the information about his character is completely true, he really is an inspirational person. Growing up in a huge suburban high school with him, it really was a very competitive atmosphere. Everyone seemed to love him because he was one of the brightest (one of the highest GPAs of his class, scholar athlete and best athlete in the school) along with being one of the most modest, down to early people ever. If someone had the will to succeed it is him. I recommend this book to anyone overcoming obstacles, down on their luck,athletes and basically anyone because it is the type of book that you can not put down.



3. After finding out that Adam Taliaferro couldnt walk again ever. His father and mother urged him to push on. His spirits were high always no matter what. This is a triumphant story about courage and self-determination and a little help from some up above



4. This book is good for anyone whether you are a football fan or not. I personally am a football fan, and I would especially recommend this book for those football fans out there. This book is inspirational and well documented. It is also at a good price now, and it is a quick read.



5. All too often in today's world of youth sports; parents, coaches and players miss the meaning of sportsmanship. Having been involved in youth sports for 14 years, I have witnessed over bearing parents and tenacious coaches. I suggest they keep a copy of "Miracle in the Making" in their equipment bags. This book highlights the true meaning of a parent/child relationship and a coach/player relationship. Adam is the definition of courage, kindness and strength. His family's support during his recovery is awe-inspiring. The writers did a terrific job of bringing me along on Adam's journey to recovery. I will be on the sidelines cheering; watching as Adam wins the biggest game of his life!