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Title: The Mad Dog 100 : The Greatest Sports Arguments of All Time by Christopher Russo, Allen St. John ISBN: 0-385-50898-0 Publisher: Doubleday Pub. Date: 13 May, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (26 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Interesting Read for Sports Fans
Comment: The title of the book is partly misleading, because the 100 chapters are not so much devoted to the greatest sports arguments of all time, but 100 issues/topics of particular interest to Chris "Mad Dog" Russo phrased in the form of a question. More than a few of the topics are opportunities for Russo to vent his opinions and/or suggestions on a particular sports issue, although the bulk of the book does focus on argument issues that most sports enthusiasts have participated in one time or another. One drawback is that many lists of greatest players or games is limited to Russo's personal history, dating back to the 1960s, although a few old timers occasionally pop up in the essays.
Russo has his biases, and some of his analyses are questionable. For example, batting average is given far greater emphasis than the more reliable on base percentage for evaluating players. Some of his picks will create controversy, and some bewilderment. For example, selecting the 1963 Los Angeles Dodgers pitching staff as one of the greatest when the starters, excepting Sandy Koufax, barely won more than they lost, or choosing Sammy Sosa, over Ruth, McGwire, or Bonds, as the guy you would choose when you needed a home run for one at bat. He does deserve more than a few kudos, however, when he appears to be going against the crowd when bypassing Michael Jordan as the top pick in a few categories; real sports fans agree with him that Jordan's selection by ESPN as greatest 20th century athlete was questionable. Also, selecting Alex Rodriguez over Honus Wagner as the greatest shortstop may rustle the feathers of oldtimers, but its a bold choice.
The book may have benefitted by including more statistics to back up some selections, and also including some additional background information on a few of the athletes discussed, but overall it was a quick and enjoyable read.
Rating: 5
Summary: Great Work! Shows Strengths;Admits Weaknesses
Comment: Having listened to Chris Russo since he was on little WMCA radio and watching him move on to WFAN, I was curious to see his writing prowess since his on-the-air vocabulary gets a bit jumbled sometimes. This is what I like about him, he seems down to earth and more like the callers to his show than other big ego radio talk show hosts. I decided to make the plunge and actually bought two items (the other is a great video for Little League parents called: "Backyard Baseball Drills"). The beauty of this book is that Russo writes the way he speaks. It will never make Oprah's recommended list but some of the arguments are real just like when I was a kid, discussing Mays vs Mantle. My favorite was the Dimaggio-Williams debate. This is a nice read that you can put down and pick up whenever, be it in the "can" or on the beach. Recommended!
Rating: 5
Summary: A must for sports fans.
Comment: This is a great beach or airplane book for fans of sport, whether your bag is the NCAA Final Four, the Super Bowl, the Stanley Cup or the Series. All those, plus horseracing, boxing, tennis and all manner of both major and minor sports are here.
Do you prefer Willie, Mickey or the Duke? Think that the rivalry between North Carolina and Duke is greater that the Sox vs. Yankees or Giants vs. Dodgers? Russo has the arguments on all of these and three hundred pages more. He is pretty well balanced also, which I think makes for great analysis (the essence of arguing the imponderable).
Chris Russo does sports talk on WFAN in New York. I suppose (having left The Apple before the advent of talk radio) that these and many many more are the stuff that makes sports talk radio so interesting and compelling. I agree with another reviewer who notes that (like most of us) the greatest concentration (although certainly not all) of Russo's entries includes those players and teams whom he has witnessed personally - another reason to always be the old man at the bar in this argument (so we can tell the whippersnappers that "if you had only seem Jackie Robinson play like I did, you'd feel differently".) It is what good dialogue should be: a handful of stats (acknowledging that some may view slugging percentage above on base percentage) and lots of argument (without shouting, invective or other unpleasantries).
This book reads easy, in short chapters of several pages as well as short (four or five paragraph) lists. It makes it easy to compare DiMaggio to Williams, and the case for Mays over Mantle. There are as many arguments as there are categories of sport: Which was the greater achievement, Ted Williams' .406 season or Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak? Does Ali beat Louis? Among my favorites is the question of the five greatest athletes of the century (I agree with Russo that ESPN shamelessly pandered to Jordan by putting him ahead of The Greatest of All Time and The Babe.)
The reader who won't want to stop reading after several pages and argue a point with another fan is not a true aficionado of Sport! For all sports fans, it is a great gift.
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Title: Not Till the Fat Lady Sings: The Most Dramatic Sports Finishes of All Time by Les Krantz, Doug Flutie, Jim McKay ISBN: 1572435585 Publisher: Triumph Books Pub. Date: October, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Who's Your Caddy? : Looping for the Great, Near Great, and Reprobates of Golf by RICK REILLY ISBN: 0385488858 Publisher: Doubleday Pub. Date: 06 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: LT: Over the Edge: Tackling Quarterbacks, Drugs, and a World Beyond Football by Lawrence Taylor, Steve Serby ISBN: 0060185511 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: 25 November, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Sports Illustrated: Fifty Years of Great Writing by Editors of Sports Illustrated ISBN: 1932273069 Publisher: Time Pub. Date: December, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: Clearing The Bases : The Greatest Baseball Debates of the Last Century by Allen Barra ISBN: 0312265565 Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books Pub. Date: 03 May, 2002 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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