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Fathers & Sons & Sports: Great Writing By Buzz Bissinger, John Ed Bradley, Bill Geist, Donald Hall, Mark Kriegel, Norman MaClean, and Others | 
 enlarge | Author: Mike Lupica
Publisher: ESPN
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $14.35
You Save: $10.60 (42%)
New (31) Used (4) from $14.35
Avg. Customer Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 102076
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 6 x 1.1
ISBN: 1933060476
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.0973
EAN: 9781933060477
ASIN: 1933060476
Publication Date: May 6, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: new book
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Book Description
Ever since the first caveman picked up the first rock and tossed it to the first caveson, sports has forged a powerful link between generations of men. And ever since the advent of the sports page, those experiences have been lovingly chronicled by exceptional writers like poet laureate Donald Hall, Pulitzer prizewinner Buzz Bissinger, and classic American author Norman Maclean. In Fathers & Sons & Sports, ESPN collects the very best of those stories: page after page of unforgettable tales about fathers sending their sons off to battle, sons who dared to challenge their fathers in competition, boys and men finding a common language in a shared passion. From the Little League diamond to the local fishing hole to the high school wrestling mat to the collegiate gridiron, from the backyards of America to the most famous stadiums in the world, these stories all share one thing: breathtaking insight into what makes sports an essential part of life. This book is a testament to why and how men bond over sports--a stunning mix of observation and discovery, humor and pathos, literature and journalism--introduced by best-selling columnist Mike Lupica, who just so happens to be a father and a son himself.
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| Customer Reviews:
RICK "SHAQ" GOLDSTEIN SAYS: "FATHER & SON SHORT SPORTS STORIES: SOME GREAT-SOME NOT." May 14, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
ESPN has put together twenty previously published "short" stories built around the FATHER & SON dynamic with sports as the stage and or backdrop. Some stories are twenty plus pages and some are one-and-a-half to two-and-a-half pages. And unlike the old saying "size doesn't matter", in this collection of stories, coincidentally, the diminutive stories are the ones that noticeably do not pack the knockout punch the reader is hoping for. Two of the best stories were excerpted from previously published complete books. The two books, which I have both previously reviewed on Amazon are: "PISTOL: THE LIFE OF PETE MARAVICH" by Mark Kriegel and perhaps the most beautifully and intelligently written book about playing college football and the missed emotional opportunities looking back years later: "IT NEVER RAINS IN TIGER STADIUM" by John Ed Bradley.
The sports imbedded in these twenty stories range from football to baseball to boxing to fishing to swimming to wrestling and even (?)chess. There are some tear jerker's involving a Father's love for his autistic, epileptic son who has an IQ they can't measure "because he can't, or won't, follow instructions." ("A Father's Small Hope") And a sad and eloquently transcribed remembrance of a son's missed wish of taking his golf loving Father to the Master's Tournament. The son had finally got passes for him and his Father to attend, and then his Dad passed away before they could live out the dream, and the son writes: "The funeral week was a blur. When we picked out his favorite Zegna sport coat, I went into his bathroom, holding those Masters credentials in my hands. I took them out, slipping them into the jacket pocket. If there was an Augusta National in heaven, I wanted him to get in. I'm sorry, Daddy, I said to the air, you didn't get to go. Seven months later, I was back at Augusta. It was a hard week. I wore a pair of his shoes around the course, trying to walk it for him. I wrote a column about it for my newspaper and, as I'm doing now, tried to find some closure. Then, I believed my grief ended with the catharsis of the last paragraph. I was naive, as I found when I returned to Augusta in the coming years, finding my pain stronger each time." ("Holy Ground")
One of the other stories is about Tommy Lasorda and his deceased son Tommy Jr. It catches the reader off guard as it is written from the point of view of the people that knew the Lasorda's rather than by the Lasorda's. The senior Lasorda denies that his son was gay, despite the cause of death on the death certificate, and all of the son's friends celebrate the lifestyle that Jr. chose.
I rate this book as 3 stars, because even though there are some real literary gems in this collection, there are also a few strikeouts.
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