Sweetness

Sweetness is a biography about Walter Payton. I heard about this book because on the cover of Sports Illustrated, there was a picture of Walter that said the hero that now one knew: Sweetness by Jeff Pearlman. Pearlman said he wanted to write about Payton because no one, besides family and close friends, knew the real Walter. Even his autobiography was 40% fiction. But I'm not so sure if he should have wrote this book. Sweetness isn't your average biography. There is no fiction to keep people from knowing the truth about Payton. Do we really need to know about his suicide attempts, or his drug use? If people view Payton as the only athlete to do those things, they'd be wrong. Many athletes have attempted suicide, including flamboyant Deion Sanders. And pretty much every proffesional athlete ever did drugs. 

  When most people think of Walter, they think of an incredible athlete with a great work ethic. But this book reveals the hero of Walter.

October 1964

David Halberstam is the author of this book, and he is my favorite author. One of the things I like about him is that in each chapter he writes about one player in depth, and writes about there road to where they are now. When he does this, you really get a feel for the players, but you also read about exciting seasons for both teams. Once you get to the World Series, he describes each game in-depth, but I like when he does  this because it's not just a boring game in the dog days of summer, but the World Series, when games are always exciting. This series had everything, including Mickey Mantle's walk off home run, to Bob Gibsons incredibly play on the mound.
   If I were to read a baseball book written by Halberstam, were he talks more about the players, or a book were it's more about the whole team, like Jeff Pearlmans great book The Bad Guys Won, I would probably  read a Halberstam style book. But if there was a team as insane as the Mets in The Bad Guys One, I would read one about the entire team.

The son of neptune

This is a very interesting book because it's an intireley different series than the lightning thief, but it has some of the same characters and problems. this is the second book in the second series, and in the first book, Jason, a hero from an unknown roman camp comes to camp half-blood and virtually replaces a missing Percy. In the second book, we meet an unknown Roman camp thats going crazy over the missing Jason, but when Percy arrives he goes on a quest with misfits Frank and Hazel to save, well,the world. They need to be back in four days,and if they don't the camp will be overrun by monsters, and it will be the beggining of the end. Some of the similaritys beetween the two books is that both Jason and Percy lose their memories. This can be very stressfull to read because you just want to yell at Jason or Percy because they're so close to find something out, but they can't remember. But I guess that this is good or else it would be to easy for the two camps to unite and defeat Gaea, the earth goddess who's planning to control earth. At the end of the book camp half-blood comes to help the roman camp, and then there's a cliff hanger.

The Machine

The Machine by Joe Posnaski

I know That my last blog was also a baseball book, but right now I'm in a phase where all I read is baseball books. The last 6 books that I've read have all been baseball books, but I,ll read something new soon.
Anyway, The Machine is about the 1975 Cinncinatti Reds (a.k.a the big red machine.) The thing I love about this book is that unlike the Boys Of Summer, a much more famous baseball book, you really get to learn a lot about the players, after the first little bit, a felt like I personally knew all the greats on this legendary team. In the beginning of the '75 season' the Reds do not start off good at all. In fact, they were under .500 in late may. Hall of fame manager Sparky Anderson was not pleased at all. But he knew his four great players would come through for him. During spring training, the first thing he said was: "You four are royalty, (pointing to hall of famer Tony Perez, the best catcher ever Johnny Bench, all time hit leader Pete Rose, and 2 time MVP Joe Morgan) and the rest of you are turds." This was slightly unfair, considering Ken Griffey, future MVP winner George Foster, and Don Gullett, who in Sparky's mind would be one of the greatest pitchers ever if he stayed healthy. One day Don was on the mound for the Reds, and a come backer struck him in the hand. He had broke a bone, and was gonna be out for a while. You think this would make Sparky really mad, especially because he had a history of throwing tantrums. Apparently his friend"Bubsa" thought the same, so when Sparky was all Mr. happy, he was confused. What he didn't know was that Sparky had invented the modern bullpen, and changed the game forever.
During the two months that Gullet was gone The Reds went on an absolute tear. Ken Griffey hit great, Sparky's least favorite player, John Yuckovich got sent down, George Foster got in the lineup, The four non- turds hit like crazy, and Sparky pulled pitchers after any minor error. When Don got back the Dodgers were down by 20 games and completely out of the race. The Reds steamrolled the Pirates to get to the World Series in the first round of the playoffs. The surprise Red Sox met the machine to set the stage for the greatest World Series in the history of the game. The series had it all. Dramatic home runs, clutch hitting, and just drama. The BoSox didn't score in the famous incident when the runner on third misheard his third base coach, which led to a blunder that almost cost the Sox the game. Carlton Fisk was cold and tired, so when he led of the bottom of the twelfth and crushed a ball heading foul, he waved frantically for a it to go fair. And miraculously struck the foul pole. After the game, everyone acknowledged that this was the greatest game in history.
In game seven Pete Rose is furious. He's playing on the greatest team ever assembled, and they are losing to a bunch of losers. How can his team of losers can't win the world series. In the sixth inning they're losing 3-0, but the big dog, Tony Perez hit a home run. Then in the ninth, Joe Morgan ripped the game winning RBI, and three outs later the machine won the world series. Sparky built his team like a machine, when America was long hair and mustaches. In the end, the team with so many great personality's won the wold series, and cemented there place as the best team in baseball history.





<

The Boys Of Summer

    The Boys Of Summer is split up into two books, The Team and The Return. The Team is about author Roger Kahn's experiences covering the 1952 and 1953 Brooklyn Dodgers for the Herald Tribune. Both years the Dodgers lose to the mighty Yankees, who are just ending their record streak of 5 years in a row of winning the World Series. In The Team also covers Roger Kahn's childhood growing up right next to Ebbets Field, the home of the Dodgers. If you read this book you will meet many different personalities on dem bum's as the Dodgers were known as. Preacher Roe, the pitcher who, in his words pitched, slow, slower, and slowest, acted stupid because he liked being called a "hillbilluh."
   These teams are the Jackie Robinson Dodgers so Jackie even faced racism from teammates like Billy Cox, the 3rd baseman with a really smooth glove in the field. Billy was talking with Roger Kahn, and started talking about how much he hated Robinson, and then called him something that I can't write in this blog. Kahn knew that this wasn't right, so he wrote an article about it, without naming Cox's name. Cox found out, but just laughed it of. Years later, when Kahn visits Cox in The Return, he finds himself watching a bunch of racist movies.
    There are plenty of other personalities, like the leader, Pee Wee Reese. Pee Wee, who got his nickname as a kid because Pee Wee means something in marbles, and he loved marbles. The nickname stuck, and he was on his way to a hall of fame career. But he will always be most remembered for what he would do for Jackie. In St. Louis, they didn't think blacks belonged in baseball. When the Dodgers were in town, the fans were yelling at Jackie all day long. Finally, Pee Wee had enough. He walked over from shortstop, his position, to first base, Robinson's position. Without a word Pee Wee simply puts his arm over Robinson's shoulder.
     In The Return, Roger visits 15 former Dodgers, after dem bums move to LA. They are now the Koufax Dodgers, and are enjoying great success. He see's Hall of famers Duke Snider and Roy Campanella, who had been paralyzed in a near fatal car accident.  I found The Return slightly dull, but The Team was jam packed with great tales from when baseball was in the glory years. Overall this is a great book, even for non baseball fans.