Book review: Let me tell you a story, by Red Auerbach and John Feinstein

John Feinstein has made a career of being a "thinking man's" sportswriter.  He shot to prominence with the oustanding 1986 Season on the Brink, which detailed a season spent with Bob Knight and the Indiana Hoosiers.  Some of his other works have been critically acclaimed as well, but have on occasion - eg. The Punch - tended to be too po-faced and serious for their own good.

Let me tell you a story, a collection of tales Feinstein could have knocked out in his sleep is the perfect antithesis to such overbearing seriousness.  It describes his invitation to lunch with Red Auerbach, the former President of the Boston Celtics and acknowledged King of Boston basketball.  What the casual fan probably fails to realise is Red's assocation with Washington D.C. hoops as well.  He was an alumni of George Washington University, his wife and children (and him, during the offseason) lived there and he maintained connections with several of the city's basketball aristocracy.

The book begins with Auerbach growing older and more aware of his mortality.  He therefore decided to invest time in his closest friends, which manifested as a regular lunch with the likes of his brother Zang, secret service agents and The Best High School hoops coach of all, Morgan Wootten.  Feinstein - who was working as a columnist for the Washington Post - smelled a story, managed to get an invitation and became a regular lunch guest.  He then proceeds to describe what the lunch became for him and his compatriots.

courtesy: betterworldbooks.com

The book is named because even though there were upwards of a dozen regular diners, these were Red's lunches. He had the central seat, so he could hold court and opine about almost every issue - starting most of his stories with the words "Let me tell you about...".  The bill was also Red's, until the Celtics got wind of the events and insisted the team paid.  Red talks candidly (as if  he could speak any other way) about his time with the Celtics, the owners he worked for and even of his lack of malice at being replaced as Celtics President during the short-lived Rick Pitino era.

What impresses you so much is Red's reasoning - there were always completely logical reasons for every decision he made.  When he explains those reasons - even why he lit his trademark cigar when the Celtics had secured victory - he makes absolute sense.  (If you're wondering, he lit the cigars when the Celtics were up by a heap as a subconscious signal that his team was relaxed and not seeking to rub the victory in their opponents faces).  His tales stand in stark contrast to those of another Celtic great, Bill Russell.  As Auerbach became more acutely aware of his ageing, he became more congnizant of the importance of spending time with his friends; in stark contrast Russell became more and more arrogant, distant and spiky.

Throughout, you can't help liking Red.  It's obvious that Feinstein - and the entire Lunch crew - absolutely adored him.  He was fair, friendly and fun to be around, which in turn makes the book an easy read.  It is occasionally slightly stained by Feinstein's own opinions - what little he thinks of Rick Pitino is obvious, and his memorable description of Scottie Pippen as Scottie "I've got a headache when it matters most" Pippen are fine examples of unwanted editorialisation.

It's lightweight, but really enjoyable read.

Reposted from Books with Balls, a now sadly mostly-disregarded affiliate.

Book review: Barassi, by Peter Lalor

A re-post from our affiliate book review blog, Books with Balls.

When my grandfather died in 1991, I was eleven and before we left his house in Warrnambool for the last time, my sister and I were invited to take with us anything small we'd like. Being a sports nut, I went straight to the bookshelf and prised away the Courage Book of Brownlow Medallists (the up-to-date 1975 version), Run Digger by Bill Lawry, Crackers by Peter Keenan and two near-ubiquitous football books: Boots and all! and Captain Blood by Lou Richards and Jack Dyer, respectively.

I also found a scrapbook from 1964 made by my then 14-year old mother for her father, exclusively detailing Ron Barassi's move from Melbourne to Carlton. Coming from an age of relatively free player movement (remember the mid-season draft? Trevor Spencer!! Bret Bailey!! Andrew MacNish!!) I was astonished that so much newsprint could be devoted to one man moving clubs.

Mum explained that it was "a pretty big deal" back then, but I couldn't comprehend how important Barassi was - not just to the Melbourne Football Club - but to Australian Rules Football. With the passing of longtime friend Ted Whitten, Ron Barassi is Australian football's elder statesman and greatest advocate.

Peter Lalor's book Barassi follows the footballing fortunes of a man whose influence is so great one needs reminding that he spent the first fifteen years of his public life overshadowed. He began a football career defined by his father - a former player killed at Tobruk - and then became coach "Norm Smith's boy" due to a close relationship with the club coach.

He had to break free of public opinion and did so by agreeing to coach Carlton. He reiterates that the move was the best thing he ever did because it gave him his own identity. It is an identity with which every Victorian (Australian?) can associate.

The book doesn't provide much information about Barassi's personal life simply because outside football, he had had little personal time. It briefly details the breakup of his first marriage and elements of his current relationship, but his life is one lived almost entirely in footy. This makes the book, in essence, a year-by-year catalogue of Barassi's life which while at times informative also leaves the reader slightly flat. There are periods of detail mixed with passages of summary - which while sounding like the ideal mix, leaves the reader with questions.

courtesy: qbd.com.au

Like his mentor Smith, he was demanding of himself and his players but was tactically more astute than the Red Fox. He had strong ideals about how the game should be played and how players should carry themselves. Ron Barassi - according to former player "Crackers" Keenan - is the most honest man he's met. He learned about the importance of integrity from family (and extended family), tactics at the knee of the Smith brothers and of marketability from club presidents like George Harris and Allen Aylett. Those traits defined him - and his clubs.

It was to Barassi that the AFL turned when the Sydney Swans were so shambolic in the early nineties - only a coach, a personality even, of his magnitude could turn around what had become a major embarrassment to the league.

Lalor reveals that, on taking over a floundering Sydney franchise, Barassi lined the club's back-room staff up against one wall of the bowls club used as the club's HQ, then asking each member of the playing group to name the support staff. None of the Swans could - a sign of lingering disrespect for those around them . As the Swans matured, they made a run to the 1996 Grand Final.

Ron Barassi has a strong claim to being the most recognizable Victorian of the 1950s, 60s, 70s and 80s. Since then, only Shane Warne and Nicole Kidman could challenge him. It's a shame though, that Barassi only tells most of his tale.  

Four stars.

Book review: Chocolate Thunder, by Darryl Dawkins and Charley Rosen

A re-post from our affiliate Book Review site, Books with Balls.  

Darryl Dawkins is nothing if not an entertainer.  The names he gave his dunks were awesome, his proclamations about coming from the planet Lovetron were - and still are - amazing, and he was an effective NBA center for a decade before succumbing to injury.  He broke two plexiglass backboards during his days in the League and another one when playing for Torino of the Italian League - dude was a beast.

His book, penned alongside experienced basketball ghost-writer and free spirit Charley Rosen, is therefore a very entertaining read.  In fact, it's one of the books I've most enjoyed going back to pick up in recent times.  It's lightweight, honest, good for a chuckle and well worth a read.

At the same stage, it's also hardly a work which will truly describe the NBA's Dark Times to younger generations with the appropriate reality.  While it ploughs head-on into drug use - especially the casual stuff of Dawkins and the sadness of teammate Micheal Ray Richardson's addiction - it also presents most authority figures as broken men trying to compensate for a lack of control. 

In fact in places, it appears as if Dawkins - always the most likeable of souls - is simply unencumbered with an accurate version of reality.  The rate at which he bitches about referees and - without the same malice - most of his NBA coaches enlightens the reader as to why he wasn't the All-World player his talent said he should have been.  While refs did perhaps victimise DD (kiiiiind of), he was a notoriously bad defender and bought up-fakes like they were Internet futures in 1996.

courtesy: sportclassicbooks.com

We've been writing at Books with Balls for a while.  Chocolate Thunder is also the first book I've ever read where I've bookmarked certain pages for either being so deluded they're worth mentioning in and of themselves.  Examples?  How about when he suggests Phoenix Suns coach Alvin Gentry is so bad "he must have a photo of an NBA GM f***ing a goat or something"(pg 135).  Or when he says he "practically won Game 5 [of the 1980 NBA Finals] on my own".  In reality, Kareem led the Lakers to a huge win after really badly spraining an ankle and Magic Johnson jumped center in the decisive Game 6.  Maybe that's what he meant by "practically".

Some inaccuracies, like "Fast" Eddie Johnson being dead, or Micheal Ray Richardson embarrassing white Point guards like Mark Price (whose NBA career only barely overlapped "Sugar's") can be put down to poor editing.  Others can only be thought of as fallacies brought about by a combination of ego and a grasp on reality which perhaps occasionally slips, unhelped by the cocaine he freely admits to taking during his playing days.

Despite the obvious ego, there's a real sense that Darryl Dawkins loves life, no matter how hard it has occasionally gotten for him.  In fact, he comes off as a really admirable guy, which in itself is testament to his likeability.  For his words to burst off the page as they do, the reader is left not only with a sense of DD's conviction, but also of his irrepressible joy.  Naming dunks, sleeping with maybe 1000 women and enjoying coaching as much as he does are all signs of la joie de vivre.  And Chocolate Thunder's got that in spades.

Darryl Dawkins is a fascinating man and in some ways it's a pity he's chosen to deliver such a lightweight memoir.  In other ways, however, apart from his physical size, Dawkins is a man driven by levity.  That in itself makes this book about a "coodabeen" well worth the 220-page read.  Recommended, but only if your knowledge of basketball history doesn't object to occasional inaccuracies.  Three stars.

Book review: Bradman's Invincibles by Roland Perry

A re-post from our Book Review affiliate site, Books With Balls.

A number of cricket teams will live long in history, having books written about them and having their relative merits forever debated. The most recent of those, the Australians who dominated cricket for fifteen years to 2008 developed a storied reputation perhaps tarnished by a lack of quality lasting opposition. The West Indian team preceding them did the same for nearly twenty years.

Perhaps the most revered cricket team of all was the 1948 Invincibles, who completed an arduous six month tour of England without a loss. The tour was a perfect fusion of circumstances: Bradman's final First Class matches, a cricket-starved world following the Second World War needing non-combatant heroes and finally, a collation of talent probably unrivalled to that time.

In his work Bradman's Invincibles Roland Perry has created a work which, while perfunctory and informative, is also quite swayed by his own opinions. Perry, a renowned cricket writer who spent a number of years in conversation with Sir Donald Bradman and collaborated with him on several works, appears to think that Bradman's word on matters of cricket is absolute and completely true. He has taken every word he could trawl from The Don and turned it into a misguided four-hundred page tome with little point. What should have been a celebration has been turned into a trudging day-by-day commentary..

Bradman was undoubtedly the greatest cricketer of all time and even during the 1948 Invincibles tour where he turned forty, was Australia's best batsman. He has also suffered somewhat from revisionism, where posthumous revelations as to his character have begun to unfairly detract from his cricketing legacy. These "revelations" should only add to that legacy - of a genius batsman and excellent captain who wanted - and mostly got - his own way, often at others' expense. Any negative character traits are nonexistent on paper.

Relying on one source for the vast majority of one's sources is a mistake, both for one's credibility and entertainment. He has taken The Don's word as gospel in book which would have been much richer for an Old Testament, Letters and Apocrypha. Perry has little affinity for beautiful prose, writing economically, occasionally repetitively and with no flair for either detail or accuracy. His style expects the reader to be in constant wonderment at the achievements of that squad rather than providing the full picture demanded by such an seminal tour.

Neither has the skill of analogy, often comparing players across generations in a hackneyed and awkward style - even using the same comparison twice in three pages. There are several factual errors and those who opposed Sir Don Bradman's absolute rule are portrayed in an unflattering light. Though the book stretches to 430 pages, the last one-hundred and seventy of those is given over to potted biographies of the tourists and their vanquished opponents, which, while providing some interesting details is more an annoyance than enjoyable. This follows a passage where the author says it would be pointless to compare "Greatest Ever" teams and then proceeds to do so.

That's not to say that it is scarce of redeeming features. Bradman's Invincibles provides an interesting peek into some aspects of cricket in the late 1940s, where towels shoved under shirts and trousers became makeshift thigh and chest guards and breakfast in ration-enforced England consisted of half a piece of toast and a mushroom. The lack of "nets" was mildly surprising, but understandable given the amount of cricket played. Most surprising of all, perhaps, was that both Bill Johnston and Keith Miller often resorted to spin depending on the circumstances of the game; though this in itself is questionable given Perry's unfortunate failure to grasp the difference between leg- and off-cutters.

Bradman's Invincibles is hardly a revolutionary work. It holds interest - perhaps because it's the first cricket book I've read in months (years?) - but is disappointingly perfunctory and poorly rounded.

Golf balls - two stars - (hit repeatedly against a tank stand with a cricket stump).

Image courtesy the sadly departed borders.com.au

An Open Letter to Cricket Australia

by Balanced Sports columnist Ben Roberts

Dear Cricket Australia,

As a cricket fan who grew up loving the greatest era of Australian cricket ever, throughout the 1990s and 2000s, I run the huge risk of being labelled the fairest of fair weather supporters by writing this. But I continue at this great personal risk. From now I am reneging my emotional attachment to the Australian Cricket team until further notice.

This has zero to do with the on-field exploits of the players who, despite the home loss of the Ashes and the World Cup are now faced with a need to improve, still retain my utmost respect. It has everything to do with the failure of the Cricket Australia administration.

Cricket administrators hold more power and sway than any other sports administration, and this has been a truism since W.G. Grace was in short pants. Many have received honour of the highest order in the game despite never having graced the field at the highest level. But the influence of the modern administration of Australian cricket has plunged to such a depth of crises that I struggle to understand how it can pull itself from without radical overhaul – an overhaul that appears as likely to happen as a Sachin Tendulker first ball duck.

My Sunday perusal of the sporting media has identified one decision and one practice of Cricket Australia that completely boggles my mind as to how they can be considered acceptable in themselves. This is apart from the fact Australian cricket is supposedly going through a full scale independent review into the current situation. A review that I have previously highlighted is made more toothless by the day with major decisions being made without consideration of review findings!

Cricket Australia and the Australian Cricketers Association, holding a permanent loggerhead relationship, have this week agreed to roll over their memorandum of understanding on playing conditions. In a world of consistent practice and fixtures this would be unremarkable and may evoke a little applause. But with the advent of the new Big Bash League a constant MOU focussing on getting players as much money out of the T20 cash cow as possible, coupled with an extended T20 fixture, simply shifts more money away from the first-class and List A games and into T20.

As I heard Gideon Haigh point out, you are now considered more valuable by Cricket Australia if you can slog 20 runs from 10 balls than for crafting centuries. Cricket Australia, have you not realised that the crowds and ratings are still incredibly strong for Test cricket whose quality needs a strong first-class game? Or did you go to sleep while the rest of the cricketing world watched a tremendous festival of 50 over cricket in the recent World Cup?

As a CEO James Sutherland continues to be your greatest accountant. There is no doubt that with a weak board Sutherland appears to hold you over the barrel on the basis of continued short term income results. Not a bad effort for an organisation that ostensibly is supposed to be non-profit driven. But this is the extent that Sutherland’s accounting knowledge ends, his knowledge of appropriate governance practice is seemingly non-existent as the second piece of news I came across indicates.

This far reaching (yet weakening) review is apparently being hamstrung by Sutherland’s presence at all interviews being conducted. The idea of an independent review or an audit is that an unattached set of eyes are presented with information and seek to understand why particular decisions are made. Sutherland’s presence, and therefore influence over information provided by pressurised employees being interviewed, is the final nail in the coffin of a review that has already been cut off at the knees. Clearly controlling and concerned for his future, Sutherland’s behaviour paints to me a character with less than a passing interest in honesty and transparency.

Cricket Australia, if your board had any sort of fortitude it would be holding its senior management to greater account than it is, and this is a great shame. Please look to your counterparts at the ECB, trustees of the strongest domestic game in the world, for some idea of what it means to invest for the future. I cannot stop applauding some recent decisions of the ECB, and for England fans this will continue to be reflected on the field. Based on this I need to make this step of withdrawing my emotional support for Australian cricket team until such time as there are changes at Board and CEO level.

I love cricket too much to stay away. Short of spiritual or familial pursuits it is almost unarguable that a summers day attending the cricket for me borders on perfection. My regular match day attendance will remain as the next cricket season rolls on, but when it comes to emotional investment in the national team I must hold back. This will cost me in the times of success, as I cannot permit myself to enjoy them fully under such restriction.

It has been a wonderful relationship for all these years Cricket Australia, but until you grow up we must remain only acquaintances.

Yours Previously,

Ben Roberts

Image courtesy: zimbio.com

Ben Roberts also writes at Books with Balls, where you find reviews of books that guys read.

Book review: The Willow Wand, by Derek Birley

This is a re-post from our affiliate book review blog, Books with Balls. There, you'll find the literature from a number of guy-friendly genres thoughtfully reviewed. Recent posts include this one, a review of the memoirs of late night TV's Craig Ferguson and a series of pieces on renowned historical fiction author Bernard Cornwell.

by Ben Roberts

The Willow Wand's aim is to explore some of the many myths of cricket. However, for the most part it is somewhat difficult to identify truly what myth is at any one point that being investigated. One must have an in-depth knowledge of cricket and indeed English cricket to truly take in what most of Birley has to say. Despite the significant amount of historical research put into this work, it does not provide a systematic presentation of cricketing history.

But this is not meant to be a negative opinion, just a reduction in the expectations with which I approached this work. What you do get from The Willow Wand is a mosaic of characters and time from throughout the long and rich history of the sport.

The book drives constantly that cricket is a medium in which persons sought to prove distinguishable features. Gentlemen from Players (Amateurs from Professionals), Wealth from Poverty, light skin from dark – none ever proved to be successful and in hindsight all actions of the sort proving petty and hypocritical. Such is the ridiculous extent of sociology that cricket has been pushed and pulled. Birley took time to sum up his beliefs in the final chapter titled 'Fun and Games' whereupon as you might expect from the title he concludes that one cannot see cricket through any other lens.

Refreshingly honest about the figures of the past, Birley does not airbrush over the faults of the game and its traditions. He questions long held views of the cricketing figures of the past such as Lord's Harris & Hawke as well as P.F. (Plum) Warner; opinion on the latter he makes reference to in his updated edition as drawing criticism from some parts upon the books initial print run in 1979.

Of particular enjoyment personally were his descriptions of West Indian crickets background, a topic not often broached, as well as his discussion on whether cricket and art can be stated as being one and the same. For the modern cricket enthusiast stung by the increased commercialism and descent into the abyss of gambling-driven corruption it may hurt to read that the prominent driver of many of the earliest recorded matches was commercialism and gambling. Matches were often fixed not for monetary gain but as an act of patronage to the amateur dignitary!

Being a cricketing nerd, I enjoyed the book as I became immersed in the nostalgia and dreamed of being involved during golden times in cricket history. But it is only a book for those like myself who bring a certain level of background knowledge to it and can enjoy it to the full. Others will become confused and frustrated as it constantly switches back and forth between stories, eras and personalities. The high English used by Birley remains difficult for the modern reader (criticism at this point can be leveled in both directions) - Birley is clearly a man of an age where cricketers of the right ilk never had names, only initials. Somewhere between tennis balls and footballs.

Cover Image thanks to bookdepository.co.uk

Book review: Slick Watts' Seattle SuperSonic Stories, by Slick Watts and Frank Hughes

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Having just moved to Seattle, being somewhat of an NBA history-phile and having just joined the public library, I was intrigued to come across Slick Watts' Seattle SuperSonic Stories. The work is a collection of anecdotes by Slick Watts, who during the seventies was the most popular athlete in the state of Washington. They even made him Grand Marshal of of the Sea King. Twice. Not sure what that means, but he's pretty chuffed about it. It's a short, ninety-minute long read about Bad Old Times of the NBA - the 1970s - where public perception of the league was that it was populated by overpaid, oversexed and overcoked players.

Perhaps the best thing about Watts' story is that it isn't overdone in any way, an admirable trait considering sporting autobiographies are invariably either overplay the grittiness or are too self-congratulatory. In this work - one of a series of Player X's Team Y Stories - he includes several references to his on-court play, yet just as much to team dynamics, his relationship with his coaches and how he became so iconic.

The first player ever to rock the baldie and headband, the writing style matches the way Watts' played - a series of short anecdotes, herky-jerky and with really only the bare facts laid out on paper. He doesn't delve too deep into any one particular issue or relive too many moments on court, just seems to shell out featherweight anecdotes like he's finding shooters in the corners; like Slick's play it's inconsistent and has several holes and lacks depth of context. This is an autobiography, so tunnel vision is forgiveable, but not when it leaves the reader asking if there's a bigger picture that we're not seeing.

He devotes an entire chapter to his first NBA coach, Bill Russell. He's honest about the Celtic great, suggesting him a poor coach with an alpha-dog mentality. This attitude meant he was unable to cope with popular players, often benching them simply for being popular enough to overshadow the great Russell. His words "I had a love/hate relationship with Russ. Most players had a hate/hate relationship with him" are particularly telling and fits in with what I've read previously about Russ: confirming once and for all his place as sport's greatest ever a***hole (and that's against some pretty stiff competition - I've met Dean Jones).

Describing his time in Seattle and with Russell - who coached Watts for four seasons - takes up a fair amount of his meagre word count. During his tenure with the organisation, he played with ABA expats Jim McDaniels, John Brisker and Spencer Haywood as well as some Seattle greats like "Downtown" Freddie Brown and Jack Sikma. Unfortunately you get very little detail about any of these guys, few character pieces and are left only with the feeling that some probably should have had to work in order to stick as Watts did rather than being guaranteed their money.

What's more interesting is his description of how and why he became such a marketing boon to the organisation Simply, Slick Watts is a friendly, outgoing guy who reflects well on first, second and forty-fifth meetings. He doesn't come out and say so in the book, but it's easy to infer that he just likes people and enjoys being around others. The average NBA player in the 1970s had to make three personal appearances per year. In 1977, Slick Watts made over three hundred and was simply unable to say no to anyone who asked him for help - it was an attitude like that which earned him Two Sea King Grand Marshal gongs.

After Russell was replaced by Bob Hopkins and then Lenny Wilkens, the book takes a sharp turn as Wilkens decided that Watts didn't fit his mould, subsequently trading him to New Orleans. Watts details Wilkens saying "There isn't room in town for the both of us", supporting his argument that Wilkens has never been a good coach of "stars". Unfortunately here's where poetic licence comes in - Watts was a good player, but never even approached great with major fundamental flaws like defense and shooting - and while it's true Wilkens got the best out of rosters without superduperstar talent and history says that after the trade in 1977-78, the Sonics went to the NBA Finals and won the Championship the following year.

You can tell even though he's honest, happy and forthright, he still hasn't fully come to terms with being traded to basketball purgatory from a city he practically owned. Bitter isn't the right word at all - he's still the happy, go-lucky Slick - but the reader's left thinking that perhaps it just was the right mix of player, team, city and personality which would be impossible to recreate anywhere else. Given Watts has moved back to Seattle and teaches physical education to primary school kids, the affinity he has for the city is obvious and pleasing to read. After his Seattle departure the book falls away as quickly as Slick's NBA career did. He was King of Seattle in 1977; out of the league by 1980.

Entertaining, especially for basketball history buffs, but ultimately Slick Watts' Seattle SuperSonic Stories is a lightweight piece suited for an easy Sunday afternoon's reading. As usual, the best tales are about ABA expats (in this case Jim McDaniels and John Brisker). The final, definitive lesson to take from Slick's first entry into authordom: Bill Russell was, and probably always will be, a tool of the first water.

Book review: The Book of Basketball, by Bill Simmons

The Book of Basketball, by Bill Simmons of ESPN, has been reviewed on our affiliate website Books with Balls, where we review the books that guys with chest hair read.

Or anyone, really, but you're definitely not going to find Jackie Collins there.

The Book of Basketball, by Bill Simmons at Books with Balls.

Book review: Crashed and Byrned, by Tommy Byrne and Mark Hughes

This is a re-post from our affiliate book review website Books with Balls: where we tell you what we think about the books that guys read.

By Ben Roberts.

Golf, Tennis and Formula One motor racing tend to be eyed as being the richest of individual sports. The glamour that follows being at the top of these games is immense. What is always neglected is the picture of the rear of the fields – the group teeing off first, the match on outside court 42, and of course for motor racing the back of the grid. This is a story of that rear grid position.

Supposedly Tommy Byrne of Ireland was the greatest driver that the world never saw. A man blessed with natural talent yet not with the opportunities. Byrne isn't shy of telling his story, but true to his story other motor racing figures of note have indicated their appreciation of his talent. Ayrton Senna is accused of actively avoiding racing against him, and the F1 establishment of taking steps to prevent the Irish Catholic boy from the wrong side of the tracks achieving anything.

Having never heard of Tommy Byrne, nor knowing much of the racing categories below the premier class in F1 it was interesting to read cold what racing for him and at this level looked like. Even in this time when it can be argued F1 was in its heyday racing from the back of the grid was not all that attractive. Byrne got five F1 starts with a little known team, 'Theodore', but that was the extent of his career at the top.

Fans of Senna or of the McLaren team will probably not be all that thrilled at the criticism that Byrne levels at them. He was (and admits to still being) an abrupt personality who lost more friends in the sport than he made. Post his brief F1 career his life became simply a hedonistic pursuit and ultimately led him to the world of drug lords and crime – not that his early life was all that far from such matters.

The book is told in the first person, keeping the story flowing. It's like a man narrating an autobiographical film, or sitting in a drinking establishment regaling all who would listen to the story of his ‘could have been’ life. There is even no editing of punctuation and extensive use of colloquialism to further increase the feeling of his raw Irish roots.

Though admittedly Byrne can see some error in his ways, enhanced by the colloquial speech is a feeling that he wouldn’t have had it any other way. To refer to a sexual liaison with a prostitute as ‘giving her a seeing to’ indicates some element of masculine pride at the incident and a lack of repentance for infidelity (he was married at the time). Life is supposed to teach you things and change you – it isn’t particularly evident here. Maybe Byrne is proud of how his life finally may make him a fortune he desperately wanted, albeit from book sales rather than a motor racing career.

This is Angela’s Ashes meeting Days of Thunder meeting Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Its nothing special, and needs reading with a grain of salt given some of the claims, but it will keep you entertained for the couple of hours reading it. Three stars (out of five).

Book review: Frith on Cricket, by David Frith

A re-post from our affiliate book review blog, Books with Balls:

Frith on Cricket, by David Frith

Book review: The Big Ship by Gideon Haigh

The Big Ship by Gideon Haigh, a re-post from our sibling site, Books with Balls.

Book review: The Art of a Beautiful Game, by Chris Ballard

This review is a re-post of it's original entry from our sibling book review site, Books with Balls.

You may think that Dwight Howard's a monster rebounder because at 7 feet and one inch, 265 pounds and with steel springs for legs he's the NBA's most perfect physical specimen since Chamberlain.

But you're wrong.

Because Big Ben Wallace, the Pistons' 6'8 fireplug centre rebounds just as well, age and infirmity permitting. What Big Ben and D12 have in common is their uncanny ability to read direction, velocity and arc of the ball straight from the shooter's fingertips; analyse in a fraction of a second where the ball will impact on the hoop or backboard, and adjust their reactions to be where they need to be in order to pick up the loose ball. Kevin Love, the NBA's rebounding leader, uses the same principles and does it looking like a rec club baller, doing it for the love of the game. So much goes into the art of rebounding that Chris Ballard devotes an entire chapter to it in his book, The Art of a Beautiful Game.

When it comes to NBA journalism, Chrises seem to be everywhere. ESPN boast three of them: Messrs Sheridan (New York), Forsberg (Boston), Broussard (the key story-hound). Chris Ballard continues the tradition, though being a senior writer for Sports Illustrated. After covering the NBA for many years and through chats with players, formal and casual, he's pieced together a short-ish but beautifully crafted work about how certain players in the NBA are good at their jobs. Each chapter describes an aspect of the sport, from the high-profile shooters to the understated beauty of a perfectly-set screen. When it comes to a particular skill, who better to hear it from than the best? Ballard watches tape with LeBron, plays H-O-R-S-E game with Steve Kerr and his encounter with the World Free-Throw Shooting record holder, Dr. Tom Amberry. The "Big Kahuna of Free-Throw Shooting" set the record as a seventy-one year old in 1993, nailing 2750 straight free-throws before the gym in which he was shooting asked him to leave - they had to close for the night. And that's just the research he did especially for the book - also recorded are conversations he's had, professionally and privately, with the NBA's greatest. All go together to make an elegantly rounded picture.

Each chapter describes in detail the importance of biomechanics, athleticism, attitude and the ability to read play. Not just focusing on technical aspects, he describes taking a weeklong course at Coach David Thorpe's Florida training academy to see what devoted NBA stars get up to in their alleged down-time and a morning spent with a performance guru who works out players before draft day. And when Ballard's there, the reader is there: whether it's not kicking a leg out when shooting jumpers, out-thinking David Robinson in a battle for a rebound or trying to stop Chris Morris from getting arrested at the end of a long road trip.

What's most startling about his adventures and conversations is Ballard's writing style. As Howard is an artist on the boards, Ballard is with words. He writes so easily, fluidly and - there's no other word for it - beautifully, that the book is consumed within a matter of a few hours and leaves you slightly disappointed that it's finished; but therein lies more art, knowing when to finish.

The Art of a Beautiful Game by Chris Ballard scores footballs - an outstanding piece of literature.

Book review: Golden Boy - Kim Hughes and the Bad Old Days of Australian Cricket, by Christian Ryan

by Balanced Sports columnist Ben Roberts

This book review can also be found at our sibling site, Books with Balls.

Followers of the recent Ashes series who sought statistics, analysis, and opinion from ESPN's Cricinfo website would no doubt have come across Christian Ryan's blog, 'My Funeral, Your Ashes'. I had never previously come across Ryan until this summer, and knew nothing of his background. Certainly he cannot be said to ever temper his opinion. But unlike most modern media outlets Ryan paints a very detailed picture first, bringing the reader first into position of understanding, before the sting comes. Less like a brawling bulldog, more a brooding viper.

The combination of my own unfamiliarity of Ryan's work, the struggling of Australian cricketers and the euphoria of the English, led me to believe initially that Ryan was indeed a native of the mother country himself. I was wrong, Ryan is an antipodean. Like Kim Hughes however, Ryan is from a state who's people hold a constant level of distrust of all things originating east of Eucla; Western Australia.

These feelings of distrust, envy, and frustration are where Ryan seeks to build this work from; WA having always perceived it has received a raw deal from eastern state cricketing administrations. Ryan indicates that although abolished in the late 1960s, the travel levy that the eastern states required WA to pay for every game in WA was a source of anger that burned within every cricket club and every cricketer in Australia's largest state, young and old.

Beyond the institutional politicking between state associations came something even more fervent, maybe destructive. For a cricket fan it is that moment of lost innocence when one recognises that despite players representing the same country, they can be nowhere near best of friends. Based upon his analysis, Ryan believes that the effect Greg Chappell, Dennis Lillee, and Rodney Marsh had on Australian cricket was far beyond what they provided on the pitch. Add to this the non-playing influences of Ian Chappell, Kerry Packer, Austin Robertson and John Cornell in the mid-1970s and it is easy to understand why others may have felt suffocated.

In the middle, or more trying to glide over the top, was a exciting yet flighty batsman in Kim Hughes. Remembered by many as much courteous and polite as a man as he was impetuous as a batsman, Hughes still to this day seeks to rise above the need to engage in public comment on the issues that plagued his career. Despite repeated attempts of Ryan to engage Hughes for the book, he was always politely declined.

Kim Hughes' career is presented by Ryan as one of a man constantly trying to keep his head above an increasingly pressurised position as Australian captain, but even just initially as a WA team mate. It is continually clear, despite Hughes non-assistance in this work, that at the time, and even more so as years have passed that Hughes holds little resentment about his tumultuous time at the top. Whether Ryan has accurately captured the behind closed doors conversations and interactions that have occurred will always be a matter of opinion, opinions that will become more jaded with age. What cannot be argued, and Ryan is clear to state, is that certain protagonists of Hughes' fall publicly made comment on television and in print regarding Hughes.

Previously to this writer, who was barely alive when Allan Border assumed the captaincy of the Australian cricket team, Hughes had appeared to be an uncommon failure in the list of Australian captains. That an Australian would even think of renouncing the apparent greatest job in the world was just ludicrous, and a completely English approach. The pictures of Hughes in tears at the Gabba would never instil a sense of national pride. Ryan's work here though opens up this man and the surrounding cricketing culture to scrutiny of the kind that is unseen in most Australian cricketing media. To the public reliant on Channel 9 solely for their interpretation, one might even remain in the belief that all the Australians are best friends and spend their social time devouring buckets of a fried chicken product.

Writers such as Ryan, including the likes of Frith, Haigh, and Roebuck, never will obtain the universal approval of all. Their work is more valuable for it. But with Australian cricket currently facing a key juncture in the sports modern history it would no doubt be worth viewing the game as these gentlemen tend too. What are the purposes of anointing captains early in a career; how should we best support the captains during the tougher times; what effects are brought to bear on dressing rooms during and after the careers of high profile (and maintenance) superstars?

Book review: Skullduggery, by Kerry O'Keeffe

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Skullduggery by Kerry O'Keeffe