The Meaning of Sports

Book #22 was The Meaning of Sports by Michael Mandelbaum. I actually read this about a month ago, but I keep falling off the blogging wagon.

The meaning of sports was a look at the history and present conditions of the three most popular sports in American culture: Baseball, Football, and Basketball. Mr M. gives a thorough history of each sport but focuses on a theme for each. Baseball, to the author, is really all about its storied history, so he weaves back and forth between past and present to talk about the history and the implications of that history on the current state and future of the sport. I know more about baseball then I know about either of the other sports, but the history section of the book was an awesome general primer.

Football is about combat and warfare, so once again we get a history tainted with this theme. I know almost nothing about the history of football, so this chapter was fascinating. I didn't realize how "artificial" a lot of football was - how much the rules had changed over time to drive viewership, and how much the sport itself was defined by the introduction of television.

The final section was about Basketball, whose theme was "teamwork." I know nothing about basketball and actually don't even like watching it, so this chapter was interesting, but a bit of a slog, since I realized that no matter how interesting the history was, I just didn't care.

Overall, a good basic history read on three very defining sports. If you are a true sports nut, despite the fact that the author claims to have "information for even the mot fervent fan" I somehow think this would be like going back to a second grade reader. Every time I mentioned some "fascinating factoid" to a true sports nut (like the Rain King), I would get a "yeah, but the more interesting stat is..." and then get a thesis on my little factoid. If you are trying to learn about sports from the beginning, this is a good read. If you were there in the beginning, I'd pass.

And now, for a hint of retro from earlier in my blogging life, a return to the bulleted list. Behold! A list of interesting factoids I learned from The Meaning of Sports:

• "Baseball teams in the early part of the century built their arenas on street car lines. In Brooklyn, the need to avoid these cars while walking to the games gave the local team its name: The Dodgers" (the Dodgers then subsequently took their name and franschine to Los Angeles, despite the lack of need for street car dodging in LA...)
• Wade Boggs ate a chicken dish on the day of each game throughout his career, convinced that this helped him perform well at the plate
• Monday Night Football first started broadcasting in 1970 and the big innovation of the time was to chagne the commentator roster from two (play by play and color) to three, and made taht third Howard Cosell, who was simultaneously the best loved and least liked sportscaster of his time.
• Jerry West is the player whose silhouette is showing dribbling a basketball on the NBA's official logo