SPORTS BOOKS REVIEWS (2018)

A trip recently to Canada and the United States briefly rekindled my interest in ice hockey and baseball. Here is a brief review of some of the sports books I have consumed this year:

Jonah Keri UP, UP & AWAY: The Kid, The Hawk, Rock, Vladi, Pedro, Le Grand Orange, Youppi!, The Crazy Business of Baseball, & the Ill-fated but Unforgettable Montreal Expos (2015) 415 pages *****

I loved every page of this book! I closely followed the Expos from their debut in the National Baseball League in 1969 until I left Canada in 1977. From the tyranny of distance I caught glimpses of their progress in the pre-net days and attended games at the Big O whenever I could during my infrequent visits to Montreal. In 1981 I remember asking the old man if he wanted to attend a double header in April. Now nearing his age then I know why he politely declined. It was zero degrees and no amount of beers could warm us up.

Now Jonah Keri has relit many memories and has filled in huge gaps in my Expos’ consciousness. He follows the team season through season with an expert eye but also from the point of view as a young and avid fan. Keri’s writing is sparkling clear, humorous and highly informative. He cleverly points to the team’s successes and failures, its pennant chases, the reasoning and consequences of the multiple trades and its strategy to invest heavily in developing players through its farm system. Also impressive are Keri’s succinct player and coach profiles and analysis and how he layers his discussion with a penetrating overview of Montreal’s and baseball’s evolving social, financial and political contexts. 

I enjoyed in particular Keri’s sections on the birth of the franchise, discussion of the design and construction of Jarry Park and the hapless Olympic Stadium, Blue Monday (when the Expos in 1981 missed making the World Series by a whisker), the attempts to build a new baseball friendly stadium closer to the heart of Montreal and the multitude of reasons why the franchise eventually failed. 

Painful to read was the Expos incredible 1994 season- the best in their history, only to have the season cancelled on September 14 after a protracted dispute between players and owners over revenue sharing and free agency rights. Even more tearful and frustrating was the unloading in 1995 of four of the team’s best players Marquis Grissom, Ken Hill, John Wetteland and Larry Walker to fill the big hole in the Expos finances having lost $15 million is revenue because of the shortened 1994 season. 

Also fascinating are the short interludes included but independent of the main text, such as: Opening Day 1969 Starting Lineup, the Expo Logo, Baseball En Francais, Twenty-Two Innings, The Big, Bad, Brawlin’ Senators and profiles on the Expos stars, including, Gary Carter, Andre Dawson, Rusty Staub, Steve Rogers, Ellis Valentine, Tim Raines, Pedro Martinez and Vladimir Guerrero.

My only criticism is I would have liked included more colour photos to complement the text. There are only fifteen photos over eight pages in the book.

If you were an Expo fan at one time in your life- this is a terrific and must read!

Bobby Orr ORR: MY STORY (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 2013) 290 pages**

When I was growing up in Montreal Bobby Orr of the Boston Bruins was the best hockey player in the NHL. He won the James Norris Trophy eight years in a row (1968-1975) as the league’s best defenceman and was astonishingly awarded two Art Ross trophies (1969-70 & 1974-5) as the leagues leading scorer, an incredible feat for a defenseman. Sadly, Orr brillance as rushing defenseman was cut short because of severely debilitating knee injuries which forced him to retire in 1977 at the young age of 30. 

When I discovered Bobby Orr had finally written a biography after being retired for almost 40 years, I was curious as to what he had to say. I ordered a copy online from World of Books, the UK second hand dealer. I was pleased to receive an autographed new and unread copy of the bio and shipped to Australia for $10. 

Orr comes across as a very humble bloke and in his biography takes great pain not to boast of his vast achievements nor to denigrate others. In the introduction he makes clear the limited and uncritical scope of his book: “I am not particularly comfortable talking or writing at length about other people in a negative way, especially in a format like this, which has the potential to be so much more. Call me old-fashioned, but when I was growing up, and especially playing sports, we learned that you don’t throw someone under the bus.” 

Orr also doesn’t like talking about his individual goals or major achievements because it detracts from the idea that winning is essentially a team effort: “I have won a few trophies over the years, and I never really liked individual honours, because they seem to miss the point. No guy can accept the praise for the statistics he puts up, because it takes all kinds of unacknowledged help to get there.”

In Chapter Five TOWARD THE CUP: 1967-1970, Orr makes an exception to describe the outstanding goal he scored against the St Louis Blues in 1970 to give the Bruins their first Stanley Cup triumph since 1940-41. The goal was immortalised by Ray Lussier’s photograph as shown on the front cover of the auto-biography, and more recently, in a statue erected outside the new Boston Gardens 2010.

Overall, there are surprisingly few detailed anecdotes in Orr’s book. He is solid on his hockey beginnings in Parry Sound in Ontario and on his remarkable years in Oshawa, Ontario before turning pro at 18. Surprisingly, only about 70 pages are devoted to his remarkable Boston years. He skates through the years (1967-1975) in a blinding pace. Orr speaks in a pleasant and understated tone, but is careful not to reveal anything substantial or controversial. 

Orr’s anger rightfully festers in Chapter Nine: ABOUT ALAN EAGLESON. Eagleson was his player-agent/ lawyer who managed to rip off Orr’s life-savings and that of several other players before he was jailed for fraud. Orr is particularly annoyed that he took Eagleson’s advice to sign as a free agent with the Chicago Black Hawks in 1976 without disclosing that the Boston Bruins had offered him an ownership position with the club. He writes, “The kind of stake they were talking about represented a huge investment back then, and an exponentially bigger one thirty-five years later. It would have big money.”

Orr lays down his fundamental values in a self-interested way so as to attract potential hockey parents to his business. - values of being a decent person, the importance of building character through hard work, understanding the value of money, respect, the importance of passion and being accountable.

Later chapters, after Orr’s career was finished he big notes some celebrities he has met (he says ironically, “My intent here is not to be some kind of name-dropper) and he reveals his adulation of Grapes- CBC commentator and ex-coach Don Cherry.

Chapter Eleven State of the Gameshows initial promise but is essentially not focussed on his view of the NHL but rather to promote his interest in his player agent business the Orr Hockey Group. The chapter is addressed at aspirational parents who might think their child has a chance to make it to the NHL provided they get the best coaching and training. 

Orr warns in the section The Role of Parents, “Everyone has to do their homework so as not to become a victim of unscrupulous person or program.” Later in The Role of Advisors he says, “A player can have it all, but if he doesn’t have discipline, it is all too easy to let everything slip away. And once he does have representation, he has someone who can help him make the most of his talent.” Orr moves on to discuss his company and his clients and how to develop “athletes as people”.

I reckon this is the most disappointing sports book I have read in several years. 

Chrys Goyens & Allan Turowetz LIONS IN WINTER (1986) 422 pages ***

This book is now largely outdated and was published immediately after the Montreal Canadiens won their twenty-third Stanley Cup in 1986.

The main chapters focus on providing glowing portraits of the three best players in the club’s history- Maurice Richard, Jean Beliveau and Guy Lafleur, and interestingly, of two of the Habs’ top administrators- Frank Selke and Sam Pollock. The later chapters dwell on the Canadiens’ attempt to regroup after unsuccessful seasons following their four year reign at the top (1975/76 to -1979/80) and the nuts & bolts behind their comeback 1985-86 campaign. 

A central purpose of the book is to explain why the Montreal Canadiens are the greatest franchise in ice hockey history. Business acumen, superior farm system, territorial rights over Quebec born players, and later, after the 1967 expansion, their skill in trading for or picking draft choices.

The book unfortunately occasionally drowns itself in socio-babble. To describe the fans’ hero worship of The Rocket the authors’ pontificate, “Ever since humanity’s earliest societies, heroes have been used by the masses for what sociologists now call individual dream realisations- to supply a type of psychic mobility for those who cannot make it on their own initiative.” Come on, man. Save us the crap!

Rereading the book after thirty years or so you can’t help but feel a sense of irony knowing the Canadiens have only won Stanley Cup (1993) since the book was first published. A hugely expanded league (there are 31 teams now), the declining value of the Canadian dollar, inept management and coaching and the sale of the club to an American have had an accumulative effect. 

Salaries 2018: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2017/12/05/the-nhls-highest-paid-players-2017-18/

Books to follow:

Jean Beliveau: My Life In Hockey (2005)

BOY ON ICE: The Life and Death of Derek Boogaard

Pat Hickey If These Walls Could Talk (2018)
Ken Dryden/ Roy MacGregor Home Game: Hockey and Life in Canada (1990)

David Halberstam October 1964 (1994)

David Halberstam Summer of ’49 (2006)