Stars of the parquet and the ice; youth leagues perverted?
Thomas J. Whalen's "Dynasty's End" provides a thoughtful and thorough account of the last, great days of the Celtics team led by Bill Russell. Among the book's many delights is a reprise of Russell's own account of the moment in 1969 when he realized that it was time to retire. Boston's player-coach then, Russell had just finished a passionate, impromptu pep talk during a timeout when suddenly, to the consternation of his mates, he began giggling. Of the occasion, Russell wrote: "Hey, this is really something. Here I am, a grown man, 35 years old, running around semi-nude in front of thousands of people in Baltimore, playing a game and yelling about killing people. How's that? . . . You can't give out what a game requires if you start focusing on its ridiculous aspects."
Where are the pro athletes today capable of that sort of insight and confident enough to share the experience that provoked it? And what weight of wrath would today's NBA bring down on the head of the lonely giant who dared it?
With the help of veteran sports chronicler Peter Golenbock, former Boston Bruin all-star Phil Esposito has produced "Thunder and Lightning: A No-B.S. Hockey Memoir." To Golenbock's credit, Esposito's voice seems to be present throughout the book, such as when he claims that some Bruins trainers during his days with the team were "perfect, except for their drinking. In fact, they were drunk all the time."
Among the "no-b.s." assertions available here is Esposito's contention that although he and his Team Canada mates were cheated out of their profits when they played against the Russians in 1972, he'd have signed on for free because "they were Commies, and that's all I needed to know." Elsewhere Esposito maintains that "playing hockey was better than the best sex I ever had," although that didn't prevent him from energetically exploring the possibility that if he gave it his best shot, he might reverse the positions of those two activities in the standings.
Predictably, the anthology from Sports Illustrated entitled "Fifty Years of Great Writing" contains some extraordinary work: Jimmy Breslin on Casey Stengel and the Mets; William Faulkner on the Kentucky Derby (sort of); A. J. Liebling on Stillman's Gym. S.I. stalwarts William Nack, Frank Deford, and Gary Smith are represented as well. Every fan of sports and fine writing will have a favorite among the stories that make up this bonanza. One of mine is John Schulian's account of Josh Gibson, who may have been the most fearsome hitter and most agile catcher ever to play the game, but whose career was limited to the Negro Leagues. "We know just enough about Josh Gibson now to forget him," Schulian maintains, and then he demonstrates that nobody who hears the stories the great Gibson generated ever will forget either his astonishing exploits on the ball field or the terrible sadness of his decline and fall.
Robert Andrew Powell's "We Own This Game: A Season in the Adult World of Youth Football" acquaints us with an extraordinary sports culture. Whether you regard the kids' football program thriving in Miami as a grand alternative to watching TV or a preposterously exploitative embarrassment depends on your point of view. Powell himself maintains that the program probably saves some kids from the streets. On the other hand, he's investigative reporter enough to have discovered that some of Miami's drug dealers are rewarding children as young as 9 and 10 with cash when they win, and that the coach who guided two youth teams to national championships lied to Powell about his own education and college football exploits, "fired" all the kids who played for him during a losing season, and would not win if he didn't cheat.
One disillusioned coach says at the end of Powell's book, "It's not about the kids anymore. It's about something else, and that something ain't the kids." It's a judgment that might be leveled against any number of sports programs allegedly designed for children. In the case of Miami youth football, part of the "something else" is the long-shot dream of parents and aunts and uncles and big brothers and sisters that Junior's chubby, churning legs and tough-guy attitude will mean an NFL contract some years down the road, at which point everybody in the family will get well. The only thing sadder than that dream is the terrible fact that a lot of the diminutive football players and their families can imagine no alternative to it: a condition that indicts the culture, the politicians, and the school system as well as the football program.
For WBUR, Bill Littlefield hosts NPR's "Only a Game." He co-edited "Fall Classics: The Best Writing About the World Series' First 100 Years" with Richard Johnson.
