God Save the Fan
How Steroid Hypocrites, Soul-Sucking Suits, and a Worldwide Leader Not Named Bush Have Taken the Fun Out of Sports
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Arch and unrepentant, Will Leitch, founding editor of Deadspin.com, is the mouthpiece for all the frustrated fans who just want their games back from big money, bloated egos, and blathering sportscasters. Always a fan first and a sportswriter second, Leitch considers the perfection of fantasy leagues and the meaninglessness of the steroids debate as he exposes Olympic fetishes, parses Shaq's rap attack on Kobe, shares a brew with John Rocker and his surprising girlfriend, and reveals what ESPN and the beer companies really think about you. If you or a fan you love is suffering from a sense of listless dissatisfaction brought on by the leagues and networks, God Save the Fan is your new manifesto.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In his third book, Leitch, the founding editor of the sports blog Deadspin.com, offers a collection of passionate, original essays about the good (fantasy football; the saga of the once promising pitcher Rick Ankiel) and the bad (ESPN, which he compares to the Imperial Forces from Star Wars; sports reporters' misguided attempts to become patriotic after 9/11) of sports, and how fans can navigate through the mess to enjoy the games and themselves. "If we all realized that, hey, we don't need to listen to these idiots on television screaming at us... they'd be out of a job," Leitch writes in the introduction. The book sometimes strays off course from its stated purpose memories of Leitch's popular blog subjects (Barbaro, Ohio TV reporter Carl Monday) and a host of cheeky sports glossaries are unnecessary and only disrupt the book's fervor. However, Leitch (who has also written for Playboy and New York) nicely balances potent humor with sharp and sometimes vicious insight without lapsing into clich s. He manages to be an astute sports critic while maintaining his enthusiasm as a fan, making his book an entertaining and enlightening read for anyone who roots for the home team a little too hard.
