Stugotz's Personal Record Book
The Real Winners and Losers in Sports
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Sports radio legend Stugotz rewrites the record books, taking rings away from undeserving champions and giving them to the rightful winners.
“I’ve been accused of rooting against every team in America, but I am rooting FOR Stugotz’s Personal Record Book.”—Joe Buck
Without Tom Brady, Bill Belichick is a worse head coach than Herm Edwards. Kevin Durant has no rings. Rafael Nadal is not on the Mount Rushmore of men’s tennis.
For years, popular sports radio personality Stugotz has been telling fans that he keeps a “personal record book,” a kind of alternate sports universe in which Babe Ruth is not a great Yankee, Sean McVay has no rings, and Joe Namath is not in the Hall of Fame, to name just a few of his sacred proclamations.
As Stugotz hilariously renders his controversial judgments with the steely conviction of a psychopath, what might seem like broadsides meant to rattle the cages of avid sports fans are transformed into shockingly wise, well-considered arguments that, taken together, form a radical revision of sports history. Prepare to be wildly entertained as he shows where flash and hype have replaced integrity and sportsmanship. He takes rings away and gives new ones out, reframes some of history’s most iconic games, and declares entire sports dead (sorry, horse racing). He even invites some of the biggest names in sports media, such as Scott Van Pelt and Mina Kimes, to offer their rebuttals. By taking on the legends of basketball, baseball, hockey, soccer, and tennis, Stugotz leaves no stone unturned—and no sport unscathed.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Weiner, cohost of ESPN Radio's Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz, teams up with radio producer Stanczyk for this irreverent debut compendium of heterodox takes on legendary sports figures. Revising championship tallies according to his whims, Weiner suggests that Kevin Durant's two NBA championships shouldn't count because he "took a shortcut" by signing with the Golden State Warriors in 2016 instead of sticking with the Oklahoma City Thunder. Bill Belichick is nothing without Tom Brady, Weiner contends, noting that Brady won the Super Bowl in 2020 after leaving the Patriots for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers while Belichick ended that season with a middling 7–9 record. Weiner's not consistent in his judgments, asserting that San Antonio Spurs point guard Chris Paul's lack of a championship ring should disqualify him from greatest-of-all-time consideration even as Weiner dismisses Joe Namath, who in 1969 brought the New York Jets their sole Super Bowl victory, as only the "thirteenth-best New York Jet quarterback of all time" because he threw more interceptions than touchdowns. Luckily, Weiner aims to provoke more than convince ("Deep stats are for irredeemable nerds"), successfully translating his flippant radio persona to the page. It's a refreshingly idiosyncratic revision of the sports pantheon.
