1968 was a fascinating and turbulent year in America, rocked by assassinations, protests, and riots. Baseball, though frequently cited as a respite from the violence and fear, was also in the midst of a sea-change and was not so far removed from the outside world. The 1968 World Series was at the precipice of all these changes. It was the last so-called “true” World Series, where the two teams earned their way into the series by winning their league’s pennant. The next year divisional playoffs […]
The least toxically masculine thing you will ever read.
So if you go over to Goodreads and scroll down the first page of reviews, you’ll see that nearly every review starts along the lines of, “THIS WAS SO ADORABLE.” Or “THE CUTEST EVER I’M DYING.” And now that I have read this, I too, can sympathize. This was monstrously precious. I am compelled to say this because of how cute. Check, Please! is a sweet little web comic that is finishing up later this year. It follows Eric “Bitty” Bittle, a former champion figure […]
Perhaps You Can Teach an Old Dog New Tricks
Best for: Goalies and Goalie Coaches (it’s a bit of a niche market, I’ll grant you). In a nutshell: US Men’s National Team Goalkeeper coach (he coached Tim Howard, yo) offers tips for training effective goalkeepers. Worth quoting: “The best way to stay on top of the game is by playing along in your head.” Why I chose it: I am a goalkeeper who rarely had any proper goalkeeper training. Whoops. Review: When I moved to London, I thought team sports — specifically soccer, or […]
The Start of Something that Hasn’t Quite Found It’s Footing Just Yet
The Foxhole Court is the first novel of Nora Sakavic’s All for the Game, which gives an intriguing beginning for what is to come, but unfortunately does not really stand so well as a book on it’s own: it’s clearly just a buildup, and given it’s slim run of under 300 pages, I wonder if perhaps it would not have work to put the 3 instalments of the series into one novel with parts/books 1-2-3 all together? But that’s not my decision at the end […]