Book on the Montreal Expos

Up, Up, and Away: The Kid, the Hawk, Rock, Vladi, Pedro, le Grand Orange, Youppi!, the Crazy Business of Baseball, and the Ill-fated but Unforgettable Montreal Expos by Jonah Keri

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I thought it was a great book. I'm not Canadian or an Expos fan, just a guy who grew up in the 80's and 90's a baseball fan who had some familiarity with the Expos' almost-but-not-quite success during that era.

The history of the Montreal Expos provides a unique subject matter in that there are very few baseball clubs for which you can write a beginning-to-end story. As the first Canadian entrant into major U.S. professional sports, the Expos entered the National League as an expansion franchise in 1969 and played 36 seasons in Montreal before departing for Washington, D.C. in 2005 and taking upon themselves the dreadful moniker of "Nationals". Montreal remains the only MLB team to lose their team in the last 45 years.

Jonah Keri takes you from their humble beginnings playing in Jarry Park (a supposed short-term solution which wound up hosting the team for nearly a decade), through their prosperous years in the 1980s and 1990s, and on through their ultimate demise in the early part of the century. Throughout the book, he provides various reasons for the Expos' failure which prove that although fielding a talented ballclub is an important element, it doesn't necessarily guarantee success. A successful franchise needs political support, investment from the business community, and a thriving fan base. When the Expos didn't have any of the three, it was time to go. A little luck also helps, and the Expos certainly didn't have much of that, as proved by the 1994 team which most certainly would have won the World Series, if only it had been played. . .

Keri is not an impartial party to this tale - he grew up an Expos fan and in many cases inserts his first-person accounts of the proceedings. I felt like his fan's perspective made the book come alive. Written by anyone else, it may have just been a dull retelling of news accounts.

The book is more interesting than you would expect for a team that never won anything. If nothing else, you'll learn what the story is behind that mysterious "lb" logo. I had been wondering about that for years.



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Book Review: David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism

David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism by Gregory A. Prince

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Different than the traditional biography of an LDS Church President, which have been typically published shortly after their ascendance to the office but before their death, this telling of the David O. McKay story focuses on the time period of 1951-1970 when he served as President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. For this reason I enjoyed the book as it detailed the accomplishments and difficulties of his actual term of service. Looking back at those years through a 21st century lens added a unique perspective. I would love to see similar volumes emerge in the coming years, for instance a record of the years 1995-2008, when Gordon B. Hinckley led the church, perhaps the most dynamic church leader since McKay.

I am of a younger generation, born a few years after McKay's death, so I did not know a lot about him going in, but I did gain an appreciation for his marvelous service. Holding such a high calling is not easy, as McKay in many cases had to separate his own personal convictions from his responsibility to members of a worldwide church. He also had to manage competing opinions and agendas of other church leaders, often at his own expense. But there are a few people in the world whom everyone seems to respect, regardless of differences, and David O. McKay was one of those, as indicated by the tribute given by the Cathedral of the Madeleine Catholic Church in Salt Lake City during his funeral procession.

As indicated in other reviews, the book does tend to get a bit gossipy in sections and the authors seem to draw a lot of unsupported conclusions about what a particular individual's motivations may have been in various situations. But it was interesting to read that the Quorum of the Twelve do not necessarily agree with one another on the various issues that come before them. Although we're insulated from it in our day, there are certainly still heated debates that go on in their meetings. With fiery personalities such as Dallin H. Oaks, Jeffrey R. Holland, and David A. Bednar populating church hierarchy, do you honestly think they just sit around and say, "Hey, I'm chill with that if you are, brother"?

I do kind of wonder what bias the authors may have had given the voluminous resources they had at their disposal. To a point, they could have told just about any story they wanted to. They seemed to go out of their way to make heroes of "church intellectuals" then and now but disparaged Harold B. Lee and Ezra Taft Benson to the point that left you wondering how either of these men eventually became successors to President McKay.

Probably my favorite story in the book was the relationship between McKay and Lyndon B. Johnson, and how McKay inquired of Johnson regarding an Army policy which made it difficult for LDS chaplains to serve. Essentially Johnson demanded the Army accommodate the church, based primarily on his friendship with McKay and his respect for the Mormon way of life.

I would recommend this book despite its flaws. It left me with a testimony of David O. McKay's calling as a prophet.



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Review: The Secret History of Star Wars

The Secret History of Star Wars by Michael Kaminski

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The book reminds one of the high school student who needs to write a 10-page paper but only has three pages of material - so he looks for ways to stretch out his material. Kaminski's method was to present the same facts and arguments over and over again. I'm not sure why he needed the book to be so long but it could have been just as effective in half the number of pages.

But Star Wars fans, especially those of the original trilogy, should nevertheless enjoy this work. My favorite part of the book was the 1978-1983 time period, which explored the development of The Empire Strikes Back and the decision to wrap up the trilogy with Return of the Jedi rather than continue on to episodes seven, eight, and nine during the 1980's.

Some of the quotes the author uncovered during his research are absolute gems. George Lucas was absolutely frustrated by the time and expense Irvin Kershner spent on ESB. "It looks pretty because Kersh took a lot of time to do it. It's a great luxury that we really couldn't afford. And ultimately it doesn't make that much difference. . . It was just a lot better than I wanted to make it."

In my opinion, ESB is pretty much a masterpiece. But all Lucas really wanted out of it was a cheap moneymaker that would fund his other projects. Thankfully, we still have the film despite Lucas.

Another favorite quote from the development of ESB came when Lawrence Kasdan criticized Lucas for his habit of glossing over the emotional content of a scene because he was in a hurry to get to the next one. Lucas responded, "Well, if we have enough action, nobody will notice."

That quote, of course, perfectly explains the prequel trilogy.

I could go on and on, but I won't. A good deal of the book is spent proving that Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader were separate beings up until about 1978 when Lucas was revising the first draft of the screenplay which was written by Leigh Brackett. Of course, anyone who is a longtime fan of the series realizes this, although George Lucas is hard at work trying to convince us that he had the entire thing laid out as the story of Darth Vader from the very beginning.

Of course, every fan of Star Wars has his own ideas of what George Lucas should have done here or there, and I'm no different. At the end of the day, the whole thing is his brainchild, created with his money, so he has the right to do to the story as he wishes. The movies which we treasured as children came at an enormous non-financial cost (his marriage) and maybe we don't recognize that as much as we should.

There is enough good information and thought-provoking ideas in this book that I can forgive the author for his not-quite-professional writing.



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Review: It Happened in Wisconsin

It Happened in Wisconsin by Ken Moraff

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


I checked this little winner out from the Amazon Prime lending library.

It's about a 1930s minor league team known as the Racine Robins, who aren't so much baseball players as they are crusaders seeking to right the wrongs put upon good, hard-working Americans by evil corporations. They don't have a manager, drive their own bus, and keep only enough of their gate to subsist on. The rest of the profits go to helping the poor and the hungry. And probably paying labor bosses although the book doesn't explicitly say so.

The writing is actually good enough in the first few chapters to get you interested in the characters and their backgrounds. But then you get to the halfway point of the book and realize that. . . nothing is going to happen in the book. It's just a vehicle for socialist propaganda. I finished reading it anyways, and I was right.

The book is narrated by a nameless member of the team, who by his account was a star pitcher although who knows because there was maybe three pages of actual baseball action in this book. He speaks retrospectively of the good ol' days when he and his best friends/teammates were out to save the world from greed. In present days, he's a sad old man in a rest home who passes the time perving over his young nurse.

I don't necessarily disagree with all of the ideals put forth in this book, but there's a reason in society why businesses aren't managed by the people, for the people. It's because it doesn't work. There's a reason teams have managers. It's because they would suck otherwise.

But in the author's well-crafted cheesy Wisconsin bubble, all the players are completely selfless and never seek their own interest! And of course, they are also all good enough to play in the major leagues, if only they were willing to stoop so low! And so, in the pages of this idealistic tale, it works perfectly! It's only fiction, after all!

(There are so many exclamation points in this book!)

The arguments against "the system" are interesting for awhile, but the author just continues to beat you over the head with them, again and again and again, until mercifully, the pages go all white. I'm assuming that meant the book was over and not that I was beaten into submission.

There's a subplot involving the narrator's lost love. But is it really a subplot when there is no main plot? That's a question to ponder on when you're not out organizing labor unions.





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Review: Slow Getting Up

Nate Jackson wrote a book about his football career. Never heard of him? Yeah, most people, even football fans, probably aren't familiar with the guy. He wasn't a superstar, or even a starter. He was a reserve wide receiver and tight end who saw most of his action on special teams. I was only familiar with him because he spent the bulk of his playing career in Denver. And honestly, the main reason I read it was for a peek behind the curtains of my favorite NFL team.

He writes extensively about the brutality of NFL life and the various injuries he suffered throughout his professional career, which began as an undrafted free agent with the San Francisco 49ers, included a season in NFL Europe, and ended with with the Las Vegas Locos of the UFL after he failed to catch on for one more NFL tour with the Cleveland Browns. And how he didn't want to stop playing despite the horrible beating his body was taking.


He makes a point in the book that fans become detached from the realities of football because they participate through a television screen. Think about it - you turn it on, watch the game, and then turn it off. It's very similar to any other television program. The characters disappear from your screen until the next time you turn it on - at what point do players become no more than a fictional being? I'm sure fantasy football and video games only contribute to this warped sense of reality.

Football is a violent game and that many of yesterday's heroes are suffering horrible consequences for their participation in the game. Some of them choose to end their lives prematurely rather than continue living with their damaged body. But. . . no one is forcing any of them to play. They could walk away at any time if they chose. Some of them do. However, the money is really, really, good, which makes it hard. There's also something about the thrill of competing at such a high level that many of us can't quite relate to.

Nate tries to explain why he kept pushing to play professional football, even though he had plenty of valid reasons to quit. I don't know that he's a great writer, but his insights make for interesting reading.

I'd recommend it for Broncos fans. I appreciated his thoughts on why the Broncos lost the 2005 AFC Championship Game loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers, how important Gary Kubiak was as an assistant to the success of the Broncos, and the dangerous effects of John Elway Nostalgia.

It's a little coarse language-wise. I'm not sure why the authors of these behind-the-scenes NFL books feel the need to illustrate their tales with so many dirty words. Look ma, I'm an NFL player, because I can talk like one! It's one thing not to be able to express yourself without profanity verbally, but it's another to be unable to do it on a keyboard.

Review: Coming Clean

I recently finished this book - it only took me like 10 days. I'm not sure what's going on because I can spend months on end laboring through a fiction title and it literally seems like work to have to read one. But then I get totally mesmerized by a nonfiction book such as this one and fly right through it. Yeah, I don't totally get it either.

The author grew up the child of hoarders, before cable TV taught the world that hoarding was an an actual psychological disorder. The gritty details are almost unbelievable (that is if you've never seen A&E's "Hoarders") - rats, sludge, strangers in the attic, visits from child protective services, and much more. I found it interesting how it affected even the most basic functions of her life. Not only did she have to live in a filthy dumphole, but also she couldn't bathe, eat, sleep, or use the bathroom in a normal way. By the time she reached high school, she had to go to some lengths to hide the horrific conditions she lived in from her friends.

She was driven to succeed in school and in life because she wanted something different for herself. However, she spends a good portion of the book talking about how her parents' living habits continued to affect her life even after she reached adulthood and had a career and a place of her own. I won't get into any details except to say that she has some awesome friends and the situation with her parents reminds me of the line from the Eagles song "Hotel California" - "You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave. . ."

It's worth a read, if you're interested in that sort of thing.

Associate This

The Associate by John Grisham. Every couple of years, I like to remind myself why I stopped reading his books. And this one was a really good reminder.

I was a big fan back in the nineties, when he first came out. I read all the books, watched most of the movies. But the stuff he writes now is so. . . different. In the last couple of books of his I've read, it seems like when the time comes for the crap to hit the fan, he just flushes the crap instead. Sure, it's nice and clean, but not nearly as exciting. Nowadays, he seems far more interested in preaching his ideals on the legal profession than in writing actual thrillers.

The Associate is Kyle McAvoy. A different name, but basically the same character that stars in every Grisham novel. A wet-behind-the-ears kid, fresh out of law school, who has to take on the world and figure out how to outsmart everyone. He's Mitch McDeere, he's Darby Shaw, he's Rudy Baylor.

Kyle is just finishing up law school at Yale and is planning to work for a public-interest firm after graduation when a bad guy surfaces with a video, secretly taken by a cell phone, which reveals the badwy details of a drunken frat party five years earlier. The video contains evidence that a couple of Kyle's buddies had relations with a girl who may have been unconcious at the time. Although the video contains no evidence than Kyle did anything worse than dancing in the nude, he's shaken that the evidence exists.

The bad guy offers Kyle a deal. In exchange for keeping the video and the potential rape allegation under wraps, Kyle must accept a position in New York City with the largest law firm in the world and steal documents related to a gigantic lawsuit between two defense contractors. High-stakes blackmail!

The first few pages of this book are great, and I admit that I was immediately sucked into the plot. The pace slows as the book progresses. The bad guys patiently wait for the chance to have Kyle make a move. Meanwhile, Kyle spends most of his time trying to figure out how to outsmart them while also being the hardest working first-year associate at the firm.

I don't know that the bad guys were actually super hard to outsmart. They actually seemed a little lame to me. When Kyle started his job, they demanded a look at his company-issued laptop and phone. He refused to do so, and they never bothered him about it again. Seems like pretty lame surveillance to me.

***SPOILER ALERT (IF YOU CARE)***
Somehow, Kyle manages to hire a lawyer, who notifies the FBI. They organize an operation to catch the bad guy when Kyle brings stolen files to him. But the bad guy somehow gets wind of it and disappears. And that's it. They don't catch him. So, who was this bad guy? Who was he working for? Why did they want the files? Where did he get the cell phone video? How did he know the FBI was coming for him?

NONE of these questions get answered. Grisham suggests a bunch of possibilities, but I guess decides to let the reader ponder them eternally. It seems like maybe he wrote himself into a corner and said, "Ah, screw it, I can't figure this out either. The end."
***END OF SPOILER ALERT (IF YOU CARE)***

I'm not the only one who feels this way. Reviewers on Amazon were furious about this one. They can't figure out why he would just decide not to write the end of the book. There won't be a sequel, because who would buy it? Most people seem to think that Grisham is so rich he doesn't really care about pleasing the reader anymore. Others are speculating that The Associate was (gasp) ghostwritten.

I'm glad that I checked this out at the library. Some folks actually paid full cover price to read it.

Another Borders Bargain

I saw this at the aforementioned Borders clearance sale for $3 in the Biography/Memoir seciton. So I had to get it - you know, because "Mormon" was in the title.

For starters, it's not about a regional singles Halloween dance at all - that's just one of the many settings in the book. It's the tale of a young, single, Mormon girl living in New York City who is trying to figure out her life. She has no apparent claim to fame, at least not until the book was published. Just your typical twentysomething Mormon writing a memoir.

One thing I find interesting is that whenever a member of the Church is mentioned in the media, they are almost always described as a "devout Mormon". If I were famous, would I be called devout?

I don't think that Elna Baker should be described as devout, but what do I know? I only read the book. She seems to have a testimony of the gospel, but is also enticed by the adventure and excitement offered by some of the other avenues in life. I gave her some benefit of the doubt, because she notes that she spent part of her childhood living in the Sumner/Bonney Lake area of Washington. Although we never crossed paths, I served four months of my mission there, so we did have at least one thing in common, in addition to being members of the church.

I think there should be more books like this one - real Mormons writing about their faith and their perspective on things. I don't want to read about what you've researched or what you think you know that is going to change my life. Just tell me about you. That's what I liked about this book.

It takes a certain amount of courage to write such a book - Ms. Baker deserves points for being open and honest about her life and her thoughts on the tenets of her religion. I think most Mormons probably have certain aspects of the church that they haven't quite reconciled. Which is totally fine, because that's what this life is all about. But I think most people prefer to keep their doubts and weaknesses to themselves, because who wants the rest of the ward looking at you with a wary eye? She pretty much just goes for it - putting it all out there for anyone she's ever known to read.

I appreciate that she doesn't seem to blame the church for her difficulties. A path that has been traveled before is, "I have a hard time living x principle or believing y doctrine, so check ya later. It's not true." She seemed to acknowledge that it was the right way to go but wasn't sure if she wanted it for herself.

I don't know if this paragraph counts as a spoiler, but if it does, you've been forewarned. You're kind of hoping that by the end of the book she figures it out. But she doesn't. Even finally finding an acceptable Mormon guy who is interested in her doesn't do the trick. There's no triumph of faith. There's no white wedding. By the end of the book, she's still indecisive and seems to be leaning the other way.

The book was not exactly written for the LDS reader. There's a fair amount of profanity, and yes, she does spell out all the f-words. A lot of making out and "playing with matches" takes place.

I will say that it did inspire me to write a memoir. Certainly there are things that happened in my life that are at least as notable as what Ms. Baker has going on.

If only I had the time. . .

I Finished Reading Something

I'm not much of a reader. I do enjoy reading, but it is very hard for me to find a book that I truly enjoy sitting down with. Today I finished the last few pages of a book that I have been working on since Memorial Day weekend: " '77: Denver, the Broncos, and a Coming of Age", written by Terry Frei, a columnist for The Denver Post. It came out just before last Christmas, and I've wanted to get it since then, but my book budget is pretty much zero. I couldn't find a copy available in the nearby branches of the Denver or Aurora libraries. I was out at a client in Englewood the week before Memorial Day and happened to look online and find that it was available at the Bear Valley branch, which wasn't too far away, so I drove over after work and picked it up. But I guess you didn't necessarily want to know all that.

The book chronicles the 1977 Denver Broncos and how that team changed the city. Pre-1977, the Broncos had played 17 seasons without ever making the playoffs and only enjoying a handful of winning seasons. To the outside world, Denver was viewed as a "cow town" or just another midwestern outpost of little consequence to anyone living on the coasts. Or so I'm told. I was two years old during the 1977 NFL season.

Much of the book is devoted to brief biographies of many of the players from the 1977 team, including the stories of how they became Broncos. I thought it was interesting that most of them, when learning they had been drafted by Denver, either had the thought that they needed to find a map or that they were going to freeze to death. So that kind of reinforces the idea that the average U.S. citizen knew very little about Denver, Colorado in that era.

Of course, Frei goes through the events of the 1977 season. I was impressed that he kept descriptions of the game action brief - there was some real potential to get bogged down there. Throughout the book, he weaves in many significant non-Bronco news events that were happening at the same time the Broncos were making their historic run to the Super Bowl. Some were sports related - in 1977, the Denver Nuggets were transitioning from the old ABA to the NBA and Denver also had a new NHL franchise - the Colorado Rockies. Also during the latter stages of 1977, Marvin Davis reached an agreement with Charlie Finley to buy the Oakland A's and bring major league baseball to Denver, although in the end the deal fell through. What an exciting time it must have been to be a sports fan in Colorado!

As I said before, I was born in 1975, so I have no actual recollection of anything regarding the 1977 team. I first became a Bronco fan as a 9-year-old at the beginning of the Elway Era. That being said, I'm still a huge fan of the 1977 Denver Broncos. I've read the books and seen the highlight videos and I'm envious of anyone who was able to experience that team firsthand and see the Orange Crush defense at its absolute apex.

Probably my favorite story, which Frei does an excellent job retelling in the book, is about Craig Morton leading the Broncos to victory in the AFC championship game over the Oakland Raiders even though one of his legs was seriously messed up. He'd spent the entire week beforehand in the hospital, and the team did everything they could to keep that fact under wraps while the doctors tried, without much luck, to drain blood from the leg. So he shows up at the stadium and his teammates are astonished that he was going to play even though his leg was totally black and blue. So Red Miller has to tie his shoes for him, and he tells his teammates that if he doesn't get hit, they'll win the football game. Which they do, 20-17, to advance to the Super Bowl. He was an aging quarterback who hadn't really had a stellar career and had bounced from team to team, and that was the defining moment of his career. It's just so Hollywood - I can't believe no one has produced the Craig Morton Story for the big screen. The NFL probably wouldn't allow it anyways.

The final point that Frei makes in the book is that the season forever changed how the Denver fan views his teams. The success of the 1977 Broncos was so new, so fresh, so exciting. And things will never be like that again - there can only be one first time. I totally agree - and the Super Bowl championships of 1997 and 1998 only made it more so. For example, I really enjoyed the 2005 version of the Broncos, who went 13-3 and advanced to the AFC Championship game. But because they failed to break through for another Super Bowl victory, that team is already long forgotten. Jake Plummer, an MVP candidate in 2005, was run out of town a year later and regarded as a failure by fans and media alike. And Mike Shanahan, after coaching the team to mediocre finishes in 2006 & 2007, has many of the same folks calling for his firing.

It's kind of sad that any kind of success will go unappreciated by many in Colorado from here on out unless it results in a Lombardi Trophy, the Stanley Cup, or a World Series title. And that is why the 1977 Broncos are special - they were (and are) regarded as champions even though they didn't finish the year on top.