The 2020 Johnny Bingo Awards

 It is time once again for the most prestigious, least-anticipated literary award of the year – The Johnny/Bingo Awards!

Most literary awards – the National Book Awards, the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature - have, if nothing else, consistency.  They are given out annually.  They have the same categories every year, with moderate changes.  They honor books that came out that year.  They might give a Lifetime Achievement to someone who has managed to produce a lifetime of work but is hopefully still alive.

But remember what Ralph Waldo Emerson – who is not eligible for any of those awards but IS still eligible for a Johnny-Bingo Award - said about consistency:  "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."

We have no little statesmen or philosophers or divines on the Awards Committee.  We have only me.  And me has only one rule:

“All eligible books must have been finished by me in 2020. It could have been written by a blind Greek poet in the 8th century BCE or be an unpublished galley hacked from an MFA candidate’s MacBook in a Brooklyn cafe. As long as I read the final paragraph before the calendar turns, it could be a winner.”

Beyond that..the awards change, the frequency is eccentric - heck, I'm not even sure if these are called "The Johnny Bingo Awards", "The Johnny-Bingo Awards", or "The Johnny/Bingo Awards".  

* if you care about the source of the name, go here

On to this year’s winners!

Best Historical Novelist

Bernard Cornwell

According to my book log I’ve read 30 Bernard Cornwell novels since 2001.  Which seems like a lot until you realize that Cornwell has written 60, so I’m only halfway through. In the ten years readers have been waiting for the next installment of A Song of Ice and Fire (aka Game of Thrones) Cornwell has written a dozen novels.

Cornwell has a kind of formula which he deploys across several series: follow a major historical figure over a long period of time, through a fictional character.  

This year I read 3 more books in his Sharpe series, which follows British soldier Richard Sharpe through the Napoleonic wars.   And in the process learned quite a lot about the Peninsular War and the growing martial mastery of Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington (he's the guy who beat Napoleon at Waterloo, but I'm sure you knew that already).

I also read the first four volumes of The Saxon Chronicles, which is the inspiration for the excellent television series “The Last Kingdom”.  If you want to learn a great deal about the birth of England and the historical importance of Alfred the Great while also enjoying lots of battles, sex, and political intrigue – I highly recommend The Saxon Chronicles and "The Last Kingdom".

Best Book I Didn’t Quite Understand

A History of Western Philosophy*, Bertrand Russell

I bought this book 20 years ago, made an unsuccessful run at it 10 years ago, started it again 3 or 4 months ago…and finished the last page on Sunday.

* If you're wondering how I can spend 3 or 4 months on one book and still read enough books to justify this globally-famous awards platform...I read books the way most people watch television.  I have several going at once.  I might knock off a crime novel in a week but something like this opus I'll read a chapter per morning, most mornings, over months

It’s an overview of, well, western philosophy – from the ancient Greeks to the medieval Christians to the moderns – from Pythagoras to William James.  Huge chunks of it were over my head – especially the parts involving mathematics.

But parts of it were utterly fascinating.  I was completely unaware of how Plato, and later Aristotle, shaped the theology of the Roman Catholic Church.  I was somewhat aware of how Nietzsche influenced Hitler, but less so of how the Romantics influenced Nietzsche.  The path from Byron to Hitler is particularly interesting when you consider Russell was writing in 1943.

I confess to skimming some chapters and skipping others entirely (I figured, since I never heard of the French philosopher Henri Bergson, I could skip that chapter entirely).  And if I had an exam on the book on Monday I’d struggle to pass.  But it was at times utterly engaging and certain chapters went very well with whiskey.

 

The Book Most Likely to Make My Wife Kick Me Under the Table

I gave this award for the first time last year (see, there is some consistency) and here’s what I said about it:

"There's a certain kind of book - non-fiction, well-written, a colon in the title, and a Big Idea at its heart  - that will make me talk about it for months afterwards.   Eventually, I'm out to dinner with other people and am rambling on for entirely too long about how ancient Romans used memory palaces to commit multi-hour speeches to memory and - thwack! - my wife will deliver a well-placed blow to my shin."

But since the pandemic cut down that whole ‘out to dinner’ thing I’m going to temporarily rename this award the:

The Book Most Likely to Make My Wife Kick Me Under the Table, If There Was a Table, But Since There Wasn’t She Could Only Smile and Nod Along and Hope I’d Shut Up

The winner this year is (drumroll please, Ringo):

The Beatles: The Biography, Bob Spitz

This book is not for the casual fan.  It is an exhaustive history of the Fab Four.  How exhaustive?  Ringo doesn’t even show up until page 127.

But even as a serious Beatles fan I learned so much and my poor wife who…well, I’m not sure how this happened exactly but somehow I managed to fall in love with and marry and spend my life with someone who DOESN’T KNOW WHAT THE BIG DEAL IS WITH THE BEATLES ANYWAY!!!

And, what with the pandemic and all and the seriously depressed social life there weren’t many tables for her to kick me under so I shared with her every single detail of the Beatles that so utterly fascinated me and instead of kicking me she just politely nodded along…

“Did you know the Beatles were the first artist to include lyrics on an album?”

“Did you know the Beatles did the first music video?  You see, they had stopped touring because of the screaming fans and they needed to promote their new music so they invented the video!”

“Did you know that the length of ‘Hey Jude’ was what inspired FM radio to move from a talk radio to a music format?  You see…”

Truly a thrilling read about one of the greatest creative forces ever – where they came from, how they developed their craft, the almost insane innovation in a relatively short period of time, and how they blew apart.  

(and oh my God I can't wait for this)

Best History Book on a Subject I was Embarrassingly Ignorant About

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, Jack Weatherford

I knew the name Genghis Khan.  I was also aware there was a guy named Kublai Khan.  I kinda sorta knew there were Mongol invasions.  Was pretty sure horses were involved.  And that’s about it.

But Weatherford makes a pretty good case for the second part of his book title.  

Consider this:  under Genghis Khan, the Mongol army conquered more lands and subjugated more peoples in 25 years than the Roman Empire did in 400.  If I may quote the dust-jacket:

"With an empire that stretched from Siberia to India, from Vietnam to Hungary, and from Korea to the Balkans, the Mongols dramatically redrew the map of the world, connecting disparate kingdoms into a new world order."

And his grandson, Kublai Khan, founded the Yuan Dynasty in China.  This new world order connected Asia to the Middle East to Eastern Europe, and allowed for an extraordinary spread of culture.  And it's a rip-roaring story filled with adventure, statecraft, warfare, and some truly epic family strife. 

Best Book(s)That Proves I’m Really Still Just a Nerdy 11 Year-Old

The Thrawn Trilogy, Timothy Zahn

I was 11 years old when "Star Wars" came out.  I loved it.  I saw the next two movies in the theater and loved those.  But then, like most normal people I moved on with my life.  I met people in college who were REALLY into Star Wars – would talk about the different colors of the light sabers and what they meant - and I said, thank God I’m not like them.  

But somewhere along the line I started to, um, become like them.  A big part of it was my son becoming a fan.  We were so excited about "The Force Awakens" that I picked him up at college after his last final sophomore year, and we found a theater between his college and home to see the movie.  We sat on line with headsets on so we wouldn’t hear any spoilers from exiting fans.

This year, thanks to "The Mandalorian" I completed the metamorphosis to full geekdom.  I started watching "The Clone Wars" animated series (in the proper order).  And after Admiral Thrawn was name-checked in the second season of "The Mandalorian" I decided to read The Thrawn Trilogy.

I know it’s Legends, not Canon, and it was occasionally jarring to see storylines in total conflict with the storylines of the sequel trilogy.  But it was still a fun ride.  I’m assuming we’ll see the blue Admiral in season 3 of "The Mandalorian" and I am ready for him.  Of course, by the time that comes out in 2022 I'll have watched all four seasons of "Star Wars: Rebels"...

A Fond Farwell

John LeCarre

As I mentioned last year, I do something I call subject-bingeing.  For example, while reading The Beatles book I subject-binged.  Listened to endless Beatles albums, scoured YouTube for interviews and other clips referred to in the book, watched the movie ‘Help’.  Even dug deeper into the solo careers of the Fab Four (damn those early McCartney albums are underrated).

And it so happened this is the year I binged on John LeCarre – or to be more precise, his most famous character, George Smiley.

I tried to read LeCarre years ago, but I wasn’t ready for him yet.  There was a depth and sophistication so far beyond Ludlum and Higgins and it sailed over my head.  But on a recommendation from a colleague I decided to start from the beginning.  

I read all of the Smiley books, including the early ones where he is sometimes only a minor character.  I read his masterpiece, “The Karla Trilogy”.  I watched the two brilliant BBC mini-series “Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy” and “Smiley’s People”, with the incomparable Alec Guiness*.  I rewatched the “Tinker” movie with Gary Oldman.  And I tried without success to find some of the early movies like “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold”.  I went full Smiley in 2020.

* Both of these series are available for free in their entirety on YouTube

If you are unfamiliar with George Smiley, the easiest way to think about him is as the anti-Bond.  He is not handsome or dashing.  He never shoots a gun.  He never beds a beautiful Russian spy.  There are no gadgets.  His wife constantly cheats on him.  And yet, if Bond and Smiley went up against each other, I have no doubt Smiley would walk away the victor.

John LeCarre was a spy novelist, but his spy novels were literature.  Plots mattered but character mattered more.  The great game of nation-states fighting for their preferred ideology mattered, but the sordid moments of a crumbling marriage mattered more.  And while all this was happening LeCarre was creating a language that future spy novelists would use.  Moles.  Honey-traps.  Pavement artists.  Because LeCarre had actually worked for British intelligence, everyone assumed he was using real lingo – but oftentimes he was a novelist making things up.

Not long after I completed the full Smiley journey, John LeCarre passed away.  RIP to the greatest spy novelist, and possibly the greatest observer of the Cold War, to ever put pen to paper.

Lifetime Achievement Award

Bill Bryson

I bought my first Bill Bryson book – The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way – 30 years ago.  I bought it on a whim but immediately recognized that this guy wrote the way I wish I could.  A seemingly effortless charm, lightly worn erudition, and a wry and optimistic yet not at all naïve worldview.

Here are the first few paragraphs of Bryson I ever read:

"More than 300 million people in the world speak English and the rest, it sometimes seems, try to.  It would be charitable to say that the results are sometimes mixed.

Consider this hearty announcement in a Yugoslavian hotel: 'The flattening of underwear with pleasure is the job of the chambermaid.  Turn to her straightaway.'  Or this warning to motorists in Tokyo: 'When a passenger of the foot heave in sight, tootle the horn.  Trumpet at him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage, then tootle him with vigor.'  Or these instructions gracing a packet of convenience food from Italy:  'Besmear a backing pan, previously buttered with a good tomato sauce, and, after, dispose the canneloni, lightly distanced between in a only couch.'

Clearly the writer of that message was not about to let a little ignorance of English stand in the way of a good meal.  In fact, it would appear that one of the beauties of the English language is that with even the most tenuous grasp you can speak volumes if you show enough enthusiasm-a willingness to tootle with vigor, as it were."  

I read his travel books, his memoirs, his Shakespeare book, even followed him as he ventured into science with A Short History of Nearly Everything and The Body: A Guide for Occupants.  

Last month, the 68 year-old Bryson did something few writers do: he announced his retirement.  Who knows?  Maybe it won’t stick.  Maybe this will be like The Who announcing a farewell tour.  But for now at seems I need to bid a fond farewell to an author who has kept me company for 3 decades.  

And to thank him for all the words.

Congratulations to all of the winners.  We were going to have a live awards ceremony but due to COVID etc. etc. etc.   

Tom Seaver, R.I.P.

 Memories of his 300th Win

On July 19th, 1985, Tom Seaver, aged 40 and pitching for the Chicago White Sox, threw a complete game 1-0 shutout against the Cleveland Indians.  It was his 298th win.

I looked at the White Sox schedule (I don’t know how; I didn’t possess a pocket computer with the world’s information on it yet), did a little calculating, and called my college buddy Ken.  We had just met as freshmen the year before, and bonded over the Mets.  

“You know,” I said, “if Seaver wins one of his next two starts, he’ll be going for 300 a week from Sunday at Yankee Stadium.”  Sure enough, after losing his first bid for 299, on Tuesday, July 30th, he beat the Red Sox at Fenway the following Tuesday.  The next morning, we headed to TicketMaster at Sunrise Mall, and bought tickets to the White Sox-Yankee game for Sunday, August 4.

What a glorious day.  

You see, it’s not easy being a Mets fan in Yankee Town.  As the great baseball writer Roger Angell put it, “It is the peculiar fate of Mets fans to live in New York, surrounded by the exuberantly smug hordes of Yankee fans.”  (Despite the fact that I do now have a pocket computer with the world’s information on it, I can’t find the quote, and I’m doing it from memory.  I almost certainly screwed it up.)

I should say that I don’t subscribe to the notion that being a Mets fan is one filled with pain and horror.  At least, not exclusively with pain and horror. Let’s do the math.

- Major League Baseball has 30 teams

- The Mets have been in existence for 58 years

- They have won 2 World Series – a perfectly average rate for a 30-team sport over 60 years

- They have won 5 NL Championships – an above-average rate for a 15 team league over 60 years

The Phillies have also won 2 World Series – but they’ve been around since 1883!  Since the final year of the Roosevelt Administration the Cubs have won the World Series once – and that’s the Teddy Roosevelt Administration.  The Padres, founded like the Mets in the 1960s, display no World Series trophy in their offices.

And the Mets didn’t win any two World Series – they won two of the most famous World Series in history.  Tom Seaver’s Miracle Mets of 1969 are one of the great stories in the history of any sport.  (I always loved the George Burns line from the movie “Oh God”: “The last miracle I did was the ‘69 Mets. Before that you’d have to go back to the Red Sea.”).  And I don’t have to remind Red Sox fans – or any baseball fans – what happened in 86.

I would even argue that the pain of the Mets’ low points have their purpose: namely, that they make the high points so memorable.  For example, find a Yankee fan, and ask him to name the 4 teams the Yankees beat for their memorable Title run between 1996-2000.  Most can’t do it.  The titles blur together.  They’re like heroin addicts, always failing to find the high of that first injection.  

But ask a Mets fan to give you the play-by-play of the 10th inning, Game 6, 1986, and most can do it.  Our highs are made higher by their rarity.  

No, the hardest thing about being a Mets fan isn’t the dry periods, it isn’t the inept ownership, it isn’t even the fact that so many of our promising young stars have their path to Cooperstown sidetracked by drugs, injury, and tomfoolery.  No, the hardest thing about being a Mets fan is Yankee fans.

Anyway, where was I?  Right, Yankee Stadium.  August 4, 1985.

###

The Yankees were good in 1985 because, you know, the Yankees are always good.  They won 97 games that year – which in a pre-Wild Card era was good enough for 2nd place and no playoffs.  

But this was a very unusual day at Yankee Stadium.  It was Phil Rizzuto Day, and all of Yankee royalty was there to celebrate the Scooter.  Yogi Berra and Whitey Ford, Billy Martin and Mickey Mantle.  Joe DiMaggio and – well, shoot I don’t remember who was there.  During the ceremony they brought a cow out to home plate, in honor of the Scooter’s signature phrase.  It was kind of cool and kind of silly – two words you rarely associate with the Yankees, who are very serious about themselves.  I’ve always thought the Yankees were a cross between the Renaissance Church and a publicly-traded bank – regal and boring and powerful and corrupt.

But today, the old-timers were having a grand old time at home plate.  If memory serves the cow even knocked Rizzuto down.  But then, the door to the visitors’ bullpen opened, and the White Sox’ starting pitcher, having completed his warmups, strolled to his dugout.  He wore #41 and the crowd – filled with Mets fans on Phil Rizzutto Day - went wild.

Tom Seaver won his 300th of course.  And being Tom Seaver he did it in style.  He went the distance*.  He won 4-1, matching his uniform number.  He got Don Baylor, a borderline Hall of Famer himself, to fly out for the final out.  He jumped into the arms of another Hall of Famer, Carlton Fisk, to celebrate.  

* He was 40 years old and pitched 9 innings in his 298th, 299th, and 300th win.  Think the game has changed?

I should say that my college friend Ken wasn't the only Ken with me that day.  My brother, a Yankee fan, was there too.  But my brother is not a typical Yankee fan.  Maybe it's because he was born in Flushing.  Maybe it's because he lived with his Mets-loving Italian Nana till he was 7.  Maybe it's because Ed Kranepool was our neighbor growing up.  But he is never obnoxious about being a Yankee fan, he never tortures Mets fans.  He loves the Yankees with a purity that is admirable.  

And some time after this glorious day he presented me with this plaque - the ticket from the game, with some selections from his impressive baseball card collection.  A rare moment of Yankee-Met unity.

(As for college Ken - he lost his ticket from that day and it still pisses him off.)

I was too young for the 69 Mets.  My earliest sports memory is the Pete Rose-Bud Harrelson fight in the 73 NLCS, but I have no memory of the 73 Series.  In October of 1986, I was in London for a semester abroad, and while I have some great memories, including listening to Game 6 on Armed Forces Radio, I mostly missed that Series.  Of 2000, we shall not speak.  And in 2015, I was in the stands at CitiField as the Royals beat the Mets.  

But I'll always have August 4, 1985.  And Mets fan will always have Tom Seaver.  

Tom Terrific Trade Titanic Tragedy

On June 15, 1977 – a date which will live in infamy – the New York Mets traded Tom Seaver to the Cincinnati Reds for – well, just about every Mets fan born before the Ford Administration can tell you who Tom Seaver was traded for.  All together now: Pat Zachry, Doug Flynn, Steve Henderson and Dan Norman.

The trade of a baseball pitcher from one team to another might not technically qualify as a tragedy.   But it certainly seemed like a tragedy to ten-year-old me.  (Besides, I needed a word that began with T to complete my New York tabloid style headline.)

Dubbed The Midnight Massacre, it is one of the most famous trades in baseball history.  But there are two notable aspects of this trade most people miss:

Damned Yankees
In one-town teams like Pittsburgh or Boston, ownership can do just about anything and not worry about fans switching their allegiance.  Heck, the Red Sox don’t just have a city to themselves, they have the entire New England region.  The Sox were able to go nearly a century between titles without losing any fans. 

But in New York people have options.  The Mets traded Seaver on June 15th.  Almost exactly 6 months later, on October 18th, the New York Yankees won their first World Series since 1961.  And they did it in style, as Reggie Jackson hit 3 home runs in Game 6, earning the moniker Mr. October. 

People outside New York think the Big Apple is a Yankee town, but that is not true.  In 1962, the Yankees were the defending World Champions and the greatest team in the history of the sport – maybe any sport.  That year the Mets were born and immediately fielded the worst team in the history of the sport – maybe any sport.

But by 1964 the Mets – who were still absolutely terrible, losing 109 games - were outdrawing the Yankees!  For 12 straight seasons the Mets won the attendance title, until the Yankees took it back in 1976 – the year they returned to the World Series.  A good Yankee team outdrew the Mets until 1984 – when the Mets returned to prominence.  Yankees have held the title since, but the reality is both fans draw well.

But 1977 was a year to switch teams.  The Mets traded the greatest starting pitcher of the post-war years – and the Yankees returned to Yankee domination.  In 1975, the Mets outdew the Yankees by half a million fans.  By 1979, the Yankees were outdrawing the Mets by over 1.7 million.  Mets' attendance dropped so much that Shea Stadium was dubbed Grant's Tomb - for the odious GM (I hate to even type his name) who made the trade. 

Other sports trades may have had worse W-L outcomes, but it’s hard to imagine a trade costing its team lifetime fans like the Midnight Massacre.

Little Red Machine
Of course, there is a 3rd franchise in this discussion:  The Cincinnati Reds.

The mid-70’s Reds were a powerhouse.  In 1976, they swept the Yankees in the World Series.  In 1977, they beat the Red Sox in a classic series.  Accounting for era and ballpark, the 1976 Reds featured arguably the best lineup in baseball history – including 3 Hall of Famers (Bench, Morgan, Perez), the all-time hit king (Rose), and a guy on the verge of the best hitting season of the decade (Foster).  Ken Griffey ranked 7th in OPS in 1976 – heck, their #8 hitter, Cesar Geronimo, batted .307!  This team could hit.

And in June of 1977 they added 3-time Cy Young winner Tom Seaver – giving up none of their superstars in return.  This team would be unstoppable, right?

Nope.  In fact, the Reds missed the playoffs in 77 and 78.  They won the NL West in 79 but got swept by Willie Stargell’s Pirates.  And that was it.  That was the end of the Big Red Machine*.

* They did get gypped in 81, missing the playoffs despite finishing with the best record in baseball.  The strike-shortened 81 season is a good template for sports leagues to avoid as they figure out post-pandemic seasons.  And Seaver got gypped too, losing the Cy Young to Fernando Valenzuela, despite going 14-2 to Fernando's 13-7 - with comparable ERAs.  


But there's a happy ending to this story.  A week before the trade, the Mets drafted Wally Backman and Mookie Wilson.  And on June 15th, 1983, the 6th Anniversary of the trade, the Mets made another trade.  They shipped Neil Allen and Rick Ownbey to the St. Louis Cardinals for Keith Hernandez. 

Three years later, Hernandez, Mookie, Wally, and the rest of the Mets won the greatest World Series ever played.  The demons were exorcised.

Books in the Time of COVID-19

A Top Ten List

We can’t go out and socialize.  There are no sports on TV – and thus no fantasy teams to track.  The gyms are emptying.  Hollywood has shut down production.

What will we do with our free time?

There are all sorts of activities to fill the day, of course.  Video games and board games, puzzles and podcasts.  You can learn to juggle or tango or speak Portuguese.   

Or – you can read.  

As a public service I’ve put together a list of entertaining books.   This is not a list for hardcore book readers – or, if you’ll allow me a moment of literary snobbery, it is not a list for people who got the reference in the title of this post.   Most of these books haven’t won a coveted Johnny-Bingo Award.

Rather, it is a list for the casual reader, one who knows the wonderful feeling of a great read but can’t name many authors beyond Grisham, Rowling, Patterson, and King.

Some of these books are light, fun, frothy.  Some are a bit weightier, but still page-turners.

Here we go:

Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry

The greatest Western ever written.  Yes, it is long, nearly a thousand pages.  But don’t be daunted by its length.  If you watched 73 episodes of Game of Thrones you can handle a thousand-page book; just treat each chapter like an episode.  And the pages fly by – cattle drives and saloon fights and horse rustlers and Indians and – at the heart of it all, Woodrow Call and Gus McRae, two of the greatest characters in literary history.

Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer

Let’s move to non-fiction now, and this extraordinary tale of a catastrophic climb of Mount Everest.  

Mild spoiler alert: early in the book we learn a major character doesn’t make it, but even though I’d known this for hundreds of pages I was still shaken when it actually happened.  This is reporting + storytelling at its finest. 

The Killer Angels, Michael Shaara

A thousand pages is too long?  Then warm up with this 370-pager about the battle of Gettysburg.  You’ll bounce all around the battlefield and experience the personal stories from Union cavalrymen and Confederate generals and foreign observers.  You’ll learn about the most important battle in American history but be so captivated the whole time you won’t even notice you’re learning.

  

Positively Fifth Street:  Murderers, Cheetahs, and Binion’s World Series of Poker, James McManus

If you like poker, this is the book for you.  The author got paid by Esquire magazine to go to Vegas and cover a murder trial.  And not just any murder trial, but the murder of Teddy Binion, whose seedy old casino was the original home of the World Series of Poker.  McManus takes his writer’s fee and enters the WSOP.

It’s part murder trial reporting, part memoir of his run in the tourney, part history of poker.  Awesome stuff.

The Winds of War/War and Remembrance, Herman Wouk

Okay, this one’s a big one again.  Not one, but two long books. 

Herman Wouk conveniently places members of the Henry family all over the world during (and before) the Second World War.  If you want to learn all about that global conflict while immersed in a rip-roaring yarn of a family saga, this is your book(s).

Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe, Bill Bryson

Your trip to Europe was cancelled.  Want to travel there vicariously with a hugely entertaining and witty writer instead?  Bryson's got you covered.

Who’s Your Caddy? Looping for the Great, Near-Great, and Reprobates of Golf, Rick Reilly

The noted Sports Illustrated wit spent a year caddying with everyone from PGA pros to Vegas golf hustlers.  He caddied for the blind golf champion and Jack Nicklaus.  He caddied for Donald Trump and Deepak Chopra.  He even caddied at the Masters. 

A fun read for anyone who loves golf or used to look forward to reading the back page of SI.

The Myron Bolitar series, Harlen Coben

I read a lot of crime series.  Maybe all of them.  And this isn’t the best one.  It’s not even the 9^th best one.   BUT –I have a lot of friends who never read books but only watch sports and listen to sports radio, and this might be the series for you.

Myron is a former college basketball star whose NBA career was derailed by injury.  He becomes a sports agent – and, like those ridiculous 1970s TV series like Hart to Hart where ordinary citizens get involved in crime-fighting escapades - Myron is constantly having to save his clients from some evil villain. 

They are fun and funny and have just enough darkness in them to save them from being too frothy.

The Princess Bride, William Goldman

You’ve seen the movie.  Now read the book!  William Goldman is a screenwriting legend (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President’s Men) but he wrote TPB as a novel first and a screenplay writer.  And the novel is as charming and delightful as the movie.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams

Read the first 5 pages.  If you love it, you will love all five books in the trilogy (not a typo).  If you hate it, put it down.  This is not for you.

What Not to Read

The Passage Trilogy, by Justin Cronin

This vampire-horror sage about a bat-borne virus that leads to a near-apocalypse…well, unless you’re a masochist, maybe wait on this one.

Happy Reading!

Eli to Canton: An Update

There are two great electoral debates in American life and most approach both with a flawed premise.

The first is the ‘Electoral College vs. Popular Vote’ debate.  (If you want to know about the flawed premise in that debate click here and scroll down to the section titled ‘When You Assume’).

But the far more important one pertains to all conversations about the Baseball and Football Halls of Fame*.

* I’m aware that other sports have Halls of Fame but nobody cares about them.

The flawed premise is this: “Will [insert player name] get into the Hall of Fame?” is a very different question than “Should [insert player name] get into the Hall of Fame?”  But most people elide the question and confuse the issue.

I first wrote about Eli Manning’s chances for the Hall back in January of 2012, while they were still cleaning up the confetti after his 2nd Super Bowl parade.   My attention was solely on the first question:  Will Eli get in?  Obviously a 2nd Super Bowl title and a 2nd Super Bowl MVP put him in the conversation.

But what most people didn’t realize at the time was that his career passing statistics – in particular yardage and TDs – had him on a pace to easily break into the Top 10 all time.  As I wrote at the time:

"When you're talking Halls of Fame…it's essentially a math problem. You look at the numbers, do some projections, and voila' - you can make a pretty good guess at their chances."

I did the math.  I made conservative and aggressive projections, compared those to the last six QBs elected (since all had started their career after 1980), and declared Eli’s Hall chances to be quite good.

Eli Manning’s career is now officially over and all the data is in.  It’s time to reassess the question:

Will Eli Manning get into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton Ohio?

The Good, The Bad, and The Intangibles

The Good
The headline is obvious:  2 Super Bowl wins (and 2 SB MVPs, which many of his critics conveniently forget) and Top 10 rankings in just about every passing statistic.

The stats that matter most to Hall voters are Yardage and TDs.  (If Hall voters gave a flying fig about completion percentage, Chad Pennington would be in the Hall of Fame).   As for Interceptions…well, I’ll get to that later.

Eli finished his career 7th in Yardage.  With Ben Roethlisberger, Matt Ryan, and Aaron Rodgers in striking distance, he could be 10th by the time he’s eligible.  (but he also could be 8th, as Big Ben’s career is in doubt and Rodgers is 10,000 yards behind and turns 37 next year).

He’s also 7th in TD passes, with the same 3 guys trailing him.  They are all hot on his heels and much more likely to pass him*.

* Eli's final numbers fell somewhere between my aggressive and conservative projections.  I projected between 48-71k passing yards; he ended up with 57k.  I projected between 259 and 483 TDs; he ended up with 366.  Not bad, huh?

The next closest active player in both categories is Matthew Stafford, who is quite a way back.  After Stafford the only active player with a shot of passing Eli within the decade is Russell Wilson.

So at the time of voting Eli Manning will likely have those two Super Bowl rings, those two Super Bowl MVP awards, and be Top 10 in the categories that matter most to Hall voters.  He’s in, right?

The Bad
Here’s where we run into some problems.  One problem really.  For most of his career Eli Manning has been a good, but not great, quarterback.

His record, famously, is 117-117.

He’s only made 4 Pro Bowls.  He’s never made All-Pro.  He’s never led the league in anything except interceptions*.

* Though his interception totals are not as bad as many think.  The HoF is jammed with QBs who have more picks and worse INT % than Eli.  He threw more TDs than INTs every season except his shortened rookie year and his one truly terrible season (2013, when he went 18/27; and bounced back with a marvelous 2014 season, throwing for 4400 yards and 30/14 TD/INT ratio)

He never won a playoff game outside those two runs.

When the Hall debate happens for Eli, his detractors will have some good arguments.

The Intangibles
Let's take a moment to discuss how the Pro Football Hall of Fame conducts its voting.  It is radically different from the Baseball Hall of Fame's procedures, and I believe works in Eli's favor.

In baseball, all qualified members of the BBWAA (Baseball Writers Association of America) get a ballot, and can submit up to 10 names.  425 ballots were submitted, and if a candidate is named on 75% of the votes he's in.

But in football, there are only 48 members of the Selection Committee.  They actually get in a room together and talk.   They talk at length about each of the final 25 candidates.  They debate.  They tell stories.  They argue.  It is a sports fan's dream.

This makes sense, because for many football players, statistics are meaningless.  How do you judge an offensive lineman by his stats?  How do you compare the stats of a tight end who could block and a tight end who couldn't?  How do you measure the greatness of a shutdown cornerback?

For the Pro Football Hall of Fame, intangibles matter.  Stories matter.  You see, I was wrong back in 2012.  Election to the Baseball Hall of Fame is essentially a math problem, but in football it's more nuanced than that.

So yes, there will be people in that room talking about Eli's Top 10 ranking in passing yardage and TDs.  And obviously the two Super Bowl wins will be front and center.

But when Eli's critics in the room bring up the interceptions his supporters will be there to say...so what?  Brett Favre threw more picks than anyone else in NFL history.  When an old-timer in the room grumbles about the picks his supporters will point out that Johnny Unitas - Johnny Unitas! - threw more picks than Eli.

When Eli's critics point out his career .500 record, his supporters will remind the room that Joe Namath had a losing record (and 43 more picks than TDs!).  But Joe Namath is in the Hall of Fame because Joe Namath won one of the most memorable Super Bowls in football history.  Joe Namath mattered to the history of the NFL.

And then Eli's supporters will mount their counter attack.

Eli didn't just win two Super Bowls, they'll say.  He won two Super Bowl MVPs.

He didn't just win two Super Bowl MVPs.  He won them against the greatest dynasty this sport has ever seen.

He didn't just win them against the greatest dynasty this sport has ever seen.  He won them in style - throwing two of the most famous passes in NFL history late in the 4th quarter.

He didn't just beat the greatest dynasty this sport has ever seen -twice - he did it at the conclusion of two epic January runs.  The combined records of the 8 teams the Giants beat on the way to its 2 Super Bowls: 108-26. Six of the eight teams were 13-3 or better in regular season.

And as the television informercial announcers say...but wait, there's more!

You think Eli was only clutch in January?  In the regular season, he is ranked 10th All-Time with 35 Game Winning Drives.  That's more than 20 Hall of Famers.  He has more than Bart Starr and Len Dawson combined.  He has twice as many as Steve Young.

Eli elevated every single pass catcher he played with. Look at the remainder of the careers and statlines of Plaxico Burress, Steve Smith, Mario Manningham, Kevin Boss, Jake Ballard, Larry Donnell, Victor Cruz, Hakeem Nicks, Ahmad Bradshaw, and Rueben Randle.   And while it's too early to tell, many observers (including this one!) thought Odell Beckham Jr. would thrive in Cleveland.  Instead his 16-game average went from the ridiculously amazing 106 catches/1485 yards/12 TDs under the supposedly awful late-career Eli Manning to the slightly above-average 74/1035/4 with emerging star Baker Mayfield.

Does toughness matter in the NFL?  Let's not forget those 210 consecutive games started.

And finally, what kind of man was he?  Did he represent the league with class?  Eli Manning played in the bright spotlight of New York City.  He was hammered by the press his first season.  He was hammered by the press and fans most of the 2007 regular season.  He had to live up to the precedent set by an NFL father and an older brother who was the finest quarterback the league has ever seen.  And never, not once, not even for a single moment - not even when he was unceremoniously benched for Geno F#!cking Smith - was he less than the epitome of class.

Right around this time, if one of his supporters think the vote is in the balance, the room will be reminded that in 2016 Eli Manning was the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year.

These stories will matter in that voting room.

A Few Words for the Morons

Anyone who listens to sports radio knows the world is full of morons.  I have heard some galactically stupid arguments against Eli's induction from these morons, and would like to deal with them now.  I encourage you to read these questions in your best Stupid Sports Fan voice.

What About Joe Flacco?  He had one of the greatest Super Bowls of All Time!
When Joe Flacco wins a second Super Bowl MVP and throws for another 17,000 yards and 150 TDs, I'll write a bunch of words in support of his candidacy.

They should've whistled Eli down before he threw that Tyree pass!
Ah, a New England Patriot fan.  I think my favorite thing about the career of Eli Manning is how he drives Patriots fans out of their minds.  The Patriots have used tuck rules and cameras and deflated footballs and every trick in the book and few ones that aren't in the book, so I think we can ignore them here.

Eli was done after the 2nd Super Bowl.  He just padded his stats after that.
Anybody who says this is either:
a) lying
b) has no access to the internet
c) is too flipping stupid to participate in this conversation. 

From 2014-2017 Eli averaged 4,084 yards, 28 TDs, and 14 picks a season.  The Giants were a truly terrible team in this period - but the only thing that didn't suck was the passing game.

In 2018, his last full season as a starter, he threw for 4300 yards, tossed 21 TD passes against 11 picks, and had the highest completion % of his career.  He had a virtually identical passing season as Tom Brady, who along with his much better coaching staff and teammates won another Super Bowl.

In Conclusion
See you in Canton.  And if anyone knows a Hall of Fame voter, please forward them this post.