The Best Game You Can Name Review

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The Best Game You Can Name ReviewOK- I read Tropic of Hockey back when it came out and loved it. So, in describing why I have waited nearly two years from the time "The Best Game You Can Name" was published to get around to reading it, I can only summon the images from Cameron Crowe's masterpiece "Singles" when Campbell Scott's character Steve greets the long-awaited Kyra Sedgwick with, "What took you so long?"
Well, I can only plead the fifth on that, but I LOVE this book. Bidini's style is easy to enjoy- his words flow, coming from the heart, and he weaves a good deal of musical and cultural references througout.
But it's the hockey- oh, the HOCKEY that keeps you on target and turning every page without slowing down. Bidini deftly navigates between anecdotes from his own Toronto Morningstars amateur club to the first-person accounts of former NHLers who speak openly and candidly of their playing days and experiences.
This is a rich narrative- some of Bidini's talking points and references will be lost on more than a few, but when he gets down to the brass tacks: the hockey- he's definitely on his A-game.
There are so many outstanding stories told here, and they keep getting better as the book goes on. I loved former Boston Bruin Walt McKechnie's tale of a young rookie named Dave "Tiger" Williams literally fighting to make a Toronto team and Maple Leaf great Darryl Sittler's warning to McKechnie, which he thought nothing of until Williams blackened one of Terry O'Reilly's eyes. "Gee, Taz-" says McKechnie sitting in the dressing room between periods. "Sittler said that the kid had gotten in a fight per game since the preseason started." Replies O'Reilly: "He'll have two tonight."
That's just magic. As a die-hard B's fan growing up near Boston and worshiping O'Reilly and his Big, Bad Bruins (Al Secord was my first REAL hockey hero), these are the stories I never got enough of when I thirsted for whatever information I could get my hands on, and eagerly awaited every issue of The Hockey News.
Bravo, Dave- this is a GREAT book. And it is my honor to accord this work with a 5-Star rating that is well-deserved. This is must-reading for any true hockey fan...you'll want to go out and lace up the skates immediately after reading just one chapter. Unfortunately for me- that will have to wait, but rest assured. When I return stateside and get back out on the ice, I'll be thanking Dave Bidini for helping bring some of my passion for hockey back.
Baghdad
02-06-08The Best Game You Can Name OverviewBidini returns to the game he loves bestIn 2004, Dave Bidini laced on his skates and slid onto the ice of Toronto's McCormick Arena to play defence with the Morningstars in the E! Cup tourney. While thrashing around the ice, swiping at the puck and his opponents, Bidini got to thinking about how others see the game. Afterward, he set off to talk to former professional players about their experiences of hockey. The result is vintage Bidini — an exuberant, evocative, highly personal, and vividly coloured account of his and his team's exploits, interwoven with the voices of such hockey heroes as Frank Mahovlich, Yvan Cournoyer, John Brophy, Steve Larmer, and Ryan Walter.All aspects of the game are up for grabs in The Best Game You Can Name — the sweetest goals, the worst fights, the trades, the off-ice perks and the on-ice rivalries, not to mention the rotten pranks. Bidini and the former players offer sometimes startling observations about the fans, coaches, owners, other players, and the huge rush of being on the ice, stick in hand, giving everything you have to the best game you can name.From the Hardcover edition.

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Baseballissimo Review

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Baseballissimo ReviewBaseballissimo is one of those books you probably won't find at the bookstore, mainly because they wouldn't know what section to put it in. I only found it because of amazon's amazing "recommended for you" feature. It put together the fact that I enjoy memoirs, baseball, and Italy, and found a book about all three.
Baseballissimo is by Dave Bidini, a Canadian author. A surprisingly high percentage of the offbeat and intriguing books that I come across are by Canadian authors. I don't know how it works exactly, or what the income tax rate must be in Canada to subsidize such a program, but apparently the government actually pays authors to write books. They paid Bidini to take his family (wife, toddler, and infant) to Nettuno, Italy for six months so he could follow the local baseball team, the Peones for a season, and write a book about it. He says his choice was between baseball in Italy or wrestling in Newfoundland. Doesn't sound like a tough choice to me.
Bidini sits in the dugout and sometimes warms up with the Peones, an amateur team in one of the several Italian leagues. He gets to know the players and gives them all nicknames. He finds out how baseball came to be so popular in Italy (American GIs introduced it during World War II). He and his family become temporary residents of the small town of Nettuno near Anzio and about an hour's drive south of Rome. Bidini gets in touch with his roots - his grandparents were immigrants to Canada from Italy. He reminisces about how baseball has always been a part of his life. And he follows the Peones from pre-season training to the exciting season finish against Palermo.
Sometimes you get the feeling that Bidini cares more about the game than the Peones do. They're a good team, but it's just amateur baseball, and they all have day jobs and girlfriends and lives. Bidini's pushing forty and the manager, although still fit and athletic, is in his sixties. The players, mostly in their twenties and in a country where soccer is king, are sometimes late for practice, or are more interested in the fantastic pre-game snacks they've brought. Since this is Italy, there are no hot dogs and sunflower seeds. It's homemade pizza, smooth espresso, and sugary pastries. Sure, the players want to win, and they go all out when they play. But to them it's just a game. Little do they know.
Baseballissimo OverviewIn the spring of 2002, Dave Bidini set off for Nettuno, Italy, with his wife, Janet, and their two small children, in search of his favourite summer game, baseball. Nettuno was his destination because this town, south of Rome, has been the baseball capital of Italy since 1944, when the game was introduced by the American GIs who liberated the region. Bidini wanted to spend time in a town where everyone is as nuts about the game as he is, and in Nettuno, they love the game so much that they hand out baseball gloves and bats to children taking their first communion.For six months Bidini followed the fortunes of the Serie B Peones, Nettunese to the core. At the same time he was also learning about his own heritage, having spent his youth vigorously ignoring his Italianness. The result of his summer in Italy is vintage Bidini: a funny, perceptive, and engrossing book that takes readers far beyond the professional sport to the game that people around the world love to play.From the Hardcover edition.

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