Crazyball: Sports Scandals, Superstitions, and Sick Plays

Much as I was looking forward to this book, it ended up being incredibly disappointing. Full of one-liners and fast overviews of material that most sports fans will already know, there's just not much content here.

Three very telling facts: A) I don't really follow either golf or basketball, but even I knew about many of the anecdotes that related to those sports. B) I consider myself a casual sports fan, and yet, I could give you more detail on some of the scandals and flubs detailed here. C) Perhaps most telling of all: The longest chapter of the book is a collection of sections summing up and outlining highlights from favorite sports movies. (That's right--the longest chapter in a nonfiction book about sports is related to summing up show more comedies that any reader will have already seen.)

The authors obviously enjoy sports, but when it comes down to it, this book is a running-through of headlines and one-liners, and has very little depth. It's written in more the style of a coffee table book that would sell itself through tons of pictures and the occasional graphic overview of statistics. But those things are missing because it's printed as a traditional book--and, as such, it's a disappointing affair.

On the whole, I just can't recommend it. It might be an entertaining read for the average middle school boy who likes sports, but doesn't know much about past craziness, but for an adult reader who enjoys sports.... well, again, there's just not much here. show less

Crazyball is an engaging collection of stories about sports and athletes, from baseball to hockey. Some of the storiess are familiar old chestnuts, like the tale of how the Boston Red Sox sold Babe Ruth to the NY Yankees so that their owner could finance "No,No Nanette", a smash Broadway show. Others were new to me, probably because they involved sports I don;'t follow, but all are entertaining and well-told. This is not a book to read straight through, but rather one to dip into for a tale or two from time to time. Reading it was a lot of fun!

I really enjoyed this book of several hundred short sports stories that involve famous, dramatic, quirky, or just plain strange events. Crazyball is a quick, fun read. You can open this book to almost any page and start reading, as well as put down and return to later. Most stories are only a page or so long, so sometimes I was hoping for a little more detail, but on balance, the brevity ensured that the reader does not get bored with any of the stories. Though some are certainly better than others, the short vignettes are generally quite entertaining.

One thing missing from the book is an index, however. As currently published, if someone was trying to find a particular anecdote, they would have to remember which chapter it was from and show more leaf through the book to find it. show less

I received this book as part of the Early Reviewers program here on Library Thing.

This was a decent book that I generally enjoyed but lacked a bit to make it a great book for me. As a huge sports fan who reads a lot I was familiar with many of the stories that are told in this book.

The book would probably make an excellent introduction for folks who don't know much about all of the crazy things that happen in sports but for me it was mostly rehashing familiar territory without adding anything more of substance to the stories. Crazyball felt like a bit of a tweener to me. Either commit to going more in depth about fewer stories or go a little less in depth and just hit the highlights with even more stories.

This book is probably not for show more the serious sports fan but does cast a pretty wide net and so would be a decent starting place for a younger sports fan with limited knowledge of history. show less

A good collection of sports stories covering a wide selection of sports. There are some familiar stories, Ruth to the Yankees, and Bobby Thompson home run, but there are some that have rarely been told, like NASCAR driver Rusty Wallace paying a $5,000 fine in pennies, and the story of the All-American Red Heads, the female equivalent to the Harlem Globetrotters.

This book falls into the category of what I like to call Bathroom Readers. For me a bathroom reader is any collection of relatively short stories that lend themselves to being read individually.The way this book is arranged, each chapter is a group of somewhat related sports anecdotes. I did enjoy this book. The stories were written in a way that provided just enough background to help you understand the set up of the story. Not a book that will keep you riveted but a good read non the less.

Quick read of a bunch of different crazy sport stories. I had heard of most of these before (perhaps thanks to all the sports bloopers videos I've watched over the years), but it would be a good introduction to someone not really familiar. Because the stories are short, it would also probably make a good book for short spurts... say the bathroom.