What's My Name, Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States

Basically this is a collection of entries from Dave Zirin's The Edge of Sports column. Which, for those of you who (like myself) had never heard of it, is apparently a sports column with a progressive political slant.

The reason I'd never heard of the column is that I'm not at all a sports fan. Which is one of the reasons I decided to read this book, actually. I think it's good to get outside your ken once in a while. Not exactly outside my comfort zone, though, since I'm all about progressive politics. But hey, you can only ask so much.

The book was a pretty good read. Being an American Studies student, when I'm going to read something like this I would prefer it to be in more of an in-depth, extended-essay type form—think Henry show more Giroux's The Mouse that Roared, which I loved—rather than a bunch of two- to three-page essays (columns). That's a question of form, and I'm sure some people prefer this approach, but of course form influences content. And this particular form means that he doesn't get very deep with his analysis and he can't draw very many significant connections among the diverse issues he's discussing. To Zirin's credit, he does try to work out those connections in the intros and the Afterword. And I'm sure compiling the book this way saved him an ungodly amount of work, which might have made the difference between doing the book and not. So fair enough.

The content was reasonably interesting—some parts more than others. I got pretty bored with the discussion of unions, for some reason. (I don't know why; I'm fully in support of players' unions and I tend to be one of the opposing voices when people bitch about players' strikes—I hate hearing all about players' exorbitant salaries, considering that they are the ones doing the work and management is making tons more on their backs.) But most of the rest of it I found pretty interesting. His exposure of the nationalism and inherent politics in pro sports today, for example, was eye-opening.

If you're a sports fan with progressive politics, I would think this would be right up your alley. Zirin's leftist slant is completely apparent, and he makes no apologies for it. If that doesn't bother you, give it a shot. Frankly, I think that politically conservative voices are all too common in sports these days; it's nice to have some counterweight. show less

"What's My Name, Fool?" shatters the image that many on the left think of athletes. Citing both historical and present day acts of resistance by athletes in national spot-light sports, DC area socialist Dave Zirin challenges this sometimes elitist with clear and crisp writing. The title comes from Muhammad Ali challenging white reporters, who made it a point to call him Cassius Clay, his former name, after a dominating victory. From football to baseball to soccer to tennis to boxing to the Olympics, Zirin digs into the history and shines a light into the dark corners that the major leagues would prefer remain unexplored. Zirin discusses racism, classism, sexism and homophobia, and also profiles uplifting examples of athletes fighting show more the power and speaking the truth.

Such glaring examples include the domination of a nazi boxer by Joe Lewis, the smashing of the color barrier in baseball with years of organizing by members of the Negro leagues and communist sports writers, the Black Power salute given after winning the gold and bronze medals by the American Olympic Track Team to protest apartheid and segregation, and current day examples of antiwar women's college hoopster Toni Smith or all-star slugger Barry Bonds criticizing racism and the war in Iraq and then being targeted by the Bush adminstration as anti-american or pro-bowl Miami Dolphins running back Ricky Williams refusing to be used anymore to sell tickets.

As an rabid sports fan, I loved this book and saw it as the connect between my two major interests, political action and sports. Zirin criticizes the sports industry by taking solid aim at the ownership who make it their goal to exploit athletes who are mainly working class people of color, sacrificing their bodies in order to bring their families out of poverty. He does a good job at pointing out that athletes are not the dumb idiots that society encourages them to be, but instead many use their fame for good causes. For every Michael Jordan being silent on the issues like sweatshops, there is a Kareem Abu Jabar who the right wishes would just shut up and go away. I also believe it is a huge mistkae to dismiss all sports fans, possibly because of classism, and some of the best organizing can be done amongst sporting events. show less

Reviewed by Mr. Overeem (Language Arts)
Zirin's about the only sportswriter who consistently looks at sports in the larger framework of society. He's called the Howard Zinn of sports reporters; that's a somewhat ludicrous exaggeration (his style and scholarship don't come close), but he will make any sports fan think twice about what seem to be closed arguments. Check out his weekly column at http://www.edgeofsports.com and be sure to read the commentary, which is sometimes as interesting as the columns. (Note: the title refers to what Muhammad Ali used to say--over and over--to fighters who refused to call him by his Muslim name...while he was whipping them in the ring.)

Book Review from the October 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard:

http://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2006/02/dave-zirin-whats-my-name-fo...