NSR REVIEWS: Everything They Had

By: Adam Wilson

courtesy of Letters on Pages

This book is a little bittersweet because it is a posthumous collection of some of David Halberstam’s best work. Halberstam is probably one of the greatest sportswriters ever, so it is sad that we won’t get anymore of his writing. Halberstam writing is incredibly laid back and fun to read. He has the ability to make you feel that you are experiencing whatever he is writing about…which always makes reading more fun. He has written books on topics such as Bill Belichick, the 1949 World Series, the Olympics, and Michael Jordan. He also wrote a number of books on non-sports topics like Vietnam and the Korean War. Between reading David Halberstam, John Fenstein and Bill Simmons…I am a pretty happy guy.

Man…there are a lot of links in that first paragraph. I’ll try to ease back on that. Anyway, Everything they Had: Sportswriting from David Halberstam is a pretty awesome collection of his works. There are sections dedicated to baseball, football, basketball and “other” writings. But the opening was a short little personal essay about rowing (skulling?!?) in Boston. It is hilarious and a fantastic way to start the book.

The book is littered with really interesting stories, including a neat section on Michael Jordan. I love reading about Michael Jordan so I was glad to see he was included. The story about his interview with Ted Williams was really neat too. Basically Halberstam is second to none in his biographies of professional athletes.

One negative thing that I noticed was his tendency to be “old-manish” and complain that things were better back in his day. Especially in the football section. I lost my interest during his second essay about old-timey football. Maybe it’s just because I am younger, but I don’t know that everything was better in the old days. But I guess you would expect a young person to think that way anyway. Another negative in the baseball section was the huge focus on the Yankees and Red Sox. Now, I understand that he is from the Bronx and then went to school in Boston…but still. I’m tired of everything revolving around those two teams. There are other teams that exist in baseball! Ok…rant over.

There were a couple really funny things that are only funny because I am reading this decades later than when he originally wrote it. For example, he wrote an essay about how classy Pat Riley is. This is now funny because Pat Riley quit on the Miami Heat team while coaching them because they were playing poorly. Twice! Now that’s class! He also wrote about how super duper awesome Jeremy Giambi is…but as it ends up, probably a fair amount of that super duperness was steroid related. Not that Halberstam could have known at the time of course. Yet funny nonetheless.

In conclusion…this book is awesome for anyone who loves great writing or sports. If you love both, then this book is perfect! Go get it. Today!

Rating: 5 out of 5

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Adam Wilson not only lives in Cincinnati...but is also 87% sure that Jay Bruce can heal the blind. He also is the editor of Letters on Pages, a non-fiction book review website, where you can find the review you just read and many more!

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  1. [...] Review: Everything They Had 30 05 2008 The National Sports Review gave this posthumous collection of Halberstam’s sports pieces top [...]

    Pingback by * Review: Everything They Had « Ron Kaplan’s Baseball Bookshelf on May 30, 2008

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