Now I Can Die in Peace: How ESPN's Sports Guy Found Salvation, with a Little Help from Nomar, Pedro, Shawshank, and the 2004 Red Sox

by Bill Simmons

Book Overview

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - Bill Simmons replays the years leading up to the Boston Red Sox historic championship season and says goodbye to a lifetime of suffering. At least for now. "The Red Sox won... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1933060050
• ISBN13: 9781933060057
• Release Date: October 2005
• Publisher: ESPN Books
• Length: 353 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.4" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Amazing

Bought this for my son at his request, he is not a reader! He does enough reading of his college books, so to read for pleasure I was surprised, He did not put this book down! 23 yrs I have never seen him get into a book , but he does like the author , so wanted to give his books a whirl, I bought him the set , the first one he read and took the other back to school with him.

You'll laugh out loud

If you aren't acquainted with Bill Simmons get ready for a treat. This book is an excellent read about the intersection of sports, pop culture, die-hard fandom, and how to embrace said fandom even if your team routinely rips your heart out. I guarantee you will laugh out loud repeatedly and find yourself in tears (from laughing) at least a couple of times.

Following the Bible's Format

Following the 2004 season, The Sports Guy wrote the best of the many books about the Red Sox championship run. In preparation for opening day of 2009, he has revised it to include 100 pages of updated columns. Simmons starts the new section with an analysis of how Sox fans confronted a new and uncursed existence. He asks "What happens when your identity gets stripped away, when you get the chance to start from scratch?" He follows this with: a comparison of Larry Bird and Big Papi, coverage of the Dice-K acquisition, the 2007 championship, the Rocket and the Roids, a defense of Manny being Manny and the 2008 loss to the Rays. Through it all, Simmons writing is more about what it is to be a fan than it is about the team or the game. If you strip away the occassionally on target pop culture references and the more accurately directed humor, this book is the story of the love affair of Simmons, his family and his city for a team. (Part of that sentence is stolen from Ken Coleman's 1967 Impossible Dream narration.) The Sports Guy proudly wears his passion on his sleeve: "I think like a fan, write like a fan and try like hell to keep it that way." It is a lifelong relationship: "You love sports most when you are 16, then you love it a little less every year." Reading these columns, another diehard instinctively feels an affinity for Simmons and appreciates his commitment, knowledge and intermittant suffering. This is made easier because the author often recognizes when he has stepped across the line that separates the healthfully obsessed from the not quite well (One of his footnotes points out, "This paragraph made me sound like an a**hole.") He doesn't always know when he is wandering on the borderline of the geek but that lack of concern and authenticity is part of his charm. He is, above all else, one of us. In The Natural, Robert Redford's Roy Hobbs character asks the sportswriter played by Robert Duvall if he ever played the game. The answer: "No. But I made it more fun to watch." So does Simmons. (This is my attempt at pop culture relevance.) In the 70s and 80s, I didn't consider a Sox season over until I had read what Roger Angell and Peter Gammons wrote about it. That mantle has passed to Simmons. And, apparently, he is not going to disappoint. His plan is to "re-release this book with more chapters every few years, kinda like what God did with the bible." Keep releasing them. We'll keep reading.

No need to love baseball to love this book

I was actually reading one of the classics received by my sister and brother-in-law (both teachers) when this book arrived in the mail...needless to say, the classic sat and gathered dust while I tore through the whole book without stopping. If you a sports fan and/or pop culture fan, you will find this book extremely entertaining. Even if you don't know the finer points of baseball, or the gruesome details of the Red Sox's struggles before winning the big one, this book will still keep you riveted and laughing long after your first web search for some of the more obscure movie star and sports star references. No longer a hidden gem, Bill Simmons has made his mark and is becoming a household name, and has drawn in non-sports fans to join his die-hard New England followers. If you are already a big sports fan, then you probably don't need to read this review as you already have the book in your possession...

Intellectual crack

I've read the Sports Guy for five years and was lukewarm about the subject of this book. I basically wanted an encyclopedia of his old work or entirely new observations done in his typical style. I pretty much knew where he stood with the BoSox. Ultimately, I bought it because I wanted a first edition when it quickly went to second edition. I am glad I did for reasons completely unrelated to getting a collector's edition of an instant sports/pop-culture classic. ****cliche alert****** I truly can't put it down. (sorry, it's true). It's like reading his column for hours. Fun footnotes on the side of the pages are basically like a running diary of him narrating the columns and giving you funny and enlightening asides. I am unhealthily addicted to reading it (just ask my wife). I'm telling you, it's like intellectual crack. Buy it if you like the Sports Guy. Buy it if you like to sit down with your buddies and crack jokes and watch sports. Buy it if you just appreciate a fresh writing style unencumbered by the need to be "literary" in the hoity-toity sense.