The Caddie Was a Reindeer: And Other Tales of Extreme Recreation

by Steve Rushin

Book Overview

Steve Rushin, a four-time finalist for the National Magazine Award, has been hailed as one of the best sportswriters in America. In The Caddie Was a Reindeer he circumnavigates the globe in pursuit of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0871138786
• ISBN13: 9780871138781
• Release Date: September 2004
• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Underrated, overlooked sports classic

Rushin goes everywhere in pursuit of a story. My favorite (maybe) is "Beers and Shots" which takes you to the heart of dart world in a London pub, where he measures the pressure that Ted Hankey felt while defending his World Darts Championship (a prize worth a quarter of a million dollars) against all comers. Rushin nacechecks Martin Amis' London Fields, which he praises as the "epic darts novel" but for my money he (Rushin) can say just as much in 4,000 words as Amis can say in 90,000. He's funnier too, asserting that "sometimes the healthiest thing a body can do is get out of the sunshine, off the green grassm out of the fresh air and breathe in the opposite--air that is equal parts smoke, tension, and BO. Only then will you rediscover what first drew you, as a child, to games." Some of his pieces collected here are a little flimsy, like an essay poking fun at some of the outlandish names of athletes, such as "the insuperable Hannibal Navies, whose name always conjures in my head a fleet of amphibious elephants--in bathing cas and nose plugs--swimming ashore at Normandy en route to the Alps." It's kind of cute, but minor, feels like padding in the context of the other, meatier pieces. His reconstuction of the 1962 Mets is priceless, even to those of us who lived through the horror. He calls it "Bad Beyond Belief" and reading through the shocking details once again you rest a little bit easy, knowing that no team, anywhere, will ever play as badly as our beloved Mets that year. His profiles of Roone Arledgfe and Jim Brown are razor sharp, and his visit to the Topps Factory plays out the dream of every little boy. You might have read some of these stories before in SPORTS ILLUSTRATED. You'll enjoy them even more in this sharp volume. There was only one I didn't like, the misguided attempt at South Asian Pacific dialect in Rushin's account of his travels in Bali, called wincingly, "Mr. Stiv's Excellent Adventure." Pointing out how funny foreigners talk must have been a scream back in the days of Bret Harte and Mark Twain but today it goes down like a lead balloon and I'm surprised none of Rushin's editors took him aside for a chat.