Last Friday I was on a plane most of the day, so i decided to try my hand at reading a book, which I haven’t done since Moneyball. I went and picked up God Save the Fan by Deadspin editor Will Leitch. He spoke of the irrelevance of sports, while making sure to show it’s importance. I just wanted to recommend it because it might be the first book I’ve read in one day since one of the Goosebumps books. Here is my favorite excerpt is a quote that he included from Gilbert Arenas as he describes how his ideal shoe commercial would go:
“You know how I always throw my jersey into the stands after a game? In Washington, they just go crazy for it. So in this commercial, that’s what I’m gonna do with my shoes. I’ve just hit a game winner, and I throw these shoes. Everyone starts to react, and you see everything in slow motion. Everyone’s pushing, shoving, doing whatever it takes to try to get to these shoes. People from the 400 level, they’re jumping off the ledge, they’re missing the pile, hitting nothing but chairs, and you can just see in people’s faces like, Ooooh, that hurt. While all this stuff’s going on, one of the shoes pops out of the crowd, and a little girl gets it and she takes off. A couple of people see she has it, and they start chasing her, and she’s looking back running—and then she gets clotheslined by a kid in a wheelchair. So he picks the shoe up and says—he’s gonna have the only line in there—’They said I couldn’t get it. Heh. Impossible is nothing.’ And then he rolls off.”
This quote pretty much sums up what Leitch loves about sports and describes probably the most truthful (in the sense that he delves into how we feel as fans) book I have read. Yes, I said truthful in reference to a book written by a guy who made his name as a blogger, a blogger that will now be a contributing editor for New York Magazine.
Update: Here is an interview with Leitch that was emailed to me from The Third I, thanks for the heads up.
