Winners & Losers documents Bob Latham’s trips to various sporting events as well as his thoughts on some others that he didn’t attend. It is broken down in to 5 chapters and each chapter has several different stories that fits into each category/chapter. These chapters are – Places I Remember, Being There, Trouble Ahead, Trouble Behind, Learning From The Game, Not Your Everyday People, Happy To Be a Fan and Taking a Look Back.
The first chapter is almost like a bucket list of sporting events – and it is really cool to read his thoughts and experiences at all of them. It’s kind of like what I do with the blog, but in book form – a compilation of his articles (hmm that gives me all sorts of ideas!). There are also his thoughts on some other aspects of the sports – like should athletes try and sing? (It seems like his answer is yes – if it is for charity.) Thoughts on coaches and cheating, etc.
I think pretty much every sport is represented at least once in the book – baseball, hockey, tennis, racing, rugby etc. I have to say I think my favorite story (though they all are great and well written) is the one about his buddy and one of the Texas Rangers players. They had seats in the front row near 3rd and Bob’s buddy was heckling the home third baseman constantly. What the player does in retaliation is great. Bob also got the chance to hear the player’s perspective on it as well – I don’t want to give too much away though!
I also liked his article on Why The Wild Cards Win. The Giants, a wild card team, beat the 15-0 Patriots in the super bowl. I was interested to read Bob’s thoughts on it.
I would recommend this book to any sports fan, it is definitely interesting, funny and well written.
I received a free e-copy of this book from NetGalley in order to write this review.
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