This is a very well written book on advertising. It is nice for a change to have heard of the authors! Usually when I read a review in another publication, such as Adweek, I am curious about the book but never buy it-this time I went ahead and bought it and I am most pleased. I am looking even more forward to the publisher's book entitled Inside the Minds: Leading Marketers - with the Chief Marketing Officers from Coke, GE, FedEx, American Express and other big names. It will be a very interesting contrast to the advertising side of the business.

This book is a must read for every advertiser-fantastic insight into the future of the advertising world. Adweek was right-this is a must read.

I have read close to 50 books on advertising throughout my career and this was by far the most innovative and thought provoking book I have read to date. I especially liked the chapter by Tim Love at Saatchi & Saatchi-but the entire book is full of insightful thoughts on where the future of the advertising industry is going. This is THE book to read if you are in the advertising, marketing or public relations industries.

Hard to believe but my 21st birthday was the day Bucky Dent hit the Home Run to beat the Red Sox at Fenway Park.

I was a senior at Providence College in Rhode Island that year. During my four years of college either the Red Sox or the Yankees were in the World Series every season. At Providence half the kids were from NY/CT and the other half from Boston. It was bedlam every Fall. We didn't get a lot of studying done October nights.

I grew up in the New York area a life time Yankee fan but only went to my first game in 1965 when they began a period of years being terrible. My first real baseball memory was going to Yankee Stadium with my Father for a Sunday double header. In those days they hung all the Championship banners off the roof top facade on Sundays. It was impressive. For years I rooted for the Horace Clarke Yankees, then rejoiced when Sparky Lyle was obtained from the Red Sox for Danny Cater. When the Yankees got good in the late 1970s it was my first taste of seeing them win anything.

I got into broadcasting in college and had the chance to go to several Yankee and Red Sox games to interview players like Catfish Hunter, Oscar Gamble, Cliff Johnson, and Jim Rice. Rice put me off the first time I approached him for an interview, then he came back and said, "You still got those questions?" I even interviewed Bily Martin one night before he got fired and replaced by Bob Lemon. Billy was very nice to me when I talked with him. He answered my questions and then said "Glad to have you with us". Of course I was dumb struck listening on the radio to Old Timer's Day from my summer job and hearing the announcement from Bob Shepard that Martin would come back the next year as manager.

We went to the Sunday game of the four game sweep in Boston early in September and I remember how dejected the Red Sox faithful were. We hustled back down to New York to see a game of the followup series at Yankee Stadium the next week. The Red Sox were gritty to come back and tie the Yankees on the last day of the season setting up the playoff game.

The campus was dead quite that afternoon of Oct 2nd as everyone who absolutely didn't have to be in class or at a team practice crowded around tvs to watch the game. We had a party in my Fennel Hall dorm room watching on my old black and white set. The suspense was amazing. When Bucky hit the home run it seemed important but not yet decisive. There where innings left to play. The outs counted down. At the end of the game we poped a Champagne cork out the window. (the drinking age at that time was 18).

It is fortunate to have had such a great memory for a 21st birthday. I can hardly remember the World Series that year, the rivalry with the Red Sox had been so intense. It was a great time when a baseball game still can still be one of the most important things in your life. I look forward to reading this book.

Ken Kraetzer White Plains, NY

kgkraetzer@aol.com

Unless you are a Red Sox fan, you may not know about the Curse of the Bambino. In the early part of the 20th century, the Boston Red Sox dominated the American League. One of their best players was a pitcher named Babe Ruth. The owner traded the Babe to the New York Yankees in exchange for the money to invest in the Broadway production of No No, Nanette and it's been no cigar for the Red Sox ever since.

Jonathan Schwartz has one of the worst cases of Red Sox addiction that I have ever heard of. He has been a radio announcer in New York for over 30 years (that's enemy territory for Red Sox fans). To stay up with his beloved Red Sox, he spent almost $15,000 in long distance charges from 1970-77 to listen in to the air check for WITS in Hartford of the games (calling in from Paris in some cases).

This is a story first published in Sports Illustrated in 1978 and covers one of the worst periods in Red Sox history: The season when they blew a late 14 game lead to the dreaded Yankees. I lived in Boston at that time, and it was painful to recall the swoon. Yet at the end of the season, they pulled a comeback and tied the Yankees. There was to be a one-game playoff in Fenway Park (determined by a coin toss) on October 2, 1978. In a prior playoff against Cleveland in Fenway in 1948 (also on October 2), the Sox had lost 8-3.

During the slide, the worst time had been when the Red Sox lost four in a row in Fenway to the Yankees with less than a month to go. Schwartz recounts his reaction. In a funk, he impulsively walked out of his apartment with $50 and a credit card, and flew to California. Only after arriving did he remember to call his live-in girlfriend and tell her what he had done.

With the big game coming up, Schwartz thinks he should take it easy and watch the game on television. At the last minute, he cannot resist and calls in some markers to get a press pass.

Most of the book recounts the game. It is interspaced with pre and post game comments from the key players.

The ironies continue to abound. You'll have to read the book to get them all. The Sox took a 2-0 early lead, but the faithful were fearful. Bucky Dent, the light-hitting shortstop, fouled a ball off his leg and play was stopped temporarily while he was treated. On the mound, the delay cost Torres (the Red Sox pitcher and former Yankee) his concentration. You guessed it. Dent hit a home run. Gossage replaced Guidry later on and stops the Red Sox from rallying back.

The final score: New York 5, Boston 4 (or as Schwartz puts it "Destiny 5, Boston 4).

Required reading and rereading for all Red Sox fans until the Curse of the Bambino is lifted!

Overcome your disbelief that anyone team could have so much bad luck with so much talent by reading this engaging story of baseball tragedy!

A basketball game in the NBA is 48 minutes long, right? Wrong. There is so much more drama behind the scenes and so much more at stake than another victory in every NBA game that the average fan is never entitled to witness and experience but this book does the best job I've ever seen in taking you there. It doesn't hurt that a classic confrontation between the then-mighty Celtics and the upstart Cavaliers is the matchup taken into focus by this great literary effort of showing what life in the NBA is like (at least during the 1980s). No personal fouls here... just a sure shot for all basketball fans who are also bookworms at heart and are not limited to enjoying the game of basketball on the television or on the court. Like I said, nothing but net..

Every season of a Boston sports fans' waking day is covered in this excellent book. The highs and lows of each of the 4 major Hub sports teams are chronicled here, capturing the moods,the history, and tradition that is truly unique! Boston Globe columnist Ryan shares his passion that the true sports fan of New England feels. Whether Boston fan or foe,this is the ultimate guide that realistic captures the flavor of the love affair of a sports town and it's fans! A great read!!!!

A well written documentary of the 1996 Superbowl Run by well known Boston Globe Author Bob Ryan. An informative behind the scenes look of each game in a season that was one to remember. Patriots fans should definitely snag this one. This is a collectors item that a true Pats fan shouldn't be without!

Even without SQUADRON SUPREME, his excellent runs on CAPTAIN AMERICA and QUASAR speak for themselves. But this is one of his finest hours.

This limited series is not the first appearance of the Squadron Supreme; they had shown up in several issues of THE AVENGERS, parodying DC's trademark heroes and "proving" that the Avengers would beat them.

But it was the late, great Mr. Gruenwald who took them and placed them in a superb mini-series that combined comedy, drama, and action with moral arguments.

Even to this day, the questions remain. Who was right--Hyperion or Nighthawk? Where EITHER of them right? And so forth.

Rest in peace, Mr. Gruenwald. After writing this, you've earned it.

Other reviews have mostly summed it up. This story is superb. Mr. Gruenwald is underappreciated genuis. It's unfortunate he, and the Squadron, haven't been appreciated sooner. And, that Mr. Gruenwald didn't get to see his most cherished creation enjoy the recognition and popularity it deserves. The exciting and innovative concepts and ground-breaking devices aside, I enjoyed the heck out of the Hyperion character. With Superman being one of the premier characters of the superhero genre, and practically a pop-culture institution today, it seems odd that unlike other hit characters, he has never seriously been emulated. But it is that very popularity that prevented it. He is so recognizable, writers were just too afraid of being "copycats". Leave it to Gruenwald to have the courage to create his own version of a classic(as well as the rest of JLA), and instill it with it's own identity, and his own unique vision. Not unlike an "ElseWorlds" story, there is much familiar, and much strikingly different. Powers and origin parallel. But Hyperion, like the other Squadron characters, has his own unique quirks, hang-ups, dreams, and ambitions. The story takes the "What-If?" concept to extremes, as Hyperion and the Squadron say and do the things their "original" counterparts wouldn't even think. Fans of Superman and/or JLA should love this, as will any fans of good comic story telling. Don't pass on this one, if you miss it the second time, you may regret it.

I recently bought and read the collection after having read the original limited series back in the 1980s. The late Mr. Gruenwald's storytelling skills and love for the old JLA series continue to shine. I loved some of MG's takes on the classic heroes. How would Superman change his outlook if he abandoned his Clark Kent persona? How would the Golden Age Wonder Woman act if she outlived Steve Trevor and lost her Amazon homeland? Would Batman be more effective on the streets or the White House? We see all kinds of fantastic technology in comics, but what would happen if it was unleashed on the real world? Before Kingdom Come, he had the courage to present the ramifications of great power taking on greater responsibility at the expense of free will. Unlike KC, SS does not get bogged down in dark tones and endless fights, while it still allows the reader to empathize, as well as root for, the Squadron even though they have gone beyond their lawful duty. One wonders what comics would have looked like today if Squadron Supreme had been the big influence instead of Watchmen.

This book truely is a great basketball book. Obviously written by one of the NBA's greatest players, you get to be in the mind of Larry Bird, and see for yourself what he was like, from his point of view. The book spends the majority of the time on his NBA because of the success he had as a player. I really liked the fact that Larry gave his respect to his opponents and their fans, and that he didn't write from a egotistical stand point. There were only two things that I think could've been better the book, the first was that it didn't really talk too much his work ethic in his high school years. It did mention it occasionaly, and obviously we know he had a great work ethic, it just didn't mention it much. The other thing was the Indiana State-Michigan State rivalry. Again, it mentioned it, but it didn't talk about it that much. Overall, I loved the book and I think you will too! Read it!

Larry Bird is truly one of the greatest that ever played the game. With the help of Ervin "Magic" Johnson, he not only managed to resurrect the Celtic dynasty, but also the entire NBA, which was teetering on the brink of ruination. Now, we get to hear the man behind the legendary exploits on the court. This book not only tells of his career and accomplishments, but also gives a truly touching account of where he came from, where he's been, what he's been through, and what it took to become possibly the most legendary, if not talented, athlete ever to step on a basketball court. This is an inspiring, breathtaking story, and is deeply motivational. Bird is a living example that a combination of hard work, self-sacrifice, never-say-die ethics, and a selfless sense of team play, whether in a sporting venue or in ANY situation life has to offer, invariably leads to not only success, but also excellence. Recommended reading for all aspiring athletes, young people, and anyone else in need of inspiration.

Larry Bird was one of the best basketall players ever and the perfect American hero. "The Hick from French Lick" personified what hard work can do for someone not blessed with great ability. As you read the book, you feel inspired by Bird's work ethic, his troubled youth, and learn to appriciate his carreer and a great insight to being on the road in the NBA.
For any sports fan, Drive is a great look at a great professional.

The cover of this book really caught my eye and the photos within are interesting to a fan of early 20th century baseball,but the work pales by comparison to other tomes using the same format i.e. relying on old newspaper stories to tell the story. As a member of SABR, however, I found the egregious error on page 177 more than I could take.

John McGraw did not receive any comuppance for boycotting the 1904 World Series. The Athletics did not win the 1905 Series. In fact this was one of the greatest Series of all times in which Christy Mathewson pitched three complete game shutouts. Mr. Ryan and his editor should be ashamed of this mistake. It just goes to show you what can be published as history just to make a buck. Next time get a real baseball historian to do your research! Mr.s Murname, McGraw and Mathewson must be rolling over in their graves! To the readers--SAVE YOUR MONEY or try Autumn Glory instead.

Bob Ryan has done a serviceable job in creating a nice, easy baseball read. This book is a light read and probably won't completely satisfy the die-hard baseball history buffs, but for the average fan or Boston Red Sox fan (or Pittsburgh Pirate fan), this is a must have.

Despite this book's heavy reliance upon the Boston Globe's archives, the book gives the reader an appreciation for the evolution of the game and the fanfare of the world series even without modern mass media hype. Again, while the book's research may not be comprehensive, it is certainly adequate.

Ryan tells the story of the 1903 in short chronological order, which may help some build towards the excitement of the world series, which (obviously) comes at the end. He also does a nice job of illustrating some of the characters who participated in the 1903 series. However, he said very little of the two stellar and intriguing seasons both respective teams had. The book jumps almost too quickly to the world series without explaining how these teams got to the post season.

Though the book may not delve deeply into the season, Ryan should be given credit for telling a succinct, precise story, one that moves the reader along without getting bogged down in minutae.

This book has plenty nostalgia for baseball historians as well as being a guided tour of a series 100 years ago. It gives any baseball fan an appreciation of how much the game has changed while still staying the same.

The best-of-nine series between Boston and Pittsburgh was tied, one game apiece, when Game Three of the 1903 World Series began in Boston, a city delirious about its new American League team. Third-baseman/manager Jimmy Collins was enormously popular, star pitcher Cy Young was just one of three Boston pitchers with more than twenty wins during the season, and, best of all, tickets to Game Three were only fifty cents. When those were gone, ticket sellers kept selling admission, and when the seats were filled, spectators jumped the ropes to line the baselines. When those became crowded, they lined the outfield, occasionally reaching the diamond itself. The crowd was so large that short fly balls were declared ground rule doubles, as were homeruns, the overly enthusiastic crowd causing Boston to lose the game with its excessive enthusiasm.

Ryan is immensely skillful in bringing the Series alive by characterizing the players for both teams, showing what makes them unusual and memorable. Among these are 36-year-old Cy Young, catcher Lou Criger (sickly already with the early stages of tuberculosis), the elegant and intelligent Jimmy Collins (a consummate player and respected captain/manager), the hot-tempered Hobe Ferris (later infamous for kicking a teammate in the face), and shortstop Freddy Parent of Sanford, Maine, who lived to become a 92-year-old commentator during Boston's 1967 World Series. For Pittsburgh, the legendary Honus Wagner and pitcher Deacon Philippe, who pitched in five of the eight games, sometimes with only one day off, are especially vivid.

He devotes an entire chapter to Pittsburgh owner Barney Dreyfuss, "the greatest ball fan on earth," a generous man who declared that he would take no profit from the Series and that every penny would go to his players. Numerous contrasts, both overt and implied, exist between Dreyfuss, whom Ryan believes belongs in the Hall of Fame, and Boston owner Henry Killilea, for whom the team was a business which he oversaw from out of state. Killilea eventually modified his original demands and agreed to a 60-40 split with his players, who as winners of the Series earned significantly less than the losers.

Comparisons and contrasts between between the games of 1903 and the present abound. As early as 1903, Globe writer Tim Murnane suggested a designated hitter. Boston's Royal Rooters began the concept of the traveling fan club, and their use of a song to upset the opposition was a deciding factor in the Series. Scalpers became a major problem in Game 8, the last game of the Series, and Ryan suggests that it was someone in owner Killilea's employ who was responsible. Ryan reminds us of the roots of "the American pastime," more than a decade before Babe Ruth appeared in a Boston uniform, and shows that after one hundred years the game is remarkably unchanged. Mary Whipple

Once again Bob Ryan gives what no one can give. The inside connections make for interesting reading. Written with the heart as well as the mind,