God Save the Fan: How Preening Sportscasters, Athletes Who Speak in the Third Person, and the Occasional Convicted Quarterback Have Taken the Fun Out of Sports (And How We Can Get It Back) [Bargain Price] [Hardcover]

Will Leitch (Author)

Book Description

Release date: January 22, 2008

ESPN thinks its viewers are stupid. The Olympics claw at your inner sap. Barbaro, after all, was just a horse. So says Will Leitch, founding editor of Deadspin.com, whose God Save the Fan is your new manifesto.

Arch and unrepentant, Leitch is the mouthpiece for all the frustrated fans who just want their games back from big money, bloated egos, and blathering sportscasters. Always a fan first and a journalist second, Leitch considers the perfection of fantasy leagues, the meaninglessness of the steroids debate, and the aching permanence of loyalty to just one team. He'll tell you why, long before that dogfighting mess, Michael Vick's undercover STD clinic name was Ron Mexico; why athletes persist in publicly praising God; and what the beer companies really think about you. Share Leitch's dread as he spends twenty—four hours watching ESPN. Sit and have a beer with John Rocker and his surprising girlfriend. Be inspired by Rick Ankiel's phoenixlike rise, and fall.

With a voice strengthened by the success of Deadspin and its chorus of commenters, Leitch has written all—new material for God Save the Fan. If you or a fan you love is suffering from the sense of listless dissatisfaction brought on by the leagues and networks, this is your restorative tonic. Packed with lists, glossaries, confessions, and rages, Leitch's manifesto sings a rallying cry for fan empowerment. The games, after all, belong to us.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In his third book, Leitch, the founding editor of the sports blog Deadspin.com, offers a collection of passionate, original essays about the good (fantasy football; the saga of the once promising pitcher Rick Ankiel) and the bad (ESPN, which he compares to the Imperial Forces from Star Wars; sports reporters' misguided attempts to become patriotic after 9/11) of sports, and how fans can navigate through the mess to enjoy the games and themselves. If we all realized that, hey, we don't need to listen to these idiots on television screaming at us... they'd be out of a job, Leitch writes in the introduction. The book sometimes strays off course from its stated purpose—memories of Leitch's popular blog subjects (Barbaro, Ohio TV reporter Carl Monday) and a host of cheeky sports glossaries are unnecessary and only disrupt the book's fervor. However, Leitch (who has also written for Playboy and New York) nicely balances potent humor with sharp and sometimes vicious insight without lapsing into clichés. He manages to be an astute sports critic while maintaining his enthusiasm as a fan, making his book an entertaining and enlightening read for anyone who roots for the home team a little too hard. (Jan.)
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Review

“If you can’t find something to laugh at and be offended by on the same page of this book, you aren’t reading carefully enough.” (Washington Post Book World )

“R-rated, spectacularly irreverent, often mean and just as often piercingly insightful” (Newsday )

“A witty poke in the eye to the entire sports-industrial complex...A fanfare for the common fan and, if you’re stuck in the cheap seats, easier to read than a website.” (Sports Illustrated )

“Leitch balances potent humor with sharp and sometimes vicious insight without lapsing into clichés. He manages to be an astute sports critic while maintaining his enthusiasm as a fan, making his book an entertaining and enlightening read for anyone who roots for the home team a little too hard.” (Publishers Weekly )

“If the truth is to be found in humor - and it is - then let Will Leitch lead our people’s revolution. He’s everything that’s right and funny and true in American sports.” (Jeff MacGregor, Sports Illustrated special contributor and author of Sunday Money )

“The funniest sports book I have ever read. Yeah, as a member of the mainstream media I should probably despise Will Leitch. But God Saves the Fan is an uproarious, painful, pointed, skittish manifesto on all that’s warped in the world of Lucious Pusey.” (Jeff Pearlman, New York Times bestselling author of The Bad Guys Won! )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Harper (January 22, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061351784
• ASIN: B003156BTA
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,575,023 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Funny and accurate take on today's spoiled sports world April 16, 2008

By Timothy R. Sullivan

Format:Hardcover

Will Leitch's book is a nice blend of laugh-out-loud satire, spoofs, and funny truth in the ridiculous, over-priced, ego-maniacal world of sports. The editor of the popular "Deadspin" blog is more than just funny, he's insightful.

I really don't read "Deadspin" very often, but the cover and title of this book -- not the blog -- was what drew me to it. I'm a huge sports fan, but I'm so tired of the overflow of cash and ego that if pro sports ended tomorrow, I wouldn't care. Sadly, Division I college sports now just mirrors professional sports, they're just less honest about the money. I'd wished Leitch would've addressed the greed of college sports, but what the heck, he lives in New York City, the worst college sports city in America. He's a pro guy ... though his take on interviewing a former University of Michigan basketball player was a complete riot.

Fans can be pretty dumb, too, as Leitch points out in his take on Barbaro. The article and hilarious drawing of the horse was very funny.

Some of Leitch's takes don't work -- does Scott Van Pelt's rejection of a date really need to be posted, is that news? Leitch found Van Pelt's phone message "humanizing." I found it boring. But Leitch is more often on target than not. And yeah, Chris Berman's "YWML" episode isn't news either, but if anyone needed to be a victim of "gotcha" journalism, it's Berman, who has become a caricature of himself. Yes, ESPN needed to be taken down a few notches and Leitch is just the guy to do it.

A quick and funny read, I hope Leitch has another book on the way. Will there be a fan revolution? Nah, fans are too emotional and gullible. If the NY Giants said tomorrow that end zone seats were $5,000 apiece, they'd get sold. Will ESPN's egos shrink? Are you kidding me?

Leitch is a little too much of a believer in the fan revolution and not a realist. I see no uprising from fans.

But hey, at least Leitch is trying, and having fun while doing it.

55 of 75 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars THIS BOOK IS A BAG OF CHEEZY DOODLES January 22, 2008

By Scott T. Sanders

Format:Hardcover

I CANNOT BELIEVE SOMEONE PAID WILL LEITCH MONEY TO WRITE A BOOK. I WAS VERY SKEPTICAL. OBVIOUSLY HE JUST PASTED A BUNCH OF OLD DEADSPIN COLUMNS TOGETHER. HOWEVA, AFTER CURLING UP WITH A BAG OF CHEEZY DOODLES, THIS BOOK WAS OUTSTANDING. I AM NEVER WRONG ABOUT ANYTHING.

YOURS
STEPHEN A. SMITH

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Too much of a good thing February 20, 2009

By Jason A. Miller VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

The best part of "God Save the Fan" may be its introduction, in which the author explains how the mainstream media's suppression of the Michael Vick "Ron Mexico" story helped inspire the creation of Deadspin. Of course I can't tell if the essay was funny because of Leitch's writing, or because I still can't read about Ron Mexico without falling over laughing.

Deadspin as a sports blog works best in quick hits. They're equal parts gossip and investigative journalism; they're outsiders who often scoop the mainstream press. Leitch's book is basically a collection of themed essays describing everything that's wrong with sports today: the players, the owners, the media, and the fans. Most of the individual chapters are worthwhile. However, the media section is largely a series of decreasingly funny put-downs of ESPN's on-air talent; many other essays are self-serving attempts to explain why the entire sports experience would be better if the blogosphere were in charge. Read all at once, "Fan" just seems bitter and frivolous.

"God Save the Fan" does have a ton of hilarious moments, as well as some genuine insight. The annotated reprint of an interview with John Rocker may well be the highlight of the book, and Leitch's musings on fantasy football will probably be a classic someday.

Unfortunately, when read all at once, Leitch's humor tends to grate, and it eventually becomes hard to figure out whether his put-downs are intended to be lightly mocking, or just plain mean-spirited. The odd essay about Leitch's appearance on Bob Costas's HBO program (exclusive to the paperback edition) is particuarly confusing.

Best thing to do is set aside "God Save the Fan" for another five years. If the blogosphere has deposed the mainstream sports press by then, Leitch's book will seem as visionary then as Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game seems today. However, if the blog phenomenon has been neatly folded into the mainstream media, and Leitch winds up hosting an ESPN-style panel show, we'll know that "God Save the Fan" was meant to serve just one purpose: to get Leitch out of the blogoging world, and into the mainstream press he seems to so vehemently despise today.