Now I Can Die in Peace: How The Sports Guy Found Salvation Thanks to the World Champion (Twice!) Red Sox [Paperback]

Bill Simmons (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (March 24, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933060727
• ISBN-13: 978-1933060729
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 1 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #35,215 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #9 in Books > Sports & Outdoors > Miscellaneous > Journalism
  • #56 in Books > Sports & Outdoors > Baseball

More About the Author

Bill Simmons writes "The Sports Guy" column for ESPN.com's Page 2 and ESPN: The Magazine. He is the author of Now I Can Die In Peace, founded the award-winning bostonsportsguy.com website, and was a writer for Jimmy Kimmel Live. He commutes between his home in Los Angeles and Fenway Park.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Following the Bible's Format, March 26, 2009

By 

The Ginger Man - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

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This review is from: Now I Can Die in Peace: How The Sports Guy Found Salvation Thanks to the World Champion (Twice!) Red Sox (Paperback)

Following the 2004 season, The Sports Guy wrote the best of the many books about the Red Sox championship run. In preparation for opening day of 2009, he has revised it to include 100 pages of updated columns.

Simmons starts the new section with an analysis of how Sox fans confronted a new and uncursed existence. He asks "What happens when your identity gets stripped away, when you get the chance to start from scratch?" He follows this with: a comparison of Larry Bird and Big Papi, coverage of the Dice-K acquisition, the 2007 championship, the Rocket and the Roids, a defense of Manny being Manny and the 2008 loss to the Rays. Through it all, Simmons writing is more about what it is to be a fan than it is about the team or the game.

If you strip away the occassionally on target pop culture references and the more accurately directed humor, this book is the story of the love affair of Simmons, his family and his city for a team. (Part of that sentence is stolen from Ken Coleman's 1967 Impossible Dream narration.) The Sports Guy proudly wears his passion on his sleeve: "I think like a fan, write like a fan and try like hell to keep it that way." It is a lifelong relationship: "You love sports most when you are 16, then you love it a little less every year."

Reading these columns, another diehard instinctively feels an affinity for Simmons and appreciates his commitment, knowledge and intermittant suffering. This is made easier because the author often recognizes when he has stepped across the line that separates the healthfully obsessed from the not quite well (One of his footnotes points out, "This paragraph made me sound like an a**hole.") He doesn't always know when he is wandering on the borderline of the geek but that lack of concern and authenticity is part of his charm. He is, above all else, one of us.

In The Natural, Robert Redford's Roy Hobbs character asks the sportswriter played by Robert Duvall if he ever played the game. The answer: "No. But I made it more fun to watch." So does Simmons. (This is my attempt at pop culture relevance.) In the 70s and 80s, I didn't consider a Sox season over until I had read what Roger Angell and Peter Gammons wrote about it. That mantle has passed to Simmons. And, apparently, he is not going to disappoint. His plan is to "re-release this book with more chapters every few years, kinda like what God did with the bible."

Keep releasing them. We'll keep reading.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My Favorite Book Ever, February 21, 2010

By 

Burt (Lisle, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Now I Can Die in Peace: How The Sports Guy Found Salvation Thanks to the World Champion (Twice!) Red Sox (Paperback)

I do not know if this book will be as good for you as it is for me. I am an avid Red Sox fan, a smart aleck, and born in the 1960's. I can relate to almost everything in this book. I think people under 30 might miss on some of the pop-culture references. I think people less passionate about the Red Sox will not relate as well to some things. But for me, this book is the best.

There are so many places this book feels like I wrote it myself: the rants against Roger Clemens, the love for Red Sox folk hero Rich Garces, the love of Pedro, and the many references to The Godfather and several other favorite movies and TV shows. I live in Chicago and felt former third base coach Wendell Kim cost the Cubs several games a few years ago. I laughed out load reading the section where the author once again perfectly verbalized my feelings (I didn't realize Wave 'em Wendell was equally rotten for the Red Sox).

About 50% of the reading is footnotes. I was put off by the writing style the first page or two. However, once I got into this book, I could not put it down. Smart aleck Red Sox fans, you are in for a real treat!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing, February 1, 2010

By 

Karen Swift "trojans85" (trojans85) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Now I Can Die in Peace: How The Sports Guy Found Salvation Thanks to the World Champion (Twice!) Red Sox (Paperback)

Bought this for my son at his request, he is not a reader! He does enough reading of his college books, so to read for pleasure I was surprised, He did not put this book down! 23 yrs I have never seen him get into a book , but he does like the author , so wanted to give his books a whirl, I bought him the set , the first one he read and took the other back to school with him.