Welcome to the Terrordome: The Pain, Politics and Promise of Sports (Paperback)

~ (Author), Chuck D (Foreword)
Key Phrases: border culture, United States, World Cup, Roberto Clemente (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In sports books, the term "left wing" typically means something very different than it does in Zirin's; a sportswriter and regular contributor to The Nation, Zirin takes a look at sports through the prisms of race, class, politics and identity, examining the mainstream sports media's charged rhetoric and challenging the industry's readily-accepted common wisdoms (especially the popular notion that professional athletes are all rich, spoiled, self-centered thugs). Each of the ten chapters deals with a different issue, from Major League Baseball's exploitation of the Dominican Republic to Olympian graft. Zirin's clear, concise arguments detail the behind-the-scenes manipulation of football star-turned-Army ranger Pat Tillman's death, point out the racism inherent in the media's coverage of Barry Bonds and explicate the global and local politics of soccer. Unfortunately, Zirin's tone is too often snide, stooping to the same depths for which he regularly lambasts right wing commentators (for instance, referring to Dodger second baseman Jeff Kent as someone who "splashes on High Karate before strutting to the free clinic"). Still, this is a unique and thought-provoking collection of politically enlightened sports writing, suitable for anyone with season tickets and a left-of-center outlook.
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Product Description

"Dave Zirin is the best young sportswriter in America."-Robert Lipsyte

This much-anticipated sequel to What's My Name, Fool? by acclaimed commentator Dave Zirin breaks new ground in sports writing, looking at the controversies and trends now shaping sports in the United States-and abroad. Features chapters such as "Barry Bonds is Gonna Git Your Mama: The Last Word on Steroids," "Pro Basketball and the Two Souls of Hip-Hop," "An Icon's Redemption: The Great Roberto Clemente," and "Beisbol: How the Major Leagues Eat Their Young."

Zirin's commentary is always insightful, never predictable.

Dave Zirin is the author of the widely acclaimed book What's My Name, Fool? (Haymarket Books) and writes the weekly column "Edge of Sports" (edgeofsports.com). He writes a regular column for The Nation and Slam magazine and has appeared as a sports commentator on ESPN TV and radio, CBNC, WNBC, Democracy Now!, Air America, Radio Nation, and Pacifica.

Chuck D redefined rap music and hip-hop culture as leader and co-founder of the legendary rap group Public Enemy. Spike Lee calls him "one of the most politically and socially conscious artists of any generation." He co-hosts a weekly radio show on Air America.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 280 pages
• Publisher: Haymarket Books (June 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1931859418
• ISBN-13: 978-1931859417
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #377,211 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious and humane, June 7, 2007

By	John Chapman (Minnesota, USA) - See all my reviews

If you're tired of reading the same type of takes on sports - the rambles full of pop culture references that pretend to stand for real commentary, the reactionary critiques of the sports villain of the week, read Welcome to the Terrordome. You'll most likely spend half your time laughing and the other half amazed that Mr. Zirin has been reading your mind.

It doesn't take much experience reading sports columnists, or listening to them talk on TV, to come away with a pretty grim view of the sports world. The profession seems to attract a sort of bitter, fatalist heckler who wants to forget that it's not just a game. Well, it isn't just a game - it's an industry, one that sometimes gets to write its own rules but more often has to live in the same world we all do - the one with pain, politics and promise.

Dave Zirin has the perspective and vision to put these pieces together, to see how the sports world meshes and collides with the real world. And when he heckles - which he does often, and with panache - it's cutting but not cruel.

There's a strong current of humanity in Dave's writing. This isn't a lunkhead screaming from the cheap seats, it's someone who wants to see excellence and fairness at all levels of sport - the field, the office, the media. With all the time and money we spend on it, that's the least we can ask.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "HARDCORE---RAWBONE LIKE A RAZOR...", May 26, 2007

By	Jason B. Neuenschwander (PHILADELPHIA, PA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As someone who has, for almost fifteen years now, wincingly watched the tragic devolution of the craft of sports jounralism into a corporatized, prepackaged (rife with apolitical additives and white supremacist preservatives), four letter word (spelled E-S-P-N), there thankfully lies a voice in the proverbial wilderness---reminding us from the cover photo on, as forwarder Chuck D did, some twenty years ago,that "Armageddon, has been in effect...go and get a late pass!!!"---in Dave Zirin, verbal assassain.

What Noam Chomsky does for politics, Dave Zirin does for sports journalism; with laser like acuity, "Welcome to the Terrodome: The Pain, Politics and Promise of Sports" displays that the whole truth about and in sport in this place called America lies behind, in between, and beyond the box scores, play by play, and drivel passing as color commentary, providing virtually every dimension of details, in search of a higher, more truthful ground. A welcome reprieve from the offal churned out on a daily/nightly/weekly basis, Zirin's latest cris de coeur allows those with the unmitigated temerity to tackle all that is good, bad and ugly in sports an opportunity to read a rich, nuanced, and above all, whole representation of the relationship between sports industry and society.

Whether it is laying bare the white racial hostility and hypocrisy behind the campaign to destroy Barry Bonds as he approaches the inevitable, illustrating the historical relationship between futbol/soccer and anti-imperialism, championing Rutgers' Women's Coach Vivian Stringer's courageous stand against mainstream media and its l'enfant terrible du jour, poignantly revealing the hardcore political activism of Roberto Clemente Major League Baseball would rather nobody know (let alone "celebrate"), or simply allowing athletes the opportunity to be heard, simply in their own words, "Welcome..." should force any true blue, dyed in the wool fan of sports, truth and/or humanity at large take a long hard look at the portrayal and projection of athletes/sports industry and scream, if not from the rooftops at least to Sportscenter with the zeal of (Howard) Beale, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!!!"

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Skills, May 26, 2007

By	Kevin James "S.O.N." - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If you've ever asked the question "what's the point of sports?" aside from gladiatorial competition meant to pacify and distract from the monotonous struggle that occupies the time of most people, Dave Zirin provides the answer.

Zirin does for sports what Howard Zinn does for history by placing it in the real world context in which it belongs, instead of the corporate smoke and mirrors that simultaneously make sports larger than life while divorcing it of social relevancy.

As a political hip hop artist I can appreciate Dave's work, not only because Chuck D of Public Enemy, the original political hip hop group, wrote the intro - which never hurts when you use their album title for your book - but because he stands in that independent socially conscious tradition. He's Public Enemy and Democracy Now! not Young Jeezy and CNN.