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tittypete's review against another edition
4.0
Some pretty exquisite writing about boxers I've heard of but have never seen. In-depth thinkpieces about dudes like Rocky Marciano, Jersey Joe Walcott, Archie Moore and Willy Pep. Something about Liebling's attention to detail and vibes in and out adds layers to a sport which, on the surface, can be dismissed as super sweaty guys fighting with the occasional dinging of bells. Makes me wish there were still clubs to go see fights at.
alexriviello's review against another edition
5.0
What an amazing collection. Makes you want to get into boxing right away, but really the best part of it is how he makes you feel like you're at each and every one. The boxing's not even as interesting as the look at 1950s NYC. Have to read more from him.
mattneely's review against another edition
5.0
5 stars if you want a Northerner's inside look at the 1959 LA election, replete with language and images from the era. Insider's book.
helpfulsnowman's review against another edition
2.0
You can't go too far into books about fighting without running into this one over and over.
Like a lot of older books, you can feel the vintage on this one. For me, it's about three things: Descriptions of people, descriptions of places, and a careful catalouging of what everybody is eating.
The first serves the book well. Getting a description of the different boxers is helpful, especially because it seems like most descriptions of the time are strongly influenced by whether or not the writer is a fan of an individual.
The second is alright, but every bout the guy attended was prefaced by a description of the crowd and the venue. There was some pretty good material about people seat-hopping and the way they would try to pretend like they had no idea what they'd done, but ultimately it got to be just another part of another chapter.
The third, I could care less. Eat an egg hard boiled or soft. Just eat the damn egg already.
Probably the most interesting part of this book, to me, was that Liebling made a pretty good case for television ruining boxing. It would go against logic in a lot of ways. You'd think the increased chance for exposure would be huge. But in fact, television killed amateurism, which killed the sport.
The problem, as he put it, was that time was a young fighter would fight in small clubs, clubs spectators would pay to enter. This meant that a young fighter could get quite a bit of experience before stepping into the ring for a full-length match against a dangerous opponent. Television, however, only featured big fights, which meant that a lot of fighters had to either be pushed into the big time way before they were ready or figure out how to make their money elsewhere.
He probably put it best, saying that television's not concerned with the sport, only the sale of beer and razor blades.
I don't think much has changed, sadly. Most fighting sports are amped up artificially with layers of invented grudges and so on that are supposed to heighten the drama, but to me they just cheapen the whole thing and are meant to sell energy drinks.
Hell, at least when they were selling razors and beers they were selling products I could get behind.
I guess the book also makes a case against television in that it is very descriptive of a world that existed around a sporting event. Through the long descriptions of New York City, the ways Liebling got to the fights and the bars he visited afterward, you got the sense of these fights being big events, a full night out for a lot of people. There's a positive to being able to see every major league game in your living room, but there's also a price, and that price is the loss of a sense of community around sports. At least for me. I could watch 100 games on tv, but I'm way more likely to remember actually going to ONE because of the people I'm there with and what we might have talked about.
This might be why people are always wanting to talk about sports. Maybe if everyone was actually going to stuff, they could talk to the people there and leave me the hell alone about it.
Anyway, I would skip this one unless you're just a huge fan of 1950's boxing. It's a bit of a slog, and to me there's a lot about it that's very dated. It's about a golden era, and it's got some cleverness to it, but it's just not that great a read, start to finish.
Like a lot of older books, you can feel the vintage on this one. For me, it's about three things: Descriptions of people, descriptions of places, and a careful catalouging of what everybody is eating.
The first serves the book well. Getting a description of the different boxers is helpful, especially because it seems like most descriptions of the time are strongly influenced by whether or not the writer is a fan of an individual.
The second is alright, but every bout the guy attended was prefaced by a description of the crowd and the venue. There was some pretty good material about people seat-hopping and the way they would try to pretend like they had no idea what they'd done, but ultimately it got to be just another part of another chapter.
The third, I could care less. Eat an egg hard boiled or soft. Just eat the damn egg already.
Probably the most interesting part of this book, to me, was that Liebling made a pretty good case for television ruining boxing. It would go against logic in a lot of ways. You'd think the increased chance for exposure would be huge. But in fact, television killed amateurism, which killed the sport.
The problem, as he put it, was that time was a young fighter would fight in small clubs, clubs spectators would pay to enter. This meant that a young fighter could get quite a bit of experience before stepping into the ring for a full-length match against a dangerous opponent. Television, however, only featured big fights, which meant that a lot of fighters had to either be pushed into the big time way before they were ready or figure out how to make their money elsewhere.
He probably put it best, saying that television's not concerned with the sport, only the sale of beer and razor blades.
I don't think much has changed, sadly. Most fighting sports are amped up artificially with layers of invented grudges and so on that are supposed to heighten the drama, but to me they just cheapen the whole thing and are meant to sell energy drinks.
Hell, at least when they were selling razors and beers they were selling products I could get behind.
I guess the book also makes a case against television in that it is very descriptive of a world that existed around a sporting event. Through the long descriptions of New York City, the ways Liebling got to the fights and the bars he visited afterward, you got the sense of these fights being big events, a full night out for a lot of people. There's a positive to being able to see every major league game in your living room, but there's also a price, and that price is the loss of a sense of community around sports. At least for me. I could watch 100 games on tv, but I'm way more likely to remember actually going to ONE because of the people I'm there with and what we might have talked about.
This might be why people are always wanting to talk about sports. Maybe if everyone was actually going to stuff, they could talk to the people there and leave me the hell alone about it.
Anyway, I would skip this one unless you're just a huge fan of 1950's boxing. It's a bit of a slog, and to me there's a lot about it that's very dated. It's about a golden era, and it's got some cleverness to it, but it's just not that great a read, start to finish.
glabour's review against another edition
1.0
If Sports Illustrated considers this to be the best sports book ever written, then I don't think I'll read a book about sports ever again.
Did I finish this book? No. Did I like this book? Sort of. Why am I marking it as read? Because I consider a DNF to be a book that I either a) have read less than half of or b) have the intention to pick it up later.
I read over half of this book, and I typically finish a book when I get past the halfway point out of some rule in my head.
A.J. Liebling's The Sweet Science is a book I simply could not finish. I'll admit, the first half was interesting. I liked the discussion of fighters like Rocky Marciano, Sugar Ray Robinson, and Joe Louis. Then, in the last section of the book called "Other Fronts," which takes up the second half, the structure and any form of narrative falls apart. This section feels like the first drafts Liebling did before honing his skills and creating the first half of the book. I say this because the structures of each "story" in "Other Fronts" follows the same structure every time .
It goes as follows: Description of fight written about by Pierce Egan, description of boxer's previous fights, description of manager, description of training, description of boxer, description of opponent, description of opponent's manager, description of opponent's training, description of the day leading up to the fight, description of the fight, and a final quip. It's this way every single time, even in the parts I found interesting. When I lost interest in the fighters and boxing as a whole, which, the book became a constant slog.
The introduction of my edition states that Liebling is an important journalist because he began to write in a "New Journalism" style 15 years before the term was coined by Tom Wolfe. Liebling's style, however, is still trapped in the early 1950s. New Journalism typically placed the reporter as a central character in the story, but Liebling is more of a drifting shadow in these stories.
If Liebling's point about boxing is that, at the end of the day, all of the fighters regardless of race all boil down to the same type of person - a dedicated poor man who sees fighting as his only way of making it in the world - then he has succeeded in spades. I don't think I needed 30 examples of this to get that point. Since I don't believe this is Liebling's point and since he seems to be writing this book as a love letter to the sport, I think the book falls short of its goal.
And, to the editors of Sports Illustrated , I say this: Just because a book was the first to do something doesn't mean it is the best to do it.
If you want to feel like you're in the 1950s reading a newspaper article and chuckling at very very dry and very very mild humor, read a section of this book each day and enjoy your pipe.
Did I finish this book? No. Did I like this book? Sort of. Why am I marking it as read? Because I consider a DNF to be a book that I either a) have read less than half of or b) have the intention to pick it up later.
I read over half of this book, and I typically finish a book when I get past the halfway point out of some rule in my head.
A.J. Liebling's The Sweet Science is a book I simply could not finish. I'll admit, the first half was interesting. I liked the discussion of fighters like Rocky Marciano, Sugar Ray Robinson, and Joe Louis. Then, in the last section of the book called "Other Fronts," which takes up the second half, the structure and any form of narrative falls apart. This section feels like the first drafts Liebling did before honing his skills and creating the first half of the book. I say this because the structures of each "story" in "Other Fronts" follows the same structure every time .
It goes as follows: Description of fight written about by Pierce Egan, description of boxer's previous fights, description of manager, description of training, description of boxer, description of opponent, description of opponent's manager, description of opponent's training, description of the day leading up to the fight, description of the fight, and a final quip. It's this way every single time, even in the parts I found interesting. When I lost interest in the fighters and boxing as a whole, which, the book became a constant slog.
The introduction of my edition states that Liebling is an important journalist because he began to write in a "New Journalism" style 15 years before the term was coined by Tom Wolfe. Liebling's style, however, is still trapped in the early 1950s. New Journalism typically placed the reporter as a central character in the story, but Liebling is more of a drifting shadow in these stories.
If Liebling's point about boxing is that, at the end of the day, all of the fighters regardless of race all boil down to the same type of person - a dedicated poor man who sees fighting as his only way of making it in the world - then he has succeeded in spades. I don't think I needed 30 examples of this to get that point. Since I don't believe this is Liebling's point and since he seems to be writing this book as a love letter to the sport, I think the book falls short of its goal.
And, to the editors of Sports Illustrated , I say this: Just because a book was the first to do something doesn't mean it is the best to do it.
If you want to feel like you're in the 1950s reading a newspaper article and chuckling at very very dry and very very mild humor, read a section of this book each day and enjoy your pipe.
ewbanh's review against another edition
3.0
The writing is incredible. Tastes like Joseph Mitchell’s New York City. The content is meh. The embedded racism of the day is like a thick miasma permeating the stories. The constant references to a book he liked as a kid are a bit tiresome.
mephelan's review against another edition
4.0
Voted #1 sports book of all time by Sports Illustrated. Liebling was a boxing writer, and a very good one. This series of essays covers about 15-20 fights in the early 1950s. Beyond the blow-by-blow, Liebling gives the history of the fighters, sets the scene, and tells you the whole story of his attendance at the fight. He often rails against the influence of television on the boxing world.
Even if you're not a boxing fan (I'm not particularly), the essays are well written and often quite funny. That said, there are a number of turns of phrase that modern readers will find problematic, including referring to many black boxers even in their late 30s as "boys".