Are We Winning: Fathers, Sons, and the Great Game in the New Century

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Are We Winning: Fathers, Sons, and the Great Game in the New Century Pub. Date: 5/4/2010 Publisher: Hyperion

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Overview

A hilarious tribute to baseball and to the fathers and sons who share the love of the game.

Are We Winning? is built around a trip to Wrigley Field to watch the St. Louis Cardinals play the Chicago Cubs—the "lovable losers" to most fans but the hated enemy to the Leitch men.

Along for the ride are both Will's father, the gregarious but not— exactly demonstrative Midwestern titan who, despite being a die—hard Cards fan and living his whole life just 200 miles south of Chicago, had never been to Wrigley Field before this game, and Will's college friend, a lifelong Cubs fan. The Cardinals have recently fallen out of the pennant race, and the Cubs, as it turns out, are attempting to clinch the division on this Saturday afternoon in September. The pitchers are Ted Lilly for the Cubs and Joel Pineiro for the Cardinals. It's just a regular game. Play ball.

The book unfolds in half-inning increments where Will gives one-of- a-kind insight on the past, present, and future of the game—from Pujols' unrivaled greatness to the myth that steroids have ruined baseball. Along the way, he shares memories of his father and growing up in the small town of Mattoon, including the year his dad coached his Little League team and nicknamed a scrawny kid "Bulldog," and an unlikely postgame episode involving a biker bar and Mr. Holland's Opus.

And there is beer. Lots and lots of beer.

Are We Winning? is a book about the indelible bond that links fathers and sons. For the Leitch men it's baseball that holds them together—not that either of them would ever be so weak as to admit it. No matter how far apart they are or what's going on in their lives, they'll always be able to talk about baseball. It's the story of being a fan, a story about fathers, sons, and legacies. And one perfect game.

Will Leitch is a contributing editor for New York magazine and the founding editor of the Gawker Media sports blog Deadspin. He is the sports columnist at New York magazine, and a contributor to the New York Times, GQ, Fast Company, and Esquire. The author of three previous books, Catch, Life as a Loser, and God Save the Fan, Leitch lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

A day at the ball park prompts a meditation on family ties in this loose-limbed, beguiling memoir. Sports journalist Leitch (God Save the Fan) recounts a 2008 game at Wrigley Field at which he and his father watched their beloved St. Louis Cardinals lose to the Chicago Cubs, who were on the brink of clinching the divisional title. His sprightly color commentary covers the bases with adroitly analyzed play-by-play, awed encomiums to Cards slugger Albert Pujols (“an alien using superior technology to mock us feeble humans”), and rabid incitements against the hated Cubs. As in any ball game, there's plenty of downtime for arcane statistics, ruminations on drug scandals—who cares, Leitch asks, as long as steroids mean more homers?—and commercial interruptions (“I'm a subscriber to the MLB At Bat application, which allows you access to... real-time score updates with full box scores and stats”). Most of all, Leitch delivers an homage to his dad, a laconic stalwart brimming with manly truths—some imparted while driving a pickup with an open container—that sports bring to the surface. The result is a jaunty, heartfelt, Father's Day-ready celebration of baseball as the ultimate bonding rite. Photos. (May)

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From The Critics

New York magazine sports columnist Leitch's reference to "fathers and sons" in the "new Golden Age" sounds more like a holdover from baseball's original golden age over 50 years ago, notwithstanding that Leitch is in his thirties. He is referring both to his own father and to his intention to father a son for future emotional connection through baseball. Interweaving his coming-of-age memories with stories of attending a 2008 Cubs-Cardinals game with his father and a pal, he writes of how a shared love of the Cardinals—and baseball generally—became "the one language" through which these Midwestern males could share deep feelings. This memoir has all the salty language of today and is imbued with Leitch's enthusiasm for baseball's personalities and its mysterious complexity. Sure to be loved by many of today's baseball fans and memoir readers, all the more so if they love the Cardinals.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781401323707
Publisher: Hyperion
Publication date: 5/4/2010
Pages: 304
Sales rank: 446,024
Product dimensions: 5.70 (w) x 8.30 (h) x 0.90 (d)

Meet the Author

Will Leitch

Will Leitch, founding editor of Deadspin.com, is a contributing editor and columnist for New York magazine. He has also written for the New York Times, GQ, Fast Company, Slate, Salon, and Playboy, and is the author of Catch, a novel, and Life as a Loser, a book of essays. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

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Cowboys78

Posted August 11, 2010

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Hillarious & Great

This was one of the funniest and most heart felt books I have ever had the pleasure of reading. The author does an excellent job of weaving in and out of a day at Wrigley and stories about the relationship with his family, mostly his father. The last baseball book I read had me worried that I might never read another baseball book again (see my review on the summer of '49.) For my reading life, this book saved baseball. It makes you wish you were at a game yourself pounding beers and singing "take me out to the ball game" despite the fact that Will Leitch is Cardinals fan and refused to in the book becuase its a Cubs tradition at Wrigley! Either way, he definitely makes this book work, and does it well.
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beardo3294

Posted July 2, 2010

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"Buy it if you like baseball and/or have a father." - Ken Tremendous

Gave it to my father for Father's Day. He is well above Deadspin's target demographic, while I am very much in it. The first Will Leitch book I buy, ironically enough, isn't even for me.
Anyways, Leitch does a great job of weaving stories of baseball of fatherhood together, as well as into the telling of a Cubs-Cardinals game he attended with his father and a college buddy at Wrigley, the Leitchs being die-hard Cardinals fans. A trip he had planned months in advance, and it just so happens to be the Cubs' first opportunity to clinch the NL Central. (Keep in mind that this took place in September 2008.) And yes, that college buddy is a Cubs fan. Seeing as though the Cardinals are long out of playoff contention, it makes for a perfectly dreadful day of inevitably watching Cubs fans celebrate an October trip on St. Louis's behalf. Or, a perfect day to reflect on baseball, fatherdom, life, all that stuff. Don't get more wrong, it's still as hilariously funny as you'd expect anything that Leitch writes to be (or more).
So, Father's Day 2011 is still 50-ish months away... He still celebrates birthdays, right?
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