By Kim J. Harmon

Summer is here (it officially came last Thursday, in case you missed it) and pretty soon the weekends will be filled with camping trips, beach trips, barbecues and – if everything was right with the cosmos – long hours of resting on the hammock in the back yard.

And you are going to need something to read. Forget the latest 1,000-page epic by James Michener or Caleb Carr or whoever and start flipping the pages of something else – say, how about something about baseball or golf or mountain climbing or sailing?

If you need some suggestions, then read on McDuff. From a humorous look at the game of golf (and why someone would be so insane to take it up) to a harrowing trip around the world, these are some of the books people are reading . . .

FORE! PLAY: The Last American Male To Take Up Golf (© April 2001 by Bill Geist, published by Warner Books, hardcover, 256 pages) – Some years ago, Bill Geist took us inside the dugouts of Little League baseball with his hilarious Little League Confidential and now he takes on the ancient game of golfe. He wonders, like so many others, why this mind-numbingly frustrating game has taken over the hearts and souls of otherwise normal human beings. What possesses someone to get up at 2 am just to drive to a golf course and reserve a tee-time for a round of golf that will take five hours or more to play? “Golf fever. It’s serious, it’s viral, it’s epidemic and, unlike West Nile, no one is spraying for it,” says Geist. You probably won’t gain any understanding about why you play, but you will probably gain a laugh or two at your own expense.

THE LIFE YOU IMAGINE: Life Lessons for Achieving Your Dreams (© June 2001 by Derek Jeter and Jack Curry, published by Crown Publishing, paperback, 224 pages) – Fans of the New York Yankees are convinced that, when his career is over, they will be talking about Derek Jeter the way they talk about Joe DiMaggio or Mickey Mantle . . . or Babe Ruth. From Kalamazoo, Michigan, all the way to the Bronx in New York City, Jeter talks about how he came to be a starter with the most famous franchise in American sports and it all starts with 10 lessons. Jeter was the Minor League Player of the Year, Rookie of the Year, and now is the proud owner of three World Series rings – and he says it all started with his parents and his own program for achieving his dreams. See what he has to say.

ZIM: A Baseball Life (© April 2001 by Don Zimmer, Bill Madden and Joe Torre, published by Total Sports, hardcover, 304 pages) – Don Zimmer has been in a baseball uniform for more than 50 years as a player, coach and manager. Sure, Zimmer was a lifetime .235 hitter, but he played with Jackie Robinson and was on the bench when Don Larsen threw his perfect game in the World Series. He was the original Met, the first player in franchise history to be photographed in a Met uniform. He was the Red Sox third base coach in 1975, the guy who waved Carlton Fisk home in the 12th inning of the World Series. And in 1978 he was the manager of the Red Sox, who had one of the great late-season collapses in the history of the game. Yep, Zimmer has seen it all and he lets us in on most of it with his book. As reviewer Jeff Silverman says, “Bridging the gap between the game’s early years of integration and the advent of the $200-million-plus contract, Zim hasn’t just witnessed the history of the second half of 20th-century baseball, he’s embodied it, and he remembers it with a genial charm and disarming honesty that turns Zim into one of the more spirited and beguiling baseball memoirs to step up in some time.”

 

WHEN PRIDE STILL MATTERED: The Life of Vince Lombardi (© September 2000 by David Maraniss, published by Touchstone Books, paperback, 541 pages) – Now that National Football League training camps have opened and people start talking about which coach is going to lose his job first, maybe it’s time to take a look at the greatest coach in the history of professional football – Vince Lombardi. He coached the Green Bay Packers from 1959 to 1967, winning the Super Bowl in 1966 and 1967 (to coach with NFL championships from 1961 and 1962) and somehow was not only revered by many, but hated by many. Maraniss introduces us to Lombardi himself and shows us the life that made Lombardi who he is.

Reviewer Jeff Silverman writes, “If a moment can sum up and embrace a man’s life – and capture the breadth of Maraniss’s thoroughness – it is one that takes place off the field when the Packers or-ganization decides to redecorate their offices in advance of the new head coach’s arrival: ‘During an earlier visit,’ Maraniss reports, ‘he had examined the quarters – peeling walls, creaky floor, old leather chairs with holes in them, discarded newspapers and magazines piled on chairs and in the corners – and pronounced the setting unworthy of a National Football League club. ‘This is a disgrace!’ he had remarked.’ In one moment, one comment, Lombardi announced his intentions, made his vision and professionalism clear, and began to shake up a stale organization. It reveals far more about the man than wins and losses, and is the kind of moment Maraniss uses again and again in this superb resurrection of a figure who so symbolized a sporting era and sensibility.”

NEW ZEALAND GOLF CROSS (© May 2001 by Burton Silver, published by Ten Speed Press, hardcover, 96 pages) – Sports has taught us a number of things and not the least of which is, there is nothing so good and so pure that some nutcase won’t come around and try and corrupt it just for kicks. THAT is what New Zealand Golf Cross is all about. If this is an actual work of non-fiction, the book describes the game of Golf Cross – where you shoot for a goal instead of a hole and do it with an oval ball. Silver details the evolution of the game, looks at the oval ball and why, he says, it is better than the round ball (the book also comes with an oval golf ball and instructions on how to hit it). Lots of photographs make this an interesting book to look at – even if you end up shaking your head in wonderment. It should be no wonder that Silver is the author of Why Cats Paint and the founder of the so-called International Fringe Games.

A VOYAGE FOR MADMEN (© May 2001 by Peter Nichols, published by HarperCollins, hardcover, 272 pages) – First there was Into Thin Air and then there was The Perfect Storm (both of which were fascinating) and now there is A Voyage for Madmen, the latest high adventure epic of daring-do. Back in 1968, nine men tried a solo, non-stop circumnavigation of the world (an attempt to recreate Sir Francis Chichester’s voyage in 1967 – in which he took one stop) and tried to do it without global positioning satellites or the like. Apparently they sailed, as it is said, by their wits alone and this is the tale of that trip. While not as harrowing as Jon Krakauer’s walk up the mountain in Into Thin Air, this remains a riveting account complete with photos and eight different maps.