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The Mad Dog 100 : The Greatest Sports Arguments of All Time

The Mad Dog 100 : The Greatest Sports Arguments of All Time

List Price: $22.95
Your Price: $15.61
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A MUST!
Review: MAD DOG HAS DONE IT! what a great sports book--it is a history lesson and debate all rolled into one great fast reading book! you can read it word for word and can hear it being say is Chris' voice -- If you want a book that will pull you in and wont let ya go this is it! And if you ever debated some of these topics yourself, you might rethink a few after this read! GREAT JOB CHRIS!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: ...
Review: Of course, I would expect a book about sports "arguments" to show a little bias, but sometimes he gets a little ridiculous. I'll keep it simple with just one example: the Rangers & Islanders as hockey's greatest rivalry!?! Does he really expect anyone outside of New York to agree with him (or many hockey fans in New York like me, for that matter)? Habs and Leafs, I guess you can take your eight decades and nealy forty combined cups elsewhere...because apparently the greatest rivalry belongs to the worst of the Original 6 and an expansion team.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: An Instant Classic
Review: Original and all encompassing. It might even get you to start to argue with yourself. Open to all levels of sports enthusiasts around the world. Can't say enough about it. A real page turner for any sports fan or anyone who has a loved one who is. Even worth it to surprise your spouse/loved one with a shocking statement and enough to back it up.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Interesting Read for Sports Fans
Review: The title of the book is partly misleading, because the 100 chapters are not so much devoted to the greatest sports arguments of all time, but 100 issues/topics of particular interest to Chris "Mad Dog" Russo phrased in the form of a question. More than a few of the topics are opportunities for Russo to vent his opinions and/or suggestions on a particular sports issue, although the bulk of the book does focus on argument issues that most sports enthusiasts have participated in one time or another. One drawback is that many lists of greatest players or games is limited to Russo's personal history, dating back to the 1960s, although a few old timers occasionally pop up in the essays.

Russo has his biases, and some of his analyses are questionable. For example, batting average is given far greater emphasis than the more reliable on base percentage for evaluating players. Some of his picks will create controversy, and some bewilderment. For example, selecting the 1963 Los Angeles Dodgers pitching staff as one of the greatest when the starters, excepting Sandy Koufax, barely won more than they lost, or choosing Sammy Sosa, over Ruth, McGwire, or Bonds, as the guy you would choose when you needed a home run for one at bat. He does deserve more than a few kudos, however, when he appears to be going against the crowd when bypassing Michael Jordan as the top pick in a few categories; real sports fans agree with him that Jordan's selection by ESPN as greatest 20th century athlete was questionable. Also, selecting Alex Rodriguez over Honus Wagner as the greatest shortstop may rustle the feathers of oldtimers, but its a bold choice.

The book may have benefitted by including more statistics to back up some selections, and also including some additional background information on a few of the athletes discussed, but overall it was a quick and enjoyable read.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Interesting Read for Sports Fans
Review: The title of the book is partly misleading, because the 100 chapters are not so much devoted to the greatest sports arguments of all time, but 100 issues/topics of particular interest to Chris "Mad Dog" Russo phrased in the form of a question. More than a few of the topics are opportunities for Russo to vent his opinions and/or suggestions on a particular sports issue, although the bulk of the book does focus on argument issues that most sports enthusiasts have participated in one time or another. One drawback is that many lists of greatest players or games is limited to Russo's personal history, dating back to the 1960s, although a few old timers occasionally pop up in the essays.

Russo has his biases, and some of his analyses are questionable. For example, batting average is given far greater emphasis than the more reliable on base percentage for evaluating players. Some of his picks will create controversy, and some bewilderment. For example, selecting the 1963 Los Angeles Dodgers pitching staff as one of the greatest when the starters, excepting Sandy Koufax, barely won more than they lost, or choosing Sammy Sosa, over Ruth, McGwire, or Bonds, as the guy you would choose when you needed a home run for one at bat. He does deserve more than a few kudos, however, when he appears to be going against the crowd when bypassing Michael Jordan as the top pick in a few categories; real sports fans agree with him that Jordan's selection by ESPN as greatest 20th century athlete was questionable. Also, selecting Alex Rodriguez over Honus Wagner as the greatest shortstop may rustle the feathers of oldtimers, but its a bold choice.

The book may have benefitted by including more statistics to back up some selections, and also including some additional background information on a few of the athletes discussed, but overall it was a quick and enjoyable read.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A good book for a sports fan!
Review: This book deals with many sports debates one can talk with another in a bar (ie.Whose better Mays or Mantle?, What are the greatest sports moments in history?, What moments in sports history would you change?). It's mostly the personal opinions of Chris "Mad Dog" Russo, but one would have fun reading it.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A good book for a sports fan!
Review: This book is a sports enthusiast's dream come true. It has
separate sections on the so-called "must reads", "down to the
wire", "athletes caught in the draft", "The All-Century Team"
and much much more.Do you like to quote little-known sports
statistics? If yes, then this book is for you. There are
specific stats for Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Joe DiMaggio and a host
of famous and not so famous players. The book talks about the
kids in the $5000 suits and the tremendous contracts dangled
before them to make them part of the team. Buy this as a
gift for any sports enthusiast in the house.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Maddog 100-Greatest Sports Arguments of All Time by Russo
Review: This book is a sports enthusiast's dream come true. It has
separate sections on the so-called "must reads", "down to the
wire", "athletes caught in the draft", "The All-Century Team"
and much much more.Do you like to quote little-known sports
statistics? If yes, then this book is for you. There are
specific stats for Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Joe DiMaggio and a host
of famous and not so famous players. The book talks about the
kids in the $5000 suits and the tremendous contracts dangled
before them to make them part of the team. Buy this as a
gift for any sports enthusiast in the house.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A must for sports fans.
Review: This is a great beach or airplane book for fans of sport, whether your bag is the NCAA Final Four, the Super Bowl, the Stanley Cup or the Series. All those, plus horseracing, boxing, tennis and all manner of both major and minor sports are here.

Do you prefer Willie, Mickey or the Duke? Think that the rivalry between North Carolina and Duke is greater that the Sox vs. Yankees or Giants vs. Dodgers? Russo has the arguments on all of these and three hundred pages more. He is pretty well balanced also, which I think makes for great analysis (the essence of arguing the imponderable).

Chris Russo does sports talk on WFAN in New York. I suppose (having left The Apple before the advent of talk radio) that these and many many more are the stuff that makes sports talk radio so interesting and compelling. I agree with another reviewer who notes that (like most of us) the greatest concentration (although certainly not all) of Russo's entries includes those players and teams whom he has witnessed personally - another reason to always be the old man at the bar in this argument (so we can tell the whippersnappers that "if you had only seem Jackie Robinson play like I did, you'd feel differently".) It is what good dialogue should be: a handful of stats (acknowledging that some may view slugging percentage above on base percentage) and lots of argument (without shouting, invective or other unpleasantries).

This book reads easy, in short chapters of several pages as well as short (four or five paragraph) lists. It makes it easy to compare DiMaggio to Williams, and the case for Mays over Mantle. There are as many arguments as there are categories of sport: Which was the greater achievement, Ted Williams' .406 season or Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak? Does Ali beat Louis? Among my favorites is the question of the five greatest athletes of the century (I agree with Russo that ESPN shamelessly pandered to Jordan by putting him ahead of The Greatest of All Time and The Babe.)

The reader who won't want to stop reading after several pages and argue a point with another fan is not a true aficionado of Sport! For all sports fans, it is a great gift.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A must for sports fans.
Review: This is a great beach or airplane book for fans of sport, whether your bag is the NCAA Final Four, the Super Bowl, the Stanley Cup or the Series. All those, plus horseracing, boxing, tennis and all manner of both major and minor sports are here.

Do you prefer Willie, Mickey or the Duke? Think that the rivalry between North Carolina and Duke is greater that the Sox vs. Yankees or Giants vs. Boston? Russo has the arguments on all of these and three hundred pages more. He is pretty well balanced also, which I think makes for great analysis (the essence of arguing the imponderable).

Chris Russo does sports talk on WFAN in New York. I suppose (having left The Apple before he advent of talk radio) that these and many many more are the stuff that makes sports talk radio so interesting and compelling. I agree with another reviewer who notes that (like most of us) the greatest concentration (although certainly not all) of Russo's entries includes those players and teams whom he has witnessed personally - another reason to always be the old man at the bar in this argument (so we can tell the whippersnappers that "if you had only seem Jackie Robinson play like I did, you'd feel differently".) It is what good dialogue should be: a handful of stats (acknowledging that some may view slugging percentage above on base percentage) and lots of argument (without shouting, invective or other unpleasantries).

This book reads easy, in short chapters of several pages as well as short (four or five paragraph) lists. It makes it easy to compare DiMaggio to Williams, and the case for Mays over Mantle. There are as many arguments as there are categories of sport: Which was the greater achievement, Ted Williams' .406 season or Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak? Does Ali beat Louis? Among my favorites is the question of the five greatest athletes of the century (I agree with Russo that ESPN shamelessly pandered to Jordan by putting him ahead of The Greatest of All Time and The Babe.)

The reader who won't want to stop reading after several pages and argue a point with another fan is not a true aficionado of Sport! For all sports fans, it is a great gift.


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