FirstCuts: ‘God Save The Fan’ Review

By Chris Littmann
Sports don’t start and end with a referee’s whistle. FirstCuts, a blog dedicated to sports culture, will cover everything outside the lines, from games to gear. And yes, in this rare instance, we’ve decided to read.
This whole book review thing requires a preamble for any number of reasons. Will Leitch, the man behind Deadspin.com and author of God Save The Fan: How Preening Sportscasters, Athletes Who Speak in the Third Person, and the Occasional Convicted Quarterback Have Taken the Fun Out of Sports (And How We Can Get It Back) , will be writing for us at the Super Bowl in Arizona. (What, you didn’t hear?) He also used to work for Sporting News -- actually doing what I do today (not blogging, but working as an online editor).
[img=http://img517.imageshack.us/img517/1514/godsavethefancp5.jpg]
Anyway, now that we’ve got all that full disclosure nonsense out of the way, let’s talk about some hot literature action. God Save The Fan hits stores today. In essence, it’s a look at how sports have changed, how things have deteriorated for fans and how the whole thing can be reversed.
If you’re a Deadspin reader, some of the stories will be familiar to you, although only one or two are exact rips from the site -- and I’ll be honest, I’d read the whole John Rocker interview before, reading it with the footnotes was sort of like watching Arrested Development with commentary from the cast; it just gave me a whole new way to enjoy it.
The book is broken down into four sections on players, owners, media and fans. The way it’s essentially composed of mini-essays on a number of topics from a Gilbert Arenas vs. LeBron James argument (not buying that one!) to Robert Traylor’s junk swinging freely in Will’s face (pretty happy I didn’t have to endure a picture there) makes it feel like a coffee table book. I found myself reading a part, putting it down, and then debating my roommate about the merits of his point. Whether you agree or disagree with his points, they’re thought-provoking above all else.
Who is the target audience for this book? Well, aside from the mob of Deadspin commenters, any fan that has ever felt a little jilted by a team/owner/writer/player will probably find some portion of the book therapeutic.
But look, this isn’t a review of a long, winding fiction novel. It’s a lot of smaller pieces, so I leave you with an easy-to-digest list of the five smaller essays (in no order) I consider must-read, whether I agreed with them or not, in God Save The Fan.
1. A Few Moments With John Rocker. The aforementioned piece that previously ran on Deadspin still seems so insane to me. Bonus points for the illustration of Rocker and his lady.
2. Buy A Jersey Of Your Favorite Robotic Stat Producer. The argument we have all the time about rooting for your fantasy team versus a real team.
3. The ESPN Clockwork Orange Experiment. An experiment only heightened by the terrifying mental image of Leitch in cutoff jeans and a sleeveless Nirvana shirt.
4. You Can’t Fight Terrorism With A Spread Offensive Set, And You Probably Shouldn’t Even Try. A discussion of sports in the post-9/11 world.
5. Glossary from the “Fans†section. I’d say this is a section describing stereotypes of fan bases across a number of sports, but they were too true for too many of my friends.
God Save the Fan is available at Amazon.com and we’re assuming many other places starting now.
See Also: Dan Shanoff’s slightly more long-winded review.↵