"God Save the Fan" Book review

So this weekend I took a trip to LA to attend Passion conference, and it was quite enjoyable. On the car ride up and back I delved into God Save the Fan by Will Leitch, editor of the popular sports blog Deadspin. Unintentionally, I read the whole book before getting back, which says something about its accessibility and content.

Anyways, the book itself is actually a pretty light read. It's a collection of articles, like most sports book these days, divided into sections for different heads of the sports giants. While the book advertises "All new material," if you frequent Deadspin then most of it will be a recap of things known. There are multiple chapters (some as short as two pages) devoted to explaining Deadspin trends and inside jokes like Barbaro, "You're with me Leather," and AJ Daulerio's moustache. These serve as quick bathroom-style reads--Good for a quick laugh, but not really intended for any sort of deep profound thought.

Occasionally Leitch delves into something a bit deeper--the sections on Fantasy Sports, the racial divide in America, and Fantanking are quite good--and Leitch shows something lost in the random joke chapters. While I do appreciate his humor, the quick tidbits make me feel like I'm reading "Deadspin 101." His views on these issues facing the fan are apt, and I never really had a dull moment where I wanted to skip past (which seems to happen at least once when reading Baseball Prospectus-esque issues books.)

If I have one complaint about Leitch's writing style, it's that he seems to be too ingrained in the Deadspin style. I imagine over the course of creating and maintaining Deadspin, he's found a sort of formula that works well for his intended audience, but doesn't work so much over the span of a 300 page book. He makes vague references to historical things, such as Kabuki, and when they're repeated later in the book it makes me wonder only more what his intended thought was. These are things that I feel could have been tackled with better editing, but are really a minor issue.

While the book as a whole was enjoyable, I'm not sure it was all worth the $25 price tag if you're already a Deadspin frequenter. The book serves as a great introduction to the Sports Blogger mindset, and it's a good read for those in the traditionalist mindset, but I'm eagerly awaiting the paperback to shell out to my family as a gift.

I'd like to say here that the book itself isn't earth shattering, but I think that's Leitch's point. Most of the themes in the book revolve around the fact that sports don't really matter, and the average fan just wants their home team to win, the bad guys to lose, and to move on with their daily lives. I think Leitch may have intended his book to remain at this light tone because to pretend his book is going to change the Sports world as we know it would be counter intuitive. If you have read the book, I'd love to hear you chime in on this issue.

A good book, worth your time, though I'd probably wait for the paperback if/when it comes out.