The Mosquito Bowl by Buzz Bissinger

The Mosquito Bowl by Buzz Bissinger is a solid book subtitled A Game of Life and Death in World War II. Bissinger chronicles how the 4th and 29th Marine Regiments of the 6th Marine Division played football against each other on Christmas Eve in 1944, with 15 of the 65 players killed while taking Okinawa in 1945.  

The game came about as there so many great college football players in the two regiments. The Marines who played on Guadalcanal included a great roster of college football talent, drawing from former All-Americans, captains from Wisconsin, Brown, and Notre Dame, and nearly twenty who would be drafted or play in the NFL. 

The subsequent Battle of Okinawa was one of the bloodiest of the 20th century, with roughly 3,000 people (American and Japanese troops along with Japanese citizens) dying every day during the eighty-two-day campaign that began on April 1, 1945. The 15 killed at Okinawa was by far the largest number of American athletes to be killed in a single battle, and Bissinger notes in the preface that his father part of the Okinawa invasion, with him also in the 4th Marine Regiment. 

Bissinger chronicles in the book how the loss of American life at Okinawa could have been lessened if better command decisions were made. Also, he covers how the Japanese were so willing to die, either soldiers in battle or civilians killing themselves and their families to avoid what their government told them would be torture at the hands of American troops. Additionally noted was the numerous kamikaze attacks by Japanese pilots, suicide missions against US ships.

It's a solid book and some of the fallen Marines written about were John Jackson McLaughry, David Schreiner, Tony Butkovich, Bob Bauman, and George Murphy. Of these men, the only one of them to survive the war was McLaughry, who died in 2007 at the age of 90.

Great sports stories - by Bissinger, Beech, Delle Donne & Doyel

Some fairly recent sports writing to note here included ones were about heartwarming and amazing stories as well as two pieces that very much brought to mind past writing I've posted on.

Buzz Bissinger for Sports Illustrated had an excerpt from the 25th anniversary edition of Friday Night Lights, a fantastic book that spawned a movie, television series and follow-up ebook that I wrote about two years ago.

Also from SI was the Mark Beech feature "Catching up with the dogs of Sochi," about dogs rescued out of the Russia Olympics by people including snowboarder Lindsey Jacobellis, hockey players David Backes and Kelli Stack and slopestyle skier Gus Kenworthy.

Another recent piece that reminded me of past writing on the topic was "Lizzie" by Elena Delle Donne for The Players Tribune. Delle Donne is someone I last wrote about two years ago and the story of she, her sister, and rest of their family is a remarkable one.

Also involving a sibling was the absolutely wild piece "Officer back on the streets, with a story to tell" by Gregg Doyel for the Indianapolis Star. About Indianapolis-area police office Marty Dulworth, it's an amazing story told very well by Doyel.

A Prayer for the City by Buzz Bissinger

A Prayer for the City by Buzz Bissinger was really an excellent book focused on Philadelphia mayor Ed Rendell and his Chief of Staff David Cohen during Rendell's first term in office from 1992 through 1996.

Bissinger is best-known for writing the best-selling Friday Night Lights and to write A Prayer for the City he was granted close access to Rendell and Cohen. In the preface to the book, Bissinger makes reference to admiring and learning how cities worked from The Power Broker by Robert Caro and from the first part of Caro's book that I read, I'd say A Prayer for the City compares well as Bissinger managed to provide a very human view of the workings and difficulties of a huge city along with a very personal story of two men trying mightily to preserve it against steep odds.

At the beginning of the book, Bissinger notes how Cohen served as Rendell's campaign manager during his winning 1991 mayoral bid, after losing first a bid for governor in 1986 and then mayor in 1987, and that Cohen took a huge pay cut leaving a law firm to become Rendell's right hand man. The job both men signed up for seems to almost have been like tilting at windmills with the multiple pressures facing Philadelphia, including homeowners and jobs leaving, heavy racial stratification and mistrust, and need to work with and get support from Federal and State lawmakers with their own problems as well as agendas.

Bissinger portrays how Rendell as mayor had his flaws, definitely impetuous and inappropriate at times, sometimes erratic, but above all, he cared, as did the tirelessly working on behalf of Rendell and the city Cohen. The message out of the book was that the two men did great work together and when they started his term, they calculated a five year budget deficit for the city of $1.246B if they stayed the course financially and a fair amount of the book is then about their efforts, ultimately successful, to get city unions to sign contracts that would make the budget work.

Even with these manageable city contracts in place, long hours put in and what certainly seemed to genuine best efforts on behalf of all citizens by both men, the city still seemed on a downward spiral like other huge American cities and also covered heavily in the book was the racial strife and bleak economic picture for many in the city and the closing of the the navy yard and ultimately unsuccessful efforts to keep it going.

It's a fascinating read of tireless efforts that didn't always lead to what was sought, but seemed to definitely make things better than they would have been had Rendell and Cohen not worked so hard and invested so much in the city.

Interesting feature writing - by Bissinger, Poulsen & Sager

Three different recent magazine feature stories were on different topics, but all well written and interesting pieces.

The most recent of them to note here was from the November issue of Vanity Fair with "The Stradivarius Affair" by Buzz Bissinger. It's a fascinating sort-of high crime piece about a $6M Stradivarius violin stolen in Milwaukee.

The October edition of Wired Magazine also had an excellent story on an attempt to make money, but through much less nefarious means. "Finding a Video Poker Bug Made These Guys Rich—Then Vegas Made Them Pay" was written by Kevin Poulsen and compelling reading that both tells an entertaining story and delves into the questions of whether actions illegal vs. just crafty.

The last piece to mention was from the October issue of Esquire for which Mike Sager wrote "Are There Still Boy Scouts?" on the 104-year-old organization and it's new volunteer national president, former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. It's easy to find fault with positions taken by the national office of the Scouts, but the piece from Sager paints the portrait of an organization that appears to be doing a fair amount of good.

Airplane calamity stories - by Langewiesche & Bissinger

Two pieces of phenomenal writing I've seen recently were on airplane calamities with one a feature from the October issue of Vanity Fair and one a Longform reprint of a St. Paul Pioneer Press newspaper story from 1981.

For Vanity Fair, William Langewiesche wrote "The Human Factor" on the crash of Air France Flight 447 in the Atlantic Ocean, a disaster that's written in this excellent piece as being one that both become more rare with automated flight systems and was caused in part by pilots not being prepared to deal with problems that arise, given due to their reliance on... automated flight systems.

The much older Pioneer Press story by Buzz Bissinger, who later became well known for writing the book Friday Night Lights and I've a few times written about pieces from, was also brilliantly written and fascinating in that the details recounted are almost the counterpoint to those told of in the Vanity Fair story. "The Plane That Fell From the Sky" told the story of TWA Flight 841, one that suffered severe mechanical failure (as opposed to the human failings from the doomed Air France flight) and then required herculean efforts from the captain to try to land the plane safely.

Both stories were remarkable, with the first featuring amazing pieced together detail from flight recordings and the second just amazing events retold really well.

"After Friday Night Lights" by Buzz Bissinger

After Friday Night Lights was a compelling eBook from Buzz Bissinger that followed up on his bestselling Friday Night Lights book written 22 years, one feature film and one television series ago.

The original book was an excellent read and a past sports book from Bissinger that I also enjoyed was Three Nights in August: Strategy, Heartbreak, and Joy Inside the Mind of a Manager about Tony LaRussa and the 2003 St. Louis Cardinals. Additionally of interest to me was his publication last year of Father's Day: A Journey into the Mind and Heart of My Extraordinary Son, from which there was a really captivating excerpt that I wrote about and linked to in a post on great writing on raising kids.

This most recent After Friday Night Lights was a short book published through Byliner and about Boobie Miles, the main character featured in Bissinger's original book. After reading of what Miles went through as a high school football player, it was then fascinating seeing the path his life has taken in the two decades since.

Miles certainly hasn't been without his faults and self-inflicted difficulties, but reading of him one gets the sense of the long odds he's faced towards having something resembling a normal, productive-member-of-society type life. Told well by Bissinger was how Miles treated by many others, ranging from his high school coach to those at Universal Studios who paid him $1,000 to use his character in the movie. Really what seems to be inherent in his story is the reconciliation between wishing for something and making the best out of what is.

Also terribly interesting from the eBook was Bissinger's writing on himself, both as a writer whose best-known work was done at the age of 35 and as someone who formed a connection with Miles that's carried forward to today.

I enjoyed After Friday Night Lights quite a bit and it's short enough to be read in one sitting, basically like a long and very well done magazine feature.

Writing on Raising Kids: by Buzz Bissinger, John Jeremiah Sullivan, & Eric Puchner

There's a few pieces of writing I've seen lately that are great individually and which share the connection of having fascinating insight on raising children.

The first was "You Blow My Mind. Hey, Mickey!" by John Jeremiah Sullivan for the New York Times. Sullivan is a ridiculously talented writer (who wrote the book Pulphead that I reviewed here) and this piece on going to Disney World with his family was one of five nominees for Best Feature Writing at the 2012 National Magazine Awards.

Since I brought it up... the category winner was Luke Dittrich for his amazing Esquire Magazine piece on survivors of the Joplin, MO tornado and I probably would have picked the Dittrich story as well with the subject of his exceptionally written piece having more inherent drama than that in Sullivan's exceptionally written piece.

Anyhoo, back to Disney World... the story is highly entertaining, but what really got me from it were two specific anecdotes towards the end. The first was about a huge storm that hit during Sullivan's time at the Park and it reminded me of the fascinating apocalyptic reference he made in the essay "At a Shelter (After Katrina)" from Pulphead. The other anecdote (which was the connection to the other pieces in this post) was the following...

"We don’t need to go crazy with guilt and worry about our children. We’re not responsible for them. For their upbringing, yes, but not for their existence. Destiny wants them here. It uses us to put them here."

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Tremendously interesting few sentences that I thought of after subsequently reading "Buzz Bissinger on Raising a Special Needs Child", excerpted from his forthcoming book Father’s Day: A Journey Into the Mind and Heart of My Extraordinary Son. The part from Bissinger that seemed to parallel Sullivan on kids was his ending to the excerpt...

"But whatever happens with Zach, I know I cannot think in terms of my best interests, even if I think they are also in his best interests. Zach will be where and who he will be. Because he needs to be. Because he wants to be. Because as famed physician Oliver Sacks said, all children, whatever the impairment, are propelled by the need to make themselves whole. They may not get there, and they may need massive guidance, but they must forever try."

Bissinger may or may not be making the same point as Sullivan, but in the vein of "once the words are written, readers will do with them what they may", both concepts seemed to traffic in the idea that (while parents can and should still... you know, parent), children are their own people with their own path for life.

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The final piece related to this concept was one I read a few weeks ago, but just recently saw a link to it posted online. The May issue of GQ Magazine featured "The Cooler Me" by Eric Puchner on time spent with his own doppelganger... the guy he might have become if not for taking on a life of family and associated responsibilities. It's really interesting writing with Puchner (his website here) comparing his life as a teacher, husband and father of two young kids to that of musician Kyle Field. The piece neither bemoans what Field has that he doesn't, nor props himself up in comparison to the singer, but rather takes an almost anthropological view of choices made.

Since the first two pieces had wisdom pulled out for this post, the following two quotes were first from Field in response to Puchner speaking of whether he should have taken a different path in life, and then Puchner concluding his story with an anecdote about time with his daughter...

"There's always something else you could be doing," he said. "We're wasting a life as we speak."

"If someone told me I was going to die tomorrow, I thought, I would still want to be sitting right here. Because it was going to happen someday—very soon, in fact, in cosmological time—and it mattered immensely where I was. There was no time not to waste."

Really great writing in all three pieces and definitely an interesting common thread between them.

Penn State Crimes, Moral Failures & Journalism

While the typical path of this blog has been to link to and write about specific pieces or books that struck me as interesting, this post is about the Penn State scandal and it's mesmerizing (in mostly bad, but also some good) elements.

Details of the actual indictment and alleged crimes within are horrifying, but what's really captured attention has been the characters apart from the accused molester Jerry Sandusky, especially living legend and now ex Penn State coach Joe Paterno. In his case, you have someone who has done much good, but in this case (by all appearances) failed at the most important moment.

It's a fascinating subject, this concept of duality within an individual... his good deeds remain so, but one specific thing handled in entirely the wrong way impacted so much for the victims. Paterno is of course the most recognizable name involved that could have raised these allegations to police years ago, but there's also now ex Penn State President Graham Spanier and his head in the sand approach both years ago when Sandusky's crimes were raised and since the indictment came down over the weekend. If one can detach from the horrible nature of the crimes, it's a study in how people in power (now including the Penn State Board of Trustees that fired both Spanier and Paterno) react to events, create environments and set policy.

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So... the story itself has been riveting, but what's also held my attention over the past week has been the words from sports journalists reporting on the story. Some writers I respect a great deal have had fascinating observations to make and they've first appeared as real-time twitter musings and then as published columns.

There's been so many good pieces written already, but what many sports journalists and fans of sports journalism are waiting to eventually read is the announced earlier this year book from Joe Posnanski on Paterno and this season (which of course nobody could have envisioned turning out like it has). Posnanski thus far has written two different blog posts on the scandal, first Darkness and then Curiously Short Posts and I doubt he knows what his eventual book on Paterno will contain, but I have to imagine it's going to be an enthralling read. Just a guess of course, but it may well be heavy on the aforementioned duality of how a good person (which Paterno certainly seems to be) can do a bad thing (specifically, the limits to his actions taken when allegations were brought to him).

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Back to the subject of reporting and sports journalism... reading the columns and musings from good writers as this story has unfolded has gotten me thinking more about journalism and writing. To this end there's been three different pieces I've come across lately about the profession that all stand out as interesting.

First was an address given by Nate Silver to the Columbia School of Journalism. Silver founded the political blog FiveThirtyEight and in his speech imparts both his background and valuable career lessons for someone about the enter the field of journalism.

Second was a series of tweets from Tommy Tomlinson about an Ira Glass speaking event. I've also been at a live event by the This American Life creator and concur that Glass is a definite master storyteller.

Third was a tumblr site We Are Journalists I just came across today. Very interesting vignettes from people in the profession working to chase down and report well on stories... including things like the horrible crimes and subsequent inaction (and now action) out of Penn State.

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Updated on 11/14 with additional pieces that struck me on the child sex abuse scandal (not a "scandal, not a "sex scandal")...

- Good Riddance, Joe Paterno by Buzz Bissinger for The Daily Beast
- Omelas State University by author John Scalzi on his website
- The End of Paterno by Joe Posnanski on his Sports Illustrated blog

A horrific and amazing ongoing story.