Home and Away: Memoir of a Fan - Hardcover

Simon, Scott

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 078686415X ISBN 13: 9780786864157

Publisher: Hyperion, 2000

Synopsis

From his beloved father who died when Scott was sixteen, to Ralph, his scholarly, affectionate stepfather, Scott Simon lovingly depicts his attraction to and awe of the larger-than-life forces that shaped his world. He writes about sports talk as a means of communication between fathers and sons; about Chicago as a city of fans.

About this title

About the Author:

SCOTT SIMON has reported from all fifty states, scores of foreign countries, and seven wars. He has won every major award in broadcasting for his essays political and war reporting. NPR's Weekend Edition with Scott Simon is NPR's flagship weekend program. It is heard by more than 3.2 million people each week. He lives in Washington D.C.

From Booklist:

With the exception of the Chicago Bulls' NBA championship run in the nineties and the Bears' 1985 Super Bowl, Windy City sports fans have been doomed to a perpetual cycle of preseason excitement, midseason frustration, and late-season despair. Simon, host of NPR's Weekend Edition and the recipient of virtually every broadcast journalism award for his political and war reporting, is a lifelong Chicagoan, if not geographically, at least by sports affiliation. As a Chicago youth, his father was pals with Hall of Fame broadcaster Jack Brickhouse. Later, his journalism credentials placed him in contact with some of the city's sports legends, but for the most part he rooted from afar. Simon recounts the Cubs' heartbreaking collapse in 1969, the Bears' buffoonish mediocrity from their NFL title in 1963 to the arrival of Iron Mike Ditka as coach in the early 1980s, and the rise of the Bulls in Michael Jordan's early years. Fully half the book is devoted to Simon's adoration of the championship Bulls, but his memories go far beyond the rose-colored highlight reel one might expect from a googly-eyed fan. Often Simon was working as a correspondent in one war-torn corner of the world or another as the Bulls rolled to title after title, and it is a testament to the power of sport that, in the midst of death squads and mass graves, there is still a part of us that can care about athletic competition. Fortysomething Chicago fans will most closely identify with Simon's sporting life, but fans everywhere will discover in his passionate yet analytical prose the kernels of truth that will help them define their own fandom. Wes Lukowsky

About this edition

• Publisher: Hyperion
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 078686415X
• ISBN 13: 9780786864157
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384