Editor's Note: The Snooze Button Generation originally published "100 Nonfiction Books I Recommend" in 2019. As we read more books worthy of recommending, the list continually updates. Today, "Levels of the Game" by John McPhee enters the Sports category.
Blown away.
It's been a while since I've felt blown away by a book, but John McPhee's Levels of the Game (1969) did it to me. I must admit that right off the bat, I was skeptical because of the publication date.
One Hundred Nonfiction Books I Recommend overflows with 21st century books. Levels of the Game is only the 13th book I recommend from the 20th century, and only the fifth prior to 1990. Y'know, it goes back to how our reading minds have contorted in the digital age and how many 20th century books can't compete with our 15-tabs-open, notification-receiving, Podcast-listening digital minds.
Upon publication of Levels of the Game, Robert Lipsyte of The New York Times wrote: "This may be the high point of American sports journalism."
This is not hyperbole to say that Lipsyte was correct. It just very well may be the high point of sports journalism. Of the 10 categories of books I recommend, sports books are the weakest. It's not out of not reading these books, or giving them chances, but they too often are mere commercial products extolling heroes. Then, when I read the sports books that supposedly have chops, I react with: "Eh, doesn't do it for me."
In Levels of the Game, the narrative thread is genius. It follows just one match, a semifinal in the 1968 U.S. Open between Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner. This was the first U.S. Open in the open area, and that means it was the first time pros were allowed to compete against amateurs. It used to be only for amateurs.
Both Ashe and Graebner had amateur status and earned no prize money from their matches. It was a time when they both arrived at their match via subway, and Ashe was a lieutenant in the Army while Graebner was — and still is — a paper company executive in New York City.
The match is significant because two Americans are facing off in the semis whereas no American had won the U.S. Open at Forest Hills in 13 years. The winner would have a shot at defeating either a Dutchman or Australian for the title.
McPhee reports the path of the match and highlights significant points throughout the 150-page book. Early on, the reader realizes that McPhee has traveled to Richmond, Va., to interview and report on Ashe's background and Cleveland, Ohio, to report on Graebner. By the way, as a Cleveland native, I had quite a bonus to hear about him graduating from Lakewood High and his family moving to Beachwood as his dad attended dental school at Case Western Reserve.
One way I approached the book was to not look up the result to keep it a bit of a cliffhanger. I assumed Ashe probably was going to win because, honestly, I had never heard of Graebner. But Graebner won the first set 6-4 and had a pretty untouchable serve, so let's just say this, if you don't want a spoiler's alert, stop reading here.
The match itself is secondary to exploring the lives of the two, who were Davis Cup teammates and comrades. On Ashe's side, we see what life was like, training under Dr. Robert Johnson, who created a tennis academy for African-Americans in Lynchburg, Va. We also see glimpses into Ashe's father, Arthur Sr., and learn that Arthur Jr. lost his mother at age 6 when she was 27 and had complications from a pregnancy.
In Graebner's world, we see how he was an only child, and he and his father were obsessed with tennis. Graebner, who wore black glasses and had a striking resemblance to Clark Kent, was a power server in a time in which players still used wooden rackets.
When the match gets tied 6-6 in the second set, the narrative shifts to the players' assessment of each other as well as their different ideologies. Then, a lengthy quote from Ashe that extends beyond a page explains his relationship with Graebner, his humanity for the Clevelander and the complexity of Ashe's empathetic position in culture, despite facing many oblivious to society's ills.
The nuanced quote is so insightful that it probably doesn't serve it well to take any of it out of context, but here goes: "(Graebner's) a nice guy, but he has become accustomed to instant gratification. As soon as he wanted something, he got it. Put all this on a tennis court, and the high-strung part, the conservative, and the need for instant gratification become predominant."
In era before tiebreakers, the match gets tied 6-6 in the second set. Graebner finally loses his serve for the first time in the match to conclude the second set, 8-6. So weird to think of that game, that moment. Where would we be if Graebner holds on?
In the third set, Ashe leads 6-5. It's Graebner's serve, and Ashe takes a love-15 lead. McPhee points out that at this juncture, the two have played 186 points. Each player has won 93 points. But from then on ... it's all Ashe. He wins that game and the match in four sets.
Ashe goes on to win the U.S. Open final the next day, and he also wins the Australian Open (1970) and Wimbledon (1975) in his career — three Grand Slam titles. Beyond tennis, Ashe had a gift for diplomacy and leadership, and even when Levels of the Game was published, he had visited the White House four times by age 26.
Toward the end of the book, Ashe says a few memorable things, including the constant judgment and stress he faced. "It's a great feeling to away from all this crap in the United States. Mentally and spiritually, it's like taking a vacation. It's like going from New York to the black world of Richmond and Gum Spring. Your guard goes down. Everywhere else I go, my sensors are out. Everywhere."
A few pages later, McPhee explains a lot of the criticism Ashe endured. Then Ashe, who we lost at age 49 in 1993, answers the criticism with an eloquent, three-page quote in the final few pages of the book.
My favorite part of the quote is this: "We'll advance by quiet negotiation and slow infiltration — and by objective, well-planned education, not an education in which you're brainwashed. Education reflects a culture's values. If that culture is warped, you get a warped education."
One glorious Saturday afternoon in November 2013, I stumbled across a Lord of the Rings pinball machine for sale at Cal Bowl in Lakewood. I snagged the thing and tuned it up to perfection. It might remain my most prized possession.
Ten years later in November 2023, Chloe randomly was playing Pokemon Go. I was curious what she was doing and announced, "Well, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em."
Every since Space Invaders entered my life in 1980, video games have been a part of it. Soon, it was Mario Bros. and Tecmo Super Bowl on Nintendo, and now, this Pokemon Go thing, I must admit, is a full-on addiction. I think it's a healthy addiction, but I'm not 100 percent sure.
I just won't stop playing. Most weeks, I walk more than 50 kilometers (31 miles) to get rewards from the app.
For those who know the game, you will not need this brief explanation. Pokemon Go is an augmented reality game that was globally popular as soon as it came out in 2016. Augmented reality means that it combines real world and computer-generated content.
So I'll be walking down the street and see a mural in real life, but then that mural will exist on my phone as a Pokestop to spin (click on), collect as a postcard and get rewards. That's pretty cool. I've collected more than 12,000 of those. ... Whoa. I've saved 650 of them.
And then there's the characters, the Pokemon. There are more than 1,000 of those. They're cute and collectable, kind of like virtual Beanie Babies. I've snagged more than 14,000 Pokemon. ... Egads.
When I'm pretending this isn't an addiction, I liken it to the best Fitbit ever because it rewards me for walking. Good deal!
Walking in different places is my favorite thing about it. Without that, I wouldn't do it. Chloe recently had me download the new Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket, a virtual card game. It doesn't work at all for me. It has nothing to do with walking. I'm not a fan of non-physical video games. Pinball and Pokemon Go at least involve some sort of physical element.
For a lot of 2024, my singular focus in life was to evolve the Pokemon legendary character Zygarde to its fullest form. That meant I had to walk path upon path to collect 250 Zygarde cells. You can only get three Zygarde cells per day, and it's erratic how many one gets for a path. Sometimes, it's zero. And sometimes, I just didn't see them. Getting those cells took forever.
Finally, this past November 2024, I fully evolved Zygarde, and that's the picture of him above. After that mega-accomplishment, I figured the game was over. But then, I just kept playing. I still collected Zygarde cells (I'm not sure why), then I figured out how to use Reddit to find raids and collect legendary Pokemon. What was happening here?
Dude, it is a full-on ADDICTION. Pokemon characters are ranked on a scale of zero to three stars, and typically, there are three versions of each Pokemon like baby, teen and adult. I pretty much have three stars of every Pokemon in every version. Wild!
And I have my Pokemon into teams. I have nine different teams of 18 Pokemon on each. That's 162 specialized Pokemon for my criteria. My most important category "best buddies" just grew to 20. You get a best buddy when you earn 300 hearts with the Pokemon you choose as your sidekick, and getting one best buddy is a pretty lengthy process.
Look, enough already. This all is craziness. It's obsessive video gaming. It's one thing to use Pokemon Go as motivation to walk, but then, why am I putting hours upon hours into the game at home without walking? Where is the justification for that?
I see the mindless phone consumption of my students, and by George, I don't want to be like them. I want to be mindful, and I don't need to devote my life to Pokemon Go. I'm better than that!
In this blog, I've often written about and recommended books that questions social media, the phone and our current attention economy. Reader, Come Home and How to Do Nothingare my favorites. Right now, I just finished a book in a similar vein, Bored and Brilliant by Manoush Zomorodi.
I couldn't agree more with the premise of Bored and Brilliant, that to be more creative, we have to embrace boredom and not give away all of our break moments to screen time. Our brains need time for space, and nowadays, so many people don't give themselves a break away from their phones. For me, I actually am excellent with phone discipline — except for this Pokemon Go thing.
In Bored and Brilliant, Zomorodi suggests deleting the app that we use most and see what happens. She quotes author and tech behavior expert Nir Eyal, who says we should ask this question: "Is this product serving me or hurting me?"
I've had social media off my phone for years and am disciplined enough to look at the news (DW from Germany is what I prefer) only once a day. But the reality is that the kid's game, Pokemon Go, probably isn't serving me any more. Yet I'm confused because it often gets me out to walk. And that's a good thing.
I am thinking of deleting the app, but I just don't know I can do it.
OK. It might seem like an odd topic as Baby New Year slides down the firefighter's pole of life into 2025. But I've been thinking about dead rock stars a bit since the Morrison Hotel in downtown Los Angeles caught fire a few days ago. Perhaps this year, too, this blog will go back to its original focus — pop culture of interest to Gen Xers.
Somehow, the Morrison Hotel endures, even though Jim Morrison has been deceased for 53 years. Morrison, as many are fully aware, is on the list of dead rock stars at age 27. ... Gone. Gone as a mere youngster.
Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin are the most significant members in the 27 Club. They all were hugely famous singers, and I realize something else. They're all American.
That's got to mean something. I mean, we have other a few others in the unfortunate 27 Club that are British, including Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones and Amy Winehouse, who died in 2011. But Jones was no singer, and Winehouse is pretty late to the game as the only significant 21st century member of this unfortunate club in my estimation.
The 27 Club is a decidedly American phenomenon, and it's got to mean something about our culture. Right? Well, let's explore.
Truly, if you took away the Americans, there really would not be a 27 Club. Also, let me mention that famous downtown New York artist Jean-Michel Basquiat is in the club, and Mississippi bluesman Robert Johnson — described by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as "the first ever rock star" — started the club when he died at 27 in 1938.
As Sinead O'Connor might sing, "nothing compares to..." these American icon deaths at 27 — or really American icon deaths at any age. Paul McCartney, 82, is still going pretty strong for his age as is Mick Jagger, 81. If the United States has any vague counterpart to those two Brits, I'd go with Michael Jackson (dead at 50) and Prince (dead at 57). Both had drug-related deaths.
I am not qualified to talk about addiction, or mental illness, or even life if the limelight. But the premature deaths of all of these American pop icons has to mean something. And it's just now that I'm mentioning mega-icons James Dean (dead at 24) and Marilyn Monroe (dead at 36).
I suppose all we can do is accept the fact that on some level, American pop culture has been toxic, absolutely toxic, for decades. So, yeah, we're heading into 2025, and my wish remains that American culture would become a little less toxic. But I just don't see that happening.
On Christmas Day, I noticed that the most streamed movie on Netflix was Carry-On, a mid movie that probably keeps your attention but has no real substance and is about terrorism at LAX. Merry Christmas!
Also on Netflix, it aired two highly watched NFL games, and as anyone knows, football is the most violent sport on planet earth. Somebody might say that's not right. What about boxing or MMA? But football is played on such a ginormous scale in the United States — and is such a fabric of American culture — that I deem it as more violent than any other sport. American football is hardly played in other countries, by the way.
Dead rock stars, the NFL, some guy named Jake Paul, divisive politics — when the market place dictates the culture, the lowest common denominator prevails. We all lose. We all lose because we are indeed better than this junk.
The market place determines way more than pop culture in the United States nowadays. Gen Z is the most stressed generation in history, and a big part of that is the impending doom of trying to maximize themselves as human resources. Kids are forced to think of themselves as human resources exceptionally early in life. I mean, in the Long Beach Unified School District, for example, students pick their high school and a career pathway when they are in eighth grade.
I just feel we need some type of return to humanity and not human resources. We have signs all around us that this market-first American culture does not work. On the pop culture front, I see a huge desire for us to have music and books and movies that have staying power and are not so dang disposable. We're so desperate to have that — and feel that — that many now look back on 1988's Die Hard as "a great Christmas movie."
We want culture with staying power. We want McCartneys and Jaggers. We don't want disposable pop stars and movies.
Dead at 27?!? I actually wonder how many 27-year-olds are truly alive. I bet by the time many turn 27, they are just working their butts off on hamster wheels of paychecks.
I hope to god our kids are alive at 7 — although I hardly see any playing outside. I hope they're also alive at 17, but the ones I see are so stressed about their schoolwork and getting into college that I question if they actually enjoy that age.
This wide-open marketplace comes with a price, and I don't think it's a stretch to say part of the cost of this disposable culture is the destruction of American icons. OK, then. Happy New Year!
