Now I Can Die In Peace by Bill Simmons

From The Week of July 25, 2010

Bill Simmons, also known as the Sports Guy, is a pioneer of a new form of 21st century journalism which has flourished thanks in large part to the rise of the Internet. It is a journalism that forsakes objectivity for the passionate fandom that can only come from a lifetime of watching a team perform day in and day out. Without moderation, sycophantism would be inevitable to a writer in this practice, but Mr. Simmons outshines his peers because he writes about his teams -- the Boston-area sports franchises -- with a charming balance between veneration and criticism, on issues both important and trivial. This is an admirable quality in a fan, a label typically slapped on those with a complete incapacity for objectivity and rational thought. And so, while the Internet has brought to light a Bill Simmons for every team, the journalistic eye of the original has put him a cut above the rest.

Now I Can Die In Peace is a collation of Mr. Simmons' columns, from 1999 to 2004, which primarily concern the Boston Red Sox. Tracing the franchise's history of torture, the book has Mr. Simmons' wonderful flair for conflating sports and culture into a personalized amalgam of joy and sorrow, emotions with which all lovers of sports are familiar. Spicing this stew with his own personal experiences, we see a life in development set against the backdrop of organized sport which has an irrational but amazing hold over most of us adult males. But while all this is thoroughly entertaining, it is a book that could not have held together without the stunning u-turn of fortune the Red Sox experienced in 2004 when, down three-games-to-none to the New York Yankees, on the brink of elimination in the ALCS, they came back to win four straight games, eventualy claiming that season's World Series. It's an event which, for generations of fans of the team, was an exorcism of all the pains and torment, allowing them, yes, to die in peace.

This is a fluffy read, but what book about sport, not consumed by stats, isn't? Sport is an indulgence, a connection with the past. Its literature is no different. Nonetheless, it has an inexplicable power to unite us in common cause and in shared memory, of a time when we were younger and dumber and far more care free. This work won't win any literary prizes, but it is raw, heartfelt and witty, all of which make it perfect for the now. (3/5 Stars)