Mayne - An Incomplete and Inaccurate History of Sport: With random thoughts from childhood. And with random thoughts from times other than childhood . . .

Contents

For Laura,
the one Im always seeking to impress

Foreword

I ts probably more powerful to have some kind of famous person write the foreword to your book.

Let this be the first of many disappointments as you read more.

To begin with, the book isnt really complete. Lots of sports are never mentioned at all.

In fact, there is every chance you can blow through the book while standing at a Barnes & Noble, Borders, Books-A-Million, Hastings, Chapters (for those of you in Canada), or an independent bookseller of your choice while waiting for your wife, girlfriend, mistress, or the opposite if you are female. (Let the record show I like females. Females are good readers.) Anyway, you should be able to read this thing in roughly the same amount of time it takes that person you are waiting for to finish arguing with the cashier as to whether the 10% off sticker is in addition to, or exclusive of, the discount associated with his or her book club membership.

If you go this route, please dont damage the cover, as it is intended to be displayed as a coffee-table book. Or at least used as a coaster.

As for ongoing disappointments, in addition to not being complete, the book is not particularly accurate. If this were a history book, then Ken Burns would have been involved and it would have taken four or five years to produce. I wrote this thing in four or five hours, and that time would have been reduced a great deal had my daughters not kept interrupting me to play indoor tackle football. They know ten different pass routes, all off of audible calls at the line of scrimmage, which is over by the television set.

While being neither complete nor historically accurate, my book is about sports. At times.

I get to cover sports for a living. This is ridiculous. Other people have real jobs. They make things. They sell stuff. They put out fires. I just watch sports. Then I make up stories about the sports I watch.

In this effort, if you can call it that, Ive tried to be honest, except in those cases where making something up helped finish a paragraph. I wont say writing the book was easy, but it wasnt exactly coal mining either.

The inspiration for this book came from my literary agent, Michael Murphy. He saw me inside his television and was moved to send me countless e-mails encouraging me to write a book. He probably just wanted to make money, but he said all the right things. Perhaps hell stop sending me e-mails now.

Ive never even met the guy. He could be a war criminal for all I know. If so, I probably dont have to give him any money. He should be hanged. The bastard.

My other inspiration was the Jon Stewart book on democracy. I think it was called Democracy or maybe it was called An Incomplete and Inaccurate History of Democracy. (Publishers note: It was called America (The Book).) Anyway, it was funny.

I hope I have done for sports what Jon Stewart did for democracy. Since his book came out, our great nation has not been taken over by Communists. Not yet.

As I write, one thought keeps going through my head: If I exclude a glossary or whatever that section is that comes at the end of some books, I can be done writing sooner. (Publishers note: That thing is called an index.)

At the same time, I love words. I love writing. Why else would I have written this coaster?

I have decided to cut the price by 75 percent. Under twelve dollars seems like a fair price, way better than forty-eight dollars.

And I dont think Canadians should have to pay extra. Why does the book industry hate Canada? Why dont books have little stickers that penalize instead Mexicans or Hondurans? (Publishers note: Author has no say in pricing of the book.)

This book is dedicated to Canadians. Im going to write my first chapter on hockey.

Enjoy your coaster.

Backwords

I do believe this is the first backwords in publishing history. I didnt find another one in my exhaustive research at a local bookstore. Then again, my daughters Riley and Annie made me stop when we were knee-deep in the transportation section.

This is so revolutionary it is holding up the opening chapter on ice hockey, dedicated to all those Canadian people, the targets of an oppressive book industry.

Seems like a good time for a photograph now.

Here is my daughter Rileys illustration of the Immaculate Reception. You know, the famous play in which Franco Harris caught the ball after it bounced off the ground and Pittsburgh beat Oakland.

It would appear Riley was inspired to draw something of a hybrid illustration in which football and baseball converge but on a day where not many players showed up. I dont know what Riley was thinking. That is why I asked her to explain herself. Usually when I ask her to explain herself its because she has sprayed a full can of Raid into the fireplace and our couch is in flames. This time I just wanted to know why she drew a hybrid football-baseball game with not enough players when youd think after knowing me for eight years or so we would have talked about Franco Harris at least once.

Below is Rileys explanation. She earned five dollars for this. She spent it on earrings at the mall. These are the fake pierced earrings that squeeze onto her earlobes and dent them. She will have lost them long before this gets printed, but at least we have the following:

Forward

Larry Bird

I cant believe Kenny Mayne is trying to delay his hockey chapter by using another gimmick this early in the book. I was a forward, get it? He tried to tell me how funny it would be if a forward wrote a forward for him, some kind of lame literary inside joke playing off the fact books have forewords.

He also told me how I was his favorite forward of all time but little does he know I just ran into Karl Malone, Dennis Rodman, and Xavier McDaniel.

I think this is pretty stupid but Ill tell you what is funny. Whats funny is the picture just below. Kenny asked his daughter Annie to draw up Don Larsens perfect game, and she illustrated bowling.

Like her sister, Annie also wrote up a little paragraph trying to explain why her father had never sat her down to talk with her about Don Larsens perfect game. What kind of parenting is that?

As I understand it, at the time Riley was spending her five bucks on the fake earrings, Annie was being forced to try on back-to-school clothes. No wonder she feels left out as the second child. Tell you what, Ill buy her the fake earrings if theyre going to treat her that way. Theres no way Malone was better than me. And I know Im just a hick, but as far as contextual continuity goes, dont you think it would have made a whole lot more sense to run the ice hockey chapter just after the mention in the foreword about how Canadians have to pay extra money for books? Thats how I would have done it.