Fun and Games: My 40 Years Writing Sports
$14.99-
“Covering many of the biggest names and greatest events in sports, it’s a wonderful collection of yarns and reminiscences, told in Perk’s inimitable style.” — Postmedia
“Few can spin a yarn with the wit and clever turns of phrase that Perky can.” — Shi Davidi, Sportsnet
After forty years of encountering a myriad of athletes, fans, team managers, and owners, Perkins offers unique observations on the Blue Jays and Raptors, fifty-eight major championships’ worth of golf, ten Olympic Games, football, hockey, boxing, horse racing, and more
Dave Perkins was once told by a bluntly helpful university admissions officer: “You don’t have the looks for TV or the voice for radio. You should go into print.” Which he did, first at the Globe and Mail, and then for thirty-six well-traveled years at the Toronto Star.
In Fun and Games, Perkins recounts hysterical, revealing, and sometimes embarrassing personal stories from almost every sport and many major championships. Learn why Tiger Woods asked Perkins if he was nuts, why he detected Forrest Gump in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, and why Super Bowl week is the worst week of the year. Perkins exposes the mistakes he made in both thought and word — once, when intending to type “the shot ran down the goalie’s leg,” he used an “i” instead of an “o” — and to this day, he has never found a sacred cow that didn’t deserve a barbecue.
“Anyone who has ever spoken to Dave Perkins, or read Dave Perkins, remembers his voice. This book is a delightful way to experience it all again, through the wise funny man’s eyes.” — Bruce Arthur, Toronto Star sports columnist
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Dave Perkins wrote about sports and the people who played them for 40 years. He lives in Toronto and shows up on Bob McCown’s national radio show when the host needs to be straightened out. Brian Williams is an iconic sportscaster, known for his work on CBC, CTV, and TSN, and is an Officer of the Order of Canada.
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Published: September 2016
ISBN: 9781770413122
Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.5 in.
Pages: 336
Reviews
“Covering many of the biggest names and greatest events in sports, it’s a wonderful collection of yarns and reminiscences, told in Perk’s inimitable style, which always feels as though he has a beer in one hand, a cigar in the other, and is cracking wise.” — Cam Cole, Postmedia News
“Anyone who has ever spoken to Dave Perkins, or read Dave Perkins, remembers his voice. This book is a delightful way to experience it all again, through the wise, funny man’s eyes.” — Bruce Arthur, Toronto Star Sports Columnist
“Dave Perkins is a great storyteller — on and off the page. What a treat to read these tales of his life on the sports beat. Almost makes me feel like I was there, sharing in the adventures (hey, wait a minute, a bunch of the time, I was…). The newspaper sports columnist, sadly is a dying breed, and Perk is a throwback, a true heir to Jim Coleman, Trent Frayne, and especially Milt Dunnell. We can’t read him every morning in the Star anymore, but awfully nice of him to take a break from retirement and provide us with this gift.” — Steven Brunt, Columnist for Rogers Sportsnet
“Dave had a particular knack for writing stories that read as if he were talking to you over a beer. I could always hear his voice in print. The greatest sports scribes have shared that breezy conversational trait.” — Toronto Star
“Few can spin a yarn with the wit and clever turns of phrase that Perky can.” — Shi Davidi, Sportsnet
“Anyone who worked with Dave Perkins knew him to be the epitome of a newspaper man: smart, fun, tough-minded, and good-hearted. Those who never had the good fortune to share a road trip or a press box with him can read these well-told tales, many from a romantic era of print journalism now changing at a rapid pace, and feel like they were there for every interview, story, debate, cigar, and post-work beer.” — Michael Grange, Sportsnet
“Most of the stories are pretty universal, which means they are enjoyable for anyone who pays attention to sports in general. And there’s just enough venom and score-settling along the way to keep it interesting.” — Sports Books Reviews Centre blog
“Like the man himself, the contents are honest, irreverent, funny, entertaining, frequently off-colour and often politically incorrect. And, occasionally, emotionally introspective.”— Golf Canada