Book Watch

Richard O'Brien

February 25, 2008

WILL LEITCH does not—repeat, does not—want to be a sportswriter, a job he breezily summarizes in God Save the Fan this way: "Ask bland questions, receive bland answers, return to bland press box, write bland game stories, go home to bland lives." And yet Leitch, the editor of the blog Deadspin, loves to read and write about sports, and he does a fair impression of an ink-stained wretch in God, a collection of essays. In print Leitch hammers, with humor and self-deprecation, the themes that drive his site: the corruptness of mainstream sports media; the low esteem in which advertisers and many athletes hold fans; and, mostly, the loathsomeness of ESPN in general and Chris Berman in particular. The result is a witty poke in the eye to the entire sports-industrial complex. It's a fanfare for the common fan—and, if you're stuck in the cheap seats, easier to read than a website.