Book Description
Ever see Mike Piazza block the plate? Or Derek Jeter slide hard into second? Illegal. But it happens every game. Baseball’s rules, it seems, were made to be broken. And they are, consistently and creatively, by the players, the front office, and even sometimes the fans. Like it or not, cheating has been an integral part of America’s favourite pastime since its inception. But how do they do it, right before our eyes? The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball will show you how cheating is really done. In this lively tour through baseball’s underhanded history, readers will learn how to cork a bat • steal signs • hurl a spitball • throw a world series • and win at any cost! In the end, they’ll come to understand that cheating is as much a part of baseball as pine tar and pinch hitters. And it’s here to stay. The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball is essential reading for even the most casual fan.
Customer Reviews:
Very erudite.......2007-10-03
This is a brilliant book - it may well change the way you think about baseball. Congratulations to the author!
Buy this book for your baseball hating spouse/friend/family member.......2007-10-01
I'll be honest with you, I dislike the game of baseball. Going to a game, watching it? Doesn't intrigue me in the slightest, and I played 3 years of softball growing up. But my husband loves it and he wants to share this fun with me by including me in the season ticket package he bought into with others. So I bring magazines to games or puzzle books so I'm not completely bored. But this season? I brought Derek's book with me and I tell ya - it actually got me watching the game for the first time in a long time. I started looking out for a lot of what he describes in the book while the game was going on - from the history of the pitcher's mound to trying to figure out the signs the base coaches where giving. I even pointed stuff out to my husband that he didn't know. This book helped make my trips to the ballpark more enjoyable AND helped my husband have even more fun with me.
My honest to goodness recommendation is to buy this for the baseball haters that you baseball fans take to games and get frustrated with when they don't pay attention or understand what you're so excited about. This book gives them a level of interest that they may never have known about before - it certainly has for me.
Great gift for a baseball fan.......2007-09-09
Whether you know someone who watches three games a day or just the seventh game of the World Series, this book will entertain them. It's got solid baseball information in it, but is so amusing that even a casual fan will enjoy it.
Derek Zumsteg doesn't advise cheating (for example, in an aside, he describes how to throw a World Series, complete with looking for the "clean, honest crime figures who won't try to blackmail you...They're on aisle 6, next to the unicorns, fairies, sprites, and leprechauns.") But he does explain how cheating through the years has brought us many of the intricacies we have in the game today.
My favorite sections were on how groundskeeping can improve the home team's chance of winning, and a look at the Black Sox that showed, alas, that Shoeless Joe shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame.
Buy it for the man (or woman) who likes baseball and you won't go wrong.
I could not have enjoyed this book more! Terrific!.......2007-08-16
Derek Zumsteg has written a slim but eminently readable history of cheating in baseball.
However you feel about baseball and cheating...with Barry Bonds' recent exploits, many of us baseball fans have been thinking about it a lot...this book will modify your beliefs.
Seriously.
Plus it'll make you laugh out loud, and often.
"Cheating", in its' varying and vague definitions, is explored here from baseball's earliest days up to the whole steroid scandal. It's not encyclopedic, but it gives you plenty of ammunition to argue with the most ardent sports fan you know.
It used to be legal to hold on to a runner's belt as he led off first base.
You could run straight from second to home during a base hit, as long as the umpire didn't see you.
"Cheating" or simply mischievous?
As the rules became more refined, so did "cheating." I promise you that the words "home field advantage" will take on entirely new meanings...
Spitballing, bat-corking, sign-stealing...they each get chapters. Gaylord Perry gets his very own.
Is intentionally delaying a game, during a drizzle, in the hopes that (since you are losing) the game never goes enough innings to be "official" cheating or simply using the rules of baseball to your advantage?
I still laugh at the image of Casey Stengel trying to stress his opinion to the umpires on whether the game should be called because of darkness (no lights in the old days) or rain (before domes and roofs). He would summon a relief pitcher by flashlight in the former situation, or stroll out to the mound with an opened umbrella over his head in the latter. He'd inevitably get tossed, but that's not the point.
The main point here is that some cheating is inexcusable. Zumsteg's essays on the Black Sox and on Pete Rose are well-thought out arguments on the seriousness of those infractions when compared to, say, putting Vaseline on a pitch. I never really understood why the penalty for Pete Rose was so serious.
Now I do. I used to think he should be in the Hall of Fame. Now, I know why he's not.
The steroid issue gets a bit of ink, and it's free of the hyperbole and emotion that usually laces that topic's discussions. He places the use of steroids into a context I had not yet considered, and it makes an inordinate amount of sense.
I could not have enjoyed this book more. I only wish it were longer, which the best praise a reader can offer.
Sloppy and disappointing.......2007-08-11
While I'm sure Zumsteg knows a lot about baseball, the sloppiness of this book makes me question its accuracy. A couple of quick examples:
* At one point he talks about the Red Sox glory days early in the century and says the Sox "would not return to the World Series for another 84 years." Of course, they were in the series numerous times in those 84 years -- they just never won it.
* He also refers to former Orioles "Bobby Grinch" and "Doug DeCines."
Now, those are basic things I know off the top of my head. While I realize his editors deserve some blame, I can't help but think much of the book is hogwash.
While the writing is relatively entertaining, this is basically something that should have been a magazine article that he stretched into a book. The heckling chapter is basically filler and has virtually nothing to do with cheating. Other chapters, while related to cheating (in some form), are similarly overblown.
Amazon.com
Like its subject, The Smartest Guys in the Room is ambitious, grand in scope, and ruthless in its dealings. Unlike Enron, the Texas-based energy giant that has come to represent the post-millennium collapse of 1990s go-go corporate culture, it's also ultimately successful. Penned by Fortune scribes Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, the 400-page-plus chronicle of the scandal digs deep inside the numbers while, wisely, maintaining focus on the "smart guys" deep-frying the books. The likes of paternal but disengaged CEO Ken Lay (dubbed "Kenny Boy" by George W. Bush, one of many prominent public figures with whom he rubbed shoulders), cutthroat man-behind-the-curtain Jeff Skilling, and ethically blind numbers whiz Andy Fastow vividly come to life as they make a mockery of conventional accounting practices and grow increasingly arrogant and bind to their collective hubris. They're not a likable lot, and the writers find it difficult to suppress their astonishment and revulsion with the crew who rapidly went from golden boys and girls of the financial world to pariahs when the bill finally came due. The authors' unrepressed sarcasms are more than often unnecessarily given the scope of the outrage. Enron's leading lights were or a time celebrated for their ability to concoct nearly unfathomable business schemes to hide mounting shortfalls and keeping track on their machinations can be a chore, but, by sticking hard to the story behind the fall, McLean and Elkind have reported and written the definitive account of the Enron debacle. --Steven Stolder
Book Description
Just as Watergate was the defining political story of its time, so Enron is the biggest business story of our time. And just as All the PresidentÂ's Men was the one Watergate book that gave readers the full story, with all the drama and nuance, The Smartest Guys in the Room is the one book you have to read to understand this amazing business saga. And the critics agree:
“This book is right up there with Den of Thieves and Barbarians at the Gate. . . . Those who want to learn what happened here, you donÂ't have to read anything but this.” —James Cramer, CNBC
“The best book about the Enron debacle to date. . . . Based on hundreds of interviews and fresh details, McLean and Elkind masterfully weave together the many strands of the Enron story. They shine in their characterizations of EnronÂ's often incompetent executives.” —Wendy Zellner, BusinessWeek
“News junkies and mystery lovers who enjoy financial scandals will devour this multilayered book. . . . The Smartest Guys in the Room will rival other models of the genre, including James StewartÂ's Den of Thieves. . . . The authors write with power and finesse. Their prose is effortless, like a sprinter floating down the track. . . . The character sketches of former chairman Kenneth Lay, former CEO Jeff Skilling and ex-chief financial officer Andrew Fastow are masterful.” — Edward Iwata, USA Today
“Powerful and shocking. . . . succeed[s] in opening a disturbing window into both the company and the era . . . filled with fascinating characters and anecdotes.” —Jonathan A. Knee, The New York Times Book Review
“The Smartest Guys in the Room is utterly professional, readable and—even though you know whatÂ's coming—highly entertaining.” —Daniel Gross, The Washington Post
“Meticulously reported and compelling . . . a cautionary tale about highfliers who werenÂ't as clever as they thought.” —David Koeppel, Entertainment Weekly
Customer Reviews:
Blunt, intriguing analysis of Enron.......2007-10-05
This book goes through Enron's rise and fall while analyzing each main character. McLean and Elkind have researched well.
This is quite entertaining and a fun read. The only downside is the large number of characters, but the authors have provided a character description list in the beginning of the book. I frequently referred to the characters' descriptions.
Overall, a good book on Enron's choices over the years.
The smartest guys in the room.......2007-09-10
A very well-written account of the rise & fall of Enron. I couldn't put it down
Wanted to read the book after seeing the documentary........2007-08-23
I purchased the book after seeing the documentary in an Ethics class taken during an MBA program at Oklahoma City University. I wanted a little more detail on how things got so blatently out of hand at Enron. I've also read the Conspiracy of Fools. I'm very intrigued by the human nature aspect of this story. We are not being realistic, if we don't think this very same situation could happen anywhere at anytime. More people didn't come forward because their personal livlihood was in jeopardy, even though they had concerns about the ethics of the operation. These were very smart people who let their arrogance get in the way. In the end, everyone was to blame, but no one was to blame. Based on what I understand of the personalities of the Enron Leaders - this was their destiny. It was bound to happen - it only took some time. The biggest question of all - who is next.
Great book on bad management.......2007-08-02
Bad management and the amazing power of human beings to self-delude is on full display in the Enron debacle. This book does a good job of telling a complex story with a large cast of characters. I think it will help supervisors and business owners more that the latest fad book on business and leadership. These guys make excellent bad examples.
Case Study of Corruption on Steroids.......2007-06-05
I purchased this book after having watched the movie of the same name. The book is a very detailed and meticulous recounting of the rampant greed and corruption that was Enron. What you come to discover is that through highly-technical accounting schemes and tricks Enron turned itself into a seeming juggernaut of a business from just a staid old pipeline company. Enron really thought that the free market enabled it to do anything and trade any kind of commodity from weather derivatives to paper pulp, oil, and broadband. What you come to find out in this book though is that they never really had a way to deliver what they kept promising Wall Street.
Enron was a big house of cards all propped up by their stock price. Once that dropped, all hell broke loose. The company was obsessed with the stock price, posting it in elevators and encouraging employees to invest as much of their 401K monies into it as possible. They even created elaborate hedge funds that were based on the stock staying above certain levels. In order to keep the stock at lofty levels they lied and used "creative" accounting to fool Wall Street.
The real reveal in reading this book however is that Jeff Skilling and Ken Lay really have a vast number of compatriots to join them as teh villians here. Andy Fastow, now the government stoolie, was arguably worse than both Lay and Skilling. And yet, thanks to his cooperation, he gets far less jail time.
This book is a slow read, and not for the half-hearted. For the vast majority you are really better off watching the film.
Amazon.com
Enron was a $100-billion-a-year company in October 2001--America's seventh-largest. The Houston-based energy firm enjoyed warm ties with newly installed President George W. Bush. Earnings were up 26 percent from the previous quarter, while Fortune magazine had named Enron the country's most innovative company six years in a row. Less than two months later, Enron filed for bankruptcy in the biggest corporate failure in history. Enron became synonymous with the greed and fraud of the go-go high-tech stock bubble of the late 1990s--the worst of a series of spectacular corporate collapses that also took down WorldCom, Tyco, and Global Crossing.
What went wrong? Veteran New York Times financial journalist Kurt Eichenwald does an epic job of telling Enron's story in his 742-page tome Conspiracy of Fools. Eichenwald, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2000, also authored The Informant, an acclaimed account of a vast international price-fixing scandal at Archer Daniels Midland. Conspiracy of Fools tells the Enron tale with a cinematic narrative style, relying almost exclusively on scene and dialogue to bring his account to vivid life. We see how federal regulators opened the doors for the Enron fraud early on when they let the company loosen up its accounting rules and essentially cook its books. We read how Enron bullied Wall Street firms into issuing favorable reports about its share price by threatening to take away lucrative banking fees. Eichenwald also reveals how Enron manipulated electricity prices during the California energy crisis of 2000. Eichenwald's book is less successful in situating the Enron debacle in its wider context--the cycle of market speculation that reached a historic summit in the dot-com bubble. Was Enron just a cautionary sign of the greed and lack of ethics of a few bad apples, or was it more symptomatic of an entire market system? That may be a debate for another book. --Alex Roslin
Book Description
From an award-winning New York Times reporter comes the full, mind-boggling story of the lies, crimes, and ineptitude behind the spectacular scandal that imperiled a presidency, destroyed a marketplace, and changed Washington and Wall Street forever . . .
Download Description
In 2000, when The Informant was published, few would’ve imagined that a story about price fixing at Archer Daniels Midland could be as un–put–downable as the best crime fiction. Yet critics—and consumers—agreed: The New York Times reporter Kurt Eichenwald had taken the stuff of dry business reporting and turned it into an unparalleled page–turner. With Conspiracy of Fools, Eichenwald has done it again.
Say the name “Enron” and most people believe they’ve heard all about the story that imperiled a presidency, destroyed a marketplace, and changed Washington and Wall Street forever. But in the hands of Kurt Eichenwald, the players we think we know and the business practices we think have been exposed are transformed into entirely new—and entirely gripping—material. The cast includes but is not limited to George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Paul O’Neill, Harvey Pitt, Colin Powell, Gray Davis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Alan Greenspan, Ken Lay, Andy Fastow, Jeff Skilling, Bill Clinton, Rupert Murdoch, and Michael Eisner. Providing a you–are–there glimpse behind closed doors in the executive suites of the Enron Corporation, the Texas governor’s mansion, the Justice Department, and even the Oval Office, Conspiracy of Fools is an all–true financial and political thriller of cinematic proportions.
Customer Reviews:
Tells the Enron story halfway.......2007-10-10
I really enjoyed "Conspiracy of Fools," although it feels as if it only told half of the story about Enron's collapse, ending before the plea deals and convictions of the company's top executives. The book traces the history of the company and its chairman, Ken Lay, describing his early innovations in launching a market for natural gas during a time when the industry was being deregulated. It then describes the rise of company president, Jeff Skilling, a former consultant at McKinsey & Co. and graduate of Harvard Business School, and his role in advancing the career of Andrew Fastow, Enron's CFO. While the book is sympathetic to Lay (portraying him as an unwitting victim of the company's collapse) and less so to Skilling (portraying him as a tortured alcoholic who urged underlyings to cook the company's books to gin up earnings), it portrays Fastow for the crook that he was. Not only was Fastow completely incompetent as a corporate CFO, but he also schemed and schemed and schemed for his personal enrichment, and surrounded his greedy self with other willing participants in his financial machinations (including Michael Kopper and his boyfriend, wife Lea Fastow, treasurer Ben Glisan Jr., chief accounting officer Richard Causey, chief risk officer Richard Buy, executive vice president J. Clifford Baxter, executive Kenneth Rice, and lawyer Kristina Mordaunt). The head of Enron's international group, Rebecca Mark, is portrayed as an incompetent spendthrift. Meanwhile, Arthur Andersen was populated with dunderheads, including David Duncan, who kowtowed to Enron's every wish, and lawyer Nancy Temple, who ordered the mass shredding of Enron-related documents. Merrill Lynch fired its oil analyst, John Olson, because Enron didn't like his stock opinions and wanted Enron's banking business, according to the book. Enron's law firm of Vinson & Elkins appears particularly incompetent and all too willing to assist Enron in cooking its books. Three money-grubbing bankers from Greenwich NatWest, Giles Darby, David Bermingham, and Gary Mulgrew, also participated in a plan to steal money from their company while helping Fastow, according to the book (the three were later extradited to the United States to face a criminal trial).
One of the book's shortcomings is its descriptions of links between Enron executives and members of the Bush administration, as if to suggest that Republicans are somehow implicated in Enron's internal problems. Ultimately, there are no bombshells to report. If anything, the moral vacuousness of Enron's executives has more in common with President Clinton's mendacity and the vapidity of the dot-com and telecom stock bubbles, an age when fantasy completely trumped reality. The Bush administration and U.S. taxpayers were left to clean up the mess.
Eichenwald's book climaxes with the bankruptcy filing of Enron, but the criminal trials of key executives had yet to occur (and Lay died of a heart attack in 1996). Thus, the book feels somewhat anticlimactic.
Another book, "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," is much more critical of Skilling and Lay's managerial shortcomings, whereas "Conspiracy of Fools" is most critical of Fastow and his use of off-balance-sheet special-purpose entities to move debt from Enron's balance sheet and to enrich himself and his coterie of spineless miscreants.
Comprehensive Character List and Complex Issues.......2007-08-04
Without going in to great detail about the book - I am sure we all know it dealt with the collapse of one of corporate Americas' big swingers. The book contained quite a deal of information about events from inside Enron. I guess the only reason I didn't give it 5 stars was because the author had a way of really annoying me by trying to write the book as a novel (in places). I look forward to the movie - hopefully the ending is better for the investors.
How easily the "system" failed........2007-07-28
You will be amazed at how Enron was able to frustrate every check and balance in place in American Finance. The SEC, individual and institutional investors, auditors, lawyers, accountants, rating agencies, banks, creditors, peers, and even insiders were blindsided by a couple of smart but foolhardy executives who were willing to exploit every loophole in the name of manufacturing *profits* (and not products).
All in all a very readable and addictive book.
Couldn't put it down!.......2007-06-24
I do *not* have a high degree of financial acumen, but this book laid out what was really wrong with Enron in a thoroughly engaging manner. I couldn't put it down, and I finally understand the financial reasons for the collapse, not just managerial incompetence...which was EPIC, by the way.
This review is for the audio cds.......2007-06-16
I borrowed these cds from the library because I'm interested in corporate governance and case studies. I'm not an expert on Enron, but this felt like fiction from the first couple of minutes. When the narrator speaks for Ken Lay, he uses a deep, fatherly voice. Andy Fastow's voice is whiny and child-like. Its content is obviously biased and selective. So from a factual standpoint, I'm not learning a heck of a lot.
As fiction, it's way too long at 25 cds; should be abridged by about 2/3. There's just not that much content, and it's often painful to listen to. If I didn't have a one-hour commute to fill, I'd have given up on it hours ago.
I highly recommend The Smartest Guys in the Room instead.
Book Description
A riveting exposé of international corruption—and what we can do about it, from the author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, which spent over a year on the New York Times bestseller list.
In his stunning memoir, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins detailed his former role as an “economic hit man” in the international corporate skullduggery of a de facto American Empire. This riveting, behind-the-scenes exposé unfolded like a cinematic blockbuster told through the eyes of a man who once helped shape that empire. Now, in The Secret History of the American Empire, Perkins zeroes in on hot spots around the world and, drawing on interviews with other hit men, jackals, reporters, and activists, examines the current geopolitical crisis. Instability is the norm: ItÂ's clear that the world weÂ've created is dangerous and no longer sustainable. How did we get here? WhoÂ's responsible? What good have we done and at what cost? And what can we do to change things for the next generations? Addressing these questions and more, Perkins reveals the secret history behind the events that have created the American Empire, including:
• The current Latin-American revolution and its lessons for democracy
• How the “defeats” in Vietnam and Iraq benefited big business
• The role of Israel as “Fortress America” in the Middle East
• Tragic repercussions of the IMFÂ's “Asian Economic Collapse”
• U.S. blunders in Tibet, Congo, Lebanon, and Venezuela
• Jackal (CIA operatives) forays to assassinate democratic presidents
From the U.S. military in Iraq to infrastructure development in Indonesia, from Peace Corps volunteers in Africa to jackals in Venezuela, Perkins exposes a conspiracy of corruption that has fueled instability and anti-Americanism around the globe. Alarming yet hopeful, this book provides a compassionate plan to reimagine our world.
Customer Reviews:
Not What I expected.......2007-09-25
I picked this book up expecting it to be a direct explanation of how the international monetary system works. I was greatly disappointed to find it's just a memoir of the author's experiences, with no hard facts, and innuendos about how horrible the US is, how many people paid him not to write this book, how many threats he's received, etc. The author spends extensive time talking about specific experiences with famous people, preening himself as an important person, and absolutely no time discussing hard facts. He spends an entire chapter talking about how he was offered a controlling position in an energy company.
The author has no clue what Biblical Christianity is, based on his descriptions (it's not about the "social gospel," no matter what church happens to believe that--anyone who bothers to read the actual Bible can tell you that). He praises Che, and says Che was smeared as a communist--in reality, I don't know of anyone who's bothered by Che's communism, but rather by his terrorism, and slaughtering of thousands of people for no particular reason--the very people he claimed to be "fighting for."
Overall, very short on facts, very much about "me," and very disappointing.
Read and learn about the U.S.A........2007-09-20
A vary eye opening book.
It's every caring U.S. citizens duty to read this book.
Mr Tom Clancy goes to Harvard Business School.......2007-09-12
John Perkins' The Secret History of the American Empire is not scholarly "history". History here is just the backdrop. It is the frame story for a lyrical ballad on global corporatism. Perkins commences: "More than half the world's population lives on less than two dollars a day; 24,000 people die each day through hunger and hunger-related diseases; the United States has 5% of the world's population but consumes 25% of the world's resources; the United States' military is preeminent as is the English language; the United States has controlling interest in both the World Bank (16%) and the International Monetary Fund (17%)". (In short, the United States is ideally positioned to exploit all hungering peoples and their rich resources.) Global corporatism's reliance on "jackals" (assassins) and "geishas" (professional escorts) is mentioned, also. Clearly, Perkins' "history" is the proverbial yesterday's paper. It's nothing new. What makes the book engaging, however, is the entrance into global corporatism of a young man emerging from teen angst determined to snare more women and earn more cash (by Perkins' admission) than the high school football team captain. Perkins draws you in at once:
"Confessions of an Economic Hit Man [Perkins' previous work] became my insurance policy; the jackals knew that if anything unusual happened to me, sales of the book would skyrocket" (page xv).
The book's premise mirrors the premise of numerous, far more scholarly works (eg, Ezra Pound's Cantos, and Naomi Klein's Shock Capitalism): "Most US citizens are not aware that national disasters are like wars: They are highly profitable for business" (page 48).
Global backdrop and premise aside, it is hard to tell whether the lyric personal escapades chronicled in this book are fictional. The engaging style is highly reminiscent of science fiction author Roger Zelazny. Indeed, if John Perkins eventually declares this book to be as fictional as Roger Zelazny's sci-fi classic Lord of Light it will be no surprise. For example, Perkins reports that his life of dark corporate skullduggery turned completely around after a chance meeting seated next to His Holiness the Thirteenth Dalai Lama on a 737 commercial flight:
"I made a vow right then and there that I would devote the rest of my life to turning things around" (page 65).
If not true, certainly a fine plot twist. And while it is totally believable a good heart-to-heart with His Holiness might indeed raise a dead soul ghoulishly serving global corporatism to the life more abundant - and while it would be unkind to disparage such an event and such a vow were they true - again, this reads more like good fiction than history.
A curious read.
A little to conspiracy laced for my taste but still a must read........2007-09-11
Perkins sounded a little too much like a conspiracy theorist in this book compared to his first Hitman book but it is still a must read. We all know that the majority of American's believe what they want to believe and do not care about people in the third world. I was not aware of America's history of disastrous foreign policies and was truly fascinated to here it from John Perkins's point of view. I hate how multi-national corporations profit at the expense of the environment and workers of third world nations. I am as conservative as they come, but I hate greed with a passion and even though this book is not completely free of bias it still was a utterly fascinating read.
A good read.......2007-09-06
This book was well-written, and the author very clearly illustrates his points. The only problem I had with it was that I had already read Confessions, and this book is a reiteration of those ideas with some new (and some old) examples. It is ultimately building off of the last book. It is not a must-read, but it is a good read. I am now faced with the dilemma, however, that every time I want to buy something I end up thinking about how many people have been adversely affected by its existence. It is certainly an eye-opener.
Customer Reviews:
compelling!.......2003-02-02
I read the book years ago and in my opinion the most compelling "insider" account of mafia mores...It is true that most true crime mafia tales are written by or with the help of mob members, hence the dubious veracity of some facts.(I was reminded of this book, as I just finished For the sins of my Father, written poignantly by Al Demeo, the son of a murderous mobster. We get to see another avenue in this certain world of horror.)
Mob Lawyer provides this same kind of insight, as Ragano was invited in to the mob world for a function, but he was not involved in the criminal activities.Extremely insightful.
From his son........2002-04-17
I was overwhelmed by the reviews, both positive and negative. The book only reveals some of the highlights of my
father's career. It captures the essence of what really transpired between Hoffa, Trafficante, and Marcello. He was in an unusual position to be able to represent all three of these men at once. According to my father, it was "tantamount to being counsel for General Motors." The book explores the uneasiness of trying to represent your clients zealously, yet ethically. In the end, though, he crossed the line of objectivity: Your never socialize with your clients, he would warn. When he was fighting Bobby Kennedy ("The General") in court, all too often he would refer to it as: "Their enemies became my enemies." The book reveals the inter-workings of a truly brilliant criminal defense attorney. It also shows how insightful these mafia chieftains were to the american public being exposed to drugs, particularly cocaine. This is later demostrated in John Gotti's interactions with the mob. I am very proud of him and I think he would be very proud of me, although I concentrate my practice in family law, where the clients are less difficult.
Straight-Forward & Believable: Hoffa, the Mob, Kennedys.......2002-01-08
A Straight-Forward and seemingly reliable Mob-insider's account by one of the LCN's top lawyers. Ragano is no name dropper, nor is he full of it. He was a top Lawyer for both Hoffa and Santo Trafficante from the late 50s through the 80s.
The books explores the life of Tampa lawyer Ragano and his close relationship to Santo Trafficante. This is one of the few, if not only books, that examines the life of this shadowy, but important mobster who by his own and others' admission, was involved in planned or real assassinations of Castro and JFK.
Ragano's account of his dealings with Hoffa and Trafficante and his association with a who's-who of Organized Crime personalities- Carlos Marcello, Luchesse, Gooodfellow's mobsters Henry Hill and Jimmy Burke, Sinatra, Alan Dorfman (who milked the Central States Pesnion fund for all it was worth) and others -- is told without nonsenes and in a fully credible way.
Ragano is not a conspiracy nut, nor does he come across as one who makes up stories. Neither was Trafficante. So that is why when Ragano reveals what was told him by Trafficante about Hoffa's and JFK's murders, accounts which jive with other and most prevelant thoughts about those killings, I think he can be taken at his word. Clearly, it should come as no suprise that the Mafia was involved in those murders. And while not much is added to details of JFK's assassination, the death of Hoffa is clearly related, including the names of the triggermen and who ordered the hit.
Unlike some mob-insider accounts I have read, where the subject's integrity is of little worth and the story sometimes hard to swallow, 'Mob Lawyer' is both profound, soul searching and entertaining.
Customer Reviews:
Well Written - Really Drives Home Impact to Those Affected but Not Involved.......2005-10-22
I never thought about the thousands of people all over the world who conscientiously practised their profession but were brought down by a series of scandals by people they never knew working in offices they never dealt with. This book is the fall of Arthur Andersen from their point of view. It details the history of Arthur Andersen from its founding until the end and tries to makes sense of what happened. They do a powerful job, making the reader sensitve to the size and corporate culture of Andersen and explaining how changes in the company to accomodate the changing demand for audit services opened the door to this kind of thing to happen. If you couple reading this book with books about Enron itself, you will definitely be feeling that only the people in Anderson involved in the scandal should have been brought down. That being said, they do leave in the "smoking guns" - the former scandals that had caused the SEC to say basically, "One more time and your dead" to Andersen. Enron was the one more time. Still, this book made me think that there might have been a better way of handling it.
Surprisingly interesting book.......2005-08-23
I had to read this book for school, and as one may figure before reading an accounting book, I was planning on it being a little boring. Contrarily, this book was very good. It was written by four ex-employees of Enron and Arthur Anderson, so it is very credible.
The book progressed very smoothly, and it made me very knowledgeable on what so many of us have heard, but so few really know about.
good, workman-like explanation, approving yet critical.......2004-12-01
I read this for a writing project and found it one of the best accounts available of what happened to make this company collapse the way it did. While there is occasionally a sense of victimization running through it - the authors all worked for AA or were affiliated with it - it does not stop them from hard-hitting analysis of how a company declined from iconic status as a standard-setter to one that was, well, slowly corrupted and traducing its values (like, the authors contend, all the other big accounting firms).
What this book adds is an analysis of how AA's governance evolved, from a tightly controlled firm with a charismatic leader to a global, highly decentralised one that was impossible to govern. This was a slow, evolutionary development with consequences that no one could have foreseen. Slowly, values eroded, a culture came undone, and the result was, in many cases, a naked scramble for money. In essence, accounting became a doorway to far more lucrative consulting arrangements, and so AA began increasingly to cooperate with those it was supposed to audit as a public service and with independence and integrity (as it clearly did in the past when the firm stood for something).
Where this book is weaker is on the wider context of the economy, which the reader will have to seek elsewhere. Moreover, while the SEC scrutiny - and the indictment that killed the company - may have been unfair, there were so many scandals developing that at least one firm was slated to take a fall. It was AA, as it turned out, somewhat a scapegoat in which many many good people got hurt, but still, in retrospect, it looks very very bad. I cannot feel outrage at its demise, though I do feel sympathy.
Recommended for specialists. This ain't pleasure reading, but the story is one that needs to be told as an ethics case study.
Great overview of what is wrong with accounting..........2004-11-01
The Good: It provides a decent overview of the history of Arthur Andersen leading to the Enron debacle, and a good historical perspective of events leading to the downfall of AA. Also reaches some interesting conclusions at the end.
The Bad: Like another reviewer said, there's no in-depth "inside" look at what was going on in the Houston office, or really any explanation for the Waste Management, Sunbeam or WorldCom restatements beyond what's presented in the overview. It's not so much "Inside Arthur Andersen" as it is "The Rise and Fall of Arthur Andersen".
The Ugly: It's really far too short, and too heavily reliant on newspaper and internal AA documentation. I found a lot of things informative and enlightening about the book--but I admit I knew almost nothing about what happened before I read this book. It's a great starting point, and it raises many more questions and paths of inquiry than it does answer or solve anything.
Very interesting prespective.......2003-08-14
I was with Andersen for 8 years up until the fall of the firm. This is the first book I have read about the firm the takes a methodical look at what exactly happened at one of the most prestigous firms in the world. If you are interested in Andersen's rise to power and some insight as to what it was like inside during the fall, then its a must read.
Average customer rating:
- Inside story of Rick Hendrick's Bribery Shenanigans
- Maybe Reviewers of this Book Should Tell the Truth
- Great Book!!
- incorrect
- Arrogance and Accords
|
Arrogance and Accords: The Inside Story of the Honda Scandal
Steve Lynch
Manufacturer: Pecos Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 Economics
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
| Agricultural
| Commercial Policy
| Comparative
| Consolidation & Merger
| Cooperatives
| Debt & Deficits
| Development & Growth
| Econometrics
| Economic Conditions
| Economic History
| Economic Policy & Development
| Exports & Imports
| Free Enterprise
| Inflation
| International
| Labor & Industrial Relations
| Macroeconomics
| Microeconomics
| Money & Monetary Policy
| Natural Resources
| Privatization
| Public Finance
| Statistics
| Sustainable Development
| Theory
| Unemployment
| Urban & Regional
General
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Industries & Professions
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Industry
| Automotive
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Foreign
| Automotive
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0965776611 |
Book Description
Arrogance and Accords: The Inside Story of the Honda Scandal is the tale of the largest commercial corruption case in U.S. history. Between 1994 and 1997, eighteen former executives of American Honda Motor Company, along with four other people, were convicted on federal fraud and racketeering charges. The big secret at Honda was out: Over a 15-year period, the gang of greedy Honda officials had received over $50 million in cash and gifts from automobile dealers eager to obtain additional hot-selling Honda cars and franchises. The ill-gotten booty included briefcases stuffed with up to $750,000 in cash, palatial homes, luxury German automobiles, secret ownerships in dealerships and other businesses, and Hong Kong shopping sprees.
When the automobile market softened in the early 1990s, the high-rolling officials, led by Honda's charismatic national sales manager, switched to embezzling money from the corporation. Honda belatedly fired the executives in 1992 and tried to keep the scandal under wraps - until an ambitious small-town Assistant U. S. Attorney decided to investigate. Eighteen never-before arrested Honda executives were subsequently convicted. Most went to prison.
The final event of the scandal occurred in August 1997 when the nation's largest automobile dealer, Rick Hendrick, pleaded guilty to mail fraud in a federal court in North Carolina.
Arrogance and Accords is both a true-crime story and a look inside one of the world's most respected companies. It details the key characters and their shady deals, along with the internal and FBI investigations, and reveals the corporate culture that allowed the pandemic payola to flourish for so long. The author examines how the corruption adversely affected Honda's sales efforts, from how it marketed automobiles to the establishment of the Acura luxury car division.
The book also provides a compelling look inside the much-maligned American automobile business.
Written by Steve Lynch, a former top Honda marketing executive, Arrogance and Accords is an insightful, often hilarious tale of greed, ignored whistle-blowers, paranoid Japanese managers, and the raucous 1995 federal trial of two of the Honda officials who decided to fight the charges.
Told as only an insider could, Arrogance and Accords is written with authority and style by someone who was in the thick of the action.
Customer Reviews:
Inside story of Rick Hendrick's Bribery Shenanigans.......2005-02-23
This was a terrific review of this book, found online:
BOOK REVIEW: ARROGANCE & ACCORDS - THE INSIDE STORY OF THE HONDA SCANDAL by Steve Lynch
Reviewed By Michael Daly
In June 1999 Pocono Raceway awarded Rick Hendrick its prestigious Bill France Sr. Award of Excellence. Wrote Speedway Scene when the award was announced, "Rick Hendrick exemplifies the drive, dedication, and ideals long associated with Bill France Sr."
The talk about ideals reeks of irony.
Steve Lynch spent thirteen years with the American branch of Honda Motor Company, and he loves Honda automobiles. This passion helps animate and drive his eyewitness account of the long-running bribery scandal that rocked American Honda and involved one of NASCAR's most powerful team owners. The scandal not only involved Rick Hendrick, it swept others in NASCAR racing as well, through no fault of their own.
Lynch's love of Honda shows in his early account of the dismal state of the American automobile scene circa 1981. There is a certain glee with which Lynch contrasts the high quality of Honda's product with the lesser quality of American marques of the time. Such contrasts in quality were vital, for Honda automobles were selling themselves, unsupported by the kind of extensive marketing campaigns common to auto manufacturers.
But as Honda grew more successful, greed and graft within the American division grew bigger and more audacious, as a gang of car cowboys dipped into the till of corruption and made themselves multimillionaires as a result. Lynch notes how Honda's tightwad employment policies contributed to the atmosphere of thievery.
The prince of payola at American Honda was "the blacksheep son of a well-to-do North Carolina family," John W. "Jack" Billmyer. Billmyer first made himself known as corrupt when he first joined Honda in the mid-1970s. He tried to extort from a Honda motorcycle dealer. When the dealer complained to higher-ups, he was ignored - a trait that would permeate American Honda's approach to the scandal for nearly 20 years.
Billmyer "wallowed in the kickbacks of dealers" throughout the country, and following in his footsteps was his successor as chief of national sales, Stanley James "Jim" Cardiges. Cardiges' own lack of moral scruples first displayed itself in very Clinton-esque fashion around 1977; running a dealership with his uncle, Peter Cardiges, Jim hit on - and ultimately stole - Peter's wife, his own aunt-in-law, Effie.
Such men were natural candidates for criminality.
Rick Hendrick was the biggest dealer influence-peddler to play ball with Billmyer and Cardiges. His relationship with Billmyer went back to Rick's youth as a hot rodder. Billmyer helped Hendrick establish himself in the car sales business and was instrumental in getting him a dealership. Lynch shows how Hendrick wielded undue influence with American Honda and was thus able to acquire more car stores than anyone else. "All it took," Lynch writes, "were a few gifts."
Most car companies limit dealers to about six store. Rick Hendrick, though, didn't believe such a rule should apply to him, and in Honda he found a company that officially did not have such a limit. He nonetheless took no chances; Lynch notes that Hendrick store holdings were frequently in the name of others, notably his brother John Hendrick, and less than $1 million of the bribes Rick paid have ever been recovered.
Lynch shows how Hendrick used bribes and influence-peddling to bankrupt rival Honda dealers and poach their stores. William Van Dalsam of Corono, CA, was one. Dick Young of South Carolina was another. These two cases were directly witnessed by Lynch; there were many other such cases not mentioned in the book because they were not directly witnessed by him. According to Rodger Knupp of Asheville, NC, one such involved former NASCAR driver Dick Brooks; after rebuffing a Hendrick offer to buy his stores, he found cars slated for his stores winding up at Hendrick stores.
This tactic of bankrupting rivals also drives Hendrick's racing, as evidenced by the enormous disparity of Hendrick Motorsports' budgets and engineering compared to those of most other teams.
Lynch also reveals how team owner Junie Donlavey and crew chief Doug Richert wound up getting caught up, through no fault of their own, in Billmyer's corruption. Seeing that Donlavey, a Richmond, VA Honda dealer, needed a crew chief for his team for 1987, Billmyer put the squeeze on a dealer from CT, John Orsini, to put Doug Richert on Executive Honda's payroll. This done, Donlavey had his crew chief. But the deal reeked of quid pro quo, and left a paper trail that would help unearth the massive bribery within American Honda.
Lynch carries the story through the trial and conviction of over 22 defendants, including Hendrick. There is a sense of disappointment in Lynch as he notes that, with Hendrick's guilty plea to one count of mail fraud (pertaining to perhaps the biggest individual bribe he paid Cardiges, a bribe that helped Cardiges buy an obscenely expensive California house), the probe of the Honda scandal seemed to close.
Lynch also notes a lesser-reported angle to the story -- how Hendrick reportedly also bribed Lexus. A cynic might thus question Hendrick's relationship with General Motors as well, given Hendrick's Chevrolet dealerships and the near-monopolistic clout and technical assistance GM provides Hendrick's racing empire.
One might also ask, if Hendrick is such a crook, why so many people so love him. Lynch answers that when he notes that, unlike the lesser dealers who bribed Honda, Hendrick was actually a good dealer, and his dealerships reflect him. Lynch notes Hendrick's generosity, his habit of providing whatever his employees need or want - most notably how he paid for operations on employee family members.
"Rick Hendrick has been a driving force in NASCAR Winston Cup racing," Joseph Mattioli of Pocono stated in announcing the France Sr. award, "and has displayed all the attributes that this award stands for."
Steve Lynch shows us just what attributes Rick Hendrick has displayed. NASCAR fans should be required to read this book.
Maybe Reviewers of this Book Should Tell the Truth.......2003-03-08
Michael Daly's review of this book (see below) is driven by his irrational hatred of Jeff Gordon. This book has way more to do with Japanese business methods than Rick Hendrick. Unfortunately, Daly cannot see the forest for the trees. Do yourself a favor. Read the book and not Daly's comments thereto. The former is much more enlightening.
Great Book!!.......2000-10-28
Arrogance and Accords is engaging, well written and at times very funny. The mainstream media missed this compelling corruption tale even though it was the biggest story in the auto industry during the 1990s.
Steve Lynch brings the sordid story to life, using his own experiences along with evidence and depositions provided by the Justice Department. I was on the "fringe" of the scandal and thought I knew the whole story from industry publications but Lynch brings to the table much more information than I ever imagined.
The reason that so much money passed hands is pretty simple - Honda cars were in high demand and dealers greased the palms of American Honda executives to get more vehicles. The real story here is not how it happened but how it all unraveled: a mixture of inept lawyers, an aggressive US Attorney, the often-unheard whistleblowers, and Honda's Japanese managers who did not want to put a stop to the corruption. The second half of the book reads like a true crime novel but it was all true.
Lynch could be a comedy writer. My favorite examples of his humor was his shots at some of the small towns key to the scandal - Conway, Arkansas, Santa Paula, California and Concord, New Hampshire - which were hysterical.
This past year, Honda paid out over $500 million to dealers who sued over the scandal, claiming they were denied vehicles in favor of corrupt dealers. I'm sure we have not heard the end of it....
incorrect.......2000-10-20
Not an accurate account of how this occurred, badly mangled.
Arrogance and Accords.......2000-01-17
As a nascar race fan i really enjoyed this book. It shows how deep corruption is in everyday business and how people like Rick Hendrick can steal and bribe from his own friends and still only get a slap on the wrist.It shows how Nascar stands by Hendrick even though he's a convicted felon.It makes you wonder how many top Nascar people were also involved.Also the influence Rick Hendrick had over GM.I think both Rick Hendrick and Nascar show a lack of respect for fair play in business.You only have to look at Nascar itself and see how they favored Hendricks teams. Did you ever see Jeff Gordan penalized for anything in Nascar.He jumped the restart at Watkins Glen 3 times and never was penalized. Watching Nascar anymore is like watching Wrestling.Nascar is as greedy as Rick Hendrick.
Book Description
A dramatic and compelling journey into the dark heart of globalization.
Customer Reviews:
An intriguing, eye-opening discussion.......2005-02-07
What happens when multinational corporations decide that the use of armed force is really business? When companies line up with warlords and armies to make a profit? When corporate interests dictate war or peace? Madelaine Drohan's meticulously researched and impressively wrfitten expose, Making A Killing, shows just what happens in a world of multinational power, drawing important connections between corporate armed forces and history and providing food for thought for corporations, policy makers and national leaders alike -- the result is an intriguing, eye-opening discussion.
A pantheon of predators.......2004-01-20
Resource control is the core of Madelaine Drohan's book. Where the image of empire was once faceless armies, religious zealots or expanding trade, modern conditions have changed this view. Instead of governments launching empires, suit-clad businessmen now decide where the action lies. Decisions to exploit resource areas are not made in ministry offices, but in corporate boardrooms. Businessmen, "and they are almost always men", choose locations, make investments, recruit workers and begin operations. Until there is unrest. Then they call in governments to support their enterprise. If governments cannot or will not respond, the entrepreneur's answer is the "private army". Mercenary professional military men act as "security" teams, policemen or replacement armies. And they are accountable to no-one but the firm that has hired them.
Drohan's account begins with the rule of Cecil Rhodes "who stands head and shoulders above" the ranks of those applying military solutions to "corporate problems". Rhodes built an immense resource empire in Southern Africa. He also set the standard for controlling workers as firmly as he did markets. By the expedient of raising a battalion of "pioneers" to deal with reluctant African peoples and recalcitrant workers, Rhodes expanded his holdings to an unprecedented degree. Attributing his goals to the furtherance of the British Empire, he also ensured the continuation of profits to his own pocket. Belgium's king Leopold followed Rhodes' example by keeping the Congo as a personal fief. The Belgian government was simply shunted aside on imperial affairs for decades. The rape of the Congo is a glaring example of imperialism run rampant, yet it set the stage for what followed.
Drohan's narrative is dominated by personalities. Like a gaggle of rapacious ravens, men prominent in resource enterprise descended on Africa after Rhodes. Some of these were British, some Canadian, but others arose from among Africa's own peoples. These last were flexing political and economic muscle as former colonies became independent. These new nations, with their artificial boundaries laid down irrespective of tribal or ethnic limits, became caught up in internal regional disputes. Resource firms played off these rivalries to their advantage where possible. If contests for power became too heated, the companies had the option to withdraw or find ways of protecting their investments. Protection was provided by "security forces" available for hire. Among the most notorious of these was the South African firm, Executive Outcomes. Staffed by disaffected South African soldiers, it offered services directly or through hidden subsidiaries. Executive Outcomes emerges frequently, if often vaguely, as Drohan valiantly tries to unravel the machinations the firm and its customers perpetrated as gold, diamonds and other resources were sought and exploited. Legality is an elusive term in these activities.
These are not distant and unrelated events. We tend to cling to the image of investment benefiting all - the theme of "globalisation". Drohan demonstrates how firms, pursuing resource wealth in Africa, have followed the Rhodes formula for success. Whether hiring private armies or simply requesting local government forces to act in their interests, resource firms are steadfastly ignoring the impact on local people and their economy. Of all Drohan's examples, the most glaring is the Talisman Energy story. Her chapter on this operation is at once the worst and the best example in the book. Talisman, a latecomer to Africa, seems to have learned nothing from previous resource history in the region. As Drohan describes it, Jim Buckee, Talisman's head, followed a sinuous path trying to keep his firm active in the resource field. With one eye open to profits and the other closed to government activities done in the name of "security" for his operations, Buckee brought his firm close to disaster. On the other hand, the case demonstrated the power of the public in bringing such firms to judgment. Various large stockholders, chastened at the thought of supporting a firm blind to the impact of its operations, withdrew investment. It's a fine example of what individuals can achieve in acting collectively.
Drohan's book is a much needed exposure of business morals left unscrutinised. In her final chapter, "Perfectly Legal, Perfectly Immoral", she shows the path to justice for people under oppressive regimes shored up by rapacious businesses is long and difficult. Yet, if readers pay attention, she shows how they can be effective in making change. With a federal election looming, it would benefit electors to read this book and reflect on its message. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
A book about corporate and state power without responsiblity.......2003-12-29
This is an excellent book about how specific corporations, individuals and both European and African rulers have plundered Africa for profit and the accumulation of private fortunes on the backs of millions of Africans who have been slaughtered over the centuries. Some of the individuals have passed into the history books, but some of the corporations and individuals are still very much in the news today and the world still waits for their atonement. Madelaine Drohan has provided a very courageous addition to the literature in the area by in-the-field research in some of the most dangerous places in Africa and written in most detailed and compelling manner.
Solid research and first-hand observations.......2003-12-06
Drohan cover a number of specifc cases of corporations using violence to further their interests - dedicating a chapter to each case. She makes no effort to be a comprehensive compendium of all the ills perpetrated by corporations, instead choosing to focus on a few prime examples in detail where her experiences as a journalist can bring some perspective to each case.
My own particular interest is around the role of Calgary-based Talisman Energy Inc. in Sudan. The chapter on Talisman was solid and insightful, with Drohan drawing from her own experiences in Sudan and interviews with key players, as well as the volumes of research and reports available.
The book is a telling study of the irresponsible extremes corporations can go to in their simple-minded focus on profit as the only goal.
Book Description
In this alarming book, Fox News commentator Judge Napolitano makes the solid case that there is a pernicious and ever-expanding pattern of government abuse in America's criminal justice system, leading him to establish his general creed: "The government is not your friend." As an attorney, a law professor, a commentator, a judge, and now a successful television personality, Judge Napolitano has studied the system inside and out, and his unique voice has resonance and relevance. In this sensational book, Napolitano sets the record straight, speaking frankly from his own experiences and investigation about how government agencies will often arrest without warrant, spy without legal authority, imprison without charge, and kill without cause.
Customer Reviews:
Eye Opening.......2007-03-28
Now I've always been skeptical of the government to say the least. I love this country and I am continually in awe of the Constitution and its framers. I mean really; what an extraordinay document, parralelled by nothing! God Bless America. This book only furthered my belief that the government is clearing straying from our beloved Constitution, and provides plenty of examples to bring one to that conclusion.
One of the things I loved about this book was that it does not explicitly align itself with any political party. I mean it is clearing conservatively toned, but it doesn't just rip on libs for being libs, and I believe the author would have no problem pointing out mistakes by Republicans (as he does with his criticism of things like the Patriot Act). And while the author holds dearly to conservative views (like a strict interpretation of the Constitution) he stears away form political parties.
It seems that both libs and conservatives complain about Constitutional woes: libs with their gay marraige and conservatives with their right to bear arms, to name a couple. The problem is both parties pick and choose when they want to follow the Constitution. If there's one thing that I walk away with after reading this book its that everyone has to follow the Constitution. No man is above it, rich or poor, and the government cannot hold itself above it either. Democracy and liberty depend on it!
The book reveals bad law and court tactics.......2007-03-19
Liberals are generally focused on the Patriot Act. Oh they say, we are going to loose our liberties as a result. But Constitutional Chaos reveals cases which were not under the Patriot Act were obtained and people were convicted illegally. How things changed since the Supreme court decision of 1892, where the accused confession under distress or lying or false promises cannot be used in court. Yet, we see cases were enforcement lies to the suspect in order to get a confession out of him...The modern courts turn a blind eye, and allow the evidence to be used in court even though it was obtained illegally. Now there are somethings I disagree in the book...Such as obtaining permission from another country to capture and bring a suspect back to the US for trial...
Even though there are treaties that say otherwise, if the other country gives their permission than I see no problem with capture, transfer, and bring to trial. However, I do agree if the country doesn't give their permission, the US has no right to use the tactic anyway. The book reveals such cases...
The book is worth getting, because you understand more about how the government works. That's not to say the government breaks it's own laws all the time, but it doesn't mean they are all little angels either.
Must Reading.......2007-02-10
Our country is in danger. Our children may not know freedom in their adult lives. When you ignore the Constitution or interpret it dishonestly you are then at the whim of every left and right winger who want to use government to suit their cause. Many progressives (actually socialists) just won't get honest enough to say they want to throw away the constitution. They're at the pre-stage of that where they put down the people who wrote it. Thankfully Judge Napolitano gives us a great history of crucial times and cases that started leading us away from the intent of the constitution. He gives us backround to what the founders intended, and lots of good examples from the current day which herald the demise of our freedom with the exile of the constitution. He also includes the actual Constitution in its entirety and some suggestions as to how we can fight to stay a free nation. It's well written, an enjoyable read, and since they evidently don't teach this in school anymore it should be passed around for everyone to read. It will help define who we are and give ammuniton against the collective beehive globalists that want to lead us into their visionary utopia, which will actuate as fascism. The constitution was written to protect the people from big government. Now we have people who want government to do everything for us even at the loss of individual freedom. Educate yourself to stay free, please read this book.
A MUST READ!.......2007-01-09
Heads up to all Americans. Judge Napolitano lays it out clearly and precisely how we need to protect our individual freedoms. For those of you who have not had to deal with your rights being violated, it is a harsh reality when you realize the truths of this book. Highly recommended!
Government can corrupt and deviate the law.......2006-11-04
This book will explain how our elected officials can corrupt and deviate the constitutional rule of the law. Judge Napolitano will explain how the federal government level, will disorderly placing of a word in a sentence to indicate or cause confusion of thought, or a word dislodges from the common usage in a lexicon and becomes, Obsolete: No longer in general, current use, and therefore its meaning may become questionable.
You will understand how the growing corruption in the legislature, and judiciary reflect a trend to base all American law upon the tyranny of 'Legalism', Extreme Liberalism, for the special interest and for their own political agenda. This same government is required by law, to be bound by an oath of affirmation to support and protect the constitution.
This book is a wake up call. If this book does not shock you, that our government is headed in the direction of 'Fascism', and to take action by electing people into congress that will support and protect the constitution, then you are part of the problem.
Book Description
Most fans today know that gamblers and ballplayers conspired to “fix†the 1919 World Series—the Black Sox Scandal. It has been touched upon in classic works of sports history such as Eliot Asinof’s Eight Men Out, referred to in literary classics like W. P. Kinsella’s Shoeless Joe, and has been central to two of the best baseball movies ever made, John Sayles’s Eight Men Out and Phil Robinson’s Field of Dreams.
Many, however, would be surprised to learn that it took nearly a year to uncover the fix. Burying the Black Sox is the first book to focus on the cover-up that kept the fix from the American public until almost another whole baseball season was played, and to examine in detail the way events unfolded as the deception was unraveled. Unlike Eliot Asinof in Eight Men Out, previously the definitive book on the subject, Carney thoroughly documents his information and brings together evidence from a wide variety of sources, many not available to Asinof or more recent writers.
In Burying the Black Sox, Gene Carney reveals what else happened and answers the questions that fascinate any baseball fan wondering about baseball’s original dilemma over guilt and innocence. Who else in baseball knew that the fix was in? When did they know? And what did they do about it? Carney explores how Charles Comiskey, the owner of the White Sox, and his fellow owners tried to bury the incident and control the damage, how the conspiracy failed, and how “Shoeless†Joe Jackson attempted to clear his name. He uses primary research materials that weren’t available when Asinof wrote Eight Men Out, including the 1920 grand jury statements by Jackson and pitcher Eddie Cicotte, the diary of Comiskey’s secretary, and the transcripts of Jackson’s 1924 suit against the Sox for back pay. Where Asinof told the story of the eight “Black Sox,†Carney explains the baseball industry’s uncertain response to the scandal.
Customer Reviews:
chicago black sox.......2007-09-21
very interesting it had a lot of new material but not what im looking for. i want to find out more on possible gambeling on college football 1925 1940. more information on jake lingle and his killer leo v brothers and notre dame football.
the best book on the black sox.......2007-08-04
Gene Carney has done a first-rate job not only mining previous research but finding new material on baseball's blackest moment. While he concedes that not everything will ever be known about the scandal, given the difficulties of time and memory, this book reads with authority. Its special strength, as the title hints, is in the detail about organized baseball's attempt to bury the scandal. Thanks to Carney, more of this part of the story is now known than ever before. Highly recommended.
Well-researched and informative .......2007-06-21
Author Gene Carney carefully examines the sordid doings of players, gamblers, and baseball officials in the 1919 Black Sox scandal. The players include the guilty (Eddie Ciccotte, Lefty Williams, Chick Gandil, etc.), the essentially innocent Buck Weaver, and the possibly complicit Shoeless Joe Jackson. But Carney is more concerned with the scandalous activities of White Sox owner Charles Comiskey and other self-serving baseball officials. To begin, Comiskey inspired the scandal by under-paying his talented athletes. Carney shows that Comiskey almost certainly knew that the World Series was fixed while it was ongoing, covering it up for nearly a year before the story broke. Readers see how Comiskey and his attorney manipulated events and even illegally hid court documents. Finally, we see how after the eight players were acquitted in trial, newly-appointed commissioner Kenesaw Landis banned them from baseball, thus neatly diverted attention from the many sordid ties then existing between gamblers, players, and baseball officials. As many know, the players were punished (at least one unfairly), while the gamblers and baseball officials got off practically unscathed.
Carney has done an impressive and scholarly job, though his prose never attains the poetry of EIGHT MEN OUT, Elliot Asinof's also-impressive 1963 effort. Still, there is much to learn here from an author who did his homework and answers as many perplexing questions as seems possible.
The culmination (sort of) of a ton of research.......2007-02-06
I have been a regular reader of Gene Carney's online column for some time, though my reading his column was one of the casualties of the circumstances of my overly-busy life for a while. So I was glad when the book came out and purchased it as soon as was convenient. I almost literally couldn't put it down. I knew from his column that he was making every attempt to give all parties the fairest treatment possible from the distance of 85+ years, so no aspect of the book surprised me much. Still, the depth of the research is impressive, and it was nice to have it all in one place rather than spread over dozens of online columns. Kudos to Carney for putting the finishing touches on this new, fresh look at a controversy that far too many people think was settled with Landis's "eight men out" verdict. Yet, I also am aware that Carney's research continues even beyond the book. If a second edition comes out at some point that includes things that Carney has learned since the publishing of this volume, I'll be up for purchasing that, too.
Baseball's Web of Conspiracy.......2007-01-31
A review by Pete Cava:
The Web of Conspiracy, Theodore Roscoe's meticulously researched 1959 book, left many readers wondering if the complete truth about the Lincoln assassination would ever be known. Gene Carney's tome about the fixing of the 1919 World Series, Burying the Black Sox, reaches a similar conclusion.
Over the decades, some of the best and brightest have taken a whack at undoing the Gordian knot of gamblers, corruption and dubiously motivated magnates involved in the Black Sox scandal. Since 1963 the definitive work has been Eliot Asinov's Eight Men Out. But Carney gleaned evidence that wasn't available to Asinov, including court transcripts of a 1924 trial in Milwaukee (where Joe Jackson, in a lawsuit against the White Sox, maintained his innocence); excerpts from the personal diary of Harry Grabiner (de facto general manager of the White Sox in 1919) and a gambling publication called Collyer's Eye, which accurately identified seven of the eight Black Sox (all but Buck Weaver) in November 1919 - ten months before the story of the fix made headlines.
Exploring degrees of guilt, Carney points out how Jackson, Weaver, Chick Gandil and Swede Risberg didn't play equal parts in the fix. Weaver's greatest sin appears to be a reluctance to squeal on teammates - ironically, the same course of action followed by several `clean' Chicago players.
Carney takes a hard look at the actions and motives of major league baseball owners in the wake of the scandal. "Justice was judged to be less important than the game's image," he writes - an unsettling reminder of the current moguls' attitude at the outset of the recent steroid flap. Carney charges baseball with trying to ignore (and subsequently cover up) the story of the scandal - perhaps as great a sin as the Series fix itself.
If the book has a fault, it's an occasional didactic tone that could have been tempered by more careful editing. But Carney (who is also a poet and playwright) more than atones with a wonderfully creative recap of the scandal that takes the format of Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First" routine.
As Leonard Koppett pointed out, baseball, like life, prefers simple stories to complicated explanations. And while Burying the Black Sox provides new details, the book raises even more questions on the scandal and subsequent cover-up. Carney tempers this honest (albeit frustrating) conclusion with the hope that somewhere - in the recesses of a dusty storeroom, or perhaps tucked among some forgotten and misplaced file - are documents that will shed further light on one of the most unsavory, yet irresistible, chapters of baseball history.
- Pete Cava
Books:
- The Elizabethan World Picture
- The European Economy since 1945: Coordinated Capitalism and Beyond (Princeton Economic History of the Western World)
- The God Delusion
- The Golden Bough: Fifteen Volume Set
- The Gospel According to Judas by Benjamin Iscariot
- The Human Record: Sources of Global History Volume II: Since 1500
- The Jesus Dynasty: The Hidden History of Jesus, His Royal Family, and the Birth of Christianity
- The Leadership Experience (Thomson - South-Western)
- The Misadventures of Maude March
- The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- You Can Hear Me Now: How Microloans and Cell Phones are Connecting the World's Poor to the Global Ec
- The Book of Wagner & Griswold: Martin, Lodge, Vollrath, Excelsior
- International Bibliography of the Social Sciences: Economics 1980
- Land and Natural Development
- Pouring Light: Layering Transparent Watercolor
- The Faerie Queene
- Nitrogen in the Marine Environment
- Revising Tax Treatment of Employer Provided Health Insurance
- It Takes Money, Honey : A Get-Smart Guide to Total Financial Freedom
- Institutional Requirements for Market-Led Developments in Latin America
Watching Baseball Smarter: A Professional Fan's Guide for Beginners, Semi-experts, and Deeply Serious Geeks
Baseball Prospectus 2007: The Essential Guide to the 2007 Baseball Season (Baseball Prospectus)
Crazy '08: How a Cast of Cranks, Rogues, Boneheads, and Magnates Created the Greatest Year in Baseball History
The Baseball Economist: The Real Game Exposed
Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Blunders: A Complete Guide to the Worst Decisions and Stupidest Moments in Baseball History
