My Turf: Horses, Boxers, Blood Money, and the Sporting Life Book

When I was 16 my uncle took me to the OTB so he could bet on the ponies. He used to get the fever, shake and sweat, laying out all the money he had in the world. It ruined him financially and he recovered, thankfully. I hated seeing him like that, hopping from one tv screen to the next, sweating bullets. And then when it was over he was either high from the win or sullen for the loss.

I thought this book was going to be more about those types of scenarios, more dirt-under-the-fingernails-and-blood-on-our-shirts type stories. Instead, we got some competent but fairly weak pieces about the horses themselves or about the riders. And it was all fairly tame.

Even when it came to the boxing, it seemed as if he were writing all the things that we already know (with the exception of a few little bar room tales) and gave us nothing we could really sink our teeth into. I felt like I was forgetting most of the information as I turned the pages.

But I will say this- I did learn a few things I didn't know before I picked up the book. So not all of it was forgettable. Some of it was fun, some of it wasn't. All in all, it panned out even. I made up for the losses.

I definitely think that if I had read these maybe once a week, one article a week, I would have enjoyed the articles more. But back to back to back, it seemed like overload.

I wanted it to be seedier. I wanted it to be bloodier, and filled with more gossip. I wanted third-hand accounts of stories that may or may not have been true. I wanted sensationalism. But in the end, it was real and it was raw and worth the read.