Thank you to the publisher and for NetGalley, which provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.

Mr. Book just finished The Early Days Of ESPN: 300 Daydreams And Nightmares, by Peter Fox.

I remember when ESPN was worth watching. That was back in the days when they would provide much needed coverage of baseball. But, that time passed, the more that baseball became an afterthought for them, with the decline in their coverage starting as soon as the first NFL training camp opened. Once MLB Network came along, for me, ESPN had lost his usefulness. I only watch it these days for their live baseball games.

But I was initially excited to see there was a book about the early days of ESPN. I thought that reading about the good old days of the network would be enjoyable and I know that there’s a lot of interesting things going on behind the scenes at a TV network.

Unfortunately, this book disappointed. There just wasn’t enough good stories to go around. There were several times when I considered giving up, but continued to the end. It did get a little better about half-way through, when there started to be more discussion of on-air talent. But even that wasn’t enough,

I am disappointed to say that I have to give this one a C. I prefer grading on a letter scale, but Goodreads and NetGalley require grades on a 1-5 star system. In my personal conversion system, a C equates to 2 stars. (A or A+: 5 stars, B+: 4 stars, B: 3 stars, C: 2 stars, D or F: 1 star).

Mr. Book originally read this on May 17, 2024.