A Farewell to Arms, Legs, and Jockstraps

Starred review from February 17, 2020
Former sportswriter Shah (Relentless) hilariously chronicles her experiences in the good old boys’ world of sports reporting beginning in the late 1960s with the National Observer. Sexism was rampant, she recalls, and overt racism par for the course. Shah shares colorful moments throughout her career, among them asking her hero, Mickey Mantle, what he liked to hunt, to which he replied, “pussy.” In 1981, she became the first female sports columnist in the country for a daily newspaper—the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. She recalls big interviews with legendary athletes such as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, but Shah makes clear that it’s not all fun and games: a feud with Paul Newman carried on for years after she reported on his son’s death (“The story may have been the nicest one I ever wrote. But it pleased no one”), and NBA star Larry Bird, after Shaw wrote about his father’s suicide, said he’d spit in her face if he ever saw her again. Eventually, Shah became “just one of the guys” while blazing a trail for female sports reporters. Shah’s earnest and witty memoir serves as an astute look into the world of sports journalism.

April 15, 2020
Female sports journalists are a common presence in today's world, but that wasn't always the case. Shah was the first female sports columnist at a major daily newspaper. Her memoir is peppered with dozens of anecdotes, but they coalesce into a compelling narrative of how Shah broke barriers, large and small, in the course of carving out a remarkable career. The sexism she encountered took multiple forms, some virulent, some merely annoying, as when flight attendants gave her McCall's and Good Housekeeping while nearby men were offered Sports Illustrated and the Wall Street Journal. On the other hand, she also recounts an interview with a drunk and blatantly sexist MIckey Mantle, as well as her encounter with pitcher Steve Carlton, who treated all sportswriters, regardless of gender, like something he'd stepped in at the dog park. Other instances where men at the paper and athletes inside the locker room did their best to thwart her progress appear throughout, but Shah navigates them all with aplomb. Sportswriting was her foundation, but Shah, who has also written mysteries and nonfiction, never let it define her. A revealing and entertaining memoir.Women in Focus: the 19th in 2020(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)