Book Review - Scribe: My Life in Sports by Bob Ryan

Scribe: My Life in Sports by Bob Ryan
Hardcover: 336 pages
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA (October 7, 2014)

You can't call yourself a sports fan and not know who Bob Ryan is.  I've had the pleasure of emailing back and forth with the Hall of Fame sportswriter for quite a few years now.  He's one of the best in the business.

For 46 years, Ryan worked as a beloved Boston Globe sportswriter and columnist and later made regular appearances on both Around the Horn and Sports Reporters on ESPN.  Long before he was placed on the Boston Celtics bear in 1968, Ryan picked up the nickname "Scribe" from his high school football coach as he put so many hours into the school newspaper.  Suffice it to say, the Hall of Fame writer has lived up to the nickname.

Ryan writes of growing up in Trenton, New Jersey and his path to becoming a Boston mainstay.  To say that Ryan is a sports institution would be an understatement.  A sports fan first and foremost, Ryan has a passion and enthusiasm for the game, no matter what sport or where its taking place.  Without such passion or enthusiasm, it's hard to tell if he would be the writer we know that he is today.

For over four decades, Ryan regularly covered baseball, basketball, golf, boxing, and eleven Olympic games.  He retired as a regular columnist following the 2012 Summer Olympics in London but he has written an engaging memoir infused with the same insight and journalistic prowess that he used when writing his columns.

We get the behind-the-scenes stories with personal anecdotes, unbelievable encounters, and photos of his priceless memorabilia.

If you call yourself a sports fan, do yourself a favor and read this book.