cover image Art Spander Collection

Art Spander Collection

Art Spander. Taylor Publishing Company (TX), $15.95 (272pp) ISBN 978-0-87833-649-4

Sports columnist for the San Francisco Examiner , Spander here assembles an anthology of his newspaper pieces, with an emphasis on West Coast play. He writes about Reggie Jackson, Jack Clark, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Joe Montana, jockey Eddie Delahoussaye, skier Annemarie Moser-Proell, golfer Johnny Miller, Ivan Lendl at Wimbledon and the Boston Red Sox in the 1986 World Series. While covering a wide range of sports, Spander's best columns are in the final sections, ``Piques and Valleys'' and ``Levity, the Role of Wit,'' in which he blasts venal athletes, sports figures who take themselves with deadly seriousness and the malevolent influence of TV on sports. Written against the deadline demands of daily journalism, many of the pieces are too topical and of the moment; others, going back to 1979, are dated. The book is likely to interest only Spander's local fans. (May)