Sean Deveney

Sean Deveney follows up his book about New York City in the 1960s through the lens of local politics and sports, Fun City, with this book about New York City in the 1980s through the lens of local politics and sports. Fun City focused on two figures, Mayor John Lindsay and Jets quarterback Joe Namath, both handsome, young men who rose to prominence alongside the 60s youth culture and offered the promise of a great future (for themselves and the city) but also had hubris that lead to colossal failures. Greed and Glory, as evident by the extraordinarily long subtitle is not so focused. Greed and Glory cuts from storyline to storyline with no clear theme, and often is not even arranged chronologically.

The sports angle is covered by the 1986 World Series champion New York Mets and 1987 Super Bowl champion New York Giants. Star players Dwight Gooden for the Mets and Lawrence Taylor for the Giants each struggle with their celebrity in New York and each end up with cocaine addictions that mar their careers. But Deveney just can't seem to focus on these two players and what they mean to the larger story of New York in the 1980s, and instead spends a lot of time describing the experiences of other Mets and other Giants and play-by-plays of important games in their championship seasons. And while this kind of narrative can be interesting, there are whole other books dedicated to these teams' champion seasons, whereas this one promises and fails to tell a more relevant story of Gooden and Taylor in 1980s New York.

The other storylines focus on New York mayor Ed Koch as his third term is rocked by scandals among the Democratic party leaders throughout the city. Future mayor Rudy Giuliani makes his mark as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York by aggressively pursuing cases against the Mafia as well as the political corruption in the Koch administration. And Donald Trump carries out a convoluted plot to get a NFL team and a domed stadium in Queens (paid for with other peoples' money, naturally) by suing the NFL on behalf of the USFL. The plan fails, but he somehow redeems himself by restoring the Wollman skating rink in Central Park. Pretty much every sketchy detail of his character (and lack thereof) was evident in the 1980s, but for some reason people still decided to make him famous and then elect him President. Ugh!

These storylines - if the Mets/Giants stories were excised - could almost make a good book, but there's still too much and it just comes out messy. Granted, the 1980s in New York were a mess and it's still difficult to make any sense of it. Deveney doesn't make a dent in that mess, but I will give him credit for at least making it a pageturner of a read, if ultimately too fluffy for its own good.… (más)

Jonathan Mahler's excellent book Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning examines New York City in 1977 through the lens of that years highly contested mayoral election and the New York Yankees championship season, despite the high conflict within the team. Deveney takes a similar approach to New York City in the 1960s, albeit over a longer period of time. The political point covers the election and first term of liberal mayor John Lindsay, perhaps the last good Republican. The sports angle focuses on quarterback Joe Namath who would lead the New York Jets to an unlikely Super Bowl championship in 1969. Both men are characterized by their youth, good looks, individuality, and celebrity that defines the "New Breed" of 1960s New York. They also both make a lot of mistakes are subject to hefty amounts of criticism.

There's a lot of nostalgia by proxy for me in this book as this was the New York City of my parent's teenage and young adult years, a legendary time in "Old New York" that I would only later realize happened just a few years before I was born. Nevertheless, a lot of the issues in the book are startlingly contemporary: structural racism, angry white resentment that minorities are getting too much attention, conflicts over public education, growing inequality, disinvestment in municipal services, resources going to war taking away from resources that could be used to alleviate poverty, et al Other issues are from a different time such as the frightening increase in crime or unions with the power to dictate terms to the Mayor while still calling multiple strikes.

The book follows Lindsay and Namath's careers from 1965-1970, with in-depth details of city politics and the New York Jets football. Occasionally, Deveney veers into other things happening in New York during the period, such as Muhammad Ali fighting a title bout that would be the last fight in the old Madison Square Garden and coincidentally would also be Ali's last fight before his draft protest would get him suspended from boxing. Deveney also documents the demise of establishment teams, the New York Yankees and New York Giants, contrasting them with the rise of the fresh, new teams the Mets and the Jets. Lindsay, not a sports fan, attaches himself to the Mets' 1969 World Series drive as part of his reelection campaign, which proves a successful strategy. A final chapter on the New York Knicks also winning their first championship in 1970 seems more an addendum than tying into the themes of the rest of the book.

I think Deveney is more effective as a straightforward sports writer than political analyst, but overall it's still a good history of an interesting time in New York City history.… (más)

The Original Curse is Sean Deveney's debut and his maturity as a writer is on full display as the book progresses. Yet the first few chapters are dull, and the text requires patience.

The thesis itself--that gambling was to baseball prior to 1920 what steroids have been to baseball since the mid-1980s and that the fates of the Red Sox and Cubs reflect their notorious involvement in that culture--is well-supported given the limited evidence and forced speculation necessary to provide academic proof. One aspect that is lacking is a focus on Babe Ruth's potential involvement with gamblers; instead, Ruth's overall character is assessed, and one scene where he is leaving a party of reporters and gamblers to take care of male-female business gives no indication as to whether Ruth was involved or not. However, Ruth's limited involvement in the Series itself renders the point one of irrelevant unsatisfied curiosity more than substantive failure. Either way, it is interesting to consider the individual and franchise curses--or, should I say, developments--subsequent to the alleged fixes (Games 4 and 5 were supposedly fixed, the Cubs losing Game 4 and the Red Sox Game 5 to prolong the series and enhance gate receipts).

On the whole, Deveney does a good job capturing the nature of baseball prior to its "too big to fail" status in the face of a ravaging war overseas and inflationary economic epoch. Moreover, unlike many authors of texts regarding potential fixes and conspiracies, he realistically captures a plausible conspiracy by linking it with appropriate incentive-constraint and risk-reward scenarios. I therefore recommend it, but with the caution that it looks like it will flow faster than it does, even if not a lengthy book. Even so, it took me a grand total of two days.… (más)