Tiger, Meet My Sister … Book Review

Tiger, Meet My Sister…: And Other Things I Probably Shouldn’t Have Said
by Rick Reilly

Tiger, Meet My Sister And Other Things I Probably Shouldn’t Have Said is a collection of columns from the last five years of Rick Reilly’s tenure as ESPN dot Com’s front page columnist. Reilly’s quick wit touches on sports topics ranging from football to basketball to baseball to soccer to cheerleaders to … running with the bulls (is that a sport?). There’s also quite a bit of golf, as the title suggests.

Reading the columns provides a pretty good retrospective on what has happened in sports this past half decade. Reilly pulls no punches. If you want to know who the most nicest people in sports are, he will tell you: Steph Curry and Jim Nantz. And the biggest jerks: 1. Barry Bonds 2. Barry Bonds 3. Robert Wuhl (Arliss) 4. Barry Bonds 5. Jay Cutler.

Barry Bonds must be an epic jerk.

The title of the book comes from Reilly’s list of things that no one, apparently has said (or should have said).

Reilly has been described as “one of the funniest humans alive,” and has been compared to Dave Barry and Louis Grizzard. Reilly is funny, to be sure, but I would characterize his as a wry humor rather than knee slapping funny. His willingness to speak his mind about sport’s personalities and institutions is refreshing in a world where too many so-called sports reporters seem little more than sycophants, afraid to say uncomfortable things about the athletes for fear of being banned from interviews. At the same time, part of Reilly’s humor is that he makes the reader a little uncomfortable as well: “Can he really say that in print?”

For me, this was the perfect night table read. I could digest a couple of columns each night before my self-imposed curfew.

Recommended.