David Wolf

[Gold]

Mr Friend/Friendless:

I read your comment about not letting Hawkins read the manuscript and thought you implied that Hawkins might have control over it. I might have misinterpreted your comment, but I don't think it was an unreasonable intrepretation. And as I said, Hawkins was perfectly capable of reading the book and from comments at the time, he was completely supportive because it told his story and brought it to a wide audience.

 

[friend of the friendless]

Mr Gold,

I wrote that Wolf "didn't have a lot to fear" in letting Hawkins read the ms -- the implication is that he let him read it (he did) rather than keeping it away from him. Wolf was on the side of the angels from the get-go. That said, for Hawkins, this was an article of faith. It was based more on his reading of Wolf than the ms. How much he took away from his reading of the ms, I'd wonder about. First and foremost it was, for Wolf, a matter of building trust. And believe me, when I dealt with Wolf, I expressed my highest admiration for the book and his sense of right and wrong.

YHS, etc

 

[Dan Moody]

I just read “Foul.” An incredible book. It meant a lot to me because I moved to Phoenix in 1968 when I was 11 years old. The following year, 1969, I attended St Mary’s Catholic School for 8th grade. St Mary’s High School was across the street. The Phoenix Suns practiced in their gymnasium. I was lucky enough on multiple occasions to sneak into the gym and watch practice. After practice I’d stick around and rebound the ball for players staying late and working on their shots. One of them was Connie Hawkins. Everyone was a fan of the Hawk, including me. Reading the book, I had a revelation. I knew about the alleged gambler associations and gambling accusations, but never knew about the hard life he endured growing up on the streets of New York. An incredible story.

 

[LanceyHoward]

The Molinas story would also make a great movie, except Molinas himself was such a repugnant character the audience would be rooting for him to eat a bullet in the end.

Charley Rosen did a book on Molinas, The Wizard of Odds: How Jack Molinas Almost Destroyed the Game of Basketball. I tried an excerpt and decided that Rosen is not a good enough writer to hold my interest for a full-length book.

 

[Starman]

Sheesh, I take a year off and people are digging up 11-year-old threads.

(I considered doing that for my grand return-- digging up the oldest thread on the board.)

Back to "Foul" /Hawkins/ Wolf / Molinas:

Some kind of movie tying the 1951 and 1961 scandals could probably eventually work, except the sympathetic characters (players) come off as dupes at best, and the most interesting characters (like Molinas) are complete scum.

 

[LanceyHoward]

I read the book on Hawkins and loved it. I also did not realize the thread was 11 years old so I wen thread and looked Wolf up. But Wolf died in 2008.

Dave Wolf - BoxRec

Here is a tribute to Wolf.

Dave Wolf: A Remembrance

 

[Starman]

Wolf is kind of like a W.P. Kinsella of sports book writing: one great book, then gone.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

If you waited a couple more months to resurrect this, it would have defeated Tadd Fujikawa for longest dormant thread to be updated.

 

[Slacker]

Book still available online, but prices start at $45 on Amazon ... and $235 if you want a "new" copy.

 

[justgladtobehere]

Wolf is kind of like a W.P. Kinsella of sports book writing: one great book, then gone.

Huh? He wrote a bunch of books. At least one other baseball novel (Iowa Baseball Confederacy or something), a few short story collections, plus his First Nation based stuff.

 

[typefitter]

Yeah, Kinsella actually wrote a ton. He was a prolific short story writer. He had one big hit, that's true. But he wrote a bunch. He did disappear for about 15 years after he was hit by a car and left really ****ed up. He couldn't write anymore, he said, because he couldn't concentrate.

He had a pretty weird life, all in all. Worth reading about.

 

[Donny in his element]

Yeah, Kinsella actually wrote a ton. He was a prolific short story writer. He had one big hit, that's true. But he wrote a bunch. He did disappear for about 15 years after he was hit by a car and left really ****ed up. He couldn't write anymore, he said, because he couldn't concentrate.

He had a pretty weird life, all in all. Worth reading about.

Wikipedia confirms this. Thanks for the heads up.

Looks like he more enduring cultural significance in Canada than in the US. Kind of like Loverboy.

 

[typefitter]

Wikipedia confirms this. Thanks for the heads up.

Looks like he more enduring cultural significance in Canada than in the US. Kind of like Loverboy.

Two points for the Loverboy reference. Would have also accepted The Tragically Hip.

He basically wrote about two things: indigenous culture and baseball. If you weren't interested in either of those things, he was easy to miss. Impossible to miss otherwise. I devoured his baseball stuff when I was young. There is a lot of Kinsella on my shelves.

 

[justgladtobehere]

One thing I remember from reading Shoeless Joe and Iowa Baseball Whatever is that he likes redheads with freckles.