The Best of Plimpton by George Plimpton

The Best of Plimpton Reviews

• 
  Steve

  A cartoon in The New Yorker shows a guy in an operating room who looks up at the masked surgeon and says, “Wait a minute! How do I know you’re not George Plimpton?” There was very little Plimpton would not do in the name of “participatory journalism.” He would stand in as the amateur Everyman experiencing and describing a wide variety of jobs done by professionals, most famously in the world of sports. Actually, maybe Everyman is not the right word for Plimpton. He was a gawky patrician, educated at Phillips Exeter, Harvard, and King’s College at Cambridge and brought on as the first editor in chief at The Paris Review. In any case, he would somehow get people to play along as he inserted himself into situations he could later write about: pitching to a lineup of major league all-stars, running a series of plays as the Detroit Lions’ last-string quarterback, sparring with Archie Moore, and playing goal for the Boston Bruins in an exhibition game. Much of this collection is based on those experiences as the outsider on the inside.
  
  We develop a truer appreciation for the skills involved when we view them through the Plimpton lens. With his literary background, of course he wrote well, but he also knew not to let flourishes get in the way of the story. He put just enough of his own fears and shortcomings in to let us know the challenges involved. One of my favorite descriptions was when he played goalie. He said they had coached him to keep his eye on the puck at all times. But in a game situation he said that this was like catching occasional glimpses of a mouse scurrying about. The sports stories were fun not only for the laughs we have at his difficulties, but for the personalities surrounding them. He was a wry observer of the boyish pranks oddly coupled with the professionalism.
  
  Plimpton’s experiences went beyond sports. He also wrote about the time he did stand-up comedy, which sounded more perilous than you'd have thought. The most nerve-racking job he ever did, though, was as a percussionist for the New York Philharmonic. In sports, he explained, mistakes are a part of the game. In fact, the whole goal is to force the opponent into miscues and missed opportunities. With music, it’s all about just getting the thing right. His role in this case was an apparently simple one: sounding the gong when given the cue. But Leonard Bernstein was not the sort to laugh off mistakes. Plimpton, who didn’t even read music, came in at the right time (whew!), but with so much force that they joked about it for months.
  
  Character profiles were another major part of the collection. He wrote about poet Marianne Moore (training her artistic eye on baseball), another poet named Muhammad Ali (as pretty a pugilist as you’ll ever find), Hunter S. Thompson (the gonzo man himself), Norman Mailer (who may have been even crazier than Thompson, or at least more challenging to be with), Vince Lombardi (a sonuvabitch, but one you’d sacrifice plenty for), and various other literary figures and sportsmen. A young Caroline Kennedy was also featured, full of “vigah” as she competed in games at the beach.
  
  A few other stories stood out as well. One described the day Plimpton took his young daughter to a classic gridiron battle pitting Harvard against Yale. Her unique take-away points were later put in print in a newspaper she created. Then there was a story about an aspiring young writer who bid more than he could afford at a charity auction for a day with George. Once the man’s wife explained their finances to Plimpton and his wife privately, they wanted to make sure he got something both generous and sui generis out of the deal. They ended up going to Elaine’s where writers and assorted other artsy, intellectual types hung out. He met quite a few famous people including a normally stand-offish Woody Allen.
  
  My favorite piece, though, had to be The Curious Case of Sidd Finch. This was an article he wrote for the April 1, 1985 issue of Sports Illustrated. It profiled an amazing young pitcher trying out for the Mets. He had somehow combined the yogic mind-body training he received in Tibet with mechanics borrowed from cricket to master the art of the pitch. His fastball was clocked at 168 MPH. (For context, Nolan Ryan's record fastest was 108.) The article had photos of the lanky Sidd (short for Siddhartha), quotes from stunned teammates including a very sore-handed catcher, and only the vaguest of hints that it was an April Fools’ Day hoax*. It was brilliant! Plimpton pushed the boundaries of plausibility about as far as they’d extend describing the quirky Sidd. Most readers loved it, though some threatened to cancel their subscriptions not only to SI, but to all magazines the parent company offered. Count me as one who loved it.
  
  *Take the first letter of each word in the article’s subheading: “He's a pitcher, part yogi and part recluse. Impressively liberated from our opulent life-style, Sidd's deciding about yoga — and his future in baseball.”
  
• 
  Ninjamechanic

  I started reading this because of the song "A Talk With George" by Jonathon Coulton.
• 
  Oliver Hodson

  A bit like nora ephron in that you might not know all the people involved but you get so drawn in by the authorial voice that you just get engaged by it anyway. I like it that he is vulnerable to the world and allows himself to be changed by it, and he experiments with the world a bit too, but lightly. Would love to know a bit more about his opinions on big issues, but this collection was so strong on its subject matter that I was still highly satisfied.
• 
  Brent Shelton

  Very well written and interesting, this man paved the way for Gonzo journlism
• 
  Michael Fitzpatrick

  stated this book years ago and really enjoyed it. Lent it and... well, I gotta find another copy of it to finish it.
• 
  Ryan

  Like Gay Talese without the talent.
• 
  Megargee

  Did you ever wonder what it would be like to play quarterback for the Detroit Lions, pitch for the NY Yankees, go three rounds with light heavyweight champion Archie Moore, play horseshoes at Kennebunkport with George H. W. Bush, perform with the NY Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein or do standup at Caesar's Palace? in this compendium the late George Plimpton (1927-2003), the ultimate amateur sportsman who did all of these things and many more, reports on his adventures and misadventures in what he termed "participatory journalism," a metier he invented. As the founding editor of the Paris Review and a long-time writer for Sports Illustrated, Plimpton had unequaled access to the worlds of letters and sports. In addition to "Participations," this plethora of Plimpton includes "Personages" with portraits of people as diverse as Vince Lombardi, Hunter S. Thompson, and poet Marianne Moore (collaborating on a poem on the "Annihilation of Ernie Terrell" with Muhammed Ali), "Places" such as Newport, Las Vegas, and Elaine's Restaurant in NYC, and disquisitions on "Indulgences" such as fireworks displays, golf, competitive birdwatching, and practical jokes, notably his April Fool 1985 SI report on the mythical mystic Sidd Finch and his unhittable 168 mph Tibetan fastball. This tasting menu of Plimpton's writings is best sampled and savored rather than read cover to cover as you experience what Hemingway, yes the Ernest Hemingway, referred to as the "dark side of the moon of Walter Mitty."
  
• 
  Millie

  Plimpton was journalist in the 70s and 80s who managed to do a host of odd things: play football with the Detroit Lions and bells with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra under Leonard Bernstein. He also knew scads of people: JKB, Norman Mailer, Hemingway, Muhammad Ali, Marianne Moore, and Vince Lombardi, to name a few. He played in some pro-am golf tournaments, was a friend of Warren Beatty's, and was able to get a table on Elaine's, the famous restaurant in New York (now closed) where literary stars ate supper--including Woody Allen. Reading in this collection of essays was great fun, bringing back some of the moments of that era.
• 
  Seth

  Helluva guy that George...
  Next time I see him at a cocktail party, I must remind him to tell me that story about him and Hemingway and Ali at the motorcycle rally when Norman Mailer got so drunk that he convinced the 4 of them to get on one bike and they crashed right into Mickey Mantle's first wife's cadillac.
• 
  Chad

  The best of the master of participatory journalism. What more could you want?
• 
  Mao Builes

  Dice en la contra cara que se tratan de los mejores textos de George Plimpton, pero la verdad fue que quedé un tanto decepcionado. No sé si por el enfoque con el que abordar los temas de sus crónicas o por la escritura en sí misma, pero salvo dos o tres de los artículos aquí incluídos, el resto lo leí a fuerza.
  A diferencia de lo que sucede con Gay Talese o Tom Wolfe, por ejemplo, que hacen cercanas las historias gringas, Plimpton no permite reconocerse en nada, las aleja hasta el punto del bostezo.
• 
  Eye Summers

  a WASPy, literate, Renaissance man's zany take on sports? maybe. but not entirely. the Black Caddies piece is a great sociological glimpse into an athletic world many would not know about unless one was a golfing enthusiast. then there are the little internecine observations that you would only get from the editor of a New York literary publication.
  
  definitely a worthwhile read if a fan of the Plimpton cult-of-personality, American iconoclast, public intellectual et cetera.