Contemporary Authors

• Fun and Games: My 40 Years Writing Sports ECW Press 2016

1. A series for the world : baseball's first international fall classic LCCN 92062942 Type of material Book Main title A series for the world : baseball's first international fall classic / [writers, W.P. Kinsella, Furman Bisher, Dave Perkins ; photographers, Stephen Green ... et al.] Published/Created San Francisco : Woodford Press, c1992. Description 143 p. : chiefly ill. (some col.) ; 31 cm. ISBN 0942627059 CALL NUMBER GV878.4 .S477 1992 Copy 1 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms

• Yahoo Sports - https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/blogs/eh-game/q-a--dave-perkins-dishes-on-smokin--with-dimaggio--tokin--with-zappa-134256056.html

  Q&A: Author Dave Perkins dishes on smokin' with DiMaggio, tokin' with Zappa

  Chris Young
  Eh GameSep 15, 2016, 8:42 AM

  My favourite Dave Perkins story was in a place both of us would rather forget, to be honest: the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, as we were going in via the press entrance one Saturday afternoon to cover the 100-metres final. On the other side of the fence waiting for the general gates to open, and not liking it one bit, was famed trial lawyer Johnny Cochran.

  “This has to be the only place in America you can’t talk yourself into,” Perkins cracked, earning a smile from Cochran that, if it was paying at his hourly rate, would’ve made us both rich.

  Fun and Games: My 40 Years Writing Sports (ECW Press).
  Fun and Games: My 40 Years Writing Sports (ECW Press).
  More
  Perkins is good at that kind of thing, and remains part of the Canadian sports conversation as a guest voice on Sportsnet’s Prime Time Sports. But as his Fun and Games: My 40 Years Writing Sports demonstrates, there’s no substitute for reading the man.

  In his spot in the Toronto Star, Perkins had as fine and comfortable a voice as you’d find in all of journalism, and after six years out of the full-time ink-stained wretch business, Fun and Games is every bit the delightful read you’d expect. The ECW Press book out this month is something of a love letter to a pre-digital media era gone forever, a collection of yarns expertly told by a guy who, as he often said of others, “made the alphabet behave.” After a bit of heart trouble that’s since been taken care of, I caught up with him just ahead of a trip to Italy he was taking with his wife Debbie to spend all the royalty money.

  Q: So why do a book?

  Perkins: It was because my rehab was going badly. Seriously, last summer I had no outlet - my cardiologist didn’t want me to play golf, and I was just kind of sitting around looking at the four walls going what am I gonna do? People had asked me for a long time to do something, but I was never interested, and I never thought people would be interested. Two days later I got a call from a guy offering it again. So one thing led to another. I always had the stories floating around in my head. I was telling them at golf tournaments, standing around bars yakking and I’d tell them to people in the business. A lot of people told me to put ‘em in a book. I never paid them any mind until I had nothing else to do.

  Q: Remember Plimpton’s small-ball theory of sports writing? Does it apply to your own writing, and likes? You did a lot of golf and baseball.

  Perkins: And racing, too. But it’s got such a limited shelf life, racing. It’s sometimes hard to explain racing stories because people just don’t understand it like they used to. But everybody understands baseball and golf. I spent a lot of time covering golf -- 58 majors, that’s a hell of a lot, and Presidents Cups and Ryder Cups. The best thing I liked about golf was there were no night games. You could live like a human being, have a decent dinner. You weren’t eating stale popcorn at 11 o’clock at night waiting for some extra-innings game to end. Golf and baseball, you had time. So much of baseball was sitting around and telling stories at 4 in the afternoon, when you do that clubhouse pass, what I used to call ‘the arrest check.’ That’s when you hear good stories and you trade a few.

  Q: Do you have a favourite among them?

  Perkins: It depends on the crowd. If push comes to shove my favourite would be some of the boxing stuff from Las Vegas - the night that Jim Morris told Arnold Schwarzenegger to f*** off was just priceless.

  Q: How many stories didn’t make the cut?

  Perkins: A few. My triggers are when I see people. So I’ll see someone and it’ll be oh yeah, I forgot that one. I’m sure there would be a lot more. But they only wanted 100,000 words.

  Q: Did you ever jump in a cab and say “follow that car!”?

  Perkins: I actually did. It was after Ben Johnson got busted for steroids in Seoul, and I was in Boston covering the Blue Jays and got a phone call from the office saying Ben was on a non-stop flight from Seoul to New York Kennedy. Those were the days of $29 shuttles, and they said get down there and meet the plane. So I cab it out to Logan, get the shuttle to LaGuardia, and take a cab to Kennedy. Ben’s plane’s coming in about 3:30 and there were hundreds of media there, so the cops start chasing everybody out of the reception area around 3. I went into a gift shop that sold shirts and hid in the change room. So I ended up the only guy in this whole area and Ben gets off the plane and I charge out of this gift shop and tap him on the shoulder - “Ben, are you innocent?” And he looked at me with those big yellow eyes and mumbled “mother*****” or something like that. Ben’s people had a limo for him right outside because he was flying home to Toronto from LaGuardia. The cops had him surrounded and we’re all shouting questions as he meets his limo and gets in and takes off. I’m with Ken Faught, the Star photog guy who met me there, and we jumped into a cab and say “follow that car!” We looked at each other and I’m like, “I can’t believe we just said that.” We told the cab driver what was happening and he was right into it, so he’s going 80 miles an hour up the Van Wyck Expressway, pulling up alongside and we’re hanging out the window shouting questions and taking photos. And Ben’s of course ignoring us. We get to LaGuardia and the same thing happened, he was parceled off into a lounge. So I just said oh well, went over and got the $29 shuttle back to Boston, and got into Fenway before the first pitch.

  Q: Stories like that, maybe you do another one.

  Perkins: No, I didn’t care for the process. For 40 years you write something and the next day it thumps on the doorstep and you read it and grunt a couple of times and move on, work on today’s thing. The fact of writing something in October, and then you don’t hear another word until July when you get a bunch of proofs handed to you … I’m a little better when it’s fresh in my mind and three days later it’s wrapping fish.

  Q: So nothing about smoking dope with Frank Zappa?

  Perkins: No. I guess I could have gone there, but that wasn’t really writing sports. That was at Ryerson when I was in my second year, writing about music for the Eyeopener, and ended up in the Three Small Rooms hotel with Frank. Had a couple spliffs and next thing you know he was playing his album. I always remember Frank saying he liked my shoes. I was trying to take them off and give them to him. Frank was great, but let’s just say we didn’t operate on the same plane. I was a big Captain Beefheart fan, and he and Frank were good buddies, I think they went to high school together. So he told me a couple Beefheart stories that I’ve long since forgotten. I’m only going back 45 years now.

  Q: Was there a particular sports figure you dealt with that you found the most interesting, or that you looked forward to talking to?

  Perkins: I never thought of it that way, but I did have three wow moments. One was when I was sneaking a smoke in Oakland Coliseum in the alcove outside the A’s clubhouse and there’s Joe DiMaggio sitting on a trunk, sneaking a smoke. So we stood there sneaking smokes for 10 minutes or so, and I’m thinking this is pretty good, I’m with Marilyn Monroe’s ex-husband here. There was no ‘oh Joe, you’re the greatest’. Just two people talking. He asked a few questions about Toronto, and we talked about that. I mentioned that I’d eaten at his restaurant - we just had a nice kind of visit. The second time was at a fight and Sidney Poitier was there. Sidney was my favourite actor, and we’re just yakking back and forth, I guess I was being kind of a pain in the ass to him, but that was a thrill. And the first time I got in the business was that story I wrote in the book about going to New York, and sitting there with Whitey Ford and Yogi Berra, and Red Smith was sitting at the far end of the table. I’m 19 years old, saying absolutely nothing, and then Whitey Ford asks me if I knew Sam Shopsowitz. I said no, but I ate his corned beef. This was pretty good stuff for a dumb kid from Midland.

  Fun and Games: My 40 Years Writing Sports is out this month from ECW Press. Order it here.

4/12/17, 12(02 PM
Print Marked Items
Fun and Games: My 40 Years Writing Sports
Publishers Weekly.
263.30 (July 25, 2016): p64. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Fun and Games: My 40 Years Writing Sports
Dave Perkins. ECW (Perseus/Legato, U.S. dist.; Jaguar Book Group, Canadian dist.), $19.95 trade paper (336p) ISBN 978-1-77041-312-2
For much of his career at the Toronto Star, Perkins was a columnist, aiming to write the stories behind and beyond the game scores. He saw a lot in his 40 years with "the best job in town," and in this memoir he takes readers behind the scenes of sports writing, both in the newsroom and in the pressrooms at every event from the Grey Cup to the Olympics. While jumping from sport to sport--Perkins especially loved to cover golf, horse racing, and baseball--he reminds readers of ways that the times have changed. Athletes, once fairly accessible, began hiding behind public relations staff. Performance-enhancing drugs entered the scene. His best rants are on how the Internet and social media changed the news business: "Now, every single word that is published is fair game for comment or challenge, and two truisms seem to be firmly in place: when you are right, no one ever remembers and when you are wrong, no one ever forgets." Perkins is able to laugh at his own mistakes--including many yarns of side bets made to keep life interesting at games--and readers can bet on being well entertained too. Agent: Brian J. Wood. (Sept.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Fun and Games: My 40 Years Writing Sports." Publishers Weekly, 25 July 2016, p. 64. PowerSearch,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA460285542&it=r&asid=580e24be15ad55929a0fff28ef834879. Accessed 12 Apr. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A460285542
about:blank Page 1 of 2
4/12/17, 12(02 PM
Series for the world: baseball's first international classic
Quill and Quire.
59.3 (Mar. 1993): p52. From Book Review Index Plus.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Series for the world: baseball's first international classic." Quill and Quire, Mar. 1993, p. 52. PowerSearch,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA30324389&it=r&asid=e19e080c46836a99696ef844cbf8fefa. Accessed 12 Apr. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A30324389
about:blank Page 2 of 2

"Fun and Games: My 40 Years Writing Sports." Publishers Weekly, 25 July 2016, p. 64. PowerSearch, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA460285542&it=r. Accessed 12 Apr. 2017. "Series for the world: baseball's first international classic." Quill and Quire, Mar. 1993, p. 52. PowerSearch, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA30324389&it=r. Accessed 12 Apr. 2017.

• Sports Book Review
  http://allsportsbooks.blogspot.com/2016/07/review-fun-and-games-2016.html
  Word count: 559

  Tuesday, July 5, 2016 Review: Fun and Games (2016) By Dave Perkins When any self-respecting reporter retires, his initial thought is to write about his experiences. After all, he or she has all sorts of experiences along the way, and they usually are interesting. The lucky ones get to actually do it. And Dave Perkins is one of the lucky ones. Perkins is stepping away from his duties as a reporter and columnist with the Toronto Star, after about 40 years on the business. His look back is appropriately called "Fun and Games," since it's a lot of fun and frequently dealing with games. Perkins' initial start is pretty typical in this business, demonstrating how much luck can be involved. He already had been told by a faculty advisor that he didn't have the looks or the voice to consider broadcasting - thanks, pal - and that print journalism would be a good outlet for his talents. Perkins had been working on some background information on Watergate when he went down to work part-time at Toronto's Globe and Mail one night. It was part of a two-week tryout the college had arranged for some journalism students. By chance, he knew more about Watergate than anyone in the building, and helped the coverage of that time period in a particular night. Someone was impressed, and he started working his way up the ladder. From there, it's a case of letting the stories begin. About smoking a Cuban cigar in front of President Bill Clinton. Listening to Jack Nicklaus show total recall about rounds shot decade in the past. Chasing down David Cone in an unusual place in order to get a quote on baseball labor. There are stories about those sports along with everything from harness racing to cricket. The biggest chapter is saved for the Olympics. Perkins saw a bunch of them over the years, and they have all sorts of thrilling moments as well as logistical nightmares. I particularly liked the story where his newspaper's team of reporters was sitting around watching television - when they realized that no one was covering a Canadian's attempt at a medal. Somehow it had slipped through the cracks. This stuff really does happen, much to the editor's dismay. This all has a Canadian tint to it, of course, since it's a Toronto writer, but there's not much hockey in here. Yes, there are a few shots taken at Maple Leaf management over the years, which goes into the "shooting fish in a barrel" department of the newsroom. But most of the stories are pretty universal, which means they are enjoyable for anyone who pays attention to sports in general. And there's just enough venom and score-settling along the way to keep it interesting. Some come in the form of quotes from past stories and columns, while other thoughts are quite fresh. Perkins got to the finish line just about at the right time. The business has changed greatly in the past several years, and it's taking a different - not necessarily better or worse, but certainly different - set of skills to be a journalist these days. "Fun and Games" is something of a look back at a business life that's close to being gone forever, but there's enough fun along the way to keep sports fans who read it entertained. Four stars

• J Source Canadian Journalism Project
  http://www.j-source.ca/article/dave-perkins’-“fun-and-games”-testament-power-shoe-leather-reporting
  Word count: 629

  Dave Perkins’ “Fun and Games” is a testament to the power of shoe leather reporting

  Dave Perkins, Fun and Games: My 40 Years Writing Sports. ECW Press, 2016. 288 pages, $19.95.

  By Brian Legree

  An open letter to Dave Perkins:

  From one old dinosaur of the journalism business to another, I just want to start by expressing my gratitude for penning your book Fun and Games – My 40 Years Writing Sports.

  It comes as advertised, 300-plus pages of funny and revealing stories about your four decades of work, most of it in sports at the Toronto Star, predated by your start at the Globe and Mail after learning the trade at Ryerson.

  But selfishly, as a journalism instructor at Durham College in Oshawa, Ont., it’s your insight into what is required to build a career of quality and substance that deserves deeper consideration.

  It’s a behind-the-scenes textbook for all journalism students – and not just those with an interest in sports. Remove the sporting scenery and j-students will get schooled on what is required to become a true ‘storyteller’.

  Too many of today’s journalism students think reporting can be done behind a computer, surfing websites and pulling content together. Thankfully, you discredit that notion by revealing how to do the job properly and effectively.

  Your writing reinforces the tenets of journalism. In no particular order: getting out there, watching first-hand, telling riveting stories, getting it right, and the importance of connecting with people both as sources and as readers.

  The stories have the Blue Jays, Raptors, Olympics, major golf championships, football, hockey and boxing as backdrops, but their focus, as it should be, is on people.

  For J-students, it serves as a master class, whether it’s the humorous anecdote about the source who offered his name to you as ‘Heywood Jablome’, (which you quickly caught on to), to the most simple and obvious, yet all-too-often overlooked advice for reporters: “Watch the damned game,” which translates (for me at least) to get out from behind your screen, put your device in your pocket (unless you need it to snap a photo or record an interview) and be where you need to be. Observe and talk with everyone you come in contact with, which will lead you to the right people needed to help you tell the right story. Or did I miss the chapter in which you revealed all the great stories you got via email?

  As you correctly point out, the demands on journalists have changed since you entered the game, noting some journalists are required to (or feel the need to) “tweet endlessly and to post website updates, and they tend to have their heads in their computers and phones.”

  You call this “a dangerous practice” and I couldn’t agree more.

  But more importantly, for me, the book and your career provide underlying support to what should be a great recruitment tool for the journalism profession (despite its current economic challenges)—No two days of work are exactly the same and we get a good seat from which to witness history, regardless of the size of the stage.

  As you concluded: “It all worked out pretty well and not only because I ended up seeing the world on someone else’s dime. I saw some historic sporting events and made some terrific friends along the way.”

  You are welcome at Durham College anytime to tell your stories to our journalism students.

  Thanks for sharing, Perk.

  Brian Legree is a professor and coordinator of the journalism programs at Durham College in Oshawa.

Word Count