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Check out all of Steve's books.
Nights In White Castle
Picking up where he left off in his acclaimed memoir Sting-Ray Afternoons, Steve Rushin brilliantly captures a bygone era, and the thrills of new adulthood in the early 80s.
It begins in Bloomington, Minnesota, with a 13-year-old kid staging his own author photo that he hopes will someday grace the cover of a book jacket. And it ends at a desk in the legendary Time & Life building, with that same boy-now in his early 20s and writing professionally-reflecting on how the hell he got there from what seems like a distant universe. In between, Steve Rushin whisks us along on an extraordinarily funny, tender, and altogether unforgettable journey.
Sting-Ray Afternoons
“Steve Rushin’s Sting-Ray Afternoons is a fun and often hilarious account of growing up in the Midwest in the 1970s. Throughout the book I was pleasantly reminded of things from my own past—Rushin revisits the T shows, the toys, the games, of the era while telling his family’s own story. Sting-Ray Afternoons captures both the freedom of youth and the universal longing for experience in a bigger, more adult world. If you grew up in the 1970s, prepare to have your memory triggered.” — Craig Finn, songwriter and guitarist, The Hold Steady
It’s a story of the 1970s. Of a road trip in a wood-paneled station wagon, with the kids in the way-back, singing along to the Steve Miller Band. Brothers waking up early on Saturday morning for five consecutive hours of cartoons and advertising jingles that they’ll be humming all day. A father—one of 3M’s greatest and last eight-track tape salesmen—traveling across the country on the brand-new Boeing 747, providing for his family but wanting nothing more than to get home.
It’s Steve Rushin’s story: of growing up in a ‘70s landscape populated with Bic pens, Mr. Clean and Scrubbing Bubbles, lightsabers and those oh-so-coveted Schwinn Sting-Ray bikes. Sting-Ray Afternoons paints an utterly fond, psychedelically vibrant, laugh-out-loud funny portrait of an exuberant decade. With sidesplitting commentary, Rushin brings to life a decade
THE 34-TON BAT:
The Story of Baseball As Told Through Bobbleheads, Cracker Jacks,
Jock Straps, Eye Black and 375 Other Strange & Unforgettable Objects
The Story of Baseball As Told Through Bobbleheads, Cracker Jacks, Jock Straps, Eye Black and 375 Other Strange & Unforgettable Objects
"The subtitle is like some strange, enticing tin toy gleaming in a tinker’s window, Rushin being the ultimate tinkerer with language. And the book indeed proves to be the ultimate toy shop for baseball fans.” — David Vecsey, The New York Times
his unorthodox history of baseball is the enthralling story of its objects—beer cups, catcher’s mitts, ballpark organs, stadium urinals—and the characters who spawned them. From an immigrant named Foulproof Taylor, who tried to sell America his protective cup and batting helmet, to the Dodgers’ novelty king Danny Goodman, who introduced the bobblehead doll to baseball, the story of the game is in many ways the story of America. As the Wall Street Journal noted, The 34-Ton Bat “will give even the most knowledgeable fan a new understanding of the game and of those who have played it.
The Pint Man: A Novel
“Clever, bracing and full of laughs. Steve Rushin proves to be a master juggler of words, a mischievous crossword-puzzler run amok” — Carl Hiaasen
For Rodney Poole, a friendly and unassuming lover of clever wordplay and television sports of all stripes, Boyle’s Irish Pub is a haven of good cheer, pleasantly pointless conversation, elaborate jokes, heated trivia contests, well-poured pints, and familiar faces. The pressures and demands of the outside world hold no sway there- the crowd at Boyle’s is his family, and with family all sins are forgiven.
But reality cannot be kept at bay forever, and now Rodney’s best friend and partner in inertia, Keith, is getting married and moving to Chicago. Since Rodney has for the most part enjoyed his bachelorhood vicariously through Keith, the prospect of being single, middle-aged, unemployed, and without his pal to while away the nights with is causing Rodney to rethink—or rather, create—his priorities.
When Keith introduces him to the lovely Mairead (rhymes with parade), a cheerful career woman who seems to enjoy his bad puns, ambitionless nature, and love of literature, Rodney can spy an honorable path to grown-up-hood at last. But a series of comic mishaps jeopardize his budding relationship with Mairead, his friendship with Keith, and most serious of all, his place on a barstool in the idyllic world of Boyle’s.
The Caddie Was a Reindeer: And Other Tales of Extreme Recreation
“If you don't end up dropping The Caddie Was a Reindeer during fits of uncontrolled merriment, it is likely you need immediate medical attention.” — Denver Post
Steve Rushin, a four-time finalist for the National Magazine Award, has been hailed as one of the best sportswriters in America. InThe Caddie Was a Reindeer he circumnavigates the globe in pursuit of extreme recreation. In the Arctic Circle, he meets ice golfers. In Minnesota, he watches the National Amputee Golf Tournament, where one participant tells him, “I literally have one foot in the grave.” Along the way, Rushin meets fellow travelers like Joe Cahn, a professional tailgater who confesses aboard the RV in which he lives: “It’s wonderful to see America from your bathroom.” And even Rushin has logged fewer miles in pursuit of extreme recreation than Rich Rodriguez, a marathon roller-coaster rider who makes endless loops for entire summers on coasters around the world.The Caddie Was a Reindeer is a ride to everywhere: to south London (where Rushin downs pints with the King of Darts), to the Champs-Elysees (where the author indulges in “excessive nightclubbing” with World Cup soccer stars), and to Japan (where Rushin eats soba noodles with the world champion of competitive eating). Enlightening, hilarious, and unexpectedly heartwarming, this collection is not a body of work: it’s a body of play.
Road Swing: One Fan's Journey Into The Soul Of American Sports
“A riotous read.” — Esquire
In this alternately hilarious and insightful account, named a Best Book of 1998 by Publishers Weekly, Sports Illustrated writer Steve Rushin uses the lens of sports to come to a deeper understanding of America.
On the eve of his thirtieth birthday, Steve Rushin decided to revisit the twin pursuits of his youth: epic car trips and an unhealthy obsession with sports. So he jumped into his fully alarmed Japanese S.U.V. and drove to American sports shrines for a year, everywhere from Larry Bird's boyhood home in French Lick, Indiana, to the cornfield just outside of Dyersville, Iowa, where Field of Dreams was filmed. Now in paperback, Road Swing is the story of his journey.