Nick Bakay's Tale of the Tape: Taking on the World of Sports, One Fight at a Time

Oh my god! Nick totally continues to blow my mind with his cleverness and love of all things sports! This one is a keeper. I'm sending out copies to everyone I know. Here's to you, Mr. Bakay. And Mrs. Bakay..... Whoa...HOT!

Hilarious, sharp-witted, and hits all the right notes. It portrays sports as the awesome yet silly things that they are, and touches smartly on most other subjects that people have come up with, too. Get this for yourself. It's GOOD. So good, in fact, that I would recommend buying it either with or without "Zamboni Rodeo" by Jason Cohen.

One would expect a book with such subjects as Bill Clinton, Castro, political conventions and mud-flap girls to be the long awaited autobiography of the forty-second President. Or, maybe, the new tell-all book by former advisor Dick Morris. But no, it is the often witty and always hilarious Nick Bakay's Tale of the Tape! It is penned by husband/wife writing collaborators Nick and Robin Bakay. Eerily illustrated by caricature artist Drew Friedman, Tale of the Tape is a collection of nearly ninety of Nick and Robin's innovative way of looking at people, places and things...ripped right out of the current popular culture. The Bakays take two, sometimes seemingly, unrelated items and see how they measure up to a sample of standards. Have you always wondered who is better, Mike Tyson or Michael Jackson? Well, the Bakays answer that for you by seeing how they compare in such areas as Role Models (Mike: Sonny Liston, Michael: Wayland Flowers' old Puppet, Madame), Potential Opponents (Mike: Tonya Harding, Michael: Child Services) and many others. Each entry is set up with a few words explaining actually why the two subjects should be critically compared, and ends with a summation pointing the reader to the conclusion he/she will undoubtedly already know...which is superior! I found myself laughing out loud and unable to put it down until I finished all 191 pages. That has not happened since I read Tuesdays With Morrie, by Mitch Albom. Like Albom, you may know Nick from his on camera work on ESPN, but definitely know his off camera work as Producer of The King of Queens and as the voice of Salem the Cat on Sabrina the Teenage Witch, as well as many other guest appearances on radio and television. Robin appears on ESPN with Nick, and has been collaborating with him since 1992 on various writing projects. Buy it! You will not need to be a sports fan to love it, and it would make a great gift.

I know nothing about sports but I know what makes me laugh and this book with its healthy dollop of irreverent pop culture cross referencing had me laughing. I remembred Nick Bakay from the "smelly car" episode of Seinfeild so I picked up his book when I saw it at the store. I almost put it down when I saw the ESPN affiliation but I'm glad I didn't. Funny stuff from a world I don't live in. I docked it a star because of the cheap paper but even that might be a plus considering where I most likely will be reading it.