The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game [Import] [ペーパーバック]

The young man at the centre of this 'compelling book' ("The Economist") will one day be among the most highly paid athletes in the National Football League. When Michael Lewis introduces him to the reader, he is one of thirteen children by a crack-addicted mother; he does not know his real name, his father, his birthday or any of the things a child might learn in school - such as how to read or write. Nor has he ever touched a football. He takes up American football and school, after a rich, Evangelical, Republican family plucks him from the mean streets. Their love is the first great force that alters the world's perception of the boy, whom they adopt. The second force is the evolution of professional American football into a game where the quarterback must be protected at any cost. Lewis' protagonist turns out to be the priceless combination of size, speed and agility necessary to guard the quarterback's greatest vulnerability: his blind side. Directed by John Lee Hancock, the film, "The Blind Side", is set for release in November. Sandra Bullock, Tim McGraw, Kathy Bates and Quinton Aaron lead the cast of this true-life sports drama.

Starred Review. As he did so memorably for baseball in Moneyball, Lewis takes a statistical X-ray of the hidden substructure of football, outlining the invisible doings of unsung players that determine the outcome more than the showy exploits of point scorers. In his sketch of the gridiron arms race, first came the modern, meticulously choreographed passing offense, then the ferocious defensive pass rusher whose bone-crunching quarterback sacks demolished the best-laid passing game, and finally the rise of the left tackle—the offensive lineman tasked with protecting the quarterback from the pass rusher—whose presence is felt only through the game-deciding absence of said sacks. A rare creature combining 300 pounds of bulk with "the body control of a ballerina," the anonymous left tackle, Lewis notes, is now often a team's highest-paid player. Lewis fleshes this out with the colorful saga of left tackle prodigy Michael Oher. An intermittently homeless Memphis ghetto kid taken in by a rich white family and a Christian high school, Oher's preternatural size and agility soon has every college coach in the country courting him obsequiously. Combining a tour de force of sports analysis with a piquant ethnography of the South's pigskin mania, Lewis probes the fascinating question of whether football is a matter of brute force or subtle intellect. Photos. (Oct.)
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Michael Lewis is the author of the best-selling Liar's Poker, The New New Thing and "brilliant" (The Spectator), "fascinating story and absorbing read" (The Daily Mail) Moneyball, Michael Lewis writes regularly for The New York Times magazine and Bloomberg News.