Richie's Picks: Great Books for Children and Young Adults

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"Cheating is not a new problem in the United States or anywhere else. It has existed in nearly every human society.
"In Ancient Greece, the Olympic games were rife with cheating. Athletes lied about their amateur status, competitions were rigged, judges were bribed. Those caught were forced to pay fines to a special fund used to set up statues of Zeus. Greece ended up with a lot of statues of Zeus."
-- David Callahan, THE CHEATING CULTURE

"First, since I played the game myself, I know that you can't put something in your body to make you hit a fastball, changeup or curveball.
"The only person who can do that is the good Lord. But, at that age, you have to ask: Did he accomplish all of this by rejuvenating his strength from day to day with those substances? I know that when you reach a certain age, you just don't bounce back as quickly as you think you can when you're playing all of those games.
"Drugs won't help you hit the ball. But can they make you recuperate consistently enough to hit the kind of home runs that these guys are hitting?
"Let me say this. Any way you look at it, it's wrong."
-- Hank Aaron, 2004

"When he came back, he sat down next to me, opened a plastic vial, and shook out four white tablets that were about three times as thick as aspirin. 'Guys just call it D-bol.'
"I looked at them, but I didn't pick them up. 'So I take these and I get bigger?'
"He shook his head. 'Not that easy. You have to work out even more than before. But it's better, because the results are bang, right there.' "
-- GYM CANDY

Even if you were to torture me by...hmmm...say, forcing me sit in the kitchen of an overheated Macdonald's and watch looping videos of MC Rove rapping and dancing for days on end, I'd still never be able to tell you what bright idea persuaded me to actually join the Commack North freshman wrestling team back in 1969.

It's true that in my preadolescent days, I always had a swell time playing kickball and handball, and you couldn't pry me with a crowbar out of any body of water in the summertime. But I cannot begin to explain by what route I got from those enjoyable and healthy pursuits to the sweat and pain of the wrestling mats.

It had actually been my little brother who always participated in Little League baseball, Pop Warner football, and ice hockey. As he'd be happy to tell you, my competitive juices more typically began flowing in those instances when a teacher directed the class to keep logs of every book read over the coming 4 months.

It seemed that for years afterward, Mom was always telling people how my unhealthy behavior over that winter of freshman wrestling was the cause for my forever ceasing to grow any taller. (Of course, it couldn't have been related to the fact that Mom was just under 5' herself.) But Mom was absolutely right about one thing: I seriously abused my health by dieting over the course of that winter. From what I recall, it was a diet big on celery, lettuce, water, and vitamin pills, and I adhered to it religiously for the days leading up to each wrestling meet, and then binged for a day or two afterward before beginning the cycle again. It was a regimen designed to give me a competitive edge. It resulted in my being able to "wrestle down" to the 112 lb. range instead of the "flabby" 122 lbs. at which I initially weighed in at that fall. (Great Zeus! Was I really that weight once? Even if I were bouncing around on the moon, I'd never be that light again.)

By the end of that freshman wrestling season, I had won half of my matches, lost half of my matches, and went on in the post-season to contract a championship case of walking pneumonia just in time for the vacation week in February. (In case you're wondering: My only other participation in organized sports after that winter was -- think Holden -- serving a year as the high school fencing manager, for which I received -- think Cutter Swim Team -- an actual varsity letter jacket.)

And so I have a bit of long-ago experience with being willing to do something risky to be more competitive, to be the best player, the baddest hombre in headgear. And I've also experienced the consequences: Descending into walking pneumonia while on a family vacation that entailed my father driving us over a thousand miles to Florida and then back again with me coughing and hacking and gagging the entire way -- that really, really sucked.

But those ten days of hocking loogies and running high fevers in my parents' '68 Wildcat was an absolute cakewalk when stacked up against the horror of high school running back Mick Johnson's falling victim to performance-enhancing substances in Carl Deuker's GYM CANDY.

" 'Here's how it works, Mick. You try to run there,' he said, pointing behind the line,' and I try to stop you.' He shoved the mini football into the crook of my arm, led me to the far end of the yard, went back to the middle, got down on his knees, and yelled: 'Go!' "

Mick has played football -- always at running back -- his whole life. His father, a former high school star, held Mick back a year before kindergarten so that Mick would always have that extra year and the additional physically maturity over the other kids in his grade. His dad's got two blank walls in the house that he expects Mick to fill with awards and newspaper write-ups.

Mick is dead-set against using performance-enhancing substances, but his need to be stronger in order to surpass an older teammate, and the fear of having to fend off a younger teammate, result in his being more and more desperate and willing to compromise his values. And then there is, hanging over him, the awful memory of how his first high school season had ended:

"With my teammates watching, with my dad watching, with every eye in the stadium on me, I'd failed. Completely and utterly failed. I'd been so sure of myself, so certain that if I got my chance, I'd make the most of it. How stupid! How like a third-grader! As if I were the only guy on the field with dreams. That linebacker who stopped me -- number 50. Before the game he had probably dreamed of making the big hit to save the game for his team. So why did his dream come true and mine go up in flames? What had he done that I hadn't? Why had I failed? Why had I come up a foot short?
"There was an answer. I tried to keep it from coming, but there was no holding it back. You don't have the talent, a voice whispered -- my voice."

Getting to follow him from when he's that four year-old in the backyard, Mick remains an exceptionally sympathetic character. This page-turner of a sports story is so vivid and well told that I literally experienced physical tension as I watched this teenager becoming more and more trapped in his cycle of lies and the side effects of his substance abuse.

With every page we keep rooting for Mick, hoping that he can see clear to accepting what the good Lord has given him and to stop cheating himself.

Richie Partington, MLIS
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