Boom! This is Books & Biceps #343!

Welcome to our hundreds of new readers this week! We’ve crossed 23,000 sophisticated meatheads! If someone forwarded you this issue of B&B, you can join us right here:

(If you’re a new subscriber or missed my yearly book round-up, The 16 Most Memorable Books I Read in 2024, you can read it here.)

BOOKS

 A Season on the Brink by John Feinstein

I was right in the middle of writing a recommendation for a different book here when I scrolled X and saw the news: John Feinstein—longtime sportswriter, best-selling author, and a guy I admired from a distance—had passed away at 69. Growing up in the ‘90s as an aspiring sports writer, there were only a handful of names that loomed large, titans of the craft you dreamed of emulating one day. On the newspaper beat, you had legends like Bob Ryan, Peter Gammons, and Mike Lupica. Over on the magazine side, it was Ralph Wiley, Rick Reilly, and my all-time favorite, Steve Rushin. But when it came to cranking out best-selling sports books, year after year, one man stood head and shoulders above the rest: John Feinstein.

A Season on the Brink, which I’m recommending here, is essential reading for anyone who’s ever thought about diving into longform, embedded sports journalism. It’s a flat-out masterpiece. When I first read it, I was hooked—all I wanted was to find a way to shadow a college or pro team for a year and write that kind of book. Crazy thing is, that was just one of 46 books Feinstein published. Dozens of them hit the New York Times best-seller list. Let me repeat that: in an industry where getting a sports book published these days is like pulling teeth, Feinstein churned out best sellers with the consistency of a Hall of Fame closer.

But there’s another layer to why I always felt a connection to him, something a lot of people didn’t know about—or at least, he didn’t flaunt in interviews because most reporters didn’t ask. I cared, though.

Feinstein was a lifelong masters swimmer who actually competed in meets. Talk about a bull’s-eye for a young Jon Finkel to aspire to: a best-selling author who hits the pool? Sign me up. Even more amazing is that he swam butterfly like me. And I just looked up his times in the Masters database. He was Top 10 a few times back in the early 2000s when he was about my age now. How cool is this?:

And here’s an old Twitter thread he wrote about how watching his 9-year-old daughter swim reminded him of his first 200-butterfly after making his Masters comeback (sound familiar?):

Over the years, I covered a few big events where he was also in the press box—NBA Finals, college football championships, that kind of thing. Once, I grabbed popcorn next to him at Staples Center. I gave him a quick nod, too stuck in my own head to say much. Looking back, I wish I’d had the confidence I do now. I’d have skipped the small talk about sports writing or books and gone straight for the good stuff: swimming and competing and being a dad. Then maybe we’d talk shop.

As far as I know, there aren’t many of us out there who grind out books by day and swim laps by night (or early morning). And we just lost one of the best. I could rattle off a list of Feinstein’s books you should read—probably ten of them without blinking—but sometimes the answer to “Where do I start?” is dead simple. A Season on the Brink is the one. Pick it up. You won’t regret it.

Rest in peace, John Feinstein. You’ll be missed.

BICEPS

Bands, bells, and bars on Wednesday—decided to go all-in on a good old-fashioned Arm Day.

Leg day gets all the gut-check glory, but screw it, I’m always down to work on the ol’ 26-inch pythons. In fact, I think I’m going to make Arm Day my new thing. After shoulders, it’s my favorite body part to train and that’s not just because it helps my smedium shirts pop haha.

This was the biceps part of the workout I threw together that had my neighbors peaking into the Flex Factory and wondering when Popeye moved in.

Wide Grip / Narrow Grip Barbell Curls Superset: 10, 8, 6, 4 (adding 10 lbs to the bar each set)

Incline DB Hammer Curls: Higher Reps to Near Failure (18, 16, 14)

Slow Band Curls: 3 × 8 but SUPER SLOW on the way down - full eight count.

ENJOY!

QUICK FLEXES

I wrote this column for our recent issue of Midlife Male and I wanted to share it with you all. If you grew up watching baseball with your dad and grandfather (or any sport, really), it might get a little misty for you while reading. This one meant a lot to write:

Ted Williams, 98 Years of Tradition & Why RIGHT NOW is the Time to Make Generational Memories - Read it HERE at the Midlife Male

(If you enjoy it, you can subscribe on the site after you read it. We tackle this stuff every week, plus exclusive interviews with high performing guys & lifestyle recs.)

A QUICK WORD FROM THIS WEEK’S SPONSOR:

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STRONG LINKS

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Let the world know that you’re one of the elite, sophisticated meatheads who reads Books & Biceps by showing off your actual biceps in this shirt. I live in this thing. Grab yours and support the B&B Crew today:

2) I’m the Editor-in-Chief of MIDLIFE MALE, the fastest growing lifestyle brand for men over 40. You gotta subscribe. Here’s a quick summary:

If you’re a dude over 40 and you used to read Men’s Health or Esquire or GQ, and you’re looking for a digital magazine to get you on top of your game and keep you on top of your game, with incredible A-List interviews (Troy Aikman, Don Saladino, Gunnar Peterson and more), original columns and a curated list of weekly items second-to-none, subscribe to Midlife Male Magazine.

I’ve been helping build this publication from the ground up and it’s the magazine I used to wish existed - and now it does. We just passed 15,000 subs! Join us here.

3) This is the single most relatable newsletter about start-ups you’ll ever read. And it’s by the guy who founded Beehiiv, the platform host of this newsletter. His name’s Tyler. His newsletter’s Big Desk Energy. You’ll love it:

4) And if you love Underdog Stories in Sports, you’ll love this. One of my favorite new reads:

DID YOU ORDER GENERATION GRIFFEY YET?

ALL THESE GUYS DID AND THEY SHARED THE PICS WITH US:

If you still wear your hat backward like Griffey, think all the Prime flavors are dumb because Gatorade Citrus Cooler is the greatest sports drink ever, miss Blockbuster and Tower Records, destroyed your friends in Street Fighter, GoldenEye, and NBA Jam, can quote Tommy Boy and Billy Madison, and never missed Stu Scott on SportsCenter —this book, Generation Griffey, is for you.

I ranked 90 of the '90s things that made your dude childhood legendary. A rankfest, if you will. Ninety columns. By me. For you. For US.

Why Generation Griffey?

First, it’s a great name. We’ve got alliteration, “generation,” and the quintessential athlete of that era: Ken Griffey Jr.

Junior perfectly defines the era for late '80s and '90s kids because the apex of his career matches our childhood. From the day he joined the Mariners’ lineup in 1989 through the next decade, nobody embodied '90s style (the backward hat), swagger (the swing, the smile, the commercials), and coolness (the kicks, the cameos, the crossover stardom) quite like Griffey.
His reign atop the sports/celebrity pyramid (alongside Jordan) from his rookie year in Seattle to his move to the Reds in 2000 serves as the perfect bookend for all of us who grew up in the last decade of the last century.

See? Generation Griffey is a spectacular name for this book.

What are we ranking?

Everything. Well, noteverything, but the 90 most nostalgic things that make us dudes smile all these years later: the movies we quoted, the athletes we loved, the cards we collected, the foods we devoured, the shows we watched, and more. All of it. Got it? Good. Let’s go.