You Cannot Be Serious by John McEnroe with James Kaplan

                When I first started to pay attention to men’s tennis ten or so years ago, I never thought I would be interested in John McEnroe.  He drove me crazy.  Which is why I am greatly surprised that over the past couple of years he has become one of only two, occasionally three, commentators I do not mute on sight.  I have already read and enjoyed the books from Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi.  Having a new found interest in Mr. McEnroe, I remembered he put out a book awhile back and I decided to give it a shot.

                I was very excited when I picked the book up from the library.  Despite this, it took me a little while to get into.  Not too long, but longer than I expected.  Now, some of this may have had to do with other things going on in my life at the time versus what I was reading.  In any case, I did not get fully involved in the book until one of my Friday night insomnia moments.  I stayed up until 2:30 in the morning drinking in every word.  Getting to sleep was not even on my mind.  All I wanted to do was keep reading.  This is what I felt until I finished reading the last page.                

                Since I did not start to pay attention to tennis until long after Mr. McEnroe retired, I found how tennis has changed through the years absolutely fascinating.  I know the commentators, when I actually take them off mute, do comment on this on occasion, but somehow reading it from Mr. McEnroe’s view made it clearer.  It was also funny to read about records that were still held when the book was published.  Some of them I know have been broken.  For example, the longest match in history was mentioned.  This has been far surpassed by now and possibly will never be broken again (thank you, John Isner and Nicolas Mahut).  Then there was the description of life outside of actually playing tennis.  The traveling and the people Mr. McEnroe met.  It sounds like quite a wild ride.

                I will say there was one great disappointment.  There was zero mention of my favorite player, the man who has kept me glued to tennis for ten plus years.  However, seeing as the book was published in 2002, and this player had not fully risen to his greatness yet, I guess I can let the oversight slide.  Actually, one of the biggest reasons I began to warm up to Mr. McEnroe is his kindness and respect he has given to this player.  So as I said, the oversight can slide.

                In the back of the book there is a section of improvements Mr. McEnroe would like to see happen to tennis.  One of those was increased charity work by the players.  I wonder what he thinks of all the charity work that is being done now.  Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Andy Roddick are three players I know off the top of my head who have established foundations to help others.  Then there are the numerous events that have been put on to help victims of natural disasters.  Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray, and Marcos Baghdatis are just a few who recently played in a soccer game to help raise funds for the earthquake and tsunami victims in Japan.

                I could go on for a really long time about all the things I read in this book, but I will not.  Just know that I could.