David Zirin’s new book, Welcome to the Terrordome: The Pain, Politics and Promise of Sports touches almost every sport genre. It does not matter what sport you follow for this book to be enjoyable. If you are a basketball fan Zirin has a chapter entitled, “The NBA and the Two Souls of Hip Hop.� International soccer fan? “Soccer: The Perilous Practice of Political Projection.� And one of my favorite chapters for you baseball fans out there obsessed with steroids, “Barry Bonds Gonna Git Your Mama: When Steroids Attack!�

Zirin looks beyond sports in his book and dives into the social aspect these “games� have on our lives, nations, and communities. I learned about a Hispanic civil rights activist named Roberto Clemente who happened to play baseball. Clemente fought has hard as any African American against the laws of Jim Crow. When told by a waitress, “We don’t serve Negroes,� he responded, “That’s okay. I don’t eat Negroes.� Clemente helped sponsor the Black Panther morning breakfast program and probably did as much for baseball as the storied Jackie Robinson. Zirin praises Clemente for everything he accomplished on and off the field before his untimely death.

Want to know why the MLB is about 40% Hispanic? In the chapter titled, “Beisbol: How the Major Leagues Eat Their Young,� you will find out. Zirin informed us about the horrible baseball farms the MLB uses in Central and South America exploiting impoverish young kids dreams strictly for financial gain.

Unleashing the power of the World Cup, Zirin attempts to unveil meaning behind sports and how it feels to represent your country. To the United States soccer is David Beckman, Posh Spice, and Fifa 2008 on Xbox 360, but to the world soccer is a political stage. Zirin dives into the 2006 World Cup recalling what the games meant to different countries. He explains why people of color are seldom seen in the stands for fear of safety.

In the chapter, “The Olympics: Gold, Guns, and Graft,� it was interesting to see how the Olympics coincide with social change. How an eighteen year old Cassis Clay gave his 1960 Olympic boxing gold medal a home at the bottom of the Ohio River after being turned away from a whites-only restaurant in his hometown of Louisville. Zirin writes how track stars Tommie Smith and John Carlos changed the world view of American segregation with their proud fists raised high in the 1968 games. Zirin explains hosting the Olympics can cripple a city’s economy as it did Greece in 2004 and how the Olympics caused social backlash by the way the cities less fortunate are violently shoved to the side in tragic story of Tlatelolco, Mexico. Zirin also introduces us to the racist Avery Brundage, former president of the International Olympic Committee.

Whether it is Don Imus, John Amechi, Pat Tillman, Sheryl Swoopes, Jim Brown, Lance Armstrong, or Etan Thomas, Zirin leaves no stone unturned in his book. If you couldn’t already tell by name, he also touches on Katrina and the Superdome. This book is a great read and if that’s not enough to convince you… The foreword is written by Chuck D. I rest my case.