It's 391 pages and you won't find a nasty word in it. Not in English, not in Mandarin Chinese, which Lewis speaks fluently, having served a 2-year mission in Taiwan. And no, you can't get him to say a critical word about T.O. even if you put bamboo sticks under his fingernails and set them afire.
"I did not want to take away the focus from my message, surround yourself with greatness," Lewis explained. "Those Canseco memoirs are passé; there's too many of them out there, I don't think they're cool."
Lewis' book is cucumber-cool because he dares to be different, because he thinks the great people in the NFL far outnumber the thugs, because he praises Andy Reid and Donovan McNabb when the caustic coach and the quixotic quarterback were under fire for a clumsy loss to Dallas. And before the Eagles got hammered in San Diego.
"Anyone who plays pro sports in the United States is under fire," Lewis said. "Why? Because people pay exorbitant amounts of money for their tickets. They expect players to deliver with heart and soul.
"I think Andy Reid is the best coach in the NFL. He put a system into place that put his team in the final four five times in the last 10 years. They will win the Super Bowl this year because of that system, because of the quality of the players, because the coaches will get it rolling in the second half of the season."
And McNabb? "I rate him at the top of the game," Lewis said. "Too many people pick at aspects of his game, his personality, instead of focusing on what he does best."
In the book, Lewis lauds McNabb for his mimickry skills, for his comic wit. "I talked about that on WIP radio," Lewis said with a sigh, "and the first caller said, 'I'd like to see him imitate a Super Bowl quarterback.'
