As someone how has played baseball, golf and tennis for decades, I have a soft spot for sports books. And as a long-time editor, I have little tolerance for hyperbole. So, as I noted last week, I was torn while reading The Match: The Day the Game of Golf Changed Forever, which recounts a wager on a 1956 golf match between two young amateurs and pro legends Byron Nelson and Ben Hogan. Although I liked author Mark Frost's story-telling, I was irked by the subtitle.

I recognize that certain moments — D-Day, 9/11, Waterloo — changed or accelerated historic trends, at least for a time. But the "pivotal moment" theme ought to be retired. (Hey, maybe then I could write a book on The Read Street Post that Changed the Publishing Industry.) It has been used to tout books on topics ranging from battles to plagues to the 1960 Olympics to Galileo’s telescope. Another example: Sealing Their Fate: The Twenty-Two Days That Decided World War II, in which author David Downing argues that the German failure to take Moscow, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the British launching of Operation Crusader in North Africa established the conditions for Axis defeat.

Maybe it’s just a way to start an argument, like a guy in a bar saying Cal Ripken shouldn’t be in the Hall of Fame. As for The Match, a strong argument can be made that nothing changed on that day. The intriguing competition occurred as market forces were boosting the popularity of pro golf, and gentleman amateurs were vanishing. But the match decided nothing, and the hype sapped some enjoyment from an interesting book.

And don’t even get me started on books that promise “The Untold Story... .”