Winning the Doug Robinson challenge

As with many things that spin out of control — like kitchen remodels, diets, the Olympics, Christmas shopping — it started out innocently enough.

About this time a year ago, someone — I think it was me — said something innocuous along the lines of, "I just finished a good book," which was followed by my friend and fellow columnist, Doug Robinson, responding with, "Yeah, so did I."

That led to a discussion of overall book reading, which led to a discussion of who reads the most, which before you knew it led to this throw-down: whoever read the most books in 2009 would get dinner bought for him and his wife by the other guy and his wife.

I'm only bringing this up because, as you may have already surmised, I, ahem, happened to prevail. I nipped Robinson by one book.

All that's left is deciding which night to go to Ruth's Chris for steaks — Friday or Saturday?

My triumph could be considered an upset along the lines of Y.E. Yang defeating Tiger Woods, on account of the fact that Robinson led the contest for 364 days, 11 hours and 32 minutes.

It wasn't until I finished "Where Men Win Glory" at precisely 11:33 p.m. on New Year's Eve that I pulled into the lead — while Robinson, like Leon Lett headed to the end zone, was blithely out celebrating the new year, prematurely toasting his looming triumph.

Final score: 73 books to 72.

Robinson never saw defeat coming. Not only had he enjoyed a healthy lead at the end of every month, but going into December he was ahead by a substantial four books.

Of course by then we had managed to escalate a simple book-reading wager into a cross between the Super Bowl, the World Cup and the Westminster dog show. Every month we exchanged e-mailed book reports, and every month the totals went up. In November, Robinson read 11!

This wasn't the first time. I remember a beach in Santa Barbara, seeing who could produce the most consecutive Smash Ball hits; and a motel room in Birmingham, Ala., where Doug and I were assigned to cover a football game, improvising an epic game of garbage ball that lasted two days; and a lobster-eating showdown at a bowl game assignment in San Diego.

Robinson always won. He'd have won this time if not for his fatal mistake: believing me when I said I was worn out and probably wasn't going to read much in December. (Then I read 13.)