History of Sports Books

Boys Will Be Boys: The Glory Days and Party Nights of the Dallas Cowboys Dynasty

Jeff Pearlman

Amazon Price: $17.13 List Price: $25.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Harper Amazon Marketplace: 51 new & used starting at $13.00

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Sports -> Football (American) -> Professional
Subjects -> Sports -> Football (American) -> General
Subjects -> Sports -> Football (American) -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 30 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

They were America's Team—the high-priced, high-glamour, high-flying Dallas Cowboys of the 1990s, who won three Super Bowls and made as many headlines off the field as on it. Led by Emmitt Smith, the charismatic Deion "Prime Time" Sanders, and Hall of Famers Troy Aikman and Michael Irvin, the Cowboys rank among the greatest of all NFL dynasties.

In similar fashion to his New York Times bestseller The Bad Guys Won!, about the 1986 New York Mets, in Boys Will Be Boys, award-winning writer Jeff Pearlman chronicles the outrageous antics and dazzling talent of a team fueled by ego, sex, drugs—and unrivaled greatness. Rising from the ashes of a 1-15 season in 1989 to capture three Super Bowl trophies in four years, the Dallas Cowboys were guided by a swashbuckling, skirt-chasing, power-hungry owner, Jerry Jones, and his two eccentric, hard-living coaches, Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer. Together the three built a juggernaut that America loved and loathed.

But for a team that was so dominant on Sundays, the Cowboys were often a dysfunctional circus the rest of the week. Irvin, nicknamed "The Playmaker," battled dual addictions to drugs and women. Charles Haley, the defensive colossus, presided over the team's infamous "White House," where the parties lasted late into the night and a steady stream of long-legged groupies came and went. And then there were Smith and Sanders, whose Texas-sized egos were eclipsed only by their record-breaking on-field perfomances.

With an unforgettable cast of characters and a narrative as hard-hitting and fast-paced as the team itself, Boys Will Be Boys immortalizes the most beloved—and despised—dynasty in NFL history.

The Glory Game: How the 1958 NFL Championship Changed Football Forever

Frank Gifford, Peter Richmond

Amazon Price: $17.13 List Price: $25.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Harper Amazon Marketplace: 38 new & used starting at $15.74

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> State & Local -> New York
Subjects -> Sports -> Football (American) -> Professional
Subjects -> Sports -> Football (American) -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In 1958 Frank Gifford was the golden boy on the glamour team in the most celebrated city in the NFL. When his New York Giants played the Baltimore Colts for the league championship that year, it became the single most memorable contest in the history of professional football. Broadcast to an audience of millions, it was the first title game ever to go into sudden-death overtime. Its drama, excitement, and controversy riveted the nation and helped propel football to the forefront of the American sports landscape.

Now, to mark the fiftieth anniversary of "The Greatest Game Ever Played," New York Giants Hall of Famer and longtime television analyst Frank Gifford provides an inside-the-helmet account that will take its place in the annals of sports literature. Drawing on the poignant and humorous memories of every living player from the game—including fellow Hall of Famers Sam Huff, Andy Robustelli, Art Donovan, Lenny Moore, and Raymond Berry—as well as the author's own experiences and reflections, The Glory Game captures a magnificent moment in American sports history. It is the story of two very different cities and teams, filled with the joy, the disappointment, and the eternal pride of a day that will forever symbolize all that is great about sports.

Told with gripping immediacy, The Glory Game is an indelible portrait of the NFL's most transcendent hours—a winter version of The Boys of Summer, told by one of football's true legends.

The Match: The Day the Game of Golf Changed Forever

Mark Frost

Amazon Price: $16.47 List Price: $24.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Booklegger Amazon Marketplace: 54 new & used starting at $11.95

Buy at Amazon.com

Features:

• Hard Cover
• The Day the Game of Golf Changed Forever

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> State & Local -> California
Subjects -> Sports -> Golf -> General
Subjects -> Sports -> Golf -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 73 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

the match 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Talks about and brings back the birth of the excitement of Professional Golf. The facts about the personal histories of the early major players are interesting.Their personal stories bring back memories of these men who were major factors in making the game what it is today.One of the players in this "Match" is a personal friend and the story of his life makes you understand why he became such a great individual.The story of "The Match" itself is exciting to read and very hard to put down. For anyone with even a remote interest in the game it will make you a fan.

Editorial Review:

From the best selling author of The Greatest Game Ever Played is this powerful, emotional and suspenseful story of "the greatest private match ever played." The challenge was staged in 1956 by Eddie Lowery, former 10-year old caddie to U.S. Open Champion Francis Ouimet, and pitted amateurs Harvie Ward and Ken Venturi against Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson, the game's greatest living professionals, with 14 major championships between them. In author Mark Frost's peerless hands, the recollections of this immortal foursome and the game they played that day come to life.

Giants Among Men: How Robustelli, Huff, Gifford, and the Giants Made New York a Football Town and Changed the NFL

Jack Cavanaugh

Amazon Price: $17.16 List Price: $26.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Random House Amazon Marketplace: 44 new & used starting at $9.99

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> State & Local -> New York
Subjects -> Sports -> Football (American) -> Professional
Subjects -> Sports -> Football (American) -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

From the mid-1950s to the early 1960s, when basketball’s Boston Celtics were piecing together a run for the ages, when Montreal’s Canadiens were in the midst of notching a record-setting five straight Stanley Cups, and when the New York Yankees were the once-and-future kings of the diamond, one team boosted the NFL to national prominence as none other: the New York Giants.

In Giants Among Men, Jack Cavanaugh, the acclaimed author of Tunney, transports us to the NFL’s golden age to introduce the close-knit and diverse group that won the heart of a city, helped spread the gospel of pro football across the nation, and recast the NFL as a media colossus.

Central to Cavanaugh’s narrative, and emblematic of the Giants’ bond with their followers, was a hard-nosed future Hall of Fame defensive end named Andy Robustelli. A World War II combat vet, a graduate of Arnold College, undersized and nearing age thirty, Robustelli nevertheless anchored a Giants defensive unit so ferocious that they were the first team to inspire crowds to chant “Dee-fense!” But Robustelli and the Giants were a hit on the gridiron, playing in six NFL Championship Games in eight seasons between 1956 and 1963, the most remarkable aspect of this team was perhaps its relationship to the fans. These Giants were largely composed of ordinary joes who were equally at ease hobnobbing with Gleason and Sinatra at Toots Shor’s as they were rubbing elbows with working-class rooters on the IRT en route to Sunday games in the Bronx–like many of their fans, nearly all Giants players worked second jobs off-season to make ends meet. But the Giants of this era didn’t merely affect the fans’ relationship to the game; they changed the game itself. The team launched the careers of future head-coaching geniuses Tom Landry and Vince Lombardi, as well as those of a galaxy of stars and future Hall-of-Famers including Frank Gifford, Sam Huff, Emlen Tunnell, Roosevelt Brown, Y. A. Tittle, Charlie Conerly, Rosie Grier, and Pat Summerall. The Giants teams of this remarkable era were tagged with the soubriquet “Mara Tech” (for the Mara family, who had owned the franchise since its inception)–due to the number of players and coaches who later found success in the boardroom, the broadcast booth, and behind the bench.

Filled with historical and cultural insight and vivid portraits of larger-than-life characters and indispensable everymen, Giants Among Men transcends nostalgia and sports trivia to faithfully depict a watershed era for both football and the American nation.


Praise for Jack Cavanaugh’s Tunney

“Impressively researched and richly detailed . . . a long-overdue portrait of a fascinating fighter.”
–Sports Illustrated

“A winning tale . . . Jack Cavanaugh brings Tunney, Dempsey and the fight scene of the Roaring Twenties back to life.”
–Fort Worth Star-Telegram

“[A] sprawling new biography . . . The boxing scenes are spun gold.”
–The New York Times

“Filled with vivid characters from one of boxing’s most glamorous eras, this tale goes fifteen rounds and delivers plenty of punch.”
–Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“One of the primary elements to the greatness of this biography is Cavanaugh’s ability to plumb the confusing depths of celebrity in America.”
–The Denver Post

The Best Game Ever: Giants vs. Colts, 1958, and the Birth of the Modern NFL

Mark Bowden

Amazon Price: $15.64 List Price: $23.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Atlantic Monthly Press Amazon Marketplace: 56 new & used starting at $7.35

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> State & Local -> New York
Subjects -> Sports -> Football (American) -> Professional
Subjects -> Sports -> Football (American) -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

On December 28, 1958, the New York Giants and Baltimore Colts met under the lights of Yankee Stadium for the NFL Championship game. Played in front of sixty-four thousand fans and millions of television viewers around the country, the game would be remembered as the greatest in football history. On the field and roaming the sidelines were seventeen future Hall of Famers, including Colts stars Johnny Unitas, Raymond Berry, and Gino Marchetti, and Giants greats Frank Gifford, Sam Huff, and assistant coaches Vince Lombardi and Tom Landry. An estimated forty-five million viewers—at that time the largest crowd to have ever watched a football game—tuned in to see what would become the first sudden-death contest in NFL history. It was a battle of the league's best offense—the Colts—versus its best defense—the Giants. And it was a contest between the blue-collar Baltimore team versus the glamour boys of the Giants squad. The Best Game Ever is a brilliant portrait of how a single game changed the history of American sport. Published to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the championship, it is destined to be a sports classic.

Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation

John Carlin

Amazon Price: $16.47 List Price: $24.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Penguin Press HC, The Amazon Marketplace: 51 new & used starting at $11.94

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> People, A-Z -> ( M ) -> Mandela, Nelson
Subjects -> History -> Africa -> South Africa
Subjects -> History -> World -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 15 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

A thrilling, inspiring account of one of the greatest charm offensives in history—Nelson Mandela’s decade-long campaign to unite his country, beginning in his jail cell and ending with a rugby tournament

In 1985, Nelson Mandela, then in prison for twenty-three years, set about winning over the fiercest proponents of apartheid, from his jailers to the head of South Africa’s military. First he earned his freedom and then he won the presidency in the nation’s first free election in 1994. But he knew that South Africa was still dangerously divided by almost fifty years of apartheid. If he couldn’t unite his country in a visceral, emotional way—and fast—it would collapse into chaos. He would need all the charisma and strategic acumen he had honed during half a century of activism, and he’d need a cause all South Africans could share. Mandela picked one of the more farfetched causes imaginable—the national rugby team, the Springboks, who would host the sport’s World Cup in 1995.

Against the giants of the sport, the Springboks’ chances of victory were remote. But their chances of capturing the hearts of most South Africans seemed remoter still, as they had long been the embodiment of white supremacist rule. During apartheid, the all-white Springboks and their fans had belted out racist fight songs, and blacks would come to Springbok matches to cheer for whatever team was playing against them. Yet Mandela believed that the Springboks could embody—and engage—the new South Africa. And the Springboks themselves embraced the scheme. Soon South African TV would carry images of the team singing “Nkosi Sikelele Afrika,” the longtime anthem of black resistance to apartheid.

As their surprising string of victories lengthened, their home-field advantage grew exponentially. South Africans of every color and political stripe found themselves falling for the team. When the Springboks took to the field for the championship match against New Zealand’s heavily favored squad, Mandela sat in his presidential box wearing a Springbok jersey while sixty-two-thousand fans, mostly white, chanted “Nelson! Nelson!” Millions more gathered around their TV sets, whether in dusty black townships or leafy white suburbs, to urge their team toward victory. The Springboks won a nail-biter that day, defying the oddsmakers and capping Mandela’s miraculous ten-year-long effort to bring forty-three million South Africans together in an enduring bond.

John Carlin, a former South Africa bureau chief for the London Independent, offers a singular portrait of the greatest statesman of our time in action, blending the volatile cocktail of race, sport, and politics to intoxicating effect. He draws on extensive interviews with Mandela, Desmond Tutu, and dozens of other South Africans caught up in Mandela’s momentous campaign, and the Springboks’ unlikely triumph. As he makes stirringly clear, their championship transcended the mere thrill of victory to erase ancient hatreds and make a nation whole.

A People's History of Sports in the United States: From Bull-Baiting to Barry Bonds . . . 250 Years of Politics, Protest, People, and Play (New Press People's Histories)

Dave Zirin

Amazon Price: $17.79 List Price: $26.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: New Press Amazon Marketplace: 42 new & used starting at $16.74

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Historical Study -> Social History
Subjects -> Sports -> Miscellaneous -> History of Sports
Subjects -> Sports -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Brilliant and Mind bending 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 9 people found this review helpful.

I am a sports fan and someone who cares about the politics of social change. This book brought these worlds together in a way that has me rethinking how I understand both the history of sports and the history of the United States. Each story told might be worth its own book but I will take with me the stories of Moses Fleetwood Walker, the African American baseball player in the 19th century who saw his career die with the end of reconstruction, and the way the famed US women's soccer team threatened to strike in 1996 - on the advice of Billie Jean King - for equal pay. This is a must read - an antidote to the narrow politics of election season.

Eye-opening 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Games are never just games. Even when children play, they are mastering the skills and cultural messages they will need to become successful adults. Yet in America, we cling to a cultural myth that sports are apolitical. We have the news channel CNN and the sports channel ESPN, and they are supposed to be entirely separate and distinct.

In this enlightening book, sportswriter Dave Zirin debunks this myth, exposing the politics, business interests, and cultural forces that have shaped modern sports. Zirin traces the history of sports from the lacrosse-playing days of the Choctaw Indians all the way to the modern steroid scandals and the behind-the-scenes politics of the international Olympic Games. Throughout, he focuses on how race-related conflicts have helped to shape modern athletics.

The host of a popular blog called "The Edge of Sports" (edgeofsports.com) and a regular contributor to the L.A. Times and the Nation magazine, Zirin has an engaging style that will appeal to sports fans, history buffs, and anyone else who wants their eyes opened. The favorable reviews and high sales certainly suggest that this book will help reduce the myth of sports as apolitical. (See the publisher's website, newpress.com, for links to recent publicity, which includes a favorable plug in Time Magazine.) Author Jeff Chang promises that after reading this book "you'll never see sports the same way again"; author Jim Bouton (Ball Four) goes even further by predicting that this is "the opening shot in the battle to reclaim sports."

Not only is the book enlightening, it is also a fun read full of engaging stories that you can share with friends and family while you are waiting for the game to begin. And if by game time you haven't yet convinced them that politics is embedded in sports, Zirin recommends an exercise that will unmask the "coercive patriotism" surrounding them: Have them try staying seated while the national anthem is being played, and they are being told to stand to support the troops in Iraq.

Sports Illustrated: The Football Book

Amazon Price: $19.77 List Price: $29.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Sports Illustrated Amazon Marketplace: 48 new & used starting at $9.73

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Sports -> Football (American) -> General
Subjects -> Sports -> Football (American) -> General AAS
Subjects -> Sports -> Miscellaneous -> History of Sports

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 21 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Great Football Book for the non-diehard fan 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I bought this book for my 17-yr old who is a visual thinker, not a strong reader, but I loved it too! There are some amazing photos in the book and lots of history of the game and some players. I got a strong sense of the traditions of the game and the excitement for the sport. I am a stronger football fan because of it! I also recommend the rest of this 'series' by Sports Illustrated, The Baseball Book and The Basketball Book.

Editorial Review:

On the heels of the successful Sports Illustrated 50th Anniversary Book comes a spectacular celebration of professional football that will be treasured by fans of America+s Game. With the same kind of unforgettable photographs and award-winning writing that made the SI+s 50th Anniversary Book a best-seller, this lavish coffee-table volume brings to life the bone-rattling action of NFL football and the extraordinary athletes who have made it America+s true national pastime. In 256 oversized pages, The Football Book commemorates the dynasties and the dominating players, the crucial plays and classic games, the personalities and performances that propelled the NFL during SI+s first 50 years of publication, from a marginal, ragtag league to the biggest game in town.

Sports Illustrated: Going Deep: 20 Classic Sports Stories

Gary Smith

Amazon Price: $17.79 List Price: $26.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Sports Illustrated Amazon Marketplace: 41 new & used starting at $14.51

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Sports -> Miscellaneous -> History of Sports
Subjects -> Sports -> General
Subjects -> Sports -> General AAS

Editorial Review:

Smith's stories have appeared in the annual "Best American Sports Writing" anthology series nine times over the course of the 16-edition series, the most of any contributor. Now comes "Sports Illustrated: Going Deep: 20 Classic Sports Stories" by Gary Smith, a collection of Smith's most powerful pieces. Handpicked by the author, these 20 stories showcase the richness of his reporting and the compassion of his craft. In "Shadow of a Nation" Smith depicts the struggle of Jonathan Takes Enemy, a young Crow Indian basketball player hoping to escape the reservation.In "Damned Yankee" Smith details the saga of John Malangone, the player who might have replaced Yogi Berra as the New York Yankees catcher until a terrible secret from his childhood unravelled his career. In "Blindsided by History" Smith tells the tale of the racial grenade flung in the laps of America's best schoolboy team in 1957 and the absurd solution that segregationists cobbled together to preserve two Arkansas traditions: Friday night football and racial separation. This 384 page anthology - highlighted by four national Magazine Award winners and a foreword by the author - is rich with heart and humanity.

Fallen Giants: A History of Himalayan Mountaineering from the Age of Empire to the Age of Extremes

Maurice Isserman, Stewart Weaver

Amazon Price: $26.37 List Price: $39.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Yale University Press Amazon Marketplace: 43 new & used starting at $24.75

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Asia -> Central Asia
Subjects -> History -> World -> General
Subjects -> History -> World -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The first successful ascent of Mount Everest in 1953 by Sir Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa teammate Tenzing Norgay is a familiar saga, but less well known are the tales of many other adventurers who also came to test their skills and courage against the world’s highest and most dangerous mountains. In this lively and generously illustrated book, historians Maurice Isserman and Stewart Weaver present the first comprehensive history of Himalayan mountaineering in fifty years. They offer detailed, original accounts of the most significant climbs since the 1890s, and they compellingly evoke the social and cultural worlds that gave rise to those expeditions.

The book recounts the adventures of such figures as Martin Conway, who led the first authentic Himalayan climbing expedition in 1892; Fanny Bullock Workman, the pioneer explorer of the Karakoram range; George Mallory, the romantic martyr of Mount Everest fame; Charlie Houston, who led American expeditions to K2 in the 1930s and 1950s; Ang Tharkay, the legendary Sherpa, and many others. Throughout, the authors discuss the effects of political and social change on the world of mountaineering, and they offer a penetrating analysis of a culture that once emphasized teamwork and fellowship among climbers, but now has been eclipsed by a scramble for individual fame and glory.

(20080915)