Book Reviews

Green Bay is, in a word, unique among NFL cities. Besides having a few hundred thousand or a few million or so fewer residents in its metropolitan area, it’s the one holdover from a very different time in pro football’s history. And with the 100th anniversary of the then-Acme Packers, ...

There have been a few books released this year on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the 1969 Miracle Mets: Wayne Coffey’s outstanding They Said It Couldn’t Be Done, Art Shamsky’s well-received After The Miracle and Rod Gaspar’s less heralded but by all accounts fine Miracle Met among them. ...

There’s an inherent joy in the lines of the most famous baseball song of all time, “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”; “I don’t care if I ever get back” hits on the essence, perhaps, of going to the game. Paul Goldberger’s new book, Ballpark: Baseball in the American City ...

Yankee fans who lived through the late 1970s championships, then the up-and-down and ultimately title-less 1980s remember a familiar phrase: “The Columbus Shuttle.” Burly slugger Steve “Bye-Bye” Balboni may have been its most well-know rider, but the AAA International League entry, which switched to the Yankees in 1979 after serving ...

When great New York baseball seasons are recalled, the years 1927, 1961 and 1998 (Yankees), 1954 (Giants), 1955 (Dodgers), 1969 and 1986 (Mets) are among those frequently mentioned. But when it comes to the Yankees and Mets, the first year that both teams were truly first-rate at the same time ...

Myths die hard. Just as George Washington‘s false teeth weren’t wooden after all (the story is a bit nastier), common beliefs about Babe Ruth have persisted for decades. In the acclaimed The Big Fella: Babe Ruth and the World he Created (HarperCollins, 620pps, $32.50), Jane Leavy delves deeper into the Babe’s early ...

With five Super Bowl titles, 17 straight winning seasons — and counting — and more than 40 years on NFL sidelines, Bill Belichick is considered by many to be the greatest coach in pro football history. From the historic highs of the five championships to the lows of his time ...

In 2020, the New England Patriots will celebrate the 60th anniversary of their birth as the Boston Patriots in the old AFL. Aside from a Championship Game loss in 1963, the AFL years were mostly lean for a team that often played second fiddle in its own market to – ...

Jim Brown is many things… All-time NFL great, arguably the best ever. Successful actor. Activist. And, yes, accused attacker of women over three decades-plus. These are all part of Brown’s 82 years on the planet, and now more than a half century since he left the gridiron, he still commands ...

Names like Jim Kelly, Reggie White and Steve Young—all immortalized as Pro Football Hall of Famers—got their starts not in the established NFL, but in an upstart outfit known as the United States Football League (USFL) that lasted only three years (1983-1985) but provided fans not only a football fix ...