Soccer in a Football World: The Story of America's Forgotten Game (Sporting) Review

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Soccer in a Football World: The Story of America's Forgotten Game (Sporting) ReviewThis book provides a great look into the history of the American game. Other books (Soccerhead being one of the better examples) have provided short outlines of pre-NASL soccer, but Wangerin is successful at seeking out the distant past of American soccer and provides as indepth a history as anyone will probably ever do. One of his main arguments, that while soccer may never be big in America, it's never been a better time for American soccer, is well proved throughout the book's tales of organizational infighting and inexplicable decisions by almost everyone involved in the sport at its highest levels in the US. This book winds up serving not only as a recounting of the past, but also a warning for the future so that American soccer never falls back into the depths of despair it has in the past.
The few issues I have with the book are that little attention is given to the women's game (roughly 12 pages in the 300+ page book), and it feels that Wangerin rushes through the post-1994 history, only hitting some major talking points of the 1998 and 2002 World Cups and some brief history of MLS. Also, very little is mentioned about the US Youth National Teams. I would also like to suggest that eventually this book be updated, since it ends around 2005. The back of the book mentions David Beckham's move to the US with the LA Galaxy, but the book ends its look at the sport in America before Beckham arrival.
With that being said, anyone interested in soccer in America should definitely check this out.Soccer in a Football World: The Story of America's Forgotten Game (Sporting) OverviewDavid Wangerin's humorous and thorough book tells the story of American soccer's long struggle from the brief promise of the 1920's, through the euphoric highs and extravagant follies of the North American Soccer League, to today's hard-won acceptance.

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Catch Wrestling, Round Two: More Wild and Wooly Tales From the Early Days of Pro Wrestling Review

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Catch Wrestling, Round Two: More Wild and Wooly Tales From the Early Days of Pro Wrestling ReviewAs usual Paladin Press does a sales pitch, they talk a fish out of water. They just know how to sell stuff, even if it isn't what it promised. I mean they reprint 100 year old wrestling books. It would be a decent thing for them to at least release a DVD with these black and white pro wrestling matches in them. That would help these books out. At one point or another I came across their other ones. That's what sucks, they tell you it was "match of the century" and then they just tell you about it. Without ever seeing it. Paladin Press should buy the rights to these matches and sell a DVD with them. I know there's commercial videos out there. Those "budget" DVDs, with matches with Lou Thesz on them. Hell over at the [...] Their "classics on demand" section. They got some of Lou Thesz matches on there.
THE ONLY STUFF THAT SUCKS ABOUT THIS BOOK
1) A lot like the first Catch Wrestling book. It's like reading a sports section of the news page in a newspaper. That's what it feels like. At least this man knows what he's talking about. When he goes into detail about the "gory stuff".
2) The real downside to any of these 2 books. Well, they don't show you pictures of the large capacity crowds. They don't show pictures, or go too into detail about where these wrestling matches took place. It could be a carnival, or a opera/music hall. They should include pictures of that.
3) I heard back in this generation of Catch Wrestling. That one of the main rules was. The match usually took place in the CENTER of the ring. That the matches would just be like an hour long of staying in "the clinch".
All in all, good read.Catch Wrestling, Round Two: More Wild and Wooly Tales From the Early Days of Pro Wrestling OverviewTake another trip back to the raucous early days of pro wrestling as Mark Hewitt brings you even more blow-by-blow accounts of dozens of the most famous and infamous mat battles of the day, as well as the backstage stories of the colorful characters who crisscrossed the country from the 1880s to the 1960s in search of fame, glory and cold, hard cash.From all-comers matches to high-profile card events, from dirt lots and carnivals to packed arenas, from country boys to skilled scientific wrestlers, the fighting lore is packed in here tighter than a Strangler Lewis headlock. Filled with extremely rare photos culled from the libraries of fight fans and historians and the family scrapbooks of the wrestlers themselves, Catch Wrestling: Round Two offers up such gems as:The most notorious double-cross in wrestling historyLondon's legendary Alhambra Tournament of 1908Japanese sensation Matsada Sorakichi's U.S. debutWrestler vs. boxer mixed matchesCelebrity referees, celebrity wrestlers and the French AngelThe Gracie brothers and the fight scene in 1930s Rio de Janeiro
Read the true stories of Tigerman Pesek, Midget Fischer, Earl Caddock, Billy Wicks, Lou Thesz, and all the other grapplers who paid for their place in sports history with blood, sweat and pain.

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Darwin's Athletes: How Sport Has Damaged Black America and Preserved the Myth of Race Review

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Darwin's Athletes: How Sport Has Damaged Black America and Preserved the Myth of Race ReviewHoberman has written a masterful account of not just racism in sport but in general, from the social, biological, cultural, political and international perspective. He makes convincing arguments that sport, rather than being the great equaliser between the races, actually has retarded black social advancement by creating an acceptable alternative to white intellectual achievement. Indeed, a plague currently afflicting black education makes any black scholastic accomplishments of the non-physical variety "white" and therefore nerdy and uncool. The imagery of Michael Jordan seduces young blacks, most of whom have no chance of ever attaining professional athletic status, into abandoning academic study for the glamor, girls and glory associated with sport. Hoberman shows how whites, who originally denigrated blacks as being lazy and shiftless, have come to regard them as athletic supermen, against which no white man would be able to legitimately compete. More insidiously, many blacks are all too willing to accept that their natural athletic genius exempts them form having to compete with whites in the intellectual sphere. The pride shown with the black athletes that have overcome white racism, such as Joe Louis, Jackie Robinson and Muhammad Ali, winds up hurting the overall black goal of full social integration when it serves to be the end-all-and-be-all of the black experience in America. Hoberman also makes the point that blacks achieving wealth and fame in sport still are prisoners in a gilded cage created for the profit and entertainment of the white power structure. Without taking the same level of pride in intellectual, artistic and political prowess as with sports, blacks will continue to function on the margins of white controlled society. His observations with respect to shibboleths about racial biology and superiority are scathing indictments of the perpetuation of mythology that justifies this or that racist neurosis. Indeed, it still pervades the racial discussion, and even affects the way blacks see themselves. The invidious process of the physicalization of the black man started with slavery and continued into athletics, so that even if blacks showed superior speed or strength, they were always criticized by whites for their lack of intelligence, courage or endurance. Those lies were made manifest with the likes of Muhammad Ali, black soldiers in both world wars, African distance runners and intellectuals like DuBois, but the mindset did not change. Only until very recently have black quarterbacks in the NFL been seen as capable of doing the same job as white QBs, after years of "common" knowledge that black QBs didn't have the mental chops as whites. Sadly, it seems like sports is the only forum that blacks acknowledge they can compete with the white man. It appears only some brave black women have the courage to criticize the obsession with black prowess, which even among black intellectuals is revered and used as standards by which black achievement is measured. Charles Barkeley, he of large frame and larger mouth, is an outspoken critic of the undue emphasis that sports has in the black community, but of course we pay attention to him because he is a famous wealthy athlete, not because he is a man of letters or scientific achievement. Hoberman's book is sobering, thought provoking and only racists of either color would condemn him for his exemplary tome, that should be required reading in high schools throughout the nation. Alas, because he does skewer the black community with the painful truth, his whiteness will be used against him. Diogenes, come hither and shine your light on Hoberman. Diogenes, of course, is incapable of adjudging his color.Darwin's Athletes: How Sport Has Damaged Black America and Preserved the Myth of Race Overview

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Black Diamond: The Story of the Negro Baseball Leagues Review

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Black Diamond: The Story of the Negro Baseball Leagues ReviewBlack Diamond by Patricia C. McKissack and Fredrick McKissack, JrIt's mainly a book about baseball, but it tells you all about how baseball affected black's rights and treatments. You learn about the ways that fans and other players mistreated black players, even on their own team! They were somehow able to beat racism, and get black players into Major League Baseball. That lead to more black respect and freedom, eventually helping give blacks as much freedom as everyone else. I recommend this book to anyone who likes baseball and learning about black history. One of the best parts is that it is never, at any point, boring. This is also a great book for anyone 10 to 14 years old that likes learning about our country's history, or baseball's history. I completely recommend it.
Black Diamond: The Story of the Negro Baseball Leagues OverviewA stirring tribute to the human drama, legendary heroes, infamous owners, low pay, and long bus rides that were the Negro Leagues. A 1995 Coretta Scott King Honor Book now in a striking Polaris edition.

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Baseball: The Early Years (Oxford Paperbacks) (Vol 1) Review

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Baseball: The Early Years (Oxford Paperbacks) (Vol 1) ReviewAside from the most comprehensive view of early baseball, Harold Seymour provides incredible insight as he takes the reader through every vital detail about the game's heritage. For a book written 40 years ago, it shows the author's masterful foresight of what baseball would, and did, become. Particularly compelling is how he shreds the Abner Doubleday myth before doing so was popular. His compilation and timeless analyses of baseball's sometimes painful adolescence gives the reader a solid baseline for understanding the difficulties that the sport is enduring today. It's fascinating proof that those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it. Anybody interested in baseball history will want to run right out and get his second volume, "The Golden Age" as soon as they finish this oneBaseball: The Early Years (Oxford Paperbacks) (Vol 1) OverviewNow available in paperback, Harold Seymour and Dorothy Seymour Mills' Baseball: The Early Years recounts the true story of how baseball came into being and how it developed into a highly organized business and social institution.The Early Years, traces the growth of baseball from the time of the first recorded ball game at Valley Forge during the revolution until the formation of the two present-day major leagues in 1903. By investigating previously unknown sources, the book uncovers the real story of how baseball evolved from a gentleman's amateur sport of "well-bred play followed by well-laden banquet tables" into a professional sport where big leagues operate under their own laws.Offering countless anecdotes and a wealth of new information, the authors explode many cherished myths, including the one which claims that Abner Doubleday "invented" baseball in 1839.They describe the influence of baseball on American business, manners, morals, social institutions, and even show business, as well as depicting the types of men who became the first professional ball players, club owners, and managers, including Spalding, McGraw, Comiskey, and Connie Mack.Note: On August 2, 2010, Oxford University Press made public that it would credit Dorothy Seymour Mills as co-author of the three baseball histories previously "authored" solely by her late husband, Harold Seymour. The Seymours collaborated on Baseball: The Early Years (1960), Baseball: The Golden Age (1971) and Baseball: The People's Game (1991).

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Field of Schemes: How the Great Stadium Swindle Turns Public Money into Private Profit, Revised and Expanded Edition (At Table S.) Review

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Field of Schemes: How the Great Stadium Swindle Turns Public Money into Private Profit, Revised and Expanded Edition (At Table S.) ReviewI read the 1999-published edition of FIELD OF SCHEMES, not this revised version. I imagine the updated FIELD OF SCHEMES reports on corporate welfare cities have awarded to sports franchises since '99.
How many New Yorkers know state and New York City taxpayers are forking over $1.5 billion to help fund new stadiums for the Mets and Yankees baseball teams? Wacky George Pataki and Rudeness Giuliani, as New York governor and New York City mayor, respectively, thought giving those private enterprises all that state and city revenue was more important than funding hospitals, schools, and infrastructure?
Read FIELD OF SCHEMES. Fight City Hall.Field of Schemes: How the Great Stadium Swindle Turns Public Money into Private Profit, Revised and Expanded Edition (At Table S.) OverviewField of Schemes is a play-by-play account of how the drive for new sports stadiums and arenas drains $2 billion a year from public treasuries for the sake of private profit. While the millionaires who own sports franchises have seen the value of their assets soar under this scheme, taxpayers, urban residents, and sports fans have all come out losers, forced to pay both higher taxes and higher ticket prices for seats that, thanks to the layers of luxury seating that typify new stadiums, usually offer a worse view of the action.

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A. G. Spalding and the Rise of Baseball: The Promise of American Sport Review

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A. G. Spalding and the Rise of Baseball: The Promise of American Sport ReviewFor the fan interested in the origins of baseball, this dry account is very likely of interest only to professional historians and Spalding family descendants. The playing days of the main character cover only two short chapters and never evince or even try for any excitement. The remainder covers Spalding's activities as a businessman, promoter, owner, baseball mogul, supporter of the theosophist movement and California senatorial candidate. Never does the book ever make us feel we have been swept away to relive those far off times. Having previously read Where They Ain't: The Fabled Life and Untimely Death of the Original Baltimore Orioles, the Team That Gave Birth to Modern Baseball by Burt Solomon , I felt greatly disappointed in comparison. The author intimates that Spalding, while a ferocious, tireless and successful promoter, probably failed to examine all sides of an issue sufficiently before jumping into frays and that Spalding lived more for the process itself than for the result. But despite all of these struggles, they are not told in an entertaining or moving way. In fact the reader is forced to slog through many, many quotes employing the hyperventilated prose of the day which by now has become quite stale. This book is classified as a baseball book, but really belongs in the American culture or American social history section. Unfortunately I cannot recommend it to anyone except researchers already working in this field who will probably enjoy this dry, spare, heavily-footnoted account. In fact, the way it reads suggests that the author was working not from passion for his subject, but perhaps from happenstance of a lucky archival find or commission, although I don't know the facts of course and am merely speculating.A. G. Spalding and the Rise of Baseball: The Promise of American Sport OverviewA. G. Spalding was a key figure in the professionalization and commercialization of American sports.Co-founder of baseball's National League, owner of the Chicago White Stockings (later Cubs), and founder of a sporting goods business that made him a millionaire, Spalding not only willed baseball to be our national pastime but also contributed to making sport a significant part of American life. This biography captures the zest, flamboyance, and creativity of Albert Goodwell Spalding, a man of insatiable ego, a showman and entrepreneur, whose life illuminated the hopes and fears of 19th-century Americans.It is also a vivid evocation of the vanished world of 19th-century baseball, recreating a time when it was transformed from a game played on unkempt fields to modern style.

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A People's History of Sports in the United States: 250 Years of Politics, Protest, People, and Play (New Press People's History) Review

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A People's History of Sports in the United States: 250 Years of Politics, Protest, People, and Play (New Press People's History) ReviewI 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.A People's History of Sports in the United States: 250 Years of Politics, Protest, People, and Play (New Press People's History) Overview

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What's My Name, Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States Review

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What's My Name, Fool Sports and Resistance in the United States ReviewI'm not a sports fan. I have sports ADD, but I love this book. Think of it as a People's history of Sports, like Howard Zinn's book, People's history of America.
Dave Zirin, a sports commentator for Air America Radio, takes you through some of the history of how sports and sports stars have helped change America for the better, about the integration of all-white, racist baseball, about how Mohammed Ali helped move the cause of African Americans forward...
I started browsing this book out of curiosity and discovered it was intensely fascinating and moving, that at times, it touched my heart and brought tears to my eyes.
I've become a Dave Zirin fan.What's My Name, Fool Sports and Resistance in the United States Overview
"Zirin is America's best sportswriter."—Lee Ballinger, Rock and Rap Confidential

"Zirin is one of the brightest, most audacious voices I can remember on the sportswriting scene, and my memory goes back to the 1920s."—Lester Rodney, N.Y. Daily Worker sports editor, 1936–1958

"Zirin has an amazing talent for covering the sports and politics beat. Ranging like a great shortstop, he scoops up everything! He profiles the courageous and inspiring athletes who are standing up for peace and civil liberties in this repressive age. A must read!"—Matthew Rothschild, The Progressive

"This is cutting-edge analysis delivered with wit and compassion."—Mike Marqusee, author, Redemption Song: Muhammad Ali and the Spirit of the Sixties

Here Edgeofsports.com sportswriter Dave Zirin shows how sports express the worst, as well as the most creative and exciting, features of American society.

Zirin explores how Janet Jackson's Super Bowl flash-time show exposed more than a breast, why the labor movement has everything to learn from sports unions and why a new generation of athletes is no longer content to "play one game at a time" and is starting to get political.

What's My Name, Fool! draws on original interviews with former heavyweight champ George Foreman, Olympian and black power saluter John Carlos, NBA basketball player and anti-death penalty activist Etan Thomas, antiwar women's college hoopster Toni Smith, Olympic Project for Human Rights leader Lee Evans and many others.

Popular sportswriter and commentator Dave Zirin is editor of The Prince George's Post (Maryland) and writes the weekly column "Edge of Sports" (edgeofsports.com). He is a senior writer at basketball.com. Zirin's writing has also appeared in The Source, Common Dreams, College Sporting News, CounterPunch, Alternet, International Socialist Review, Black Sports Network, War Times, San Francisco Bay View and Z Magazine.


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