SportsBookShelf

                             By Dr. Harvey Frommer

                            

   Fields of Battle

 

         With baseball on its way out and football and basketball and hockey primed to take over the sporting center stage, a collection of highly readable, very relevant titles are there for your gift-giving and reading enjoyment.  Just read on.  

Fields of Battle by Brian Curtis Flatiron Books, $29.99, 308 pages is a brilliantly told evocation of a time and a place – Pearl Harbor, the Rose Bowl and the Boys Who Went to War.  The New York Times best-selling author tells the little known tale of how after Pearl Harbor was bombed the 1942 Rose Bowl was moved to Durham, North Carolina. The game pitted Duke University against

An underdog Oregon State team. This is truly a needed book for our time interweaving the war and the game and the young men who went off the field of play to battle for their country. It is all about courage and patriotism, timely and timeless. REMARKABLE READ

             The Perfect Pass by S. C. Gwynne (Scribner, $27.00, 320 pages) is all about American Genius and the Reinvention of Football” and how Coach Hal Mumme over 30 years ago changed college football by going to “Air Raid” and the elemental game charming passing game. Some called what he created an “aerial circus” while other deemed it a genius approach. Whatever one call s it – the forward pass, the quick paced usage, changed the way the defense played and how the game was played/ the book is amazing.

GO FOR IT

Fantasy Man by Nate Jackson Harper, $26.99, 240 pages is as its sub-title declares “”A Former NFL Players’s Descent into the Brutality of Fantasy Football.”

He writes how his career was the top of the fantasy.” The former tight end for the Denver Broncos has created a book that is part stroll thru the byways of fantasy football and all worthwhile reading.  A WAY WITH WORDS

Belichick and Brady by Michael Holley (Hachette Books, $27, 416 pages) is a must read for all football fans and especially New England Patriot zealots. The book in defining detail brings us up close and personal into the hearts and minds of the two of the NFL’s most stalwart and original individuals. The talented Holly mixes and matches material from dozens of past and present Patriot performers and executives. Anecdotes and insights galore is the result.  A WINNER

            Counting The Days While My Mind Slips Away  by Ben Utecht (Howard Books, $26.00, 256 pages) is from the Super Bowl tight end for the Indianapolis Colts. This is a painful book. This is an important book. This is a tragic book. “Counting The Days While My Mind Slips Away” is part-memoir and all love-letter to his wife and daughters who one day possibly may not recognize them because of the damage Ben Utecht suffered five major concussions playing pro football. A WORTHY READ  

            Friday, Saturday, Sunday in Texas  by Nick Eatman, $26.99 with 16 page color insert) traces the way of life and play of the Plano Senior High School Wildcats, the Baylor University Bears and the Dallas Cowboys. Intimate, behind-the-scenes, revealing the interconnection among the three teams, veteran sports book guy Nick Eatman has out-done himself.  GET THIS BOOK                          

BOOKENDS: ESPECIALLY worth going for is “100 Greatest Baseball Autographs” by Tom Zappala and Ellen Zappala (Peter E. Randall Publisher, 212 pages, $30.00) a beautifully produced cornucopia of amazing baseball autographs and the stories behind each one of them from Honus Wagner to Derek Jeter.  For browsing, for reading, for gifting – MOST WORTHWHILE-- GO FOR IT!  

And finally is my acclaimed WHEN IT WAS JUST A GAME: REMEMBERING THE FIRST SUPER BOWL, now in paperback: http://www.lyonspress.com/book/9781493026753

 

Dr. Harvey Frommer, a professor at Dartmouth College in the MALS program, is in his 40th year of writing books. A noted oral historian and sports journalist, he is the author of 42 sports books including the classics: best-selling “New York City Baseball, 1947-1957″ and best-selling Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball,as well as his acclaimed Remembering Yankee Stadium and best-selling Remembering Fenway Park. His highly praised When It Was Just a Game: Remembering the First Super Bowl was published last fall.

His Frommer Baseball Classic – Remembering Yankee Stadium (Second Edition) is his newest sports effort. A link to purchase autographed copies of Frommer Sports Books is at: http://frommerbooks.com/

The prolific author is at work on THE ULTIMATE YANKEE BOOK (2017)