SportsBookShelf

                             By Dr. Harvey Frommer

          Breaking Ground, Urban Meyer, Big and Bright and more…

 

 For holiday reading, for reading anytime, what follows is a batch of books that will bring hours of insights and pleasure for any sports fan.

Breaking Ground: How Jackie Robinson Changed Brooklyn by Alan Lelchuk (Mandel Vilar Press, $15.95, 117 pages, paper) is a look at the man who broke baseball’s color line. Researched and written by the acclaimed novelist and a native of Brooklyn, the book offers personal insights detailing how Jackie Robinson not only changed baseball but also the Borough of Churches. We are there back in the day with Lelchuk, a long-time professor at Dartmouth College. The descriptions, the details, the new awarenesses provided, makes this a book to treasure. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Big and Bright by Gray Levy (Taylor Trade, $27.95, 282 pages) is an inside look at high school football in Texas. More than a game, the Texas high school football experience on Friday nights is a cultural global village. The book is a must for fans of high school football and recommended reading for others, too. BUY IT

In the same vein as the Gray Levy book comes Woodlawn by Todd Gerelds (Howard Books, $16.00, 190 pages, paper).

Above the Line by Urban Meyer with Wayne Coffey (Penguin Press, $27.95, 262 pages) is an up close and personal look at the lessons in leadership and life from a championship season from one of the coaching legends today. One of only two coaches to win a national football championship at two different schools, Meyer is offers up chapter and verse in careful detail. A MUST   

   If Rugby interests you Rugby Revealed by Gavin Hickie and Eilidh Donaldson is you book. Published by Bloomsbury, very over priced at twenty-five bucks, 240 pages, paper, the book showcases ways to reach “your Rugby potential” from as the book proclaims “from over 100 of the world’s top players and coaches.” 

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Now available Written by acclaimed sports author and oral historian Harvey Frommer, with an intro by pro football Hall of Famer Frank Gifford, When It Was Just a Game tells the fascinating story of the ground-breaking AFL–NFL World Championship Football game played on January 15, 1967: Packers vs. Chiefs. Filled with new insights, containing commentary from the unpublished memoir of Kansas City Chiefs coach Hank Stram, featuring oral history from many who were at the game—media, players, coaches, fans—the book is mainly in the words of those who lived it and saw it go on to become the Super Bowl, the greatest sports attraction the world has ever known. Archival photographs and drawings help bring the event to life.

   Dr. Harvey Frommer is in his 39th year of writing books. A noted oral historian and sports journalist, 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,” the acclaimed Remembering Yankee Stadium and best-selling Remembering Fenway Park.

 Frommer mint condition collectible sports books autographed and discounted are available always from the author.

FROMMER SPORTSNET (syndicated) reaches a readership in the millions and is housed on Internet search engines for extended periods of time.