Sayama, Kazuo and Bill Staples Jr. Gentle Black Giants: A History of Negro Leaguers in Japan. Fresno, CA: Nisei Baseball Research Project Press, 2019. Pp. 387. Appendices. $27.95 paperback. Reviewed by Leslie Heaphy With Gentle Black Giants, Kazuo Sayama and Bill Staples Jr. together fill a huge gap in the literature. While Sayama first wrote…
McLeod, Yanela G. The Miami Times and The Fight for Equality: Race, Sport, and the Black Press, 1948-1958. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2019. Pp. 198. $90.00 hardcover. $85.00 eBook. Reviewed by Jorge Iber The 2018 movie Green Book was a surprise hit that generated an impressive financial return on its cost of roughly $23 million,…
Kalman-Lamb, Nathan. Game Misconduct: Injury, Fandom, and the Business of Sport. Halifax, NS: Fernwood, 2018. Pp. 183. Notes & Index. $24.00 paperback. Reviewed by Noah Cohan As Kevin Durant writhed on the floor of Scotiabank Arena partway through the second quarter of Game 5 of the 2019 NBA Finals, his Achilles tendon having recoiled upward…
50 years ago we didn’t know much about George Foreman. But the story of his first professional boxing match told us everything about the boxer and the businessman. In 1968, George Foreman was a largely unknown amateur boxer with only two years and 20 bouts of experience. His victory in the gold medal match of…
Travers, Steven R. Remembering the Stick: Candlestick Park 1960-2013. Guilford, Connecticut: Lyons Press, 2017. Copyright: Steven R. Travers. Pp. 357. No index. Photos: Black & white (11). $18.95. Reviewed by Richard A. Macales “You can talk all you want about Brooklyn and New York, Minneapolis and St. Paul, Dallas and Fort Worth, but there are…
Stark, Douglas. When Basketball Was Jewish; Voices of those who played the game. Lincoln, NE, University of Nebraska Press, 2017. Index. Pp. 330. $29.95 hardcover. $29.95 eBook. Reviewed by Murry Nelson I looked forward to reading this volume after enjoying Douglas Stark’s book on the South Philadelphia Hebrew Association’s basketball team, The SPHAS, which was…
Bolin, James Duane. Adolph Rupp and the Rise of Kentucky Basketball. Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky. 2019. Pp. 394. Bibliography and index. $40 hardback. Reviewed by Bob D’Angelo. There are not enough adjectives to describe Adolph Rupp, but author James Duane Bolin gives it a good try. “Successful, colorful, crusty and controversial,” (p. 17)…
By Tate Royer Brandi Chastain unintentionally became the face of women’s soccer in the United States. Arguably one of the most iconic images in women’s sports is Chastain taking off her shirt after penalty kicks in the 1999 Women’s World Cup Final. In this widely recognizable picture, Chastain is on her knees, shirt in hand,…
