Wolff, Alexander. The Audacity of Hoop: Basketball and the Age of Obama. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2015. Pp. 181. Notes, timeline, selected bibliography, and index. $40 clothback. Reviewed by Alexander Hyres On Christmas Day, Carmelo Anthony, Stephen Curry, and Chris Paul spoke out against gun violence in the United States. In a series of three-minute…
Reck, Gregory G., and Bruce Allen Dick. American Soccer: History, Culture, Class. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2015. Pp. 229 + x. Bibliography and Notes. $29.95 paperback. Reviewed by Lindsay Parks Pieper On December 6, the Portland Timbers squared off against the Columbus Crew in the 2015 MLS Cup. Although the match was played…
Vogan, Travis. ESPN: The Making of a Sports Media Empire. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2015. Pp. 256. Notes and Index. $95.00 clothback, $19.95 paperback. Reviewed by Kyle R. King What if I told you that the widening gyre of sports media has a centripetal force? That even as sports media ventures proliferate, they…
Vogan, Travis. Keepers of the Flame: NFL Films and the Rise of Sports Media. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2014. Pp. ii + 238. Notes and Index. $90 hardback, $25 paperback. Reviewed by Stephen Townsend Travis Vogan has a reputation as a lucid and aggressive interrogator of sporting cultures. So, when I was asked to…
Hart, Jon. Man Versus Ball: One Ordinary Guy and His Extraordinary Sports Adventures. Lincoln: Nebraska University Press, 2013. Pp. 184. $24.95 clothback. Reviewed by Lindsay Parks Pieper As a graduate student in a sport finance class, I was assigned to cover the Women’s Football Alliance’s semi-professional team, the Columbus Comets. To get a closer look…
Schultz, Jaime. Qualifying Times: Points of Change in U.S. Women’s Sport. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2014. Pp. xiv +280. Illustrations, notes, index. $95 cloth back, $26 paperback. Reviewed by Bieke Gils Yes, there are things to cheer about when considering the changes in U.S. women’s sport over the past century; however, as Jaime…
Smith, Jay M., and Mary Willingham. Cheated: The UNC Scandal, the Education of Athletes, and the Future of Big-Time College Sports. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2015. Pp. 304. Notes and Index. $26.95 hardback. Reviewed by Jorge Iber With the current brouhaha surrounding the purported prostitution scandal tied to the University of Louisville’s basketball program,…
Kluck, Ted. Three-Week Professionals: Inside the 1987 NFL Players’ Strike. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015. Pp. vii + 157. $25.00 hard cover. Reviewed by Kate Aguilar In August of 2000, The Replacements, starring Keanu Reeves and Gene Hackman, hit the big screen. The comedy was loosely based on the 1987 NFL players’ strike, a three…
Grow, Nathaniel. Baseball on Trial: The Origin of Baseball’s Antitrust Exemption. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2014. Pp. 228. Notes, bibliography, and index. $37.00 clothback. Reviewed by Lindsay Parks Pieper As Aaron L. Haberman discussed yesterday in his review of The Big Leagues Go to Washington, Congress struggled to determine the applicability of the Sherman…
Surdam, David George. The Big Leagues Go to Washington: Congress and Sports Antitrust, 1951-1989. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015. Pp. viii+240. Notes, index, and appendices. $65 Hardcover. Reviewed by Aaron L. Haberman Ever since the passage of the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890 with its prohibition on monopolies that result in a “restraint of…
Sport in American History 