Pickens, Pat. The Whalers: The Rise, Fall, and Enduring Mystique of New England’s (Second) Greatest NHL Franchise. Guilford: Globe Pequot/Lyons Press, 2021. Pp. 280. $26.00 hardback and ebook. Reviewed by Łukasz Muniowski The Hartford Whalers were an NHL team for 18 seasons, from 1979 to 1997, when the team relocated to Raleigh, North Carolina and became the…
O’Brien, Jim. Looking Up Once Again: A Basketball Memoir. Pittsburgh, Pa.: James P. O’Brien Publishing, 2020. Pp. 480. Photos and illustrations, color and black & white. $28 paperback. Reviewed by Richard A. Macales “Most ABA ballplayers had a considerable chip on their shoulders. Someone had wronged them; didn’t want them in their game. Didn’t pay…
Balukjian, Brad. The Wax Pack: On the Open Road in Search of Baseball’s Afterlife. University of Nebraska Press, 2020. Pp. 280. Author’s note, prologue, epilogue, photographs, notes, $27.95 hardback. Reviewed by Bob D’Angelo Books about players dealing with life after baseball have provided some memorable reading. The genre has been blessed with Lawrence Ritter’s The…
Silverman, Matthew. Shea Stadium Remembered: The Mets, the Jets and Beatlemania. Guilford, Connecticut: Lyons Press. 2019. Pp. 232. Bibliography, appendix, introduction, and index. $29.95 hardback. Reviewed by Bob D’Angelo. At first glimpse, there was nothing really special about Shea Stadium. Certainly, when it opened as the home of the New York Mets in early 1964,…
Gitlin, Martin. Powerful Moments in Sports: The Most Significant Events in American History. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017. Pp. 293. $38.00 hardback. $36.00 eBook. Reviewed by Jorge Iber Martin Gitlin’s work presents a series of short essays that cover some of the most significant sporting events in American history. As with all works of…
Krell, David. Forward by Branch Rickey III. Our Bums: The Brooklyn Dodgers in History, Memory, and Popular Culture. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2015. Pp. 240. Notes, References, Index. $29.95 softcover. Reviewed by Rich Loosbrock Baseball and nostalgia go hand in hand. Mentions of baseball in popular culture, be it movies, documentaries, biographies, or memoirs, are bathed…
Gietschier, Steven, ed. Replays, Rivalries and Rumbles: The Most Iconic Moments In American Sports. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2017. Pp. 205, Index. $95.00 hardcover, $17.96 e-book. Reviewed by Brett L. Abrams How appropriate during the year that Major League Baseball brought its All-Star Game to Washington, D.C., that a resident of the nation’s…
Kimball, Richard Ian. Legends Never Die: Athletes and Their Afterlives in Modern America. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2017. Pp. 211. Notes, bibliography, and index. $55.00 hardcover. $19.95 paperback and ebook. Reviewed by Cat Ariail In Legends Never Die, Richard Ian Kimball concisely and critically considers the invention of the afterlives of American athletic heroes.…
By Jorge E. Moraga Introduction: Your 2016 Baseball Hall of Famers… On July 27th, retired Major League Baseball (MLB) players George Kenneth “Ken” “Junior” “The Kid” Griffey Jr. and Michael Joseph “Mike” Piazza joined the ranks of baseball’s most elite club. In a near unanimous decision, the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) voted in…
When she was Wilma Eldridge she couldn’t get nothing. They didn’t know Wilma Eldridge; they knew Wilma Rudolph. – Coach Ed Temple [1] By Cat Ariail Describing the post-athletic career of Wilma Rudolph, her collegiate coach perceptively captures the limitations of her heroine status. At the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome, Rudolph won the 100-meter sprint,…
Sport in American History 