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Cargando... Pigskin: The Early Years of Pro Football (1996)por Robert W. Peterson
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Referencias a esta obra en fuentes externas. Wikipedia en inglés (93)If the National Football League is now a mammoth billion dollar enterprise, it was certainly born into more humble circumstances. Indeed, it began in 1920 in an automobile showroom in Canton, Ohio, when a car dealer called together some owners of teams, mostly in the Midwest, to form a league.Unlike the lavish boardrooms in which NFL owners meet today, on this occasion the owners sat on the running boards of cars in the showroom and drank beer from buckets. A membership fee of $100 was set, but no one came up with any money. (As one of those present, George Halas, the legendary owner ofthe Chicago Bears, said, "I doubt that there was a hundred bucks in the room.") From such modest beginnings, pro football became far and away the most popular spectator sport in America.In Pigskin Pioneers, Robert W. Peterson presents a lively and informative overview of the early years of pro football--from the late 1880s to the beginning of the television era. Peterson describes the colorful beginnings of the pro game and its outstanding teams (the Green Bay Packers, the NewYork Giants, the Chicago Bears, the Baltimore Colts), and the great games they played. Profiles of the most famous players of the era--including Pudge Heffelfinger (the first certifiable professional), Jim Thorpe, Red Grange, Bronko Nagurski, and Fritz Pollard (the NFL's first black star)--bring thehistory of the game to life. Peterson also takes us back to the roots of the pro game, showing how professionalism began when some stars for Yale, Harvard, and Princeton took money--under the table, of course--for their services to alma mater. By 1895, the money makers--still unacknowledged--hadmoved to amateur athletic associations in western Pennsylvania and subsequently into Ohio.After the NFL formed in 1920, pro football's popularity grew gradually but steadily. It burst into national promise with the Bears-Redskins championship game of 1940. As one sportswriter put it: "The weather was perfect. So were the Bears." The final score was 73-0. Peterson shows how, after WorldWar II, the newly-created All America Football Conference challenged the NFL. Though dominated by a gritty Cleveland team, the AAFC was never viewed by NFL teams as much of a threat. That is, not until 1950 when the two leagues merged, bringing about the legendary Cleveland Browns-PhiladelphiaEagles game in which the Browns buried the Eagles 35-10.An elegy to a time when, for many players, the game was at least as important as the money it brought them (which wasn't much), Pigskin Pioneers takes readers up to the 1958 championship game when the Baltimore Colts beat the New York Giants in overtime. By that time, the great popularity of thegame had moved from newspapers and radio to television, and pro football had finally arrived as a major sport. No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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Google Books — Cargando... GénerosSistema Decimal Melvil (DDC)796.332The arts Recreational and performing arts Athletic and outdoor sports and games Ball sports Inflated ball driven by the foot American footballClasificación de la Biblioteca del CongresoValoraciónPromedio:
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I had expected tales of amazing games and the developments in rules and equipment, but it leaned too heavily on the minutiae of the business dealings and what players played under what fake names when. I got a little lost at times.
That said, the story is an interesting one (maybe there’s another book out there that’s more what I’m looking for), about the changing times as the nation turns its eyes from baseball to football, and from college to pros.
One thing that made me proud to be a football fan – there was no official freeze-out of black players like there was in baseball. True, blacks weren’t in football for around a dozen years around WWII, but that soon corrected itself. While baseball had to wait for Jackie Robinson to break the color barrier in 1947, the pros can go back to Fritz Pollard in 1920. He was also the first black coach in the pro game.
The less said about the Redskins, all the way around, the better!
For more of my reviews, go to Ralphsbooks. ( )