The essential book for any sports fan, from one of the reigning kings ofsports talk radio, Christopher “Mad Dog” Russo Sports fans Which was the greater achievement, Ted Williams’s .406 season or Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak? Who would dominate the ultimate Pebble Beach showdown? Ben Hogan or Tiger Woods? Who was really the most important athlete of the twentieth century?If you love sports, there’s only one thing better than a good game—and that’s a good argument. Who’s the best ever? The worst ever? Underrated? Overpaid? Now, in his long-awaited and completely original book—updated for the 2003 sports season—Christopher “Mad Dog” Russo sets up and breaks down the hundred greatest sports arguments of all time. In classic Mad Dog style, each chapter tackles a classic sports debate and takes sides with the lively and authoritative opinions that have made him one of the top radio personalities in the country. Whether you agree with The Dog—or agree to disagree with the book’s often controversial conclusions—The Mad Dog 100 is the perfect companion for any sports fan.

From the creators of The Mad Dog 100 comes a definitive ranking of each sport's greatest players, places, and moments in sports history, featuring such top ten lists as the Top 10 Coaches of All Time, the Top 10 Sports Venues, the Top 10 Sports Moments in History, and the Top 10 Players in Baseball, NFL Football, College Basketball, and more. Reprint. 20,000 first printing.

Once upon a time there was an innocent lad from West Texas who wrote a novel and fell in with a rabble of Texas writers as they were bridging the literary gap between J. Frank Dobie and his paisanos and the current bumper crop of Texas writers who seem to be everywhere writing about everything. This rowdy rabble of gap bridgers bonded in a sort of literary and social club they called Maddog Inc. (Motto: Doing indefinable services to mankind.) But our hero managed to live through it all anyway. This is his story. Jay Milner was part of a generation of Texas writers whose heyday lasted from the late 1950s through the 1970s. The group comprised Billie Lee Brammer, Edwin "Bud" Shrake, Gary Cartwright, Dan Jenkins, Larry L. King, Pete Gent, and (peripherally) Larry McMurtry and Willie Morris, among others. From the musical scene there were the "picker poets" such as Willie Nelson, Jerry Jeff Walker, Guy Clark, Billy Joe Shaver, and Waylon Jennings. Some of the primary works coming from this generation of writers include Brammer's The Gay Place, Shrake's Strange Peaches, Cartwright's Confessions of a Washed-up Sportswriter, King's The Whorehouse Papers and None But a Blockhead, Jan Reid's The Improbable Rise of Redneck Rock, and Willie Nelson's album Phases and Stages.

A behind-the-scenes look at the most powerful voices on New York’s AM dial, this is the all-encompassing history of WFAN. Created in 1987, WFAN was the nation’s first 24-hour, all sports radio station and this work recounts how, a quarter-century later, it is the highest-rated station in New York and the home to many unforgettable radio personalities past or present, including Don Imus, Chris “Mad Dog” Russo, Mike Francesa, and Boomer Esiason. Seasoned journalist Tim Sullivan provides an account that soaks itself in the history, impact, egos, fans, and all the controversies of WFAN, making it an enthralling read for any sports fan.

Explosive! Amazing! Terrifying! You won’t believe your eyes! Such movie taglines were common in the 1950s, as Hollywood churned out a variety of low-budget pictures that were sold on the basis of their sensational content and topicality. While a few of these movies have since become canonized by film fans and critics, a number of the era’s biggest fads have now faded into obscurity. The Cool and the Crazy examines seven of these film cycles, including short-lived trends like boxing movies, war pictures, and social problem films detailing the sordid and violent life of teenagers, as well as uniquely 1950s takes on established genres like the gangster picture. Peter Stanfield reveals how Hollywood sought to capitalize upon current events, moral panics, and popular fads, making movies that were “ripped from the headlines” on everything from the Korean War to rock and roll. As he offers careful readings of several key films, he also considers the broader historical and commercial contexts in which these films were produced, marketed, and exhibited. In the process, Stanfield uncovers surprising synergies between Hollywood and other arenas of popular culture, like the ways that the fashion trend for blue jeans influenced the 1950s Western. Delivering sharp critical insights in jazzy, accessible prose, The Cool and the Crazy offers an appreciation of cinema as a “pop” medium, unabashedly derivative, faddish, and ephemeral. By studying these long-burst bubbles of 1950s “pop,” Stanfield reveals something new about what films do and the pleasures they provide.

The true story of one of pro wrestlingÕs most charismatic, feared, and beloved icons Who was Maurice the man, and who was Mad Dog the character? Maurice ÒMad DogÓ Vachon was a gold medalist, a pro-wrestling legend, and a pop culture icon Ñ but he was also a son, husband, and father. Mad Dog explores VachonÕs career and personal struggles with painstakingly detailed historical research and through both MauriceÕs own recollections and those of the people who knew him best. As a young man, Maurice could have chosen a dark criminal path, but then wrestling and family changed him. Chronicling his slow but steady rise to prominence across America and internationally in some of pro wrestlingÕs most important territories, this in-depth biography shows how VachonÕs life came to be defined by the words of Mark Twain: ÒItÕs not the size of the dog in the fight, itÕs the size of the fight in the dog.Ó Fiercely proud, motivated, and supremely talented, VachonÕs story is also the amazing tale of how a lifelong make-believe heel became a real-life hero outside of the ring. With a foreword by his brother, Paul Vachon, and an afterword by his widow, Kathie Vachon.