With loyal fans supporting their major sports teams in the Seahawks (NFL), Mariners (MLB) - plus a rabid fan base for University of Washington jocks - Seattle is a great place for a sports debate. Local sports-radio talker Mike Gastineau teams up with longtime sportswriters Steve Rudman and Art Thiel to bring Seattle sports history to life with this provocative and enjoyable - not to mention debatable - book of lists. They also enlist list contributions by famous players, coaches, and Seattle celebrities including Mike Holmgren, Matt Hasselbeck, Ichiro Suzuki, George Karl, Pearl Jam, Kevin Calabro, Sir Mix-a-Lot, and more.

There's nothing more important to Bostonians than their sports teams. From the Red Sox and Celtics to the Patriots and Bruins to a number of major college programs, millions of fans from all generations discuss, debate, and live-and-die with their hometown squads all year long. In The Great Book of Boston Sports Lists, two high-profile sports-media pros -- along with original contributions from over 20 famous sports heroes and fans including Fred Lynn, Dave Goucher, Mike Eruzione, Dan Shaughnessy, Adam Vinatieri, Mayor Ray Flynn, Micky Ward, Zdeno Chara, Bill Rodgers, and more -- fan the flames of the ongoing sports debate with informative and entertaining lists that highlight and rank the best, worst, and most remarkable of local sports past and present.

Traces the birth of hockey in Seattle, the 1917 Stanley Cup champions, the glory years of the Totems in the 1960s, and the Thunderbirds of today, introducing the players, owners, and fans that make up Seattles colorful history as a hockey town. Original.

Becoming Big League is the story of Seattle's relationship with major league baseball from the 1962 World's Fair to the completion of the Kingdome in 1976 and beyond. Bill Mullins focuses on the acquisition and loss, after only one year, of the Seattle Pilots and documents their on-the-field exploits in lively play-by-play sections. The Pilots' underfunded ownership, led by Seattle's Dewey and Max Soriano and William Daley of Cleveland, struggled to make the team a success. They were savvy baseball men, but they made mistakes and wrangled with the city. By the end of the first season, the team was in bankruptcy. The Pilots were sold to a contingent from Milwaukee led by Bud Selig, who moved the franchise to Wisconsin and rechristened the team the Brewers. Becoming Big League describes the character of Seattle in the 1960s and 1970s, explains how the operation of a major league baseball franchise fits into the life of a city, charts Seattle's long history of fraught stadium politics, and examines the business of baseball. Watch the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hwhl5sLoQs&list=UUge4MONgLFncQ1w1C_BnHcw&index=1&feature=plcp

Seattle Sports: Play, Identity, and Pursuit in the Emerald City, edited by Terry Anne Scott, explores the vast and varied history of sports in this city where diversity and social progress are reflected in and reinforced by play. The work gathered here covers Seattle’s professional sports culture as well as many of the city’s lesser-known figures and sports milestones. Fresh, nuanced takes on the Seattle Mariners, Supersonics, and Seahawks are joined by essays on gay softball leagues, city court basketball, athletics in local Japanese American communities during the interwar years, ultimate, the fierce women of roller derby, and much more. Together, these essays create a vivid portrait of Seattle fans, who, in supporting their teams—often in rain, sometimes in the midst of seismic activity—check the country’s implicit racial bias by rallying behind outspoken local sporting heroes.

Penn State fans number in the millions and can be described in one word: rabid. This book presents lists about the good, the bad, and the ugly in Nittany Lion sports history. From Favorite Players to Greatest Flukes, Best Players to Worst Losses, this is a must-read book for anyone who's had the pleasure of yelling "We are Penn State!" Includes original contributions from famous PSU alumni!

In November of 1980, Delaware State College lost a football game to Portland State University by the outrageous score of 105 to 0. The lopsided loss resulted in the Hornets being mocked by national broadcasters, pitied by their own fans, and drew the ire of Delaware State President Dr. Luna Mishoe. Mishoe ordered his athletic director Nelson Townsend to find a coach who could lead Delaware State football out of the hole they were in. Townsend found a guy he thought to be the most qualified candidate. Joe Purzycki was well known throughout the state of Delaware. He had been an all-American football player at the University of Delaware and had won a championship at one of the largest high schools in the state. He was young, charismatic, and in Townsend's eyes the perfect man for the job. There was only one problem. He was white. Delaware State is one of dozens of Historic Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in America. No HBCU had ever hired a white head football coach until Townsend hired Purzycki in 1981. The news was not well received. Townsend got an idea of how controversial his decision was after the hiring was announced and a player yelled at him, "you sold us out Townsend! You gave it to the white people!" Questions at Purzycki's introductory press conference centered on race and why Delaware State was affording a white man this opportunity. Purzycki kept saying he only wanted to be a football coach but it was too late for that. He had become, in the words of one writer, a social experiment and he quickly found out what it was like to be a minority."It's YOU who is going to have see everyone else's side of things," Townsend told Purzycki, "and it's not going to be easy." Students staged angry protests and the school paper derisively referred to Purzycki as "the Polish Prince." Vandals broke into his office and destroyed it, he received death threats, and the brakes on a car he borrowed from the school failed. 17 players quit the team and some people from within the school (and occasionally players from within the team) worked to undermine his effort to get the program on track. Opposing crowds, teams, and coaches were openly hostile. Mr. Townsend and the Polish Prince tells the inside story of how Townsend and Purzycki, often with no one else in their corner, built a relationship of trust that grew into a strong friendship and ultimately placed Delaware State on a path of football success unimaginable when they first teamed up. The duo used mutual respect, common sense, and no small amount of humor to withstand controversies big and small. In the book, Purzycki reflects on his youth, spent in an all-white neighborhood in Newark, New Jersey. He had grown up around people who didn't always have the highest opinion of African Americans and as a kid, he had come to accept their views as the way things were. It was his participation in sports, playing with and against black athletes in high school and college, that opened the door to his own eventual personal belief that we are all more alike than we think. This is a story about two men who took a huge chance together. And it is a story about the students, student-athletes, teachers, administrators, and fans at Delaware State in the early 1980s. It's a story of intolerance becoming tolerant. It's a story of something unacceptable becoming accepted. It's a story about losing that became a story about winning. It has origins at a football game on a damp night in the Pacific Northwest in November of 1980, and on a hot night in Newark, New Jersey during the riots that scarred that city in July of 1967. It's a story of how sometimes something that begins at rock bottom can end up on the mountain top.

Chicago sports fans are the most passionate, knowledgeable, and dedicated in the country. Now, the Windy City's top sports-radio jock and a longtime native sportswriter engage this phenomenon with a compilation of informative and entertaining lists sure to stir up dialogue and debate within the buzzing Chicago sports scene. With original contributions from top Chicago sports and entertainment personalities such as Norm Van Lier, Bill Wennington, Dan Jiggetts, Pat Hughes, Len Kasper, John McDonough, Mike North, U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, and many more, this is a must-have reference and entertaining read for all jocks, wannabes, haters, dreamers, and died-in-the-wool Chicago sports fans.

With loyal fans supporting their major sports teams in the Seahawks (NFL), Mariners (MLB) -- plus a rabid fan base for University of Washington jocks -- Seattle is a great place for a sports debate. Local sports-radio talker Mike Gastineau teams up with longtime sportswriters Steve Rudman and Art Thiel to bring Seattle sports history to life with this provocative and enjoyable -- not to mention debatable -- book of lists. They also enlist list contributions by famous players, coaches, and Seattle celebrities including Mike Holmgren, Matt Hasselbeck, Ichiro Suzuki, George Karl, Pearl Jam, Kevin Calabro, Sir Mix-a-Lot, and more.

Sports talk in America has evolved from small-time barroom banter into a major media smorgasbord that runs 24/7 on TV and radio. With hundreds of billions of dollars generated annually by pro and college teams in major markets nationwide, sports fans across the country are more dedicated than ever to their teams. And when it comes to sports talk -- especially all-sports radio -- it's all about entertainment, information, prognostication, analysis, rankings, and endless discussion. Prominent sports-media figures in each of the three target cities -- Cleveland, Detroit, and Washington, D.C. -- engage in this phenomenon with a compilation of sports lists sure to delight as well as stir up debate within these already-buzzing sports communities. List topics include: What were the most lopsided trades in local sports history? Who were the most overrated athletes to play in our town? What local athlete had the best appearance in TV or film? What was the most heartbreaking loss in local sports history? What was the greatest single play in local sports history? Who are our team's most hated rivals? Plus dozens of "guest" lists contributed by famous local sports and entertainment celebrities. Not only does Detroit host major pro sports teams -- the Lions (NFL), the Red Wings (NHL), the Tigers (MLB), and the Pistons (NBA) -- the area also includes prominent college sports programs such as the University of Michigan. Detroit's fans are some of the most educated and fanatical in the country, thanks to the work of long-time commentators Mike Stone and Art Regner.