Athletics Books

Learn some great exercises to improve your fitness level for skiing. Step-by-step instructions for each exercise are included.

This is a great book - for less than I'd expect from a quality hardback. It will give you the exercises and the knowledge - you need to provide the effort and motivation :-). A good value.

I have several gripes about this book:

1. The page layout of the 1st edition is terrible. The type size is too big, and the paragraph length is too long, making it difficult to just sit down and read. It looks like it was made using Microsoft Word, which detracts from the professionalism of the content. Cheesy clip-art doesn't help. This book would really have benefitted from a more professional editor and publisher.

2. Like another reviewer said, there are a number of typos, misspelling and instances of poor grammar. This again distracts from the "authority" of this text.

3. Some paragraph text was missing altogether, such as the "Ultimate Hangover Solution" in that section: it is about 1" of empty paragraph. So, it's unknown what the recommended "ultimate" solution for apres-ski hangovers.

That said, it does have excellent information about how to get in shape for skiing, and to improve your fitness while targeting skiing as a hobby/sport. There are good photos and diagrams, as well as step-by-step instructions for performing exercises properly. Hooge is a young author (in his early 30's); I think a 2nd "tidied-up" edition would really make this book worthwhile. Hopefully the 2nd edition (released in Oct 2006) will live up to this expectation.

I'm giving it only 3 stars due to the poor production; however the content seems pretty solid.

Be aware that this is a total fitness guide.
You need to be prepared to commit to a complete exercise program involving plenty of gym work as well as following a recommended nutrition program.
Great book, requires only your commitment!

Like the other reviews, this book has very few information about skiing, but it is very detailed and informative about land training before the skiing season. Actually many of the methods described in this book can be used for other sports or just for being a healthy person. So if you are looking for something for actual skiing techniques this is not your number one book. But for land training it can be...

I don't doubt for a minute that you completely missed the theme and messages of this book - you expose your true colors and attitudes towards kids with your "cross-eyed, overweight child" and "fat, blind kid" pejoratives. "Players must understand their skill level limits them" - I can hear you now getting that message (loudly, clearly and strongly, no doubt to toughen them up for the "real world" - yeah, right) across to young adults on a daily basis. What magic you must weave in the lives of these young people. If the generalizations fit, go ahead and wear them - clearly you have no use for any child that isn't contributing to that bottom line (for you) - WIN. Rest easy that your opinion is the dominant one in the youth coaching ranks, however - and thus the need for this book.

The reader from Trenton, Michigan missed the point of this book. Readers of that review should carefully consider the source and its use of hateful ideas and language. This is an excellent book for amateur coaches of kids. It teaches how to interact with kids and how to motivate them to do their best without resorting to screaming and put-downs. If you are a coach or parent, this will be both fun to read and useful to learn from.

As a high school coach for over ten years, I have always looked for new and unique ways to motivate my players. I hoped that this book would generate fresh, creative alternatives. Instead, I was served a 400-page liberal athletic manifesto. Don't get me wrong; I believe in utilizing positive motivational strategies and teaching techniques with my players. If like me, you believe that winning is actually an important aspect of athletic competition, you will find yourself at odds with the author from the introduction. Perhaps in the youth leagues, rules demanding equal playing time that foster an "everyone is a star" attitude are effective. At the higher levels, these ideas become highly ineffectual (too many chiefs and not enough indians). Eventually, players must understand that their skill level (or lack thereof) limits them to a lesser role as a reserve or practice player. While the author offers sound ideas for communicating with players, the techniques are just another by-product of sixties liberalism run amuck. I agree with the author that many children have enjoyed a less-than-successful athletic career based on poor coaching; and I'm sure I could have been a surgeon if only my Cub Scout den mother was better with her pocketknife. The truth of the matter is that most kids don't become good or great athletes because they aren't willing to put in the time and effort necessary to do so (while approaching every aspect of life in pretty much the same fashion). In my experience, most of the problems in youth athletics are caused by adults! The kids know who to pick; it's the adult looking to create "fairness" for the cross-eyed, overweight child who can't tie shoes without sustaining a career-ending injury that creates the problem - first by demanding equal opportunity, second by placing the child in a situation where there is little chance for success. When the fat, blind kid struggles and feels like a failure, this is the coaches' fault? It is if you believe in Jim Thompson's doctrine. I'll admit there are some good ideas for dealing with players on an interpersonal level. P.S. Don't let the Foreward by Phil Jackson fool you! (How many titles did his positive coaching win without Michael Jordan?)

I coach volleyball in grade school and junior high school, and I usually get the "B teams" (the leftovers who are not as talented as the girls on the "A" team.) Therefore, if there ever was a crying need for a book on how to coach these types of athletes, this book more than served its purpose for me. Actually, this book had a positive effect on me since it saved my coaching career.

Don't get me wrong, though, this book will turn around any coach's career whether he has an A or a B team. I coached a group of 13 and 14 year old softball players the year that I purchased this book. At the beginning of the season, the only team these girls could beat was themselves; in fact, that was primarily the reason they were losing was the fact that they were beating themselves! Well, after one mediocre game, I sat the girls down on the bench and instead of reading them the riot act, I took to heart a suggestion by the author. I emphasized all the positive aspects of the game they played just to show these girls that they were capable of doing some positive things. I did this after each game from then on, win or lose. Wouldn't you know it, these same rag tag girls lost the last the last game of the season: the city championship game by one run (to a team that annihilated them by 12 runs in the first game of that season.) This was an example of positive coaching, and I've used everything in this book to my advantage to become a successful POSITIVE coach. Thanks Mr. Thompson for turning my career around!

I got this book just as I was about to coach a new teeball team and found its insight very helpful. Not a book about what drills to use but about motivation, handling people and protecting peoples love of the sport. More cerebral than I would expect in a coaching book. I used much of the material in my business career. Now I am starting his next book, "Shooting in the Dark".

Amby carries on where George Sheehan left off. Great motivational essays at a great price. Amby and Joe Henderson are two of the best living running essayists.

Amby is a great runner, editor and human being. Give his book a go or give it to some runner you know...

I ran all through grade school and high school and am picking up the sport again after some years off. I found this book to be a great re-introduction after some time off. I think Amby describes it best as that book that has lots of answers to the questions you've been asking yourself for months (or years), and instead of buying many books to find the answeres, they are all in one small, relatively inexpensive book.

If you run, buy it, you'll like it, if you are thinking about running, buy it, it'll help you along the path towards your running goals.

This book is great for runners of all age and experience. I have never been much of a fitness nut, but Mr. Burfoot's book inspired and helped me to begin a personal running program. I have already recommended this book to many people and will continue to do so.

execellent book for the beginners. the principles are short, comprehensive, precise and right to the point. but for the intermediate and advance runners, this book has nothing new to offer other than repeat and remind of what you have already learnt.

If you're an advanced or intermediate runner, you probably
understand most of what is covered already. In my opinion,
this book is more for the beginner runner, or the runner who
is returning to the sport after a long layoff. However, even
respected runners such as Frank Shorter (1972 Olympic Gold
Medalist Men's Marathon), Joan Benoit Samuelson (1984 Olympic
Gold Medalist Women's Marathon), and Jeff Galloway have
endorsed the book. The author himself is the winner of the
1968 Boston Marathon. However, that is not the point. The
point is that this book is compact and easy to read. Someone
in elementary school who is starting out as a runner could
benefit from this book, even though it is probably intended
more for high school runners and older runners.
In the introduction, the author says the book is only to
cover the basics. If you want a tome on running that is
comprehensive, I suggest Timothy Noakes' book The Lore
of Running, which is nearly 1000 pages. The Principles
section is essentially a summary of what the topic he is
discussing. It is written in a nice sequential order,
even though you can use it as a reference guide. I am
deducting a star because it is brief, and doesn't contain
everything you need to know about running, but then again
that wasn't the point of this book, since it would be
redundant. I would recommend getting additional books on
running if you're a serious runner and are looking for
something more comprehensive. It lacks training schedules
for anything besides the marathon in this book, and getting
started towards running if you're not running already.
The breakdown of the book is as follows:
Introduction

Part I: The Joy of Running
For The Health Of It
The Real Runner's High

Part II: First Steps
Getting Started
It's Okay To Go Slow
Motivation
Aches and Pains
Blisters
The 10-Percent Rule
Running and Walking

Part III: Women
Safety
Menstruation
Pregnancy
Menopause
Special Concerns

Part IV: Equipment
Shoes
Apparel
Heart-Rate Monitors
Treadmills
Indoor Exercise

Part V: Nutrition
Carbohydrates
Fats
Proteins
Vitamins and Minerals
Before and after a Run
On The Run
Drinks, Bars and Gels
Vegetarian Diet

Part VI: Warming Up and Cooling Down
Hard and Easy Workouts
Progressive Training
Hills
Cross-Training
Groups
Long Runs
Tempo Training
Max VO2
Speed-Form Training
Burnout

Part VII: Weight Loss
Running Works Best
The Running Diet
A 24-Hour Program
Maximum Weight Loss

Part VIII: Weather
Heat
Cold
Dark, Snow, Ice and Rain

Part IX: Injury Prevention and Treatment
Overuse Injuries
Stretching
Ice
Pain Relievers
Shinsplits
Knee Injuries
Achilles Tendinitis

Part X: Racing
The Decision To Race
Goals
Mental Preparation
Tapering
The Start
Pace

Part XI: The Marathon
Commitment
Building-Up
Essential Element
Yasso 800s
Taper
Carbohydrate-Loading
Final 24 Hours
Early and Middle Miles
The Wall
Recovery

Part XII: A Lifetime of Running
Slowing Down, Feeling Great
Use It or Lose It

Greg's plan makes sense and you see immediate results. More importantly is how you feel about yourself. Early into the second week, you just start feeling trimmer, stonger, generally better! I highly recommend the Ultimate Lean Routine as a way of life and this book captures it all! Many thanks, Jill Bertolet

This is an excellent book. It's written simply and clearly, no real complications, and the author can really connect with the reader.

The workouts are expained in a an excellent way; the alternating of workouts is the most effective I have ever tried, and particularly the type of training applied to each workout can create incredible changes for the better WAY faster than any other workout system I tried. It's simple: with a test, you find the right rate YOU need wo do your cardio at (and no, it's not the same old stuff), and work at that rate, until you feel you have improved and then you can take the test again and work out at the newly found rate. Same for the strength training: you find your 10-rep max, perform 3 sets (a warm-up set, a work set and a blast set) and stretch in between sets - a technique that is most effective for increasing muscle strength and particularly for women, to get rid of cellulite in your thighs.

The dietary prescription may be too much work for some, not doable for some others and fast burners (see metabolic typing) will probably need a little more protein and good fats to feel full; but generally the dietary guidelines are good and a definite improvement over most people's diets. The fact that the diet part of the plan cannot really be personalized to the needs of the reader made it lose 1 star, I would have given it 5 stars otherwise. But it really is an excellent book. If you feel it's time you start working on improving your body shape and your health, or if you have been working out but you don't feel you are getting the results you deserve for your efforts, this is the book for you - you'll change for the better, really fast.

I used this routine last year for about 4 months, and found that I could achieve results that I had been unable to reach previously. Top notch stuff.

i liked the workout routines and overall it is a good book, but the diet breakdown was quite confusing with all the different percentages that you needed to figure out. not a simple plan.

This book is easy to understand and easy to follow. One does not have to follow every recipe. Just use it as a common sense guide, eat accordingly and follow the exersize regimen. It takes no more than one hour a day, sometime less than an hour. I lost 30 pounds of fat in 90 days following this program. I just wish that Greg Isaacs would write a follow up regimen for those who want to take his advice and move on to another level of health and fitness.

Vern Gambetta requires respect. His words and actions speak for themselves. This book doesn't do justice to the depth of his knowledge and experience as a trainer and educator.

This book is full of information, but I found it somewhat difficult to get through because it is very technical in nature.

Athletes, trainers, and anyone studying sports medicine should check out this guide to sports conditioning. It's a great help to prepare for the CSCS exam.

Vern has been around the block and he knows his stuff. Read every word of his book and let it sink in.

The thing that makes this book so very exceptional is its seamless combination of the author's significant personal coaching experience and the state of the art in exercise and sports science. There is just enough theory and background to understand where the ideas come from, helping to put them into better context.

Although there is no formula that works for creating a training program for every athlete, this book probably comes as close as you can get to that goal. It provides you with the basic principles you need for assessing what each athlete needs in order to achieve their potential and training them to attain it. The components of performance are clearly laid out, along with the methods for developing them and also the places where qualities depend critically on other qualities.

The author addresses all of the usual questions along the way with unique and practical answers that can be applied to any sport once you understand the needs of that sport. Get realistic, effective answers to your questions about sets, reps, periodizing, plyometrics, machines, bands, weights, strength vs. power, functional strength vs. absolute strength, flexibility vs. mobility and stability; all of the important questions that arise in the mind of any athlete or coach who takes the training process seriously.

No fads here, just good solid principles proven by experience and explained in terms of current theory. No matter how much you already know, you can't help learn something about training for human athletic performance if you read this book. If you are a trainer, this book may well become one of your most treasured resources, a place to go to help cut through the fluff and fashions of the industry when you have a real question.

Mr. Watterson has presented us with a volume that is unique among sports books - a comprehensive history of college football and its relationship to college life and American society. I recommend it for two reasons:

1. It is incredibly well researched; Watterson has spent years digging through college and university archives around the country. He has amassed a mountain of valuable information about the progression and development of the college game that is not available elsewhere.

2. Despite being an academic, the author writes in a style that is easily readable. In my experience, it is rare to find a scholarly book that is also comprehensible to a lay audience.

Though it has many positives, there are two major flaws that drive me to distraction.

1. Watterson insists on repeating himself, sometimes making the same point in the very next paragraph or on subsequent pages. At times, I found myself wondering whether I had mistakenly lost track of my place in the book and was reading a page that I had already covered. The author's tendency to rehash previously made points slows the reader's progression and makes each chapter significantly longer than it needs to be.

2. The index is woefully incomplete. For example, references to Glenn "Pop" Warner are listed on three pages - 137, 146 and 172 - but more information about him appears on page 180. Likewise, Richard "Von" Gammon is referenced in the index on pages 36-38, but he also appears on page 47 (misspelled as Richard Gammen). There are many such instances in the index.

Nevertheless, this book is very valuable for the many nuggets of insight and history that bubble to the surface. The information contained in this volume is found nowhere else, and far outweighs the drawbacks in writing and editing.

This a dry read and takes some effort as it is essentially an academic tome that is concerned with the evolution of modern college football from a political, policy, and business standpoint. But it is quite thorough and hits the nail on the head. The final pages discuss how the game can be saved .... since reform is not an option. This is the weakest part of the book, but understandably so since it would take the wisdom of Solomon to fix this problem. I have always felt that a return to one platoon football makes a lot of sense regarding costs (less insurance, travel and equipment, scholarship dollars).

The editing in the book leaves something to be desired. There are a number of typos - and a few sentences that make contradictory statements. The author is not a well versed student of the game since there are several technical mistakes which indicate some deficiencies in research. Some of these are listed below as examples.

(1) Identifying Brian Bosworth as an Oklahoma lineman when he was a linebacker,
(2) Claiming All American status for 4 years (1982-1985)for a very average SMU running back,
(3) Confusing the major Western Athletic Conference (WAC) with the minor Rocky Mountain Conference,
(4) When describing the 1943 game between the College of the Pacific (COP) and USC attributing Pacific Coast Conference (PCC) membership to COP which was in fact an independent school during the 40's and never was a member of the PCC or its later version, the Pac 10.

That said I highly recommend the book for anyone interested in the history of college football.

This enlightening book covers the history of college football from an interesting and neglected point of view. That is to say, it contains none of the usual lionisation of players and coaches, and no re-working of big games we're all familiar with. Rather, Watterson examines (and questions) the place of the game in American society and its role on campus. The book establishes quite clearly that the over-emphasis placed on gridiron is hardly a recent phenomenon or even (as I foolishly suspected) down to the evils of television - that schools have been fielding ineligible players, fiddling grades, and operating slush funds from the days of Walter Camp. Watterson details the various movements which have attempted to reform the game and how it is run, and explains lucidly why virtually all of them failed. A seemingly insatiable desire for victory and glory to the alma mater has resulted in a gradual yet steady erosion of the original purpose of sport on campus, to the point where today a college President can express a desire to "build a university the football team can be proud of" without a trace of irony.

The book's only real fault lies in some woeful editing, which results in a few stories being re-told, and several paragraphs being repeated almost word-for-word many pages later (not to mention some grammatical howlers which don't strike me as being the author's fault). I found myself able to to overlook this, though, and can unreservedly recommend it. It may not be one which the more avid Sooner, Fighting Irish, Crimson Tide, or Buckeye-backer will gravitate toward, but those who enjoy big-time football and yet abhor how tainted it has all become will find it difficult to put down.

College Football is an outstanding and important work. It is a true history--not a greatest teams and greatest players-type of celebratory writing--and falls under the rubric of sport history. Sport history, which is a subcategory of social history, relates sports to broader themes in society, and John Sayle Watterson in this regard does a terrific job in relating the history of football to the issue of collegiate life as a whole, and even to society as a whole (particularly where the colleges had to fight the pro game for the public's entertainment dollar).

College Football is published by a university press (Johns Hopkins), but it is marketed as a trade book. Thus, the misleading subtitle "History-Spectacle-Controversy," as there is not much spectacle in this book. But there is plenty of controversy, relating to violence, subsidies, and cheating scandals throughout the sport's history and the mostly failed attempts by the college football establishment to reform the sport.

Watterson's work is actually a more narrow history of the governance of college football, rather a broad history of the sport (Johns Hopkins surely did not want to put the word "governance" in the title). As such, however, College Football is the best overview of the subject ever written, primarily because the author takes the story from the beginning up to the present day.

I have some minor carping: there is an excessive number of typos and errors in this book for a university press book.

A useful book for everyone who has a long-lasting interest and knowledge on the College Football, but it can be a little bit dazy and hard-to-understand for the beginners. College Football by Watterson is an analytical book which also solves the past-time football's problems according to the periods national crisis' and situations with huge acknowledgements. If you already have a good knowledge on College Football, then you will find a lot of interesting things in this book; if you have no or a little knowledge, then I will suggest you to read easier books to prepare yourself for this book. I really liked reading and learned a lot from this book though.

Hopefully an update is on its way for this book! It is a great book but we are beyond NPH and its issues. With some of the newer longer-acting insulins, there are new techniques to try...

With the advent of the CGMS, very valuable information is available to an athlete if they can afford to buy one and/or if their insurance company covers one.

This was not quite as helpful as I'd hoped. I can understand why, since there is no one answer for the challenges of managing diabetes and exercise. It listed many types of exercise and then what various diabetics might do in certain situaitons, but the end result is that you STILL have to figure it out for yourself. I guess I was looking for more guidance, and more physiological information. Still worth purchasing, and there is a new version in the works by the same author.

The book was informative but not exactly what I was looking for. It was geared more for a person who was taken insulin or on a pump. I was looking for something more in line with someone on an oral medication with type-2 Diabeties. But that taken into account it was both easy to read and very informative. I'm glad I have it in my library.

This book is divided to two parts. The first part explains the physiology of exercise and how it relates to diabetics. It includes general chapters and chapters dedicated to type 1 and type 2. The premise of the book is that knowledge is power, so knowing what the body does during an exersice is powering you to better manage your diabetes as it relates to exercise. It also has a chapter on nutritional supplements for diabetic athletes. The second half of the book deals with specific sport activities and gives advice on how to change your nutrition or insulin regimes to better accomodate for these activities plus examples from actual athletes. I found this part to be less usefull. However the book is worth its weight in gold just for the first part and is a must have for any diabetic that considers exercise as part of his medication. The book is very well written, full of concise and clear information.

My son is 12 years old and a very strong, diverse athlete. He plays ice hockey, baseball and football and is very organized and very driven. As a newly diagnosed diabetic, we have many many questions about how diabetes is going to affect his life. This book gave me many ideas and made me realize that my son is first and foremost an athlete and we will fit the diabetes into his life.



He is doing really well and told me yesterday that having diabetes isn't such a big deal. We are well into the baseball season and looking ahead to hockey. I was very nervous about handling low blood sugars, but he seems to take it all into stride.



I highly recommend this book -- it is easy and interesting to read.

I have owned this book ever since it was first published. Periodically I give it to people asking for guidance on weight training. It is nicely comprehensive on the various exercises, giving the proper form and names of equipment, movements and such. The photos are 80's vintage and dated but the info is not. Training with free weights has not changed. The exercises that worked twenty years ago work just as well today.

This book has good detailed descriptions on every exercises and also has info on reps, restance training and how to recover from a workout. The exercise routines are a little out-dated.

I liked reading this book but I don't know exactly how scientific some of the terms are; like when he calls people who jerk the weights around for high reps "pumpers." I usually refer to them as time wasters because they are injuries waiting to happen. The book does present you with modern training methods, but if I have to recommend one book.....Steve Reeves' new book "Building the Classic Physique" is still the best.

This book has a nice collection of exercises, with photographs and detailed description on the proper execution techniques for each one of them. The detailed description on each exercise include: The muscles emphasized by the exercise, its starting position, movement performance, exercise variations and training tips.

One valuable aspect of this training book is that at the end of each chapter you will find a lot of routines from Professional bodybuilders and champs. Each muscle is treated with great detail in its own individual book chapter.

Since the Table of Contents is not included in the book information presented above by the seller, I am including how the book is organized, so everybody can visualize what topics are covered:

- Basic information.
- Biceps training.
- Chest training.
- Shoulder training.
- Back training.
- Thigh and hip training.
- Triceps training.
- Abdominal training.
- Calf, forearm, and neck training.
- Advanced training techniques.
- Glossary.

In summary, very useful manual, with lots of exercises and routines, and plenty of information on training techniques and principles as they apply to bodybuilding.

For those who want to learn an extensive set of exercises for each muscle group, this is the book. It illustrates every exercise it refers to and indicates the muscles affected. Moreover, the descriptions and illustrations are almost always on the same page for easy reference. Very useful for learning your set of routines and as a reminder before a training session.

Rick Telander's The Hundred Yard Lie is an interesting read for anyone who cares about the moral implications of big-time college football. But it's also a depressing read.

Telander does an admirable job of discrediting the notion that amateur sport is somehow ennobling. The Hundred Yard Lie is very pointed in its criticisms of the NCAA for phony amateurism (as well as a host of other sins). You won't have much respect for the NCAA after reading this book.

One of the intriguing aspects of The Hundred Yard Lie is that Telander does a good job with "human interest" stories. He details his own playing days at Northwestern & his relationship with his head coach, Alex Agase. Telander meets with players from an inner-city high school in Houston and with Michigan State's highly-touted Tony Mandarich, among others. Telander keeps the pages turning & the human interest is a big part of The Hundred Yard Lie's appeal.

A drawback that many readers will notice is that little of the criticism in The Hundred Yard Lie seems original. The ensuing 20 years have brought a host of books (such as Murray Sperber's Beer and Circus) attacking the hypocrisy of college sports. There are some other weak spots in the book. Some of the digressions on amateurism (in Chapter 2) are slow reading. Chapter 6 - on college football's alleged values - did not consistently hold my interest. The Stretching sections, which apparently detail Telander's own experiences with football, aren't well integrated with the rest of the book.

It is difficult to read The Hundred Yard Lie without a sense of despair. All of Telander's criticisms are still valid today. In fact, some things have gotten far worse; for instance, some head coaches' annual salaries now top $4 million. In that sense, The Hundred Yard Lie is a difficult read.

In short, I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about the seamy side of college football. But The Hundred Yard Lie is a bit dated; college football has only gotten worse in the past twenty years.

Rick Talender creates a new view of collage football for the eyes of all involved. Talender stumbles over an unusual premonition. "Child abuse" constantly realed across his mind. He related it to the treatment of the collage players by the collages and spectators treat the players. Student dealing with collage life as well as playing tirlessly with no pay and no moral support except for the little relatotionship they have with their coach. Rick Telander casts some light on the much ignored situation.

Rick Talender creates a new view of collage football for the eyes of all involved. Talender stumbles over an unusual premonition. "Child abuse" constantly realed across his mind. He related it to the treatment of the collage players by the collages and spectators treat the players. Student dealing with collage life as well as playing tirlessly with no pay and no moral support except for the little relatotionship they have with their coach. Rick Telander casts some light on the much ignored situation.

Telander exposes rampant cheating, exploitation, and NCAA hypocrisy in this searing look at the sordid underside of college football. The author attacks amateurism as fraudulent and unworkable, and shows that scandals have recurred almost since the game's founding (by rebellious students) in the late 1800's. We also learn that athletic programs rarely turn profits or boost fund-raising for their host schools. Despite these criticisms, this author (and ex-player at Northwestern) remains as attached to the game as us fans. Telander concludes his concise and highly readable book with a sensible proposal for reform. "The Hundred Yard Lie" fell on predictably deaf ears when first published in 1989. Still, it's an eye opener for those who dare question football's relationship to education.

A good book with some slow parts in the middle where the author goes to subjects that could be shortened. Telander is a former player in college and is watching the game he played be ruined. But he honestly discloses more than once that what is being said now has been said since the 1930s.

Maybe Telander should stop tilting at windmills and just give up to fight another fight and that may be my feelings also. But then you read his well-thought suggestions for changing the game and you see they could solve the problem. Let big colleges run professional sports team for entertainment and segment other colleges. The players would be paid and would not be required to attend college. The suggestions are fascinating and seem to address most of the points of weakness in the problem. All it will take is backbone from the college presidents and a few other powerful players. Oh, well. There goes this problem as no one associated has backbone. Witness the Oklahoma president presiding in the late 80s who years later tries to downplay the problems he faced. Witness Walter Byers who presided over the NCAA and now has his own book stating that there is a problem and it should be solved. Where were you years ago Mr. Byers?

If you love college football, you should read this book. Maybe it won't change your mind but it should at least let you see there is a problem. And Mr. Telander still doesn't cover football. Nice boycott.

Intriguing, enlightening, excruciatingly detailed...if you have a passion for mlb history you will not be able to quit this exhaustive analysis.
It exposes how, nothing less than corruption was overlooked for the benefit of the continued success of the Bronx Bombers. Jeff Katz is a baseball scholar that has written an exposé that captures all the details while keeping you captive for more!

"The Wrong Half of the Yankees" is about the bizarre relationship between the New York Yankees and Kansas City Athletics in the years 1955-1960. The principal characters are A's owner Arnold Johnson and Yankees co-owners Del Webb and Dan Topping. The 3 had deep interests in the Automatic Canteen Company and Topping/Webb sold Yankee Stadium to Johnson. The Yanks main farm team was in KC. Del and Dan just happened to include in the Stadium deal the sale of the Kansas City ballpark to Johnson as well! Moreover, Del and Dan then strong-armed the American League to rubber stamp Johnson's purchase of the moribund Philadelphia A's and to approve the franchise shift from Philly to KC. This, despite the fact that higher offers were on the table, with at least one from interests that might have kept the A's in Philly. Once Johnson was safely ensconced in KC, the teams engaged in some 20 trades, nearly all favoring the Yankees. The fodder for a fine baseball story is all here but author Katz takes far too pages to tell it. Included in the text are a history of the Philly franchise and infighting twixt various members of the Mack family, who had controlled the A's for decades. The result is an almost deadening load of information which might have been fascinating had it only been served in smaller portions. WHY is one of those works which cry out for that proverbial stern editor with a sharp blue pencil to trim down the text. Not until Chapter 11 does Katz cover the good stuff: those trades. These encompass the period when this reviewer was just a kid- and a Yankee fan. Even a boy could smell a rat at some of these transactions. Most may cavil at the lopsided deal for Roger Maris but this observer recalls the round trip trades for pitcher Ralph Terry. A young RT plainly needed seasoning and wasn't going to get it in the Bronx bull pen, so he was farmed to the A's in 1957 (the Billy Martin trade). In 1959, the by then seasoned Terry was back in pinstripes! Even a 12 year old Yankees fan smelled something fishy. A nice inclusion is the images of 78 trading cards for many players. Included are 4 of Harry "Suitcase" Simpson and the '57 card of pitcher Art Ditmar listed as a Yankee -but plainly in an A's uniform! The back of that card actually acknowledged the misprint The bottom line: Insufficient space is given to the trades, far too much to kvetching about franchise shifts, stadium deals and Mack family squabbling. One suspects that some of the text qualifies as mere filler. A scaled down WHY would be excellent as a feature article in a magazine. As a full length, 200 page book it falls short.

I grew up as a Yankee fan in the 1950s and it was obvious that this was going on. Kansas City never had a good ball club but whenever they got talent they traded the player to the Yankees for very little in return. Sometimes it was just cash. The biggest gain was when KC got Roger Maris from Cleveland and after one strong year with KC he was tradedf to the Yankees where he hit 39 home runs in 1960 and 61 in 1961. The As were essentially a farm system of the Yankees but instead of being sent down to the minors a Yankee who needed seasoning was traded to KC where he could face major leaguers including the Yankees. When the Yankees thought the player was ready they brought him back. Here are some of the Yankees that went back and forth: Norm Siebern, Bob Cerv, Irv Noren Marv Throneberry, Hector Lopez. The Yankees got Bud Daley and Bobby Shantz in addition to Maris from the KC As. Billy Martin was traded to KC but only because the Yankees thought he was a bad influence on Mantle. They didn't plan to ever bring Martin back.

Of course the Commissioner ignored the obvious as he let the iwners do whatever they wanted. I never could understand why Kansas City wuld do this. This book explains it all as the KC owner seemed to share outside business interests with Topping and Webb, the Yankee owners.

If even half this well-researched, well-written, and well-argued volume is true, then-Commissioner Ford ("It's a league matter") Frick, who seemed to spend more time jerryrigging the obstruction of any attempts to break Babe Ruth's records than he did shepherding baseball, was derelict in his duties as the steward of the game. And, an awful lot of baseball fans---in New York, Philadelphia, and Kansas City alike---were had.

The incestuous relationship between Arnold Johnson and Del Webb should have been one of baseball's most grotesque scandals, enough to make the dubious manner in which the eventual Yankee sale to CBS went down (reference Bill Veeck, "The Hustler's Handbook") resemble a gentleman's agreement. Baseball government's apparent silence/inaction during the height of that relationship (although, to his rare credit, then-Cleveland Indians general manager Frank Lane did harrumph to anyone who'd listen---unlikely, considering Lane's own dubious ways of running the Tribe in those years---that, if he'd known his prime young right fielder Roger Maris would end up a Yankee, he wouldn't have swapped Maris to the A's himself) should be considered at least as much a stain on the great and glorious game as were such affairs as the gambling scandals of the 1910s-1920s, the Pete Rose contretemps, and today's contretemps over actual or alleged performance-enhancing drugs.

Yankee haters won't like this, but the shameful story of the 1950s Yankee administration viz the Kansas City Athletics makes the worst excercises of the Steinbrenner era seem tame aberrations. I'd thought for a long time that a good book needed to be written about that story, and here it is.

Kansas City is certainly not up to date. The city's citizens are constantly being made the patsies in any deal, whether it involves the organized crime of the Pendergast era, the attempt to stop light rail in the city or the building of its baseball/football complex out in Independence. Author Jeff Katz shines a bright light on baseball's cold-war era, focussing on the horrific collusion scandal of the 1950s, whereby the hated New York Yankees swiped all of KC's good baseball players under a secrecy that rivals today's steroid cover-up.

Of course, the citizens of KC always knew what was going on but couldn't stop it. Organized crime flourished and KC was appalled. Did they do anything about it? No, not for years.

The citizens knew a ball park belonged in KC's downtown, but they couldn't stop the building of two stadiums in Independence. Now, KC is in deep doo-doo trying to revive its downtown, after once again refusing the chance to move the stadiums there and with the "great" Sprint Center for basketball and hockey way behind schedule.

Katz, in his poorly-titled book, uses mostly contemporary 1950s newspaper articles to build his case against the Yankees during a time when they were using the Kansas City A's as a "minor-league" outlet for fire-sale bargains. Maris, Lopez, Maas, Trucks, Dickson and many more good KC players became Yankees because the Yankees controlled the KC team and Commissioner Ford Frick and even the United States Congress allowed it to go on illegally for years. And the KC fans? They let it happen too, just as they might let a great light rail plan be emasculated by the city's so-called power brokers here in 2007.

I feel very sad for Kansas City fans. They get dumped on so easily, but they always seem to smile and forget. Maybe that's what makes this city so easy to fool. Maybe being the perfect patsy makes KC great in some, warped, crazy-little-woman way.

by Larry Rochelle, author of TEN MILE CREEK, DEATH AND DEVOTION, CRACKED CRYSTALS and BLUE ICE