From Publishers Weekly
Though many will assume that the curse mentioned in this anthology's title is the World Series jinx that the Red Sox finally beat last fall, it actually refers to an article about Rocky Marciano, the one-time heavyweight champion from Boston who fell short of becoming a full-fledged hometown hero. The history in these 14 chapters is genuinely "random," but each author explores his subject with intensity, and the collection as a whole has a commendable depth. Most of the contributors—who are mainly book-writing professors and historians—make efforts to go beyond a simple recapping of events; a chapter on Babe Ruth's glory days with the Red Sox, for example, places his career in the context of WWI and local postwar labor strikes; chapters on the Boston Marathon and the '68 Harvard crew team play up social activism angles (involving feminism and black athletes). Roberts, a Purdue University historian, contributes an essay on the rivalry and racial relations between hoops stars Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain, a chapter that demonstrates the book's commitment to treating even the obvious subjects as social history, not just sports stories.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Booklist
This is a surprisingly graceful collection of essays about sports in Boston: not just about the Red Sox but also the Celtics, Patriots, and Bruins. Although all the authors are academic, scholarly types, they nevertheless write sinewy, muscular prose, not the faux know-it-all stance adopted by too many Jimmy Breslin-wannabes. John Demos' essay on Ted Williams is as elegant as Teddy Ballgame in play; Elliott Gorn finds pathos in wrestler John L. Sullivan's life, as James Campbell does in golfer Francis Ouimet's. There is an essay on the Boston Marathon and another on the Harvard crew team's famed coach Harry Parker. "Beantown, 1986" reprises the Bill Buckner fiasco, and a brief "Coda" acknowledges the final magic of the 2004 world champions of baseball: "Joy washed over . . . Red Sox Nation like grace." GraceAnne DeCandido
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
