ESPN SportsCentury [Hardcover]

Michael MacCambridge (Editor), David Halberstam (Introduction), Chris Berman (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 22, 1999

A unique collaborative effort from the worldwide leader in sports, this beautifully illustrated volume featuring original essays by some of North America's most renowned writers shows what sports means to North America and why it continues to matter. Beginning with an introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Halberstam, the book includes ten chapters, each with an essay on the athlete(s) who best defined a particular decade, as well as sidebar essays on each of the other athletes named by ESPN's sports experts as the 100 Greatest Athletes of the Century. Each chapter concludes with a Playbook that provides memorable stories and much more.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

David Halberstam's introduction sets the tone for this sweeping look at the players and moments that have defined athletic competition in the 1900s: "Throughout the century," he observes, "sports ... served as a remarkable reflection of the strengths and weaknesses of the nation--its diversity, its hungers, its excesses, its rank commercialism." Divided into decades, each section begins with a long, smart appreciation--illustrated to the gills--of the period's seminal sports figure. The lineup on both ends of the equation is powerful: Among the pairings are Robert W. Creamer on Babe Ruth, Wilfred Sheed on Joe Louis and Babe Didrikson, Dick Schaap on Johnny Unitas, and Joyce Carol Oates on Ali. Still, there's more. The significant players and memorable moments of each decade are put into focus. For example, while Ruth clearly defines and dominates the '20s, Bill Tilden, Red Grange, Knute Rockne, and Bobby Jones are given shorter profiles, and key events range from the great Dempsey-Firpo fight of 1923 to Johnny Weismuller's domination of Olympic swimming. For off-the-field context, chartlike presentations encapsulate historical to cultural happenings.

Attractive, comprehensive, and neatly designed, ESPN SportsCentury is a classy tribute to the sporting achievements of the last 100 years. --Jeff Silverman

From Library Journal

In September 1998, ESPN began airing some 60-plus hours of programming covering significant 20th-century American sports personalities and events. Other outgrowths of this SportsCentury project include a traveling mall tour and this companion book. The book kicks off with David Halberstam's introduction discussing the role of sport in 20th-century America. Each of the ten distinguished essayists (including Gerald Early, Nicholas Lemman, Robert Creamer, Joyce Carol Oates, and Nelson George) focused on one decade of the century and the athlete or athletes who best defined that timeAfrom Jack Johnson to Michael Jordan. At the end of each essay are sidebars on the athletes ESPN's experts have named as the 100 Greatest Athletes of the Century; following is material highlighting each decade's most memorable games, coaches, etc. Editor MacCambridge is the author of The Franchise: A History of Sports Illustrated Magazine (LJ 10/1/97). A good summing-up choice for most sports collections.ATerry Jo Madden, Boise State Univ. Lib., ID
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: ESPN - Hyperion (September 22, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786864710
• ISBN-13: 978-0786864713
• Product Dimensions: 10.4 x 9.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,366,200 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Michael MacCambridge has written about movies, music and popular culture, but he is best known as one of the nation's foremost authorities on pro and college football.

His 2004 book 'America's Game: The Epic Story of How Pro Football Captured A Nation' was published by Random House, and named by The Washington Post as one of the most distinguished works of non-fiction in 2004. The book also won the Nelson Ross Award given by the Professional Football Researchers Association, for outstanding achievement in pro football research and history. The paperback version was published by Anchor Vintage in 2005.

His first book was 'The Franchise: A History of Sports Illustrated Magazine,' which was named as a New York Times Noteworthy Book, and described by the Boston Globe as "one of the great sports-book reads of all time." In 1999, he was the editor and a contributing writer for the New York Times bestseller 'ESPN SportsCentury,' a retrospective of sports in the 20th Century that included original essays by David Halberstam, Joyce Carol Oates, Roy Blount, Jr., Gerald Early, and others.

In 2005, MacCambridge edited the critically-acclaimed 'ESPN College Football Encyclopedia,' hailed by Sports Illustrated as "the Bible" of the sport.

In 2009, MacCambridge co-authored 'More Than A Game: The Glorious Present and Uncertain Future of the NFL,' with Brian Billick, the Super Bowl-winning former head coach of the Baltimore Raves. Also in 2009, MacCambridge was one of the contributing essayists to 'A New Literary History of America,' by Greil Marcus and Werner Sollors.

MacCambridge's freelance work has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, GQ, and many other publications. From 1988-95, he was a columnist and critic at the Austin American-Statesman, writing about movies, music and popular culture. He earned a Master's degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in 1986. A year earlier, he received his B.A. from Creighton University in Omaha.

Since 1997, he has been an adjunct professor at Washington University in St. Louis, and performed a wide range of public speaking and editorial consulting work. The father of two children, Miles and Ella, he lives in St. Louis.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a fine chronology, but not perfect, December 26, 1999

By 

Brian S. (Orange, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: ESPN SportsCentury (Hardcover)

I received this book as a gift, and prepared to be underwhelmed. After all, this is ESPN we're talking about, the kings of the 5 second highlight reel, putting out a book that attempts to summarize all the greatest events in sports of the most prolific century man has ever known. Thus, I felt that my skepticism was justified, but I was pleasantly surprised to find myself being mainly incorrect.

The book opens with some of the most famous photos of sports events and period pieces from the glory days and otherwise. A World Series game at Ebbets...the Babe hitting a homer...Unitas in the Championship... Bobby Orr flying through the air after scoring the winning goal, and more.

The Foreword by Chris Berman paints a fine historical perspective and a generous introduction by David Halberstam prepare the reader for the rest to come. All too often, these coffee table sports books are devoid of such strong writing which make them enjoyable for more than just a few minutes and worthy of hanging on to for perusement time and again. This book is one exception, thanks in part to these two, but it doesn't end there.

The book presents each decade one at a time, selecting one athlete from each period and covering them in detail. As a bit of a photo nut, but also someone who likes to be entertained with fine prose, this book holds just about the perfect balance of both. Most pages are touched with small to medium photos surrounded with text, and the pictures are not strewn about in any lackadaisical manner but help to completely paint a picture. The occasional full-page, full-bleed photo gets in your face and can appear to stop time for just a moment.

I really enjoyed this approach, while the other athletes of the time still earn approximately half a page synopsis of their accomplishments and a photo, which is generally more than sufficient.

The most important events of each decade are then highlighted in text, with an accompanying photo where necessary, and a timeline of events is given.

Finally, a section called Playbook lists all the champions of the 10 years by sport: Pro and College Basketball, Hockey, Baseball, College and Pro Football, complete with footnotes. When initially glancing over the book, this was my favorite part, along with many of the photos included. Each chapter is finished off and rounded out with fulfilling short sections which help ensure some of the great details of sport were not omitted.

You expect a book like this to fawn entirely over the "big three" sports and disregard all else, but for the most part this is untrue. We read about golf, tennis, track and field, boxing in addition to the "major" ones. The decades with the most events get slightly more coverage, which is a smart move. There was simply a lot going on in the 80's than at the turn of the century.

This book surprised me with some of it's inclusions, for example, a short piece about The National Sports Daily, which I found an odd addition at first. Then again, this is 100% safe, seeing as how the National went under eight years ago. Yet this book is not faultless - it lacks an index, for example, something which is generally found even in lesser books.

And at times, we have to sit through selective coverage which makes this book far from definitive and at certain time very hit or miss. For example, one has to strain to find any significant coverage of the 1919 Black Sox scandal, surely something which would have been judged among the biggest stories of the decade in it's day.

However, the largest shortcoming is one more or less of perspective and one my fellow reader may disagree with. When the objective sports fan reads this book, and begins to enjoy the great stories and biographies they put together, they can simply not be affected by the lack of words afforded one Wayne Gretzky. He is given 3/4 of a page following the fourteen provided to Pete Rose, who is admittedly deserving of coverage of his own. I would normally complain that ESPN is too busy kissing up to Michael Jordan to give Gretzky equal time, but that is not the case this go around, since Jordan is covered in a different chapter (decade). All told, Mr. Gretzky's nine seasons with the L.A. Kings are given all of one sentence, which can hardly be considered fair since this was a big part of the prime of his great career.

Although Gretzky's seasons did indeed span both decades, Rose also had much of his career take place in the 70's, so that is no argument on Rose's side. My selection would have been for Gretzky over Rose, so that #99 would have gotten the equal coverage to Jordan that he truly deserves. Rose's scandal could have easily been given an aside, while giving him the same space provided other legends such as Montana, Bird, Johnson, and Payton. Simply put, Gretzky set 61 records and transcended a sport, while Pete Rose did not, and this slight is one that cannot be overlooked.

Nonetheless, this is still a very good book overall, the kind that I found myself locking myself in my room for hours on end to enjoy as a kid. This has always been the type of book that I cherish going back to time and again, attempting to somehow burn all the images into my mind and cram each piece of information and statistic into my head, and to put everything that I have ever known or heard about sports into better chronological perspective.

Easily, for the money this is one of the better sports pieces out there. I recommend each and every sports fan who lacks a great tale of the century's sports events take a long hard look at adding this one to their collection.

84 of 100 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Kind of boring, September 22, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: ESPN SportsCentury (Hardcover)

This book is a lot less comprehensive than I thought, with long, boring essays on a couple of athletes and then a quick gloss over other events that occurred in this century of sports history. The photos are kind of small and seem like an afterthought. Not at all what I was expecting. Save your money and go to a football game instead.

63 of 84 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simply the Best, October 10, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: ESPN SportsCentury (Hardcover)

I have read many books about great sports people and this one tops the rest. The book has great information and excellent pictures