The 25 Greatest Sports Conspiracy Theories of All-Time: Ranking Sports' Most Notorious Fixes, Cover-Ups, and Scandals [Paperback]

Elliott Kalb (Author), Cris Collinsworth (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2007

In every sport, in every country around the world, there are fans on the losing side who know that something other than skill and luck beat their favorite team or player. Sometimes they’re actually right. That’s why sports lovers will devour this inside look at the 25 biggest myths and scandals in professional and collegiate athletics.  Elliott Kalb examines each potential outrage in detail, supporting and debunking popular beliefs along the way.  In some cases, proof does exist that the “fix” was in—like the 1919 World Series thrown by the Chicago “Black” Sox players or the conspiracy to keep African Americans out of Major League Baseball until 1947. In others, there remain only whispers of wrongdoing and suspicious circumstances, including the Jets’ win in Super Bowl III and Muhammad Ali’s first-round knockout of Sonny Liston. This is sure to capture the imagination of anyone who has ever wondered what really happened behind the scenes.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The old-fashioned concept of sportsmanship takes a beating in these essays by Kalb, known as "Mr. Stats" for his broadcast work with NBC, HBO Sports and more. Scrutinizing more than two dozen famous incidents-from Cassius Clay's triumph over Sonny Liston to Pete Rose's considerable gambling woes to Michael Jordan's first retirement-the savvy author parses the ins and outs, as well as the insiders and outsiders, of each predicament, backing up his contentions with numbers, interviews and outside reporting. In each chapter, Kalb provides the background, the possible fix, and his own conclusions, including a one-to-five scale rating a given conspiracy theory's likelihood. Kalb's skepticism can be overbearing at times ("At Daytona... to go from seventh place all the way to first, seems almost unreal. In fact, I wouldn't believe it if I saw it in a movie") but his analysis is reasoned and the stories, from steroids stats to Howard Cosell testifying for the USFL to racial stonewalling in major league baseball to a meticulously detailed account of Superbowl III (did the Colts throw the game?) are largely fascinating.
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About the Author

Elliot Kalb is best known as Mr. Stats for his broadcast work with NBC, HBO Sports, TNT, and CBS/Westwood One Radio Network. A six-time Emmy winner and the author of Who s Better, Who s Best in Baseball?, Kalb currently serves as head writer for HBO s Inside the NFL and as a consultant for NBC s Football Night in America. He lives in Caldwell, NJ.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing (November 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1602390894
• ISBN-13: 978-1602390898
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,308,299 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sports conspiracies? Love it!!!, April 17, 2008

By 

Mark F. Braun (Norridge, IL) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The 25 Greatest Sports Conspiracy Theories of All-Time: Ranking Sports' Most Notorious Fixes, Cover-Ups, and Scandals (Paperback)

Elliott Kalb has done a lot of sports writing and a couple of videos that I can remember off-the-bat, too. He knows his stats, and when the sports stories get a good conspiracy thing going, you've got a lot of guys hooked.

This is great "toilet reading;" The kind of not-necessarily important reading one would need to know, but for the record, stuff I've sort of thought about and having seen so much of these pondered out loud for time immemorium, really cool.

Kalb covers everything from Sonny Liston through Nascar and all of it is awesome stuff worth not only reading but talking about.

The pluses: The facts, the side dope and a good dollup of color to history. Minuese: hate the lousy page layout (no chapter heads and text is too big, filling the page like a grandpa's large-print edition. Conclusions to a conspiracy get ranked, rated and opinionated by the author with a small Lee Harvey Oswald face for ranking of "maybe." Not a damned picture anywhere except little icons of a presidential assassin; a cute gimmick that wears thin without a photo, doodle or something for low attention span readers like me. Don't get me wrong: you'll love the read, but the publisher should've done a much better job and probably could've charged much more and I'da paid it.

[...]

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Terrific Read, November 26, 2007

By 

N. C. Janow "njlibrarylady" (South Orange, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The 25 Greatest Sports Conspiracy Theories of All-Time: Ranking Sports' Most Notorious Fixes, Cover-Ups, and Scandals (Paperback)

This is a must-read for sports fans, who can learn more about the different conspiracy theories from the world of sports. Kalb wrote the book in a style that is filled with warmth and wit. I especially enjoyed how each chapter ends with one-to-five face shots of Oswald, to give a sense of how much stock the author believes in each conspiracy theory. There are several terrific chapters in here, including one on the 1985 NBA Draft and one on Super Bowl III. I highly recommend it

5.0 out of 5 stars An interesting read, October 29, 2008

By 

William A. Sodeman "billso" (Honolulu, HI USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The 25 Greatest Sports Conspiracy Theories of All-Time: Ranking Sports' Most Notorious Fixes, Cover-Ups, and Scandals (Paperback)

If you like conspiracy theories and you like American professional sports, this book is something you'll enjoy. Kalb writes well, and he gets his facts straight. Most of the stories are the ones you'd expect to read (1919 Black Sox scandal, Patrick Ewing's NBA draft, the Jets first Super Bowl, 1972 Olympic basketball final). But there are a few stories that surprised me. Kalb ends each story with his own 5-Oswald rating system, indicating the likelihood that a conspiracy really happened.