Review
"I’ve always been fond of Pittsburgh, and the sports essays collected by Randy Roberts wonderfully illustrate the charm and idiosyncrasy that make Pittsburgh’s sports such a sweet reflection of the whole city."
--Frank DeFord
From the Inside Flap
Pittsburgh Sports is about players and teams, about champions and championships as well as losses and let-downs. But more than Sundays with the Steelers, more than summer nights with the Bucs or winter evenings at the Igloo,
Pittsburgh Sports is about what it means to be a fan, about sporting loyalties handed down from parent to child. It's about a shared experience of these events, our memories of them, and the stories they provide. For many native western Pennsylvanians, allegiance to sports teams is passed down through the generations; it stays with them wherever they might go and is strengthened by fond memories of family, friendship, and community.
Bringing together sports fans, historians, and even a former Steelers punter, Pittsburgh Sports demonstrates how Pittsburghers feel about their sports teams and heroes. From the world-champion Penguins of the 1990s and Pirates of the 1970s to the moribund Steelers and Bucks of the 1950s and 1960s, these fans of the game offer both personal recollections as well as historical contexts of the teams and the players.
Pittsburgh Sports also reveals the strong history of team sports in Pittsburgh, chronicling some of the city's great turn-of-the-century baseball teams (the Pirates and Negro League Crawfords) and their players - the Waner brothers and the legendary home-run-hitting catcher Josh Gibson. Also included are memories of Steelers founder Art Rooney Sr. and a history of local high school football. If you want to get inside the heads and hearts of sports fans, this is a book you must add to your collection.
Chris Elzey, a Ph.D. candidate at Purdue University, played professional basketball in Australia and Europe. Aram Goudsouzian is a scholar of sport and film history. Laurie Graham was an editor at Scribners and is the author, most recently of Singing the City, a celebration of Pittsburgh's industrial landscape. Frank Lambert is professor of history at Purdue University and a former college All-American and punter for the Pittsburgh Steelers (1965-1966). Richard F. Peterson teaches at Southern Illinois University and is the editor of the SIU Writing Baseball Series. Rob Buck is the author of Sandlot Seasons: Sport in Black Pittsburgh and The Tropic of Baseball: Baseball in the Dominican Republic. Thomas E. Scott is a historian and writer. Brooks D. Simpson is professor of history at Arizona State University and the author, most recently, of Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph over Adversity, 1822-1865. Paul J. Zbiek is associate professor of history at Kings College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
