It's Not Over 'Till It's Over: The Stories Behind Most Magnificent Heart Rending Sports Miracles Our Time($25.00Value)

Description

Sports history is studded with miraculous moments when, down-to-the-wire, athletes reach beyond themselves and come up with more heart, more fortitude, more adrenaline than they knew they ever had. They prove time and again that it's not over 'til it's over, not until the fat lady sings. Al Silverman is the writer the subject calls out for-he thrills with us, the crowd, and with the players themselves. Inextricably linked with Brian's Song , based on the book I Am Third , Silverman recreates the most electrifying of these great sports events, whether the bottom of the ninth, the fifteenth round, or the eighteenth hole that brought cheering, screaming, crying fans to their feet. The thirteen accounts in this memorable book celebrate the uncompromising unwillingness to quit that has proven, time and again: you had better not leave the stadium early. Among the stirring events relived here, in their historical context and glory, are the sixth game of the 1975 Red Sox-Reds World Series; the tumultuous 1971 Frazier-Ali fight; and the only sudden death pro football championship game ever played (Colts vs. Giants, 1958). Here is the race of a completely unknown contender's life in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics; the 1992 Duke-Kentucky battle for college basketball supremacy; the 1999 women's World Cup soccer match between China and the United States; and the epic quest for hockey gold at the 1980 Olympics. With extraordinary narrative detail and fresh insights culled from interviews with many of the participants of these now-legendary contests, It's Not Over 'Til It's Over captures the thrill and astonishment of players and spectators alike. This is a book bursting with the charge and excitement of the great games. What is a sports miracle? For the purposes of this book, it's an exciting competition that is not clearly decided until the very end. It does not necessarily involve an upset or an improbable comeback, but a slam-bang finish is essential. Silverman was the editor of Sport Magazine for several years and has authored ten sports books, including (with Gale Sayers) I Am Third. In this book, his retelling of 13 "sports miracles" is supplemented by his recent interviews with some of the participants. However, with contests come from nine different sports (three baseball, two football, two boxing, and one each from basketball, hockey, golf, tennis, track, and soccer), making the focus too general, and some of the chosen events seem random. For example, the 1908 Merkle Boner is an overly familiar tale that is not reviewed with any special vibrancy here and feels remote. An account of the 1968 meeting of undefeated Harvard and Yale football teams might fit in a book on great college football rivalries or Ivy League thrillers, but in the context of this book, alongside an extravaganza like the 1971 Ali-Frazier fight, an event with broader significance is needed. Many of the chapters are interesting, and all are well-written, but the book as a whole is not compelling. For larger sports collections. John Maxymuk, Robeson Lib., Rutgers Univ., Camden, NJ Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. In the modern world of ESPN and the Internet, hype often diminishes reality. Every game is an epic; every comeback is a miracle. Silverman, former editor of Sport magazine, provides much-needed context by recounting 13 events that--given the perspective of time--actually deserve the "miracle" designation. He presents them in chronological order, beginning with Fred Merkle's infamous "bonehead" play in a crucial 1908 game between the Chicago Cubs and the New York Giants that may have cost the Giants the pennant. He ends with the 1999 U.S. women's World Cup championship. In between are Bobby Thomson's dramatic 1951 homer, the 1958 NFL overtime championship battle between the Baltimore Colts and the New York Giants, the 1968 Harvard-Yale football game, and the 1980 U.S. men's Olympic hockey championship. Silverman provides a context for the drama, personalizes the participants, and adds a sense of how the event colored the rest of the participants' lives. An enjoyable glance backward that will find a significant readership for years to come. Wes Lukowsky Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Al Silverman, most recently editor and publisher of The Viking Press, was editor of Sport Magazine for 12 years, later becoming CEO of the Book-of-the-Month Club. Among his ten books on sports are I Am Third , written with Gale Sayers, which became the acclaimed movie, Brian's Song . He is co-editor of The Twentieth Century Treasury of Sports.