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Gods at Play: An Eyewitness Account of Great Moments in American Sports
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23/99
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About This Book
A beautifully observed narrative of American character, grit, tragedy, unremarked heroism, and, always, the illuminating story behind the story. As a columnist for Time magazine, among many other publications, Tom Callahan witnessed an extraordinary number of defining moments in American sport across four decades. He takes us from Roberto Clemente clinching his 3,000th, and final, regular-season hit in Pittsburgh; to ringside for the Muhammad Ali–George Foreman fight in Zaire; and to Arthur Ashe announcing, at a news conference, that he'd tested positive for HIV. There are also little-known private Joe Morgan whispering thank you to a virtually blind Jackie Robinson on the field at the 1972 World Series, or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar saying he was more interested in being a good man than in being the greatest basketball player. Brimming with colorful vignettes and enlivened by Callahan's eye for detail, Gods at Play offers surprising portraits of the most celebrated names in sports. Roger Rosenblatt calls Callahan "the most complete sportswriter in America. He knows the most and writes the best." 15 illustrations
Reviews
"The narrative spell is also periodically broken when Callahan includes long, sometimes-tinny quotes from athletes."
"Rather than focus on individual games, Callahan homes in on anecdotes that reveal the inner lives of the men and women who played them ..."
"as marvelous as these pieces are, there are times when the reader might tire of his habit of humble bragging and name-dropping ..."
"It does provide a few life lessons—but mostly of the kind that sportswriters have, such as it is good to overcome adversity and very good for ballplayers to answer reporters' questions in the locker room."
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