Pittsburgh Sports: Stories From The Steel City (Regional) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0822957736 ISBN 13: 9780822957737

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000

Synopsis

Summer afternoons at Forbes Field, playoff Sundays with the Steelers, winter nights at the Igloo cheering for Mario and the Penguins: Pittsburgh Sports captures all that and more. With stories from sports fans, historians, and former athletes, Pittsburgh Sports mixes personal experiences with team histories to capture the full range of what it means to be a sports fan—in Pittsburgh, or, by extension, anywhere.


A book that can be read cover-to-cover, or in bits and pieces, Pittsburgh Sports includes chapters on the ill-fated Pittsburgh Pipers, who won the American Basketball Association\u2019s first championship, then folded four years later; the Pittsburgh Crawfords and the Homestead Grays, perennial Negro League powerhouses; Johnny Unitas, Joe Namath, Jim Kelly, Joe Montana, Dan Marino, and other legends of western Pennsylvania high school football; boxing\u2019s illustrious past in the Iron City; football reminiscences by a former Steelers punter; and the ups and downs of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

About this title

About the Author

Randy Roberts, professor of history at Purdue University, is the author or editor of fourteen books, including Pittsburgh Sports: Stories from the Steel City. He is the recipient of the Ray and Pat Browne Award from the Popular Culture Association.

From the Back Cover

"I've always been fond of Pittsburgh, and the sports essays collected by Randy Roberts wonderfully illustrate the charm and idiosyncrasy that makes Pittsburgh's sports such a sweet reflection of the whole city." -Frank Deford

"Having been born and raised in Pittsburgh, and having lived 71 years, I thought I knew a lot about the city's sports history. This book tells me that I had barely scratched the surface. Good stuff - revealing and entertaining." -Myron Cope

"What a wonderful potpourri of memories and research about Pittsburgh sports! This is a page turner, difficult to put down even by those of us who have no ties to Pittsburgh." -Benjamin G. Rader, author of American Sports: From the Age of Folk Games to the Age of Televised Sports

"Certain traits add to a city's character...neighborhood bars, ethnic enclaves, and sports teams. First love usually fades and eventually disappears but not a first love of sports teams, a love that usually remains even after moving away from that area. This book tells the reader about Pittsburgh teams with feeling. If you grew up in New York, you will enjoy reading this book. If you grew up in western Pennsylvania, you will love it." -Beano Cook, ESPN

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.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0822957736
• ISBN 13: 9780822957737
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 282
• Editor: Roberts Randy