From Colts to Ravens; A Behind-the Scenes Look at Baltimore Professional Football
Centreville, Maryland: Tidewater Publishers, 1997. Second printing [stated]. Hardcover. xi, [1], 244 pages. Illustrations. Includes Preface, Epilogue, and Index. Chapters cover For the Good Times (Once Again); Long, Hard Struggle; Another Rude Jolt; Accept No Substitutes; The Fury of It All; How It All Began; To the Rescue; Down and Out; New Life; Ecstasy; Another Title...Then a Slump; Super Bowel Madness; Tale of Two Cities; Tough Times; Aching Hearts; and After the Crime. Baltimore native John Steadman has reported on sports in Baltimore longer than any other writer or broadcaster. He began his journalism career as a part-time reporter with the Baltimore News-Post and later wrote for the Baltimore News American, where he served as sports editor for twenty-eight years. In 1986 he joined the Baltimore Sun as a sports columnist. The author is one of the few sportswriters to have been a professional baseball player and a pro football executive (assistant manager and publicity director of the Baltimore Colts). John Steadman' He was inducted into the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association Hall of Fame in 2000. In 1959, he wrote the book "The Greatest Football Game Ever Played: When the Baltimore Colts and New York Giants Faced Sudden Death". Steadman was honored by the Associated Press Sports Editors as the posthumous recipient of the Red Smith Award, America's most prestigious sports writing honor, on June 29, 2001. Step into the locker rooms, the playing fields, and the owners’ offices with sportswriter John F. Steadman as he relates the fascinating tale of football in Baltimore. In scores of animated first-person accounts, the author tells it like it was: from the organization of the Colts in 1947, through the sale of the team to Bob Irsay in 1972, to the infamous trip out of the town under the cover of darkness in 1984, and finally the acquisition of a new Baltimore team, the Ravens, in 1996. Included in the telling are the player heroes—Unitas, Donovan, Moore, Berry, and others—as well as the coaches, general managers, and owners. Among the cast of characters were con men, real scoundrels, and not a few bizarre figures. Some had good intentions; others were inept; still others were devious. The story is spiced with pungent comments from a man who was there—first as a fan watching the inaugural game in 1947 and later as a professional reporting the championship moments, the demise in 1984, and the ensuing struggle to return to the league. Condition: Very good / Very good.
Keywords: Baltimore Colts, Baltimore Ravens, NFL, Football, Super Bowl, Weeb Ewbank, Wilbur Ewbank, Art Donovan, Bob Irsay, Carroll Rosembloom, Pete Rozelle, William Donald Schaefer, Don Shula, John Unitas
ISBN: 0870334972
[Book #81879]
Price: $37.50