"Always On The Run," By Larry Csonka, Jim Kiick, and Dave Anderson

"Garo Yepremian's Tales From the Dolphins," By Garo Yepremian

"Rozelle: Czar of the NFL," By Jeff Davis

"Black Knight: Al Davis and His Raiders," by Ira Simmons

The 1961 Sports Illustrated NFL Preview

The 1979 Sports Illustrated NFL Preview

Heaven Can Wait

We need more Joe Pendleton in
our lives.

We all need more Joe Pendleton in our lives these days.  How can anyone argue that the fantasy football world isn't a safe place to be in the crazy divisive world in which we live. Reality these days, especially for the old school sports fan, kinda sucks. It sure seemed like the sports and sports heroes we grew up watching back in the 20th Century were just better and more inspiring. Heck, even the movies were way better, and among the best was the ultimate football fantasy trip taken by Warren Beatty in "Heaven Can Wait." 

Why is it such a great movie? Where do I start? Great writing and a great cast would be the first place.  Of course there is lot of Dyann Cannon in low cut revealing outfits, and additionally, there is the great music score. More importantly, and this is key, this is a NFL movie that shines with its fantasy journey of a ghost that comes back to inhabit the body of another Ram QB, to fulfill his and his team's greatest wish. To me, it is almost the perfect football movie and time capsule of the NFL of the 1970s. With that, stay tuned to this blog space for more on the great Joe Pendleton!

The Magic of Scholastic Book Fairs and the NFL

For most of us older pro football fans, our love of the game began in the classroom. Specifically, during those Scholastic book fairs of the 1960s, 1970s (my era), 1980s and 1990s. These were are formative years of fandom where the printed word and physical books truly mattered.  The All-Pro Football Stars books of the late 1970s are what helped to fuel my fandom, and couple that with Sports Illustrated, and weekly appointment viewing of The NFL Today, NFL Films' This Week in Pro Football, and of course Monday Night Football, a life long nearly 50 year fan was born. Fortunately the fine folks at the Internet Archive appear to now be able to once again offer digital lending of old out of print titles, including many of which are those treasured Scholastic sports titles that introduced us to the wide world sports. Now, if said titles are not able to be read at the Internet Archive, you most definitely SHOULD NOT use an anonymous Tor browser and VPN to mask your IP address and download these old Scholastic sports titles from the many shadow libraries that are on the Internet.

The NFL Goes To Hollywood