Three books finished in three days - not bad considering that the bulk of this audiobook was heard on one trip to and from a baseball game. Here is my latest review.
Title/Author: “Clouds Over the Goalpost: Gambling, Asassanation and the NFL in 1963” by Lew Freedman, narrated by Noah Michael Levine
Rating: 3 of 5 stars (okay)
Review: In 1963, professional football was just starting to enjoy its ascent into the minds and television sets of American sports fans. There were two professional leagues and two of the more stories franchises, the Chicago Bears and New York Giants, faced each other in the NFL championship game. But two other events really shaped that season and they covered as well as the action on the field in this book by Lew Freedman.
While I listened to the audiobook and liked the story of the 1963 season, my one issue with the audio version is the mispronunciation by the narrator of well-known players, including Paul Hornung. This is crucial because he and Alex Kara’s are the central figures of one the aforementioned events - they were suspended in 1963 for gambling. This was the most repeated mispronunciation but not the only one.
Putting that aside, the rest of the book was fine - it was the typical book about a particular sports season in which the championship team (here, the Bears) and a few other teams make up the bulk of the discussion. Along with the Bears and their coach-owner George Halas, the Green Bay Packers ger a good amount of text in the book as well, even more than the runner-up Giants.
The upstart American Football League also gets some love in the book, including a full chapter on their championship game. That wasn’t too exciting as the Los Angeles Chargers defeated the Boston Patriots 51-10. Other stories about the AFL, thanks to Freedman’s writing, were more exciting than this game. Overall, the book is fine if you like books on season recaps - just pick up the physical or e-book version.
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