Review of "Loserville"

While the amount of reading I have done lately for reviews has slowed some due to professional and school obligations, the time I have found to read for review lately has been well-used as there are some excellent sports books coming out this season.  This is one, about Atlanta's entry into the world of professional sports a few decades ago and it was a very good read.  Here is my review of "Loserville."

Title/Author: “Loserville: How Professional Sports Remade Atlanta – and How Atlanta Remade Professional Sports” by Clayton Trutor

Rating: 4 ½ of 5 stars (excellent)

Review:

For a time during the 1960's and 1970's, the sports world had a nickname for the city of Atlanta – "Loserville."  It was derived mainly from the lack of on-field success for three of the city's four major sports teams – baseball's Braves, football's Falcons and basketball's Hawks.  The only team during that time was the newest franchise, the Atlanta Flames hockey team.  They also were the only team of the four who drew consistently large crowds but even they, by the end of the 1970's, also had troubles in the standings and in the stands.  How these franchises coped with these times and how it shaped the city is illustrated in this very good book by Clayton Trutor.

There is a lot of information and ideas to digest in this volume.  There are the business aspects behind the operations of each of the teams as Atlanta had no major league teams before 1966 when the Milwaukee Braves, after a contentious sale and lame duck season in Milwaukee, moved to the southern city.  Soon afterward, the NFL awarded the city an expansion franchise, hoping the fans who flocked to college football games would do the same for a professional team.  Basketball also took a wayward team, the St. Louis Hawks, and moved them to Atlanta. The Flames came later when the NHL awarded two expansion teams to Atlanta and Long Island in 1972.

Trutor addresses both the economic and the social impacts that the new teams brought to the city. There were new facilities that needed to be built – Atlanta Stadium for the Braves and Falcons in an area that had a poor reputation for crime and safety, not completely unfounded.  There was also a question of removing families, mostly Black from homes to make way for the ballpark. Later the Omni, an arena that was built in a business district hoping the fans of the Flames and the Hawks would revitalize the area, also had issues.  These were mainly due to flaws in the building structure, rendering it obsolete soon after opening.  There were other issues such as transportation and racial matters as well with mostly well-to-do white patrons attending the games.  This makes for an excellent look at what professional sports can and can't bring to a city, something noteworthy as more team owners look for publicly financed facilities.

The reading is easier than expected, staying away from a scholarly type of organization and language.  The only quibble is that the ending feels rushed when other southern cites are illustrated to show that it wasn't only Atlanta that had issues with new professional teams.  It was ironic to read a book titled "Loserville" immediately after the Braves won the World Series and Tampa was a city cited at the end, despite the fact that two of its teams, the football Buccaneers and hockey Lightning, both are the reigning champions of their respective leagues.  Still, if one enjoys reading about the business side of sports mixed in with social issues, this is an excellent choice.

I wish to thank University of Nebraska Press for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Links: Loserville: How Professional Sports Remade Atlanta―and How Atlanta Remade Professional Sports: Trutor, Clayton: 9781496225047: Amazon.com: Books

 

Review of "Grim Reaper"

As a huge hockey fan, I am one who doesn't enjoy fighting in the game. I believe it has its place but I don't get as pumped up for a fight at a game as other fans.  That said, some of the better hockey memoirs/biographies I have read are about those players who make a living in the game with their fists.  This is another good book written by a player who was an enforcer, Stu Grimson.  Here is my review of "Grim Reaper"

Title/Author:

“The Grim Reaper: The Life and Career of a Reluctant Warrior” by Stu Grimson

Tags:

Ice Hockey, memoir, professional, Blackhawks, Red Wings, Ducks, Kings, Flames, Whalers, Predators

Publish date:

October 15, 2019

Length:

324 pages

Rating:

4 of 5 stars (very good)

Review:

The life of a hockey player who is called an “enforcer”, a “fighter” or a “goon” is quite different than the life of other hockey players. They play fewer minutes, are asked to perform a duty in which they face great risk of injury, their careers can be much shorter than those of other players, they can play in relative anonymity and they also switch teams frequently.  Aside from a short career, this is pretty accurate for Stu Grimson who has written a very good memoir about his time as an enforcer.

Having read good books on other enforcers such as Bob Probert and Derek Boogardt, I picked this one up with high expectations and it did not disappoint.  It did not follow the usual format from youth to college or junior hockey to the pros to life after hockey. While all of these life cycle events are covered by Grimson with many great stories, the book does skip around at times, especially when he is discussing his life after hockey. 

Despite that, reading about important events in his life other than hockey was very enjoyable, something that usually isn’t the case with sports memoirs. His time working as an attorney for the NHL Players Association was very intriguing, especially when he was fired from the position by the person whom he helped attain the director position of the union. He also talks about meeting his birth parents (he and his sister were adopted) and the fact that his birth father was also a professional athlete (played football in the Canadian Football League) and became a lawyer after his playing days were over is just an amazing coincidence.

Readers who prefer to read about his hockey career will also be happy as he shares many stories of his fights on the ice, his trouble with rules during junior hockey and through it all, he always wondered if this was the best path to make a career in the sport. He repeatedly states at every stop in his professional career (there were many, as he played for seven different NHL teams, including two stints with the Anaheim Ducks) he states he would do whatever he needed to do in order to contribute to the success of his team.  From the descriptions of some of his actions, there was no reason to believe otherwise.

His description of fights, especially one in which Dave Brown broke the orbital bone of Grimson early in his career when he played on the Blackhawks. It was almost gruesome to read the details of not only the injury but how Brown threw the punches.  However, there was no hard feelings between the two players and Brown did show concern.  That is part of the code present among enforcers in the NHL and Grimson talks often about that and displays much respect for his fellow fighters who obey these unwritten rules.

Whether or not one enjoys fighting as part of the game, hockey fans should pick up this book and get a very good perspective into the life and mind of those players whose main job is not to score goals or keep the puck out of the net, but instead have to use their fists to provide value to their teams.

I wish to thank Penguin Random House Canada for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

                                                                       

Book Format Read:

E-book (Kindle)                                                                                                                                

Buying Links:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0735237247/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0735237247&linkCode=as2&tag=netg01-20