Search results for ""Author Steven Travers""

1966. The year of change. The year of division. The middle of the 1960s, the great dividing line between what America had been, and what it became. All of it, in all its color, glory, and ugliness, came symbolically together on a hot, humid weekend in Austin, Texas. The protagonist? None other John “Duke” Wayne, the larger-than-life movie hero of countless Westerns and war dramas; a swashbuckling, ruggedly macho idol of America; the very embodiment of what the United States had become—the new Rome: the most powerful military, political, and cultural empire in the annals of mankind. Wayne, like the nation itself, stood astride the world in Colossus style, talking tough. Taking no prisoners. In September 1966, John Wayne was in Texas filming War Wagon while the integrated Trojans of the University of Southern California arrived in Austin to do battle with a powerhouse of equal stature, the all-white Texas Longhorns. The Duke, a one-time pulling guard for coach Howard Jones at USC, was there, accompanied by sycophants, and according to rumor, with spurs on. Wayne arrived in Austin the night before the game. Dressed to the nines, he immediately repaired to the hotel bar. He had a full entourage who hung on his every word as if uttered from the Burning Bush. So it was when the Duke ordered his first whiskey. Thus surrounded by sycophants, John Wayne bellowed opinions, bromides, and pronouncements. What happened next is subject to interpretation, for this weekend and many other details of the Duke’s “Trojan wars” are revealed and expounded upon by longtime USC historian Steven Travers. This book is a fly-on-the-wall exploration of this wild weekend and an immersion into the John Wayne mythology: his politics, his inspirations, the plots to assassinate him, his connections to Stalin, Khrushchev, and Chairman Mao, and the death of the Western.

Read more less

In early 1969, New York City and all it represented was in disarray: politically, criminally, and athletically. But while Simon and Garfunkel lamented the absence of a sports icon like Joe DiMaggio, a modern Lancelot rode forth to lead the New York Mets to heights above and beyond all sports glory. This book tells the complete, unvarnished story of the great Tom Seaver, that rarest of all American heroes, the New York Sports Icon. In a city that produces not mere mortals but sports gods, Seaver represented the last of a breed. His deeds, his times, his town—it was part of a vanishing era, an era of innocence. In 1969, six years after John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Seaver and the Mets were the last gasp of idealism before free agency, Watergate, and cynicism. Here is the story of “Tom Terrific” of the “Amazin’ Mets,” a man worthy of a place alongside DiMaggio, Ruth, Mantle, and Namath in the pantheon of New York idols.

Read more less

This is the story of a sport's role in society, from the "leather helmet era," through the dawn of television and its tremendous impact on the college game, and up to the present era of collegiate football as "big business"—all outlined against a "blue, gray October sky" of American history. In this comprehensive history, Steven Travers breaks down the story of college football into two eras—the period prior to World War I, when the nascent sport was so dangerous that President Theodore Roosevelt proposed legislation to make the sport safer, and the "modern" era, when the popularity of football led to the development of professional leagues largely fed by college players. He also explores our obsession with identifying winners, from controversies over poll rankings to tracking the performance of players on the short list for the Heisman or Outland Trophies. In addition to profiling the great players and their greatest games, Travers also considers how the sport has infiltrated the popular culture, listing, for example, the top eight college football movies of all time, and the origin of the term "Ivy League." Travers also compiles an impressive list of All-Americans, bowl performances, all-time winning records, winning streaks, great runs, decades and dynasties, pro football representation, and a host of other detailed criteria. It's all here: the statistics, the stories, and the lore of a game that has and will continue to dominate fall Saturdays for another hundred years to come.

Read more less

Nineteen sixty-twoit's been called the end of innocence, as America witnessed the Cuban Missile Crisis and the following year saw the Kennedy assassination and the early stirrings of Vietnam. In baseball, 1962 was a thrilling season.

Read more less

Described by famed baseball scribe Roger Angell as looking like “a festive prison yard” during the 1962 World Series, Candlestick was loved and hated by sports teams and fans alike for its 43 years of existence. Built on a landfill above a garbage dump in a city rocked by an 8.6 earthquake only 54 years earlier, it was notorious for the tornadic winds that came off the bay, probably costing Willie Mays at least 100 career home runs. The fogs that rolled in looked like something God sent to pass over His Chosen people. And of course, there was the famous 1989 World Series earthquake that postponed the opening game for 10 days. But it was also home to the greatest run of sustained excellence in pro football history: the 1981–1994 49ers, as well as the exploits of baseball stars such as Mays and Juan Marichal.

Read more less

Genuine fans take the best team moments with the less than great, and know that the games that are best forgotten make the good moments truly shine. This monumental book of the Los Angeles Lakers documents all the best moments and personalities in the history of the team, but also unmasks the regrettably awful and the unflinchingly ugly. In entertaining—and unsparing—fashion, this book sparkles with Lakers highlights and lowlights, from wonderful and wacky memories to the famous and infamous. Such moments include the 33-game winning streak of the 1960s as well as the implosion of the 2004-2005 team. Whether providing fond memories, goose bumps, or laughs, this portrait of the team is sure to appeal to the fan who has been through it all.

Read more less

A one-stop record containing everything Diamondback fans want to know about their favorite baseball team, this resource is packed with anecdotes, history, explanations of traditions, statistics, trivia, and photos.

Read more less

Taking a decade-by-decade approach to the University of Southern California football tradition, this collection brings together over 40 stories from the most outstanding voices of the program. The spirit of Trojan football is not captured by just one phrase, one season, or one particular game; instead, the student-athletes and coaches who made the magic happen over the decades blend their experiences to capture the true essence of their beloved school. USC fans will relish the intimate stories told by the figures they have come to cherish.

Read more less

A one-stop record containing everything Angels fans want to know about their favorite baseball team, this resource is packed with anecdotes, history, explanations of traditions, statistics, trivia, and photos.

Read more less