Badasses

A New York Times–bestselling author presents the definitive biography of arguably the last team to play old-fashioned tough-guy football.

The 1970s Oakland Raiders were the NFL's badasses, black-clad iconoclasts whose machismo, brotherhood, and blue-collar values mocked pro football corporatism. In this entertaining biography, Peter Richmond tells the rollicking story of this motley crew of castoffs, psychos, and geniuses who won six division titles and a Super Bowl under the leadership of neurotic, brilliant coach John Madden and eccentric, imperious owner Al Davis.

Richmond goes inside the locker room and onto the field with Ken Stabler, Willie Brown, Gene Upshaw, Jim Otto, Art Shell, and the rest of this band of brothers who made the Raiders legend. He vividly captures days of grueling practices and nights of hellraising—from hanging women's panties on the walls of fleabag motels and smoking pot during spring training to sharing game-day beers with hardcore fans, including the Bay Area's other badasses—the Black Panthers and the Hell's Angels. He reveals a group of crazy, devoted men who loved to push the envelope and each other but never lost sight of the prize: the Super Bowl, which they finally won in 1976.

Funny, raunchy, and inspiring, Badasses celebrates the '70s Raiders, the last team to play the game as it used to be played: for the fun of it.

"One of the best football books ever written." —San Jose Mercury News

"I always thought the Raiders were bad, but I never realized how bad—and how good—until I read Peter Richmond's smart, funny, rowdy tale." —Award-winning author Robert Lipsyte