The Last Folk Hero
The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson
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3.8 • 8 Ratings
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- $18.99
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
A New York Times Bestseller
By the author of Showtime—the source for HBO’s Winning Time—the definitive biography of mythic multi-sport star Bo Jackson.
“A legendary tome on a legendary athlete." —Chris Herring, author of Blood in the Garden
From the mid-1980s into the early 1990s, the greatest athlete of all time streaked across American sports and popular culture. Stadiums struggled to contain him. Clocks failed to capture his speed. His strength was legendary. His power unmatched. Video game makers turned him into an invincible character—and they were dead-on. He climbed (and walked across) walls, splintered baseball bats over his knee, turned oncoming tacklers into ground meat. He became the first person to simultaneously star in two major professional sports, and overtook Michael Jordan as America’s most recognizable pitchman. He was on our televisions, in our magazines, plastered across billboards. He was half man, half myth.
Then, almost overnight, he was gone.
He was Bo Jackson.
Drawing on an astonishing 720 original interviews, New York Times bestselling sportswriter Jeff Pearlman captures as never before the elusive truth about Jackson, Auburn University’s transcendent Heisman Trophy winner, superstar of both the NFL and Major League Baseball and ubiquitous “Bo Knows” Nike pitchman. Did Bo really jump over a parked Volkswagen? (Yes.) Did he actually run a 4.13 40? (Yes.) During the 1991 flight that nearly killed every member of the Chicago White Sox, was he in the cockpit trying to help? (Oddly, yes. Or no. Or … maybe.)
Bo Jackson isn’t Jim Thorpe.
He’s not Deion Sanders, either.
No, Bo Jackson is Paul Bunyan.
The Last Folk Hero is the true tale of Bo Jackson that only “master storyteller” (NPR.org) Jeff Pearlman could tell.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Sports journalist Pearlman (Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s) delivers an entertaining biography of star multisport athlete Bo Jackson. Jackson's one-of-a-kind athletic ability was "mythological," Pearlman writes, noting that he was capable of "things so unprecedented, so spectacular, that one must wonder if they were ever actually done at all." Jackson's "uniquely athletic" legend started during his childhood in Alabama the 1960s (a neighbor claims to have seen him throw a rock 200 yards), and Pearlman recounts how his discovery of sports changed his life, beginning with his joining Little League at age 10 (he was forbidden from playing football by his mother but defied her in ninth grade). Pearlman also details Jackson's incredible achievements, which included a Heisman Trophy in 1985 as well as his becoming the only professional athlete ever named a baseball and football All-Star (first with the Kansas City Royals in 1989, then with the L.A. Raiders in 1990) before retiring from pro sports in 1991 after a hip injury. The author's facility at rendering dramatic sports moments into prose, such as when, in 1989, Jackson made a miraculous deep outfield throw to get a speedy opposing player out at home plate (spectators witnessed him "rearing back and uncorking a flat-footed bazooka blast that soared high above shortstop Kurt Stillwell"), makes this a standout addition to biographies of hall-of-fame athletes. Jackson's fans are in for a treat.
Customer Reviews
Great read
Sometimes its hard for fans to learn about their heroes flaws. I think this book makes Bo even greater as you get to see the whole man.