The Sunday Game
At the Dawn of Professional Football
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
In the most complete and compelling account of the origins of professional football, The Sunday Game tells the stories of all the teams that played independent football in the small towns and industrial cities of the Midwest, from early in the twentieth century to the beginning of the National Football League shortly after the end of World War I. The foundations of what is now the most popular professional sport in America were laid by such teams as the Canton Bulldogs and the Hammond Clabbys, teams born out of civic pride and the enthusiasm of the blue-collar crowds who found, in the rough pleasure of the football field, the gritty equivalent of their own lives, a game they could cheer on Sunday afternoons, their only day free from work.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
With today's multimillion-dollar player contracts and equally grandiose sponsorship deals in football, it's hard to imagine the game's modest beginnings. This book is a detailed chronicle of the start of semi-professional football, focusing on the period from 1915 to 1917. During these three seasons, players were paid for the first time; fans were charged admission; teams were sponsored (often by railroad companies) and newspaper coverage of games became more significant. Many of these early football teams became members of the National Football League, particularly where there was strong community support and interest. Not surprisingly, rivalry between neighboring cities and teams was fairly common. This book is a very precise description of the players, managers and atmosphere with the occasional interesting vignette, such as when one team refused to get on the field because the opposition had a black player. However, the play-by-play accounts of some games and details about the team schedules are just boring. Also, much of the early history takes place in the Midwest and is associated mostly with college teams, which further limits the book's appeal. Today's fans simply accept the existence of the game and probably aren't curious enough to read a play-by-play of games from 80 years ago.
