Once They Heard the Cheers

by W.C. Heinz

Book Overview

Noted & fine sportswriter travels the US seeking out athletes he covered during their prime. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385126093
• ISBN13: 9780385126090
• Release Date: January 1979
• Publisher: Doubleday Books
• Length: 489 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Yesterday's Cheers Have a Very Short Echo - Izzy Grove, boxer

I saw W.C. Heinz's obituary in the New York Times in February 2008. Up until that point, I had never heard of Heinz. I was happy to find Once They Heard the Cheers while combing the shelves of a used bookstore in New Orleans' French Quarter. I believe that sports fans will enjoy reading Heinz's Once. During the mid-1970s, Heinz set out to reconnect with some of the athletes he had covered as a sports reporter in the 1940s and 1950s. Heinz wanted to learn what had become of those athletes after their playing days were over. The result is Once They Heard the Cheers. There are many great aspects of Once. One of the best is Heinz's skill as a writer. In almost 500 pages, Heinz keeps the reader engaged. Heinz adopts the "New Journalism" style of placing himself in the story as he tracks down and interviews each of his subjects. He follows the old advice "Show, don't tell"; that is, he avoids "preaching" and allows each of his interviewees to reveal himself through his words. I particularly enjoyed learning about many athletes with whom I was unfamiliar; the melancholy portraits of Brooklyn Dodger Joe Page and boxer Beau Jack will stick with me. Once might not be for everyone. Of the 19 profiles in the book, 13 of them focus on boxers; those who are not interested in reading about boxing might want to look for another book. Also, Once opens with a 40-page section detailing Heinz's experiences as a war correspondent during World War II; the section is good and I believe that Heinz means to tell his readers how he came to work as a sports reporter after the War. I thought that this section was overly long and that it did not "mesh" well with the rest of the book. Of Once, Heinz remarks "My battle would be the same battle it has been for all the years, to try to put it all down - the way it looked and how they looked and what they said and how they said it - and to try to get it as right as I could get it in this book" (page 489). Heinz succeeded. Thirty years after Once's publication, it may take some effort to find it; if you are a sports fan, the effort will be worthwhile.