When the Grass Was Real: Unitas, Brown, Lombardi, Sayers, Butkus, Namath, and All the Rest: The Best Ten Years of Pro Football

by Antonella Palazzi and Bob Carroll

Book Overview

The author of The Football Abstract recalls a golden age of professional football during the 1960s, when the sport was dominated by the heroics of Namath, Meredith, Unitas, Hornung, and Lombardi. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 067173301X
• ISBN13: 9780671733018
• Release Date: January 1993
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 302 Pages
• Weight: 1.74 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 7.6" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Nice history lesson

This is a nice chronological encapsulation of the ten pro football seasons from 1960 through 1969. It's not terribly in-depth, but that didn't seem to be the author's intention.Each of the ten seasons are summarized (both NFL and AFL), and at the end of the book is a nice table of year-by-year standings, playoff results and all-pro teams for both leagues. The player interviews at the end of each chapter are interesting, too.Unlike the earlier reviewer, the book includes some tidbits that were new to me, such as the 1964 death of Bears star running back Willie Gallimore in an auto accident, and the "missing fourth down" that cost the Rams a chance to pull out a last-second victory late in the 1968 season.I didn't care for the frequent smart-aleck side comments made by the author to drive home his points; they are distracting. But overall it's a pretty good review of the ten seasons during which pro football grew from playing second fiddle to baseball (in terms of popularity), to far and away the nation's most popular sport.It's a good history lesson for fans that want to learn more about professional football in the 1960s.

I want to get out my old football cards!

If you are in your 40's and loved pro football as a kid in the 1960's, then this is the book to read! It brought back so many wonderful childhood memories of the NFL and AFL that I wanted to weep. I remember some of these game in the 60's better than I do games of a couple years ago. And the author provides much insight into the players and games that I was never aware of.The early struggles of the AFL are particularly interesting to read about. As I watch the often boring world of the NFL today, I yearn for when pro football was a much more simple game. This book satisfies that longing.