It's Not Over 'Til It's Over
The Stories Behind Most Magnificent Heart-Stopping Sports Miracles of Our Time
Published on 15. May 2019
320 pages
978-1-4683-0431-2 (ISBN)
Description
Find inspiration in these "enjoyable" accounts of historic last-minute victories-both legendary and little-known-in the world of sports (
Booklist).
From a former editor of Sport magazine, this book is a journey through a century of athletic endeavor, from baseball to boxing and beyond-filled with true stories that remind us of some of the qualities that can help to create a champion: perseverance, determination, and hope.
"Re-creations of 13 dramatic sports events from the 20th century... While Silverman has chosen to profile a handful of well-documented events, such as New York Giant Bobby Thompson's 1951 home run at the Polo Grounds, the first Ali-Frazier prizefight in 1971 and the 1980 US hockey team's Olympic victory over the Russians, the real value of the book lies in his depiction of such obscure or neglected events as the 1923 boxing match between Argentine Luis Firpo and American Jack Dempsey, and the 1968 Harvard-Yale football game... The best piece follows an unknown Native American Marine from Kansas who shocked himself and the world by winning the 10,000-meter road race at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics... He often tracks down and interviews event participants to provide perspective from both the victor and the vanquished." - Publishers Weekly
From a former editor of Sport magazine, this book is a journey through a century of athletic endeavor, from baseball to boxing and beyond-filled with true stories that remind us of some of the qualities that can help to create a champion: perseverance, determination, and hope.
"Re-creations of 13 dramatic sports events from the 20th century... While Silverman has chosen to profile a handful of well-documented events, such as New York Giant Bobby Thompson's 1951 home run at the Polo Grounds, the first Ali-Frazier prizefight in 1971 and the 1980 US hockey team's Olympic victory over the Russians, the real value of the book lies in his depiction of such obscure or neglected events as the 1923 boxing match between Argentine Luis Firpo and American Jack Dempsey, and the 1968 Harvard-Yale football game... The best piece follows an unknown Native American Marine from Kansas who shocked himself and the world by winning the 10,000-meter road race at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics... He often tracks down and interviews event participants to provide perspective from both the victor and the vanquished." - Publishers Weekly
More details
Person
Al Silverman (1926-2019) was the author of ten books, including
The Time of Their Lives,
My Life Is Baseball (cowritten with Frank Robinson), and
I Am Third (cowritten with Gale Sayers), which was adapted into the acclaimed television movie,
Brian's Song. Over the course of his forty-year career in publishing, Silverman served as chief editor of
Sport magazine, president of the Book-of-the-Month Club, and publisher of Viking Press, where he edited works by Saul Bellow, T. C. Boyle, William Kennedy, and Robertson Davies. He lived with his wife, Rosa, in New York City.
Content
- Intro
- Copyright
- Contents
- Dedication
- Introduction
- One: 1908 Merkle Forever
- Two: 1923 The Battle of the Century
- Three: 1937 A Supreme Day for Tennis
- Four: 1951 The Most Theatrical Home Run
- Five: 1958 Sudden Death
- Six: 1960 Head on, the Generations Collide
- Seven: 1964 Chosen by the Gods
- Eight: 1968 The Game of Games
- Nine: 1971 They Left It on the Table
- Ten: 1975 Body English
- Eleven: 1980 Do you Believe in Miracles?
- Twelve: 1992 Weep no More, My Lady
- Thirteen: 1999 Awesome!
- Acknowledgments
- Notes
- List of Illustrations
