“Perhaps, by setting down my daily thoughts and observations,” he wrote, “I’ll be able to understand precisely what it is that draws me back to professional football.” Working with the renowned journalist Dick Schaap, Kramer recorded his day-to-day experiences as a player with perception, honesty, humor, and startling sensitivity. Little did Kramer know that the 1967 season would be one of the most remarkable in the history of pro football, culminating with the legendary championship game against Dallas now known as the “Ice Bowl,” in which Kramer would play a central role. Nor could he have anticipated that his diary would evolve into a book titled Instant Replay, first published in 1968, that would become a multimillion-copy bestseller and be celebrated by reviewers everywhere, including the Washington Post’s Jonathan Yardley, who calls it “to this day, the best inside account of pro football, indeed the best book ever written about that sport and that league.”This groundbreaking look inside the world of professional football is one of the first books ever to take readers into the locker room and reveal the inner workings of a professional sports franchise. From training camp, through the historic Ice Bowl, then into the locker room of Super Bowl II, Kramer provides a captivating player’s perspective on pro football when the game was all blood, grit, and tears. He also offers a rare and insightful view of the team’s storied leader, Coach Vince Lombardi. Bringing the book back into print for the first time in more than a decade, this new edition of Instant Replay retains the classic look of the original and includes a foreword by Jonathan Yardley and additional rarely seen photos from the celebrated “Lombardi era.” As vivid and engaging as it was when it was first published, Instant Replay is an irreplaceable reminder of the glory days of pro football.

    This definitive, magisterial study of football and society profiles includes interviews with all-time greats like Bobby Charlton, George Best, Alf Ramsay, Stanley Matthews, Matt Busby and Nat Lofthouse. It is a snapshot of a pivotal era in sporting history; changes and decisions were made in the sixties that would create the game we know today.

    

    Collection of baseball stories, drawings and cartoons.

    Through twenty best-selling years, Ainslie's Complete Guide to Thoroughbred Racing has taught generations of racing fans how to become expert handicappers and pick winners at the track consistently. Now, in this all-new third edition, Ainslie turns his celebrated wit, clarity and no-nonsense realism to the latest trends and changes in thoroughbred racing.He shows how any handicapper - whether neophyte or veteran - can improve results by taking advantage of new technology like instant video replays of races, computerized pre-race displays of probably pari-mutual prices and increasingly detailed Daily Racing Form past-performance records.Ainslie warns you against the oversimplified home computer handicapping programs and explains how tenient anti-drugging regulations and lax enforcement have changed the sport. As always, Ainslie doesn't just give the rules of handicapping; he explains how the various components of expert handicapping relate to one another. And he emphasizes that it is less important to know all the rules of handicapping than it is to understand the principles from which they derive. This third edition also contains some classic Ainslie features.