Book Review

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Book Review | The Journal of American History, 86.3 | The History Cooperative

The Sunday Game: At the Dawn of Professional Football. by Keith McClellan. (Akron: University of Akron Press, 1998. xii, 503 pp. Cloth, $39.95, isbn 1-884836-35-6. Paper, $19.95, isbn 1-884836-36-4.)

Sports and the American Jew. Ed. by Steven A. Riess. (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1998. xviii, 337 pp. Cloth, $49.95, isbn 0-8156-2754-8. Paper, $24.95, isbn 0-8156-2761-0.)

Frequently titles can be accurate barometers and harbingers of positive things to come in a book. Certainly Keith McClellan's The Sunday Game: At the Dawn of Professional Football offers much in this regard but fails to fulfill its enticing title. Although the first three chapters attempt to provide a synthesis and background and include such insights as how professional football became more popular among blue-collar workers in the Midwest, where college football was not even a realistic dream; that rivalries grew between neighboring towns as the football teams came to represent the superiority of those towns; that although teams developed for a variety of reasons, such as former college players wanting to continue to play their sport and Catholic parishes and sometimes railroad companies provided teams, most teams formed because of "community boosterism." Though accurate, these are not novel perceptions. Other than a brief chapter on opposition to pro football, another brief one on racism, and three brief ones at the end that deal with preparing young men for the future, their role as heroes, and the financing of the franchising, the rest the book is a chronicle of individual early professional football sports franchises. 1

The author has culled numerous newspapers and archives and has provided some valuable information on his subject including rosters and schedules for the years 1915-1917; however, its appeal will be basically to professional sports buffs and as an encyclopedic reference. . . .

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