Sports Biblio Digest, 12.16.18: The Unlikely Dynasty of the New England Patriots
News, Views and Reviews About Sports Books, History and Culture
Also In This Issue: Harold Baines and the Baseball Hall of Fame; Baseball’s TV Problem; Negro Leagues Bobbleheads; Fox and the NFL; George Foreman; Charles Barkley; Soccer During the Spanish Civil War; English Football Club Badges; Game-Day NBA Art; NASL Archival Film; Confessions of a Running Addict; Remembering Bill Fralic
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The most successful NFL team of the 21st century—and arguably the best North American sports franchise in that time—spent much of its previous history flopping around in incompetence and failure, plagued by poor front office leadership that was often reflected on the field.
Operating in a part of the country where pro football had never quite taken off, the Boston Patriots could be a hard team for locals to love, in spite of early heroes like Gino Cappelletti.
After moving out of the city and being renamed the New England Patriots, and winning five Super Bowls, they have become the subject of national derision due to how they became so competitively dominant.
As the dynasty crafted by coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady continues in its twilight phase, putting together the whole of that history has been the subject of recent book treatment.
As the current season unfolded, New England sports authors Glenn Stout and Richard Johnson published “The Pats” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), which looks like a coffee table delight but contains serious and critical historical analysis. Their seventh collaborative sports books is geared not only toward the team’s diehard fans, but also will appeal to those interested the long tail of an unusual club story.
Sprinkled through the lavishly illustrated, 365-page text are essays from noted New England sports journalists, including Leigh Montville, Lesley Visser, Howard Bryant and Ron Borges, as well as a cameo from the late George Plimpton.
Like Jerry Thornton’s earlier 2018 book “From Darkness to Dynasty,” “The Pats” is anchored in the Patriots’ early history in the American Football League, when they were founded by the bumbling, enigmatic sports entrepreneur Billy Sullivan. Dubbed “equal parts Knute Rockne and Mel Brooks,” Sullivan left an indelible imprint on the history of the Patriots, who required many years to overcome his sometimes dubious shadow.
What plagued him and his team the most was his inability to find a permanent stadium in Boston, even after the Patriots were incorporated into the NFL. Not only did Boston plummet to the bottom of the standings after the merger, but Sullivan’s civic efforts to find a home failed utterly, as Johnson and Stout write:
“Sullivan became Charlie Brown and the stadium the football, with local and state government sharing the role of playing Lucy . . . Everywhere else, local governments were falling all over themselves to build ballparks and stadiums. Not in Boston.”
As the 1970s dawned, the Patriots headed for the exurbs, drawn to an old harness racing track in Foxborough, halfway to Providence. A stadium was quickly and cheaply constructed, setting up instant disasters. Terrible traffic and backed-up toilets greeted fans at the first game at Schaefer Stadium.
Upton Bell, the team’s general manager at the time and the son of the late NFL commissioner Bert Bell, wrote in a special essay for "The Pats:"
“All I could think of as I watched the traffic crawl down Route 1 was that, unbeknownst to drivers, they were crossing into the River Styx into Dante’s Inferno. Only Mel Gibson’s Road Warriors could survive the night to come.”
The product on the field was even more dreadful. The club wasted the talents of Jim Plunkett, who was traded to Oakland, as well as former rookie of the year running back Carl Garrett. Chuck Fairbanks left the college coaching ranks to give the Patriots some respectability during the 1970s, but he didn’t stay there long.
He forged a roster featuring future Hall of Famer John Hannah, running back Sam Cunningham and tight end Russ Francis, but Fairbanks was aloof to all in the organization. He returned to the college game, and the Patriots struggled after that, as Sullivan’s next moves led to his eventual removal as owner.
When they finally reached the Super Bowl after the 1985 season, the Patriots proved no match for a Chicago Bears team considered by some the greatest in NFL history. The ownership of razor magnate Victor Kiam was marked by mediocrity on the field and scandal in the locker room, as he got embroiled in a controversy involving a player’s treatment of a female sportswriter, Lisa Olson, who moved to Australia to flee harassing fans.
Kiam did bring in Bill Parcells to push the Patriots into the NFL’s elite to stay, but Robert Kraft pushed Parcells out the door in a bitter departure that also looms over the franchise’s troubles. Kraft’s early stewardship also proved lacking, as he arranged to move the team to Hartford in the late 1990s. When that deal fell through on the Connecticut end, he got a new stadium to stay in Foxborough.
Enter Belichick and Brady, a sixth-round draft pick who got a chance to play as a rookie due to an injury to Drew Bledsoe. The rest, as is often said, is history. While Bledsoe came off the bench to cap the Patriots' first Super Bowl win, the franchise had been forever redefined by the coach and young upstart quarterback.
“The Pats” heavily details what came after that, including the Spygate and Deflategate controversies. A Fort Knox-like clubhouse culture established by Belichick is unsparing. The authors quote former player Ted Johnson, who said his coach “doesn’t have an emotional attachment to his players."
While that approach yielded many benefits, it left others cold. Nothing got in the way of winning. When tight end Aaron Hernandez was arrested and later convicted of murder, the Patriots organization said nothing publicly, but as the authors note, they weren’t pressed into it all that much:
“The local press, too, mostly gave the Patriots, their owner and their coach a pass when it came to Hernandez, but that kind of deference was becoming the norm in regard to professional sports almost everywhere.
“Belichick and Kraft simply don’t have to face anywhere near the same direct media pressure as their predecessors, a change that has served both men and their team well.”
As Deflategate unfolded, the national media feeding frenzy took over, leading to a million-dollar fine, the loss of draft picks and a four-game suspension that Brady appealed, but ended up serving.
On the other side of that came one of the more incredible games in NFL history in Super Bowl LI, as the Patriots overcame a 28-3 deficit in the fourth quarter to defeat the Atlanta Falcons in overtime.
They couldn’t repeat last year against the Philadelphia Eagles. But at 41, Brady’s place in history is concrete, as his career nears its end: eight Super Bowl appearances in 18 seasons, the most ever, and five wins, eclipsing the four each won by Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw.
While non-Patriots fans will probably have to come up with new ways to find them unlikable, those who have kept the faith, many for several decades, have been richly rewarded. As Stout and Johnson conclude:
“Since 1960, the fans have been the only constant in this franchise, no matter who has owned the team, or played on the field. They are the true legacy of the Patriots, which at its heart is all about loving something enough to care what happens, no matter what happens. You’re either in or out, win or lose, and longtime fans know that.”
Cooperstown, Etc.
After the election of Harold Baines this week by the Baseball Hall of Fame Veterans Committee, Joe Posnanski was among the many wondering what the standards are for getting into Cooperstown. His long piece is really more about the broken selection process from the outset, and his comparison point regarding Baines is Bill Mazeroski. The veterans committee on occasion has been choosing players that barely draw any muster with the writers, including Baines, and at times has rightfully chosen players the writers have missed. Lately it’s been complicated by the so-called Steroids Era:
“The Hall will not let Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens get elected. It won’t happen. Not now. . . . The Hall has to look out for itself. My guess is if Bonds and Clemens get close, the rules will change. The voting will get taken away. Whatever is necessary.”
Also on Baines, Jon Heyman writes that while that while “it’s debatable whether he merits inclusion” in Cooperstown, criticism of his election has been much too much. Heyman talks to Jack Morris and Dave Stewart, who say Baines had Hall of Fame numbers off them;
Coming off the Major League Baseball winter meetings this week, sports media historian Curt Smith has some concrete ideas for how the game can reverse falling ratings, pull in a younger generation of viewers and by all means, start post-season games earlier for nighttime starts:
“If America could storm Normandy, split the atom and reach the moon, baseball can enforce laws presently written. Uphold the strike zone, keep a batter in the box, and ensure an bases-empty pitch every 20 seconds. . . . As culture turns less patient, pray God, let baseball be less inert.”
One such change has already been announced: ESPN said this week it is moving up the start time of its “Sunday Night Baseball” game to 7 p.m. Eastern time;
The Library of Congress has transcribed Branch Rickey’s scouting reports, and it’s asking for the public to have a gander and offer feedback;
More from the LOC, a collection of baseball-related newspaper clippings from the World War I era, spanning the years 1914-26;
The Negro Leagues Museum in Kansas City is creating bobbleheads of 30 former stars as the league approaches its centennial, leading off with a Satchel Paige likeness. Proceeds from the limited-edition series will benefit players’ families and the museum, with a goal of raising $10,000 by early January.
Sports Book News
A new reference book about Baseball Hall of Fame autographs is reviewed at the U.S. Sport History blog, and the author offers from friendly cautionary wisdom to those new to the autograph-seeking scene.
Peter Sagal, host of NPR’s quiz show “Wait Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me,” began running and taking up marathons as a teenager, and not always for the most positive of reasons. He’s written about his obsession in “The Incomplete Book of Running,” and it’s getting a number of reviews, including The Washington Post and The New York Times.
A Few Good Reads
One of the best things you’ll read for a while, about how Charles Barkley befriended an Iowa cat litter scientist (no, really) at a hotel bar and later eulogized his friend, as explained by the man’s daughter;
At The Japan Times, Ed Odeven has penned a three-part series on George Foreman’s post-boxing career;
Bryan Curtis of The Ringer conducts an oral history of the impact of Fox and its airing of NFL games with many league and broadcast luminaries;
During the Spanish Civil War, the Mediterranean League was formed by soccer clubs loyal to the Republican cause. A sports collectible enthusiast recently presented a pennant from the 1937 tournament to officials at FC Barcelona, who have included it in their museum as a rare artifact from that short-lived stab at athletic independence;
More from Spanish soccer, a history of Estadio Metropolitano, the long-standing home ground for Atletico Madrid;
Football club badges in England are the subject of a new bood, “The Beautiful Badge,” and that has gotten a review from the Football Book Reviews blog;
There’s an amateur soccer club near Florence called Centro Storico Lebowski (no, really), an alternative to big-time sports and that just earned promotion to the Italian sixth tier and takes its community ties seriously;
While civil war raged in his homeland, Chevy Vithiananthan, who emigrated to America from Sri Lanka, found a comforting connection to his Tamil roots by taking up cricket as he had known and enjoyed it as a boy;
How a female sportswriter went from covering to coaching football;
How an astrophysicist unravelled a baseball mystery, the effect of laces on the ball that contributed to a surge in home runs and blisters on pitchers’ fingers;
Some former NBA dancers are alleging a litany of abusive treatment by teams, including measures that led to eating disorders as well as low pay. Not surprisingly, some have filed lawsuits, and a few spoke extensively to Yahoo! Lifestyle.
Now Hear This
Dave Brett Wasser is a dedicated archivist of North American Soccer League game footage, having collected film from more than 450 games. At Good Seats Still Available, he discusses why he does what he does.
More Sports Art and Memorabilia
Go to a Portland Trail Blazers home game early, and you can get a chance for special game-day posters designed by local artists that have become some of the hottest sports collectibles in the Pacific Northwest. Only 110 are printed for each game, and cost $12 each, with the proceeds going to the Blazers’ charitable foundation. The full story, and more poster samples, from Scott Cacciola of The New York Times;
At Fangraphs, a trading card tribute to eight baseball players who died during 2018, including Red Schoendienst and Willie McCovey.
Passings
Bill Fralic, 56, protected Dan Marino as an All-American offensive lineman at the University of Pittsburgh in such a fashion that it led to the addition of the phrase “pancake block” in football lingo. A top draft pick by the Atlanta Falcons, he was an All-Pro several times. Recently named to the inaugural class of the Pitt Athletic Hall of Fame, Fralic succumbed to cancer. After his playing days were over, he testified before Congress about his opposition to the use of steroids in sports;
John Hall, 90, wrote about sports in southern California for more than four decades at several newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, where he penned a Page 3 feature called the “Hall Truth” and specialized in coverage of USC sports and boxing. His column was a stylistic counter to Jim Murray, and as ex-LAT writer Steve Springer noted, “if Murray was Batman, John was Robin.” Hall later wrote for the Orange County Register and the San Clemente Sun Post and was a member of the World Boxing Hall of Fame and the California Hall of Fame.
My apologies for the delay in getting this newsletter to you. Some unforseen work events came up as I was putting this together. -- WP
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The Sports Biblio Digest is an e-mail newsletter delivered each Sunday. You can subscribe here and search the archives.
This is Digest issue No. 147, published Dec. 16, 2018.
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