Reviews for Missouri Bingo Biography Edition

The average rating for Missouri Bingo Biography Edition based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-04-23 00:00:00 Donald Clark Solid sports bio. Namath's people came to America in the early 1900s from Hungary and settled in Beaver Falls, PA. (The Hungarian name Nemet became Namath.) His father worked hard at the local steel mill. Joe was the youngest of four sons and an adopted daughter and they all lived in a working class neighborhood. Joe was a natural athlete with great hand-eye coordination and he excelled at baseball, basketball and football. He also had massive hands which contributed to his ball handling abilities. His HS football coach was an excellent teacher and taught him the fundamentals of QBing. Joe was a bit of a hustler, hung out at the local pool hall and was not much of a student. A HS girlfriend did much of his homework. His SAT scores were low and not good enough for most colleges. (I'm surprised no one took the test for him.) His grades and test scores were not good enough for Maryland so he headed south to Alabama and came under the tutelage of Bear Bryant. As different as they were they actually had a good relationship. He had three great years at Alabama that ended with a heroic effort in the 1965 Orange Bowl, a 21-17 loss to TX. Four yrs later he would return to the Orange Bowl and his New York Jets team would upset the heavily favored Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl 3 (perhaps the most famous of all Super Bowls). The following yr he played in his final playoff game. He lost more NFL games than he won, he threw way more interceptions than TDs and he probably hung on a little too long. But when he was on the man could hurl a football. The strong arm with the quick release. He could also take a beating on the field and at times he did. The book covers his football career, the competition between the NFL and AFL pre-merger, Sonny Werblin (an interesting man), his drinking and womanizing, Bachelors III, Noxzema & Farrah, CC & Co, his failed marriage etc. "Baby Joey" is now 74 and I believe he currently resides down in FL. He is probably more responsible than anyone in turning pro football into show business, for better or for worse. He was one of a kind. You can't help but like the guy with his smile, charm and easy ways. 3+ stars.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-04-19 00:00:00 Thomas Frates Tremendously exhaustive and detailed look at the cocky renegade quarterback who led the Jets to victory in Super Bowl III and whose rebellious, laid-back charm perfectly epitomized the impact of the turbulent Sixties in the world of sports. Joe Namath is unique among sports legends. Like Babe Ruth or Mickey Mantle, he was adored by multitudes, many of whom had no idea how talented he was or how much suffering he endured off the playing field. But unlike Mantle and Ruth, Joe in private was actually a very different man from the hero of the public eye. The author works patiently with hundreds of friends and family members to reveal the real truth about Joe, which is far more compelling than the easy legend of endless victory, endless charm, and endless sexual conquests. Joe's image was that of an easy-going good-time guy who loved bending the rules and teasing authority figures. A whole generation of aging, alcoholic sports writers hated him for being a cocky know-it-all who "guaranteed" victory over the other team. They saw him as a creepy long-hair who undermined the values of conventional masculinity. In actual fact Joe was a very disciplined, private man who endured an enormous amount of pain and kept his emotions in check, not because he was pursuing a paycheck but because that was his understanding of what a man did. The boozed up clowns in the press box wanted an icon of Sixties decadence they could hate. (Because they could never confront their own decadence, natch!) So they invented the idea of Broadway Joe, the decadent good-looking guy who breaks the rules and sneers while he gets away with it -- just like Jamie Lannister only sexier! But the irony is that the real Joe Namath was closer to Ned Stark -- the battered warrior who refuses to back away from what he thinks is right even when his enemies are sacking him on every play. As a kid I knew Namath had bad knees and played hurt but until I read this book I had no idea what that really meant. Joe's ability to tolerate unbearable pain game after game, year after year, is impossible not to admire and even revere. At the same time, Joe's problems with alcohol become a lot easier to understand when you realize the level of sheer physical discomfort he had to live through every single day, minute, and year of his life. And when you watch him in old age, desperately trying to hustle gullible senior citizens on cable TV, you have to ask, what happened to Joe? What happened to Joe's money? He sacrificed so much and ended up like this? Why? Was it worth it? I took off one star because the book ends around 2004 and doesn't really explain what Joe has been up to the last fifteen years -- and how his money problems have driven him back onto TV in the most demeaning circumstances possible. Also, Kriegel as a writer is nothing special. His style runs to sentimental sports writer cliche, like saying Joe is "the strong silent type" or that his ability to take punishment is "in the blood." It's in the blood? Why not just put on a Hungarian accent in honor of Joe's roots, and go completely Bela Lugosi and say, "the blood IS the life, Mr. Namath!"