Pats, The

Listen up, one and all: this is the book every Patriots fan has been waiting for. Glenn Stout and Richard Johnson are not merely writers of sport. They are legitimate sports historians. Big difference. It's all here, triumphs, warts and all, in exquisite detail. And it is spectacularly illustrated. You're not going to get this anywhere else. Hold all calls. we have a journalistic winner. --Bob Ryan, Boston Globe columnist emeritus and ESPN commentator From Billy Sullivan to Bill Belichick--plus everything in between--the history of the Patriots is all here--the good, the bad, the ugly, and the ridiculously great. And there's the plain ridiculous, too, like the Pats game that was won by a fan who ran onto the field in street clothes and deflected a last-second foe's pass. The writing is so vivid that even folks who loathe all things New England and couldn't tell a Gronk from a grunt will be riveted. Who knew men as varied as Boston Catholic Diocese Cardinal Richard Cushing and beat pioneer Jack Kerouac were interwoven into the Patriots complex birth? From epic stadium plumbing issues to traffic jams, from hell to perhaps the oddest head coach in NFL history--the unstable Clive Rush--this history is a page-turner as great as the Super Bowls Tom Brady has won again and again. --Rick Telander, Sports Columnist, Chicago Sun-Times, author of Heaven Is A Playground and The Hundred Yard Lie Comprehensive and both timeless and timely, this is a must-read for all hardcore Pats fans. --Chris Ballard, Senior Writer, Sports Illustrated and author of One Shot at Forever Who knew that the remorseless victory machine we know today as the New England Patriots hit so many bumps and took so many tumbles along the road to glory? Glenn Stout and Richard Johnson celebrate the team where it's due, but they also chasten and chide, and bring in another half-dozen voices to vary the perspective. The Pats is a jubilee of anecdote and unlikelihood, with character after fascinating character dropped in--a book not just for the Patriots fan, but for anyone curious about pro football, New England, and how even the most apparently hopeless franchise can build a winning culture. --Alexander Wolff, author of The Audacity of Hoop: Basketball and the Age of Obama Glenn Stout and Richard Johnson do so much more than explore the history of Boston sports. With their dazzling skill for looking beyond the box scores and scoring summaries, they whisk us back in time to old ballparks, long-ago games and the personalities who made Boston a dynamic sports town. What Stout and Johnson did for baseball with Red Sox Century they now do for football with The Pats. --Steve Buckley, Boston Herald If you're a fan of great football or just great writing, you'll love The Pats. It covers the birth of football through the Pats' wilderness years to the current dynasty -- and everything in between -- with fresh insight, bite, and humor from an All-Pro roster of writers. The story of Tom Brady's unlikely ascension to the throne alone is worth the price, but this book also serves as a prism for the game itself. As captivating as a two-minute drill. --John U. Bacon, New York Times bestselling author of Endzone For those Patriots fans who feel as if they need a little football fix to get through halftime, a lively new book that tells the origin story of the Pats may be just the thing to pass the 12-minute break in the action. --T--No Source