This book is prefect for the person who wants to relive or share the great sporting events of the 20th century. Costas as always does a great job in setting up the event in which we as fans can appreciate when hearing the events unfold. It is a great book for every generation to greater understand and appreciate what the sports world has to offer in terms of excitement and how it affected our lives. I would recommend this book to any true lover of sports.

I am 27, so the actual amount of major sports moments I have seen and heard live is limited. Getting this book, and listening to the moments helped me get a better feel not only for the events, but the time they took place in. You can learn a lot by just listening. My father scanned the table of contents, and said that he had seen or heard fully half of these moments live, and he enjoyed reliving moments of his past.

I enjoyed this set more than the previous title for the mere fact that Bob Costas yaps for far less time than Bill Kurtis on most of the tracks. Costas is, for the most part, concise and sets up very well the moment about to be heard. Bill Kurtis tended to ramble on longer than the news clip on "We Interrupt This Broadcast..." Overall, I really enjoyed these moments, especially as I am too young to remember over 3/4ths of them =), you can still get a tingle hearing the call on the Cal-Stanford game, Wilt's 100th point, etc.

I loved the book. I have two comments though. Eric Heiden's Olympic accomplishments in skating should have been included instead of the Bobby Riggs/Billie Jean King PR stunt. Also on page 49 there is an incorrect photo of the Ice Bowl game between Green Bay and Dallas. The picture of Bart Starr throwing a pass is not from the famed frozen tundra game. If you look at the crowd in the background, no one is wearing -46 degree weather clothing. In fact there is even one guy in the front row with his coat open. This photo also looks like a night game; I believe the Ice Bowl was played during the day. Other than those two things the book was great.

The CDs are the only reason to buy this book. HEARING the broadcasts of celebrated sports events can't be compared to reading about them. The written word didn't draw out nearly as much emotion as the CDs.

CLICK To Order

And The Crowd Goes Wild

Author: Joe Garner.
Pages: 179.
Published: December 15, 2000.
Publisher: Sourcebooks Trade.

ISBN: 1570714606.

Baseball Book Shelf: And The Crowd Goes Wild