The Chicago Sports Reader

A celebration of the fast, the strong, the agile, and the tricky throughout Chicago's storied sports history

This study uses sociological and historical methodologies to analyze the role of sport in the formation of urban identity in Chicago. The author traces the transformation of Chicago from a frontier town to a commercial behemoth, examining its role as an immigration, transportation, and entertainment hub. The author argues that, as a pioneering leader in American sport history, Chicago allowed teams and athletes to forge a unique national and global identity. This thorough and well-researched study makes a major contribution to debates on the social and psychological functions of sport culture.

The only anthology available documenting 100 years of women in American sports

Chicago sports teams have put their fans through hell at times, but that’s only part of the story. Chicago: America’s Best Sports Town recounts the athletes, coaches, triumphs, and heartbreaks that have kept fans coming back for more.

New from the Bathroom Reader: a grand slam, hole-in-one, hat trick collection of sports lore and trivia. Hey, sports fans: Sports Spectacular is bigger and better than ever! The not-so-dumb jocks at the BRI have packed in all the best sports and games articles from the wildly successful Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader series--and then bulked the whole thing up with more than 50 fan-tastic new pages. So place the ball on the tee, square up to the basket, and make sure your laces are laced tight, because it’s time to throw the dice through the goalposts for a home run! You’ll feel the thrill of victory and laugh at the agony of defeat as you read about… * The origins of all the major sports (and a bunch of minor ones) * Classic games, from poker and pinball to Monopoly and Donkey Kong * How to play bathroom blackjack * The world’s worst matador * The Goodyear Blimp * Mascots gone wild * Olympic scandals * NASCAR’s illegal origins * Dodging the cow pies when you play pasture golf * Finnish wife-carrying, gerbil racing, flagpole sitting, and other bizarre sports And much, much more!

Why We Root: Mad Obsessions of a Chicago Sports Fan is a collection of Jack M Silverstein's sportswriting, including pieces from 1999 to 2023 that reveal the sports-fan mindset and show readers why we root for our teams. This collection of eighty-one articles is organized based on a fan's emotional journey—from learning the game, to knowing the game, to emotional heartbreak, and eventually to celebrating championships. Included in the book are Silverstein's real-time articles on many of the best known Chicago sports events of the early 21st century, including: the White Sox, Blackhawks, and Cubs breaking winning their first championships after massive droughts; the Bears reaching, and losing, the Super Bowl; the rise and fall of saviors-to-be Derrick Rose and Jay Cutler; the Chicago Sky winning the 2021 WNBA championship; the Blackhawks' famed "17 seconds" championship; the Bears' agonizing "double doink"; and the Cubs' horrific Bartman game, retold from multiple perspectives in multiple years, including ten years later by pitcher Mark Prior and catcher Paul Bako. Also included are Silverstein's look back at the Bulls-Pistons rivalry of the 1990s, the 1995 Northwestern Wildcats Rose Bowl team, and Michael Jordan's flu game.

Provides practical help for the day-to-day concerns that keep managers awake at night. This book aims to fill the gap between the legal and policy issues that are the mainstay of human resources and supervision courses and the real-world needs of managers as they attempt to cope with the human side of their jobs.

Chicago may seem a surprising choice for studying thoroughbred racing, especially since it was originally a famous harness racing town and did not get heavily into thoroughbred racing until the 1880s. However, Chicago in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was second only to New York as a center of both thoroughbred racing and off-track gambling. Horse Racing the Chicago Way shines a light on this fascinating, complicated history, exploring the role of political influence and class in the rise and fall of thoroughbred racing; the business of racing; the cultural and social significance of racing; and the impact widespread opposition to gambling in Illinois had on the sport. Riess also draws attention to the nexus that existed between horse racing, politics, and syndicate crime, as well as the emergence of neighborhood bookmaking, and the role of the national racing wire in Chicago. Taking readers from the grandstands of Chicago’s finest tracks to the underworld of crime syndicates and downtown poolrooms, Riess brings to life this understudied era of sports history.