Tigers by the River

Informative, insightful and engaging. This book is a must read for every football fanatic. I loved it and would recommend it to everyone

Professional football has a long, but somewhat unusual history in the US. For many years, not only was it a weak competitor to professional baseball, but couldn’t even manage to outdraw college=or even high school- football. The Memphis Tigers were a professional team, and this book tracks their history from their founding through the years of the Great Depression. Along the way, Wylie Graham McLallen gives us not only a view of early pro football, but also a nice cross-sectional look at life in the American heartland.

=== The Good Stuff ===

* In many ways, the game was already taking on some of its familiar aspects. You can see the rise of the forward pass and more high-scoring offenses, but also the development of league play, competitive bidding of player salaries, “luxury” box seating, egotistical owners and the occasional scandal.

* I enjoyed reading of professional football when it was a much more informal game. Teams were scheduled on short notice, player rosters made up at the last minute, games often cancelled because the opposing team got a better offer, or the World Series was underway, or a particularly good high-school football game was scheduled. Players were not full-time professional athletes, and might be found bagging groceries, building houses or selling cars during the week or off-season.

* The book touches on some characters who would become famous in football history. The Memphis Tigers cross paths with the likes of George Halas, Bronco Nagurski and Curly Lambeau, and we see these men begin to develop the NFL out of the chaos of early pro and semi-pro football.

* McLallen spends part of the book describing how football mixes in with Depression-era America. The team fights to draw attendance, and one game draws 48 fans at 85 cents each. Meanwhile Notre Dame and Army drew over 80,000 fans to a single game in Yankee Stadium. The book also discusses early efforts at using “civic pride” to finance a sports team, as grocers and department stores sponsor and support the loses of the Tigers over the years.


=== The Not-So-Good Stuff ===

* Much of the book is made up of game summaries. While these do give a flavor for how the game was played, they take up quite a bit of the book, involve many players that I had never heard of, and just sort of run together in a forgettable “three yards and a cloud of dust”.

* There is little of the “big picture”. The reader is left to his own devices to make any connections between modern football and its roots, and there is not much discussion of the business or marketing strategy behind the game. In short, much of the book is a recitation of events rather than any sort of analysis or conclusions.

* The book could have been improved by adding more historical context. For example, there is much discussion of ticket prices and player salaries, but precious little to compare it to. How much did a movie ticket cost in Memphis in 1935? Or what was the salary of a pro baseball player? Or a stock clerk?


=== Summary ===

The book was fine for what it was, but I found myself wanting more of a high-level discussion of what was happening, both in the development of organized sports and in the country in general. Parts of the book that dealt with the specifics of game play were interesting, but too much of this content was indistinguishable and did not lead to any obvious conclusions. The discussion of life in depression-era Memphis was certainly interesting, and could have been expanded.

I suppose hard-core sports fans would be interested in the book, but I believe more casual fans of the game would grow bored with the level of detail and lack of analysis and high-level discussion.