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City of Champions: A History of Triumph and Defeat in Detroit
The changing fortunes of Detroit, told through the lens of the city's major sporting events, by the bestselling author of Soccernomics, and a prizewinning cultural criticFrom Ty Cobb and Hank Greenberg to the Bad Boys, from Joe Louis and Gordie Howe to the Malice at the Palace, City of Champions explores the history of Detroit through the stories of its most gifted athletes and most celebrated teams, linking iconic events in the history of Motown sports to the city's shifting fortunes.
In an era when many teams have left rustbelt cities to relocate elsewhere, Detroit has held on to its franchises, and there is currently great hope in the revival of the city focused on its downtown sports complexes—but to whose benefit? Szymanski and Weineck show how the fate of the teams in Detroit's stadiums, gyms, and fields is echoed in the rise and fall of the car industry, political upheavals ushered in by the depression, World War II, the 1967 uprising, and its recent bankruptcy and renewal.
Driven by the conviction that sports not only mirror society but also have a special power to create both community and enduring narratives that help define a city's sense of self, City of Champions is a unique history of the most American of cities.
In an era when many teams have left rustbelt cities to relocate elsewhere, Detroit has held on to its franchises, and there is currently great hope in the revival of the city focused on its downtown sports complexes—but to whose benefit? Szymanski and Weineck show how the fate of the teams in Detroit's stadiums, gyms, and fields is echoed in the rise and fall of the car industry, political upheavals ushered in by the depression, World War II, the 1967 uprising, and its recent bankruptcy and renewal.
Driven by the conviction that sports not only mirror society but also have a special power to create both community and enduring narratives that help define a city's sense of self, City of Champions is a unique history of the most American of cities.
- GenresSportsNonfictionHistory
413 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 13, 2020
9 people are currently reading
1175 people want to read
About the author
Stefan Szymanski
26 books33 followersProfessor of Sport Management at the University of Michigan. I am an economist whose research is focused on the business and economics of sports, as well as their culture and history. I write books to reach a wider audience than is feasible through the peer-reviewed academic papers that have been the mainstay of my career. I also write occasionally for the Soccernomics blog and tweet from time to time from @ssz.
(source: Amazon)
(source: Amazon)
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
May 22, 2022
Packed with history that I should have known... but didn't.
June 1, 2021
I am often reminded of Italo Calvino’s fabulous novel Invisible Cities in which it gradually becomes clear that the different cities Marco Polo is describing as having encountered in his travels are all the same city, recast through different eyes, seen and experienced differently as different places. Detroit, for me, is the motor city, the spiritual and emblematic core of the US car industry and that that entails and represents. It is also Motown, the motor city recast, as Chess Records and Berry Gordy dancing in the streets while suffering a heatwave. Other than that, it is a border town (North Windsor?), a site of settler colonial engagement and conflict and a popular destination during the great migration of the descendants of the formerly enslaved to the North. But sport – it didn’t really register other than as Joe Louis’s home town and inveterate Olympic bidder, which might say more about me and fly over states than Detroit.
Stefan Szymanski and Silke-Maria Weineck’s City of Champions is a powerful corrective to this view, adding a new Detroit to my world, one where a city of conflict, dissension, inequality, disagreement and struggle (and I note that those terms describe every city) is cast through its experiences of elite sport. This is a history of baseball and basketball, football, hockey and boxing, a history of politics, economics, migration, of race and racism, urban segregation and decay, of powerful men (there are by Szymanski’s & Weineck’s admission very few women) framed by moments in the city’s sporting life.
While about sport in Detroit, sport also becomes a site allowing much wider exploration of the city and its world – the place of the recurring Great White Saviour – the city’s men of worth who see themselves (and are often seen) as saving the city from its problems and decay, often through ownership of professional sport franchises. But it is also about the folly of seeing elite and performance sport as a means of redemption – as seen in the short but sharp exploration of Formula 1 racing in the city. Szymanski and Weineck paint a subtle and complex picture of the city as a place with French roots but an Anglo-Celtic foundation as the colonial border settled down; as a place where late nineteenth century European migrants settled in the face of an emerging powerful nativism (Detroit was an area of strength for the KKK), as a stopping off point on the Underground Railway and destination of Black movement north, as a site of suburban flight and intensified urban Blackness. More recent migrants are missing (there is a brief, almost tangential reference to Mexican-Americans – which in itself might tell us a lot about sport and elite sport in particular as mechanism for urban history telling, as well as cast a potent shadow over the idea of who is in and who is out).
It is not all elite sport. Szymanski & Weineck have a good topographic feel paying attention to sport sites that are not only the big stadia and venues but also considering the local significance of sites – of the centrality of Kronk’s gym to the city’s Polish community for instance. They are also sensitive to phenomena such as the Playground movement and the progressive era’s attachment to parks and playgrounds as essential to urban health, and the health of urban residents. City design features as a significant factor in the story, as does the distinctive presence of Hamtramck as a city within the city. While not a feature of the story, the presence of the city’s citizens as audiences, supporters and less so as participants adds depth and richness to the urban sporting world constructed through this historical analysis.
Aside from introducing me to new Detroit – sporting Detroit – the book does two notable things. Szymanksi’s and Weineck’s scholarly backgrounds as economics and literature specialists respectively bring a subtle but significant inter-disciplinarity to the text, alert to both material context and representation, although I can’t help but wonder about the extent to which their status as outsiders shaped this text – not just as migrants but as European raised and trained scholars casting an anthropological eye across their chosen home.
The second notable thing is that they tell the story backwards. There is an introduction grounded in early 2020 and epilogue in a conjectured 2035, but otherwise the narrative works backwards in fairly short chapters (9-20 pages) from 2017 to 1859 with a final leap back to 1763 and ‘Pontiac’s War’. I’m not entirely sure of what to make of this: it crafts quite a present oriented narrative – we know where we finish up, but also avoids a tendency to nostalgia that is disturbingly common even in the most sceptical among us. In places there is an explicit anticipation of earlier events (of the ‘we’ll discuss this in Chapter XX’ kind), while recurring themes and occasionally people mean that aspects of the present are subtly and carefully historicised. As intriguing as this approach is, it gave me a sense of a fairly disjointed narrative – at least at the outset, which might also be an effect of short chapters – although as events unfolded a stronger sense of why and what became stronger and more settled, but it took a while.
The episodic character of the text is related to this structure, and this works well as a form of rich contextualisation. Each chapter starts with a moment or event spiralling out to its sporting, urban, economic and social frames before being narrowed back to a link to the next chapter and precedent – although at times that link is more circumstantial or tenuous than explicit.
All this adds up to an engaging narrative, although one that may unsettle some readers, while also (despite knowing where we finish up) remaining open – which might also be a consequence of the fairly short chapters restricting deep exploration. I have a sense that there is a lot more to tell here – both about the city and its sport.
Stefan Szymanski and Silke-Maria Weineck’s City of Champions is a powerful corrective to this view, adding a new Detroit to my world, one where a city of conflict, dissension, inequality, disagreement and struggle (and I note that those terms describe every city) is cast through its experiences of elite sport. This is a history of baseball and basketball, football, hockey and boxing, a history of politics, economics, migration, of race and racism, urban segregation and decay, of powerful men (there are by Szymanski’s & Weineck’s admission very few women) framed by moments in the city’s sporting life.
While about sport in Detroit, sport also becomes a site allowing much wider exploration of the city and its world – the place of the recurring Great White Saviour – the city’s men of worth who see themselves (and are often seen) as saving the city from its problems and decay, often through ownership of professional sport franchises. But it is also about the folly of seeing elite and performance sport as a means of redemption – as seen in the short but sharp exploration of Formula 1 racing in the city. Szymanski and Weineck paint a subtle and complex picture of the city as a place with French roots but an Anglo-Celtic foundation as the colonial border settled down; as a place where late nineteenth century European migrants settled in the face of an emerging powerful nativism (Detroit was an area of strength for the KKK), as a stopping off point on the Underground Railway and destination of Black movement north, as a site of suburban flight and intensified urban Blackness. More recent migrants are missing (there is a brief, almost tangential reference to Mexican-Americans – which in itself might tell us a lot about sport and elite sport in particular as mechanism for urban history telling, as well as cast a potent shadow over the idea of who is in and who is out).
It is not all elite sport. Szymanski & Weineck have a good topographic feel paying attention to sport sites that are not only the big stadia and venues but also considering the local significance of sites – of the centrality of Kronk’s gym to the city’s Polish community for instance. They are also sensitive to phenomena such as the Playground movement and the progressive era’s attachment to parks and playgrounds as essential to urban health, and the health of urban residents. City design features as a significant factor in the story, as does the distinctive presence of Hamtramck as a city within the city. While not a feature of the story, the presence of the city’s citizens as audiences, supporters and less so as participants adds depth and richness to the urban sporting world constructed through this historical analysis.
Aside from introducing me to new Detroit – sporting Detroit – the book does two notable things. Szymanksi’s and Weineck’s scholarly backgrounds as economics and literature specialists respectively bring a subtle but significant inter-disciplinarity to the text, alert to both material context and representation, although I can’t help but wonder about the extent to which their status as outsiders shaped this text – not just as migrants but as European raised and trained scholars casting an anthropological eye across their chosen home.
The second notable thing is that they tell the story backwards. There is an introduction grounded in early 2020 and epilogue in a conjectured 2035, but otherwise the narrative works backwards in fairly short chapters (9-20 pages) from 2017 to 1859 with a final leap back to 1763 and ‘Pontiac’s War’. I’m not entirely sure of what to make of this: it crafts quite a present oriented narrative – we know where we finish up, but also avoids a tendency to nostalgia that is disturbingly common even in the most sceptical among us. In places there is an explicit anticipation of earlier events (of the ‘we’ll discuss this in Chapter XX’ kind), while recurring themes and occasionally people mean that aspects of the present are subtly and carefully historicised. As intriguing as this approach is, it gave me a sense of a fairly disjointed narrative – at least at the outset, which might also be an effect of short chapters – although as events unfolded a stronger sense of why and what became stronger and more settled, but it took a while.
The episodic character of the text is related to this structure, and this works well as a form of rich contextualisation. Each chapter starts with a moment or event spiralling out to its sporting, urban, economic and social frames before being narrowed back to a link to the next chapter and precedent – although at times that link is more circumstantial or tenuous than explicit.
All this adds up to an engaging narrative, although one that may unsettle some readers, while also (despite knowing where we finish up) remaining open – which might also be a consequence of the fairly short chapters restricting deep exploration. I have a sense that there is a lot more to tell here – both about the city and its sport.
October 12, 2020
Detroit has a very interesting and rich history, both in sports and in political, racial and social contexts. Some of it is very uplifting, some is very unflattering but all of it is worth discussing as these two authors do in this very informing and extensive book about the connection between the city's sports and its track record for various political and social issues.
The format of the book is the first clue that this will not be a typical sports book that mingles a few political or social issues into the discussion of what happened on the field and the athletes that accomplished those feats. The book goes in reverse chronological order, starting in 2017 with the opening of the new home for the Red Wings and Pistons and goes all the way back to the 18th century when the city was settled. Through each chapter the connection between a significant sporting event and the issues of the day in Detroit are covered completely and with impeccable research.
Selection of the events was a good cross between significant events in Detroit sports history. The Pistons' "Malice at the Palace" in 2004, the Lions' last playoff victory in 1970, the Tigers' 1945 pennant in the last year when "4Fs" were the majority of major league players and Joe Louis' victory over Max Schmeling in 1936 are just a few of the major sports events involving Detroit are covered. They are complemented by events that shaped Detroit's image and explained how they tied in with the systemic racism and economic inequality that plagued the city. The 1967 riots, the struggle for union workers despite the presence of a large union (that tied in nicely with a chapter on Red Wings' star Ted Lindsey) and the fate of the automobile industry are just a small sampling of those issues in which the research and writing are even better than the sports coverage.
For readers who want to get a good picture of how intertwined sports and social issues can be within a population, this is the best source for that kind of information that one can find. Whit it wasn't a topic for which I was seeking more material, it certainly was a book that I could call an education for history in both sports and the city of Detroit.
I wish to thank The New Press for providing a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
https://sportsbookguy.blogspot.com/20...
The format of the book is the first clue that this will not be a typical sports book that mingles a few political or social issues into the discussion of what happened on the field and the athletes that accomplished those feats. The book goes in reverse chronological order, starting in 2017 with the opening of the new home for the Red Wings and Pistons and goes all the way back to the 18th century when the city was settled. Through each chapter the connection between a significant sporting event and the issues of the day in Detroit are covered completely and with impeccable research.
Selection of the events was a good cross between significant events in Detroit sports history. The Pistons' "Malice at the Palace" in 2004, the Lions' last playoff victory in 1970, the Tigers' 1945 pennant in the last year when "4Fs" were the majority of major league players and Joe Louis' victory over Max Schmeling in 1936 are just a few of the major sports events involving Detroit are covered. They are complemented by events that shaped Detroit's image and explained how they tied in with the systemic racism and economic inequality that plagued the city. The 1967 riots, the struggle for union workers despite the presence of a large union (that tied in nicely with a chapter on Red Wings' star Ted Lindsey) and the fate of the automobile industry are just a small sampling of those issues in which the research and writing are even better than the sports coverage.
For readers who want to get a good picture of how intertwined sports and social issues can be within a population, this is the best source for that kind of information that one can find. Whit it wasn't a topic for which I was seeking more material, it certainly was a book that I could call an education for history in both sports and the city of Detroit.
I wish to thank The New Press for providing a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
https://sportsbookguy.blogspot.com/20...
April 1, 2021
This elegantly conceived cultural history of a great American city and its complicated, proud relationship with the sports teams that represent the Motor City to the world,, succeeds in reflecting the complex, vibrant legacy of Detroit. Like other Rust Belt cities (e.g. Buffalo, Cleveland) Detroit is known for fierce loyalty to the teams that are an economic lifeline for a “hollowed out” city ringed by suburbs both wealthier and whiter. It’s a tale of players and the city’s moguls; of stadiums, notably the antique, beloved Tiger Stadium (now demolished despite considerable public outcry) and the corporate wheeling and dealing that created tax-funded Comerica Park. Triumph and affluence give way to the aftermath of the July days of riots in 1967, then urban decay and finally ,resurrection after the city filed for bankruptcy in 2013, the largest filing in the nation. The city’s fabled heroes - Ty Cobb, Hank Greenberg, Joe Louis, and Isaiah Thomas - receive thoughtful treatment in the narrative that attempts to weave together many stories and, while affectionate, avoids the traps of nostalgia that other less insightful and self-indulgent authors fall into. These two European academic transplants wrote a clear-eyed assessment of the racial and class makeup of Detroit, past and present, and it makes for very entertaining reading. I received a digital copy from NetGalley. Highly recommended.
December 22, 2021
Most books about sports focus about an individual or a team.
This book makes a big step to tell the story of Detroit via the teams (all professional ones). Stefan Szymanski goes well beyond the scores and numbers to tell the story of his city. .
He writes about the four professional teams that have made the people of Detroit happy (and sorry) for what they did at the end of their seasons.
There’s also a chapter about one of the greatest boxer had deep and strong links to Detroit. And there’s a good chapter about Henry Ford who made it possible for all of us to have a car and who made Detroit known around the world. There’s a whole chapter of Thy Cobb that makes the whole book worth the read.
There’s a couple of interesting chapters that move away from sports for a few pages to write about how Detroit made unbelievable work to win WW2. Here’s good pages about what women what women did for the war and anchored what we are now seeing the open new openings for women.
Maybe there could be a book like this that shows what cities and people have opened the world for girls and women.
Can pro sports shape a city? I doubt it but this book is a good start.
This book makes a big step to tell the story of Detroit via the teams (all professional ones). Stefan Szymanski goes well beyond the scores and numbers to tell the story of his city. .
He writes about the four professional teams that have made the people of Detroit happy (and sorry) for what they did at the end of their seasons.
There’s also a chapter about one of the greatest boxer had deep and strong links to Detroit. And there’s a good chapter about Henry Ford who made it possible for all of us to have a car and who made Detroit known around the world. There’s a whole chapter of Thy Cobb that makes the whole book worth the read.
There’s a couple of interesting chapters that move away from sports for a few pages to write about how Detroit made unbelievable work to win WW2. Here’s good pages about what women what women did for the war and anchored what we are now seeing the open new openings for women.
Maybe there could be a book like this that shows what cities and people have opened the world for girls and women.
Can pro sports shape a city? I doubt it but this book is a good start.
December 22, 2021
Excellent book! I especially loved the chapters on Detroit's bids for the Olympic Games. As somebody who wishes the Olympics would come to my home city (wishful thinking, as we're definitely too small to host them), it's interesting to read the obstacles faced by a significantly larger city. The politics were mind-bogglingly chaotic, but the financial aspect was the most ridiculous part. How much are you willing to pay to host a two-week event? Millions are required, and you end up with hardly anything to show for it besides the prestige of having hosted the Olympics. It's almost not worth it. Reading about the $30 million dollars that Juan Peron promised if they hosted it (pre-inflation) makes me realize how wasteful the Olympics are (and I love the Olympics). You pay an exorbitant amount of money to host, and then end up possibly never using the Olympic facilities again (look at how many buildings from prior Olympics end up decaying afterwards). I also loved the chapter on Formula One, which highlighted the safety issues of the track and the recession that Detroit was dealing with at the time. Overall, a solid book regarding the sporting history of Detroit.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 23, 2021
A fantastic book that does the job of discussing both a civic history of Detroit and a sports history of the city. Written chronologically backward brought the reader in as one might in a conversation, starting with the present and working backward.
The authors discuss their links with the soccer club Detroit City but never engage the city's soccer history the rest of the way. I thought that could have added a bit to the overall narrative dominated by more traditional American sports. That is my only real critique; otherwise, I loved this book and will find myself revisiting it often.
The authors discuss their links with the soccer club Detroit City but never engage the city's soccer history the rest of the way. I thought that could have added a bit to the overall narrative dominated by more traditional American sports. That is my only real critique; otherwise, I loved this book and will find myself revisiting it often.
October 30, 2021
OK; an interesting premise of the history of Detroit told through critical moments of sports accomplishment was the reason for selecting this book to read; what I found instead was that premise getting touched on some, but the focus being to short shrift the sports aspects and see all through the lens of race and what the authors choose to really "champion": socialism and guilt, manifestations of the current political climate - and not in a good way; don't waste your time if the premise I stated above is what you're looking for
January 17, 2022
I was disappointed with the City of Champions. While the authors highlighted key championships, they focused too much of their attention on the dominant social issues that occurred during the time period.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 20, 2020
Unique reverse chronological order illuminates the timelessness of critical issues in Detroit across its three centuries.
November 25, 2020
wow, such detail about Detroit's history all under the guise of sports events.
December 22, 2020
Weaving Detroit sports history with its social/political history made for an engaging read. Detroit City Til I Die.
January 15, 2021
This book has reshaped the way I see the city of Detroit. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
June 11, 2025
while the timeline is a bit erratic the central argument permeates throughout the book. If you like an underdog story, urban history, or sports this is a must read
August 6, 2025
I learned a great deal about Detroit by reading this book, through the lens of its major sport teams and sporting activities.
October 25, 2020
Much More Than a Book About Sports
Visit I. David’s blog at: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
I have to admit that I was really looking forward to reading City of Champions: The History of Triumph and Defeat in Detroit by Stefan Szymanski and Silke-Maria Weineck. I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio during the 1960s and I hoped that the book would evoke pleasant memories of listening to late night games between the Cleveland Indians and the Detroit Tigers and watching the annual game between the Cleveland Browns and the Detroit Lions on a black and white TV on an autumn Sunday afternoon. City of Champions turned out to be much more than I expected.
The authors do not present City of Champions in a typical narrative history format. Instead, they present a series of vignettes about individual sporting events. And they intriguingly present their vignettes in reverse chronological order. Thus, they begin in 2017 with the opening of Little Caesar’s Arena (the home of the Pistons and the Red Wings) and they end in 1763 when a group of Native Americans duped the local British military into abandoning their fort to watch them play a game that resembled lacrosse.
The vignettes include a number of stories about the successes and failures of Detroit’s modern professional sports teams. But they also include some lesser-known events that the authors used to give context to their overall story. For example, the book includes chapters on the life and career of boxer Joe Louis, auto racing by Henry Ford and the death of a child run over by one of the new autos being produced in the city while playing in the street.
In each vignette the authors adroitly move from their sports-related event to a description of Detroit at the time of the event. As a result, City of Champions is far more than a sports book. It is a book that uses sports as a lens through which to view the history of Detroit. And that history reflects poorly on the plight of Detroit’s African American community.
The authors describe how African Americans began arriving in Detroit as part of the Great Migration in the 1910s to escape the Jim Crow south. While some found jobs in the auto plants they all faced discrimination, especially with respect to access to decent housing. The authors show that, during the early and mid 20th century, the powers in the City - the political bosses, the unions and the industrialists - all joined together to maintain a form of institutional racism. Then, as some industries failed and others left the City, the wealthy tax base moved to the surrounding suburbs and all that was left in the City was the poor African American community.
Several of the vignettes show how things have not improved for African Americans in Detroit in recent years. Those that deal with the “Malice in the Palace” in 2004 and the “Motor City Bad Boy Pistons” of the late 1980s and early 1990s show how the media has equated African Americans in Detroit with violence. Several others – such as those dealing with construction of downtown arenas, multiple attempts to host the Olympic Games and the annual Grand Prix event – show how public funds are found to help enrich the rich but are not available to help the impoverished local community.
I give this book a 4 star rating. There is enough about the rich history of sports in Detroit for me to recommend this book for the sports enthusiast. But, because this is far more than a sports book, I can also recommend it for those that have an interest in the history of Detroit or municipal government in general and, especially, for those that want to learn more about the creation and maintenance of institutional racism.
Thanks to #netgalley and to The New Press for my early release copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
Visit I. David’s blog at: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
I have to admit that I was really looking forward to reading City of Champions: The History of Triumph and Defeat in Detroit by Stefan Szymanski and Silke-Maria Weineck. I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio during the 1960s and I hoped that the book would evoke pleasant memories of listening to late night games between the Cleveland Indians and the Detroit Tigers and watching the annual game between the Cleveland Browns and the Detroit Lions on a black and white TV on an autumn Sunday afternoon. City of Champions turned out to be much more than I expected.
The authors do not present City of Champions in a typical narrative history format. Instead, they present a series of vignettes about individual sporting events. And they intriguingly present their vignettes in reverse chronological order. Thus, they begin in 2017 with the opening of Little Caesar’s Arena (the home of the Pistons and the Red Wings) and they end in 1763 when a group of Native Americans duped the local British military into abandoning their fort to watch them play a game that resembled lacrosse.
The vignettes include a number of stories about the successes and failures of Detroit’s modern professional sports teams. But they also include some lesser-known events that the authors used to give context to their overall story. For example, the book includes chapters on the life and career of boxer Joe Louis, auto racing by Henry Ford and the death of a child run over by one of the new autos being produced in the city while playing in the street.
In each vignette the authors adroitly move from their sports-related event to a description of Detroit at the time of the event. As a result, City of Champions is far more than a sports book. It is a book that uses sports as a lens through which to view the history of Detroit. And that history reflects poorly on the plight of Detroit’s African American community.
The authors describe how African Americans began arriving in Detroit as part of the Great Migration in the 1910s to escape the Jim Crow south. While some found jobs in the auto plants they all faced discrimination, especially with respect to access to decent housing. The authors show that, during the early and mid 20th century, the powers in the City - the political bosses, the unions and the industrialists - all joined together to maintain a form of institutional racism. Then, as some industries failed and others left the City, the wealthy tax base moved to the surrounding suburbs and all that was left in the City was the poor African American community.
Several of the vignettes show how things have not improved for African Americans in Detroit in recent years. Those that deal with the “Malice in the Palace” in 2004 and the “Motor City Bad Boy Pistons” of the late 1980s and early 1990s show how the media has equated African Americans in Detroit with violence. Several others – such as those dealing with construction of downtown arenas, multiple attempts to host the Olympic Games and the annual Grand Prix event – show how public funds are found to help enrich the rich but are not available to help the impoverished local community.
I give this book a 4 star rating. There is enough about the rich history of sports in Detroit for me to recommend this book for the sports enthusiast. But, because this is far more than a sports book, I can also recommend it for those that have an interest in the history of Detroit or municipal government in general and, especially, for those that want to learn more about the creation and maintenance of institutional racism.
Thanks to #netgalley and to The New Press for my early release copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
January 4, 2022
An interesting look at the history of Detroit. Not entirely focused on the sporting history of Detroit. It is written in reverse chronological fashion, which actually makes the book less interesting as it goes.
October 18, 2023
I LOVED this book - an engaging look at the history of Detroit, told in parallel through city history and sports history. So fascinating to learn all of these things I never knew, and to revisit sports moments I remember from growing up. Well written, entertaining, and interesting.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews