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The Big Time
- How the 1970s Transformed Sports in America
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 17 hrs and 49 mins
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Publisher's summary
A captivating chronicle of the pivotal decade in American sports, when the games invaded prime time, and sports moved from the margins to the mainstream of American culture.
Every decade brings change, but as Michael MacCambridge chronicles in The Big Time, no decade in American sports history featured such convulsive cultural shifts as the 1970s. So many things happened during the decade—the move of sports into prime-time television, the beginning of athletes’ gaining a sense of autonomy for their own careers, integration becoming—at least within sports—more of the rule than the exception, and the social revolution that brought females more decisively into sports, as athletes, coaches, executives, and spectators. More than politicians, musicians or actors, the decade in America was defined by its most exemplary athletes. The sweeping changes in the decade could be seen in the collective experience of Billie Jean King and Muhammad Ali, Henry Aaron and Julius Erving, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Joe Greene, Jack Nicklaus and Chris Evert, among others, who redefined the role of athletes and athletics in American culture. The Seventies witnessed the emergence of spectator sports as an ever-expanding mainstream phenomenon, as well as dramatic changes in the way athletes were paid, portrayed, and packaged.
In tracing the epic narrative of how American sports was transformed in the Seventies, a larger story emerges: of how America itself changed, and how spectator sports moved decisively on a trajectory toward what it has become today, the last truly “big tent” in American culture.
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Critic reviews
“Michael MacCambridge is one of America’s finest chroniclers and when he told me he was turning his eye to the 1970s, the decade of my childhood, I couldn’t have been more thrilled. He delivers exactly what I hoped he would, a book brimming with nostalgia and fun, filled with all the marvelous names that shaped my life as a sports fan as well as shaping sports as we now know them.”—Joe Posnanski, bestselling author of The Baseball 100
“If you remember how great sports were in those days, The Big Time will remind you, and if you doubt how great, this book will show you.”—Roy Blount, Jr., author, About Three Bricks Shy of a Load
“Michael MacCambridge’s The Big Time is a meticulously researched, beautifully written and wonderfully entertaining walk down memory lane. The ‘70s were such a fascinating decade in sports and culture, and this book brings all the characters and moments to life in riveting detail. We know that time travel doesn’t exist, but this book sure comes close.”—Christine Brennan, USA Today sports columnist and author of the best-selling Inside Edge
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If you want to get bigger, leaner, and stronger without steroids, good genetics, extreme dieting, or wasting ridiculous amounts of time in the gym...you want to listen to this book. Because here’s the deal: Building lean muscle and burning stubborn fat isn't nearly as complicated you’ve been led to believe. This book is the shortcut.
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Narration sounds like a Robot
- By pauly on 07-04-19
By: Michael Matthews
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The Little Black Book of Workout Motivation
- By: Michael Matthews
- Narrated by: Michael Matthews
- Length: 5 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Let’s face it: fitness is hard. Have you ever gotten into the car after a long day at work and headed straight for the couch instead of the gym? Have you ever been unable to stop hitting the snooze button in the morning? Have you even felt secretly afraid you just don’t have what it takes to transform your body and health? Welcome to the club.
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Diamond in the rough
- By Mike on 09-03-18
By: Michael Matthews
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The Best Hunting Stories Ever Told
- By: Jay Cassell - editor
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 32 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Follow the trails of hunters - the original storytellers - as they interpret signs, examine tracks, and chase and catch their prey (or fail to). Listeners can curl up with the best authentic hunting fiction and non-fiction, bringing the great Mount Kenya and the prairies of the American Bison into your living room. From Theodore Roosevelt and Gene Hill to Rick Bass and Charles Dickens, remember classic hunting tales and discover new stories of hunters’ luck, camaraderie, and use of smarts on the trail.
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A broad collection of hunting tales
- By Elaine on 06-21-15
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Playing to Win
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Michael Lewis
- Length: 2 hrs and 13 mins
- Original Recording
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All over America, families are investing blood, sweat, tears, and retirement savings in their children’s sports careers, all with the ultimate goal of…what exactly? A college scholarship? A professional contract? Simply the taste of victory? Through the lens of the highly competitive world of girls’ softball, Lewis reveals the youth sports industrial complex that has arisen to aggressively monetize after-school pastimes.
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Great Listen
- By Brian Bray on 10-15-20
By: Michael Lewis
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Thinner Leaner Stronger
- The Simple Science of Building the Ultimate Female Body
- By: Michael Matthews
- Narrated by: Elliott Denkers
- Length: 13 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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You can get that beautiful “beach-ready” body without following a bland, boring, bodybuilding diet and without doing exhausting strength training workouts you hate. And this exercise book shows you how.
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"The Ultimate Female Body", but uses male examples
- By bookWorm on 06-29-15
By: Michael Matthews
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Stay Sane in an Insane World
- How to Control the Controllables and Thrive
- By: Greg Harden
- Narrated by: Greg Harden
- Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Champions aren’t born. They’re built. Greg Harden spent over 30 years building them at the University of Michigan, including 400 future professional athletes, 50 NFL first-round draft picks, and 120 Olympians from over 20 countries. He gained national recognition when 60 Minutes Sports profiled him as “Michigan’s Secret Weapon.” Now, in his first book, Greg Harden is reaching out to help anyone who wants to live their best life by offering powerful and practical advice.
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Good book, However, prejudice shows through a bit
- By Don Dotson on 08-22-23
By: Greg Harden
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Wildlife Wars
- The Life and Times of a Fish and Game Warden
- By: Terry Grosz
- Narrated by: Pete Simonelli
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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In Wildlife Wars, Terry Grosz serves up fascinating stories - alternately hair-raising, hilarious, and heart-wrenching - from his 30-year struggle to protect wildlife in America. A natural storyteller, Grosz writes about the remarkable characters he met - on both sides of the law - as he matched wits with elk poachers, salmon snaggers, commercial-market duck hunters, and a host of other law-breakers. Best of all, though, these stories are so remarkably entertaining you won't want to put them down.
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Title should be: "reckless egomaniac tells lies"
- By ross on 03-01-17
By: Terry Grosz
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Barbarian Days
- A Surfing Life
- By: William Finnegan
- Narrated by: William Finnegan
- Length: 18 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Pulitzer Prize, Biography, 2016. Barbarian Days is William Finnegan's memoir of an obsession, a complex enchantment. Surfing only looks like a sport. To initiates it is something else entirely: a beautiful addiction, a demanding course of study, a morally dangerous pastime, a way of life.
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What a Jerk.
- By ML Sadler on 03-06-17
By: William Finnegan
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Buried in the Sky
- The Extraordinary Story of the Sherpa Climbers on K2's Deadliest Day
- By: Peter Zuckerman, Amanda Padoan
- Narrated by: David Doersch
- Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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When Edmund Hillary first conquered Mt. Everest, Sherpa Tenzing Norgay was at his side. Indeed, for as long as Westerners have been climbing the Himalaya, Sherpas have been the unsung heroes in the background. In August 2008, when eleven climbers lost their lives on K2, the world’s most dangerous peak, two Sherpas survived. They had emerged from poverty and political turmoil to become two of the most skillful mountaineers on earth. Based on unprecedented access and interviews, Buried in the Sky reveals their astonishing story for the first time.
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Sherpas, The True Unsung Heroes
- By Kathy in CA on 07-26-15
By: Peter Zuckerman, and others
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The Keys to the Effortless Golf Swing
- Curing Your Hit Impulse in Seven Simple Lessons
- By: Michael McTeigue
- Narrated by: Rob Shamblin
- Length: 1 hr and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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The biggest paradox in golf is that the harder you try to hit the ball, the worse you do so. In The Keys to the Effortless Golf Swing, Michael McTeigue offers you a simple system of sequential body movements that produces a true swinging motion with every club in the bag. The result is increased distance and greater accuracy for all sizes, shapes, and ages of golfers for a minimum investment in learning time.
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My Swing
- By rrj0717 on 09-09-18
By: Michael McTeigue
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The Betrayal
- The 1919 World Series and the Birth of Modern Baseball
- By: Charles Fountain
- Narrated by: Bob Reed
- Length: 11 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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In the most famous scandal of sports history, eight Chicago White Sox players - including Shoeless Joe Jackson - agreed to throw the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for the promise of $20,000 each from gamblers reportedly working for New York mobster Arnold Rothstein. Heavily favored, Chicago lost the Series five games to three. Although rumors of a fix flew while the series was being played, they were largely disregarded by players and the public at large.
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Great telling of a truly American story
- By Robert Taylor on 01-06-21
By: Charles Fountain
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Ball Four
- The Final Pitch
- By: Jim Bouton
- Narrated by: Jim Bouton
- Length: 18 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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When Ball Four was published in 1970, it created a firestorm. Bouton was called a Judas, a Benedict Arnold and a “social leper” for having violated the “sanctity of the clubhouse.” Baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn tried to force Bouton to sign a statement saying the book wasn’t true. Ballplayers, most of whom hadn’t read it, denounced the book. It was even banned by a few libraries. Almost everyone else, however, loved Ball Four.
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Three Ten Year Updates Give Bouton a 5th Star
- By Byron on 08-09-12
By: Jim Bouton
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Where's the Next Shelter?
- By: Gary Sizer
- Narrated by: Gary Sizer
- Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Where's the Next Shelter? is the true story of three travelers on the Appalachian Trail, a 2,000-mile hike that stretches from Georgia to Maine, told from the perspective of Gary Sizer, a seasoned backpacker and former marine who quickly finds himself humbled by the endeavor. If you long for the horizon or to sleep under the stars, then come along for the hike of a lifetime. All you have to do is take the first step.
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If You Liked AWOL, You'll Like This
- By Rebecca on 06-02-16
By: Gary Sizer
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The Spartan Way
- Eat Better. Train Better. Think Better. Be Better.
- By: Joe De Sena, Jeff Csatari
- Narrated by: Christian Rummel
- Length: 4 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Joe De Sena has one ultimate goal: to help improve everyone’s physical and emotional health by teaching them the tenets of Spartan living from ancient Greece: simple eating, smart training, mastering resilience, and an all-out commitment to achieving a goal.
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Don’t know what to think...
- By bakaDOH! on 07-20-19
By: Joe De Sena, and others
What listeners say about The Big Time
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Kevin
- 11-04-23
Good Effort But Missed Part of the Story
The author did incredible research for this book. He told a lot of stories and attempted to touch every part of sports during the 70s. He spent the most time on Title IX, which was appropriate. However, he did not quite capture the real impact of Title IX and did not show a real understanding of the true impact. He focused primarily on big time women's basketball programs to tell the Title IX story. He talked about their fight to capture part of those big athletic budgets at top football schools. Of course that did happen and is part of the story, but it is a very very small part. Probably only 5% of schools were in this category, and basketball is only one of probably a dozen sports where women's sports grew. The rest of Division 1, all of Division 2 and 3, as well as the NAIA were all ignored.....and what about the high schools? They all had to implement Title IX as well. Everyone except the very top of Division I colleges, on which the author exclusively focusses, had to implement Title IX without the benefit of TV money or much in the way of resources at all. He vilifies the male athletic directors for their resistance to Title IX. And yes, 99%+ of all ADs in the US were male at the time. What he did not mention is that in the 70s before women had really even attempted to administrate sports it was these male ADs that built women's sports out of nothing at every level, and often with little to no extra resources. They had to find coaches, facilities, administrators, officials, equipment, etc... They also had to find the athletes. Women were not lined up to join the teams. They were recruited by these male ADs and coaches out of PE classes, dorms, and the classroom. At the top levels where big football tv money was going to go to women's programs there were some ADs that pushed back when they shouldn't have. However, at all other levels there was no money to protect and the pushback was not the same. In fact, these ADs and administrators typically loved to build these programs. It was at these non elite D1 levels that title nine effected 95% of all women athletes. These stories were not told. And what about all of the other women's sports? The basketball bias is very strong. Other than tennis, the other sports were ignored by the author much like women's athletics was ignored before Title IX. One of the big stories in women's sports in the first 20-30 after Title IX was the disproportionate amount of resources going to women's basketball. The other sports have fought an uphill battle ever since to get an appropriate share of the resources.
Also, prepare to hear a lot of the University of Texas. I am not sure why. The author goes on deep dives into UT sports, but the stories don't seem to go anywhere, be very important, or contribute to the story.
I do not mean to be critical in any way. I am simply furthering the discussion the author did a great job of starting. If you love sports, this book is well worth the read and I highly recommend it.
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