-
The Last Pass
- Cousy, Russell, the Celtics, and What Matters in the End
- Narrated by: Gary M. Pomerantz
- Length: 12 hrs and 15 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $20.25
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
The New York Times Best Seller
Out of the greatest dynasty in American professional sports history, a Boston Celtics team led by Bill Russell and Bob Cousy, comes an intimate story of race, mortality, and regret
About to turn 90, Bob Cousy, the Hall of Fame Boston Celtics captain who led the team to its first six championships on an unparalleled run, has much to look back on in contentment. But he has one last piece of unfinished business. The last pass he hopes to throw is to close the circle with his great partner on those Celtic teams, fellow Hall of Famer Bill Russell, now 84.
These teammates were basketball's Ruth and Gehrig, and Cooz, as everyone calls him, was famously ahead of his time as an NBA player in terms of race and civil rights. But as the decades passed, Cousy blamed himself for not having done enough, for not having understood the depth of prejudice Russell faced as an African-American star in a city with a fraught history regarding race. Cousy wishes he had defended Russell publicly and that he had told him privately that he had his back. At this late hour, he confided to acclaimed historian Gary Pomerantz over the course of many interviews that he would like to make amends.
At the heart of the story The Last Pass tells is the relationship between these two iconic athletes. The audiobook is also in a way Bob Cousy's last testament on his complex and fascinating life. As a sports story alone, it has few parallels: A poor kid whose immigrant French parents suffered a dysfunctional marriage, the young Cousy escaped to the New York City playgrounds, where he became an urban legend known as the Houdini of the Hardwood. The legend exploded nationally in 1950, his first year as a Celtic: He would be an all-star all 13 of his NBA seasons.
But even as Cousy's on-court imagination and daring brought new attention to the pro game, the Celtics struggled until Coach Red Auerbach landed Russell in 1956. Cooz and Russ fit beautifully together on the court, and the Celtics dynasty was born.
To Boston's white sportswriters, it was Cousy's team, not Russell's, and as the civil rights movement took flight, and Russell became more publicly involved in it, there were some ugly repercussions in the community, more hurtful to Russell than Cousy feels he understood at the time.
The Last Pass situates the Celtics dynasty against the full dramatic canvas of American life in the '50s and '60s. It is an enthralling portrait of the heart of this legendary team that throws open a window onto the wider world at a time of wrenching social change. Ultimately, it is a book about the legacy of a life: what matters to us in the end, long after the arena lights have been turned off and we are alone with our memories.
On August 22, 2019, Bob Cousy was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Wish It Lasted Forever
- Life with the Larry Bird Celtics
- By: Dan Shaughnessy
- Narrated by: Dan Shaughnessy
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Before primetime ESPN coverage, lucrative branding deals like Air Jordans, and $40 million annual player salaries, there was the NBA of the 1970s and 1980s. Enter Dan Shaughnessy, then the beat reporter for The Boston Globe who covered the Boston Celtics every day from 1982 to1986. It was a time when reporters travelled with professional teams—flying the same commercial airlines, riding the same buses, and staying in the same hotels. Drawing on unprecedented access and personal experiences, Shaughnessy takes us inside the legendary Larry Bird-led Celtics teams.
-
-
Enjoyable Read
- By Donna Daily on 12-03-21
By: Dan Shaughnessy
-
Their Life's Work
- The Brotherhood of the 1970s Pittsburgh Steelers
- By: Gary M. Pomerantz
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 16 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Pittsburgh Steelers of the 1970s won an unprecedented and unmatched four Super Bowls in six years. A dozen of those Steelers players, coaches, and executives have been inducted into the Hall of Fame, and three decades later their names echo in popular memory: "Mean" Joe Greene, Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, Mike Webster, Jack Lambert, Lynn Swann, and John Stallworth.
-
-
Great Book
- By cap on 07-18-18
-
Path Lit by Lightning
- By: David Maraniss
- Narrated by: David Maraniss
- Length: 23 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jim Thorpe rose to world fame as a mythic talent who excelled at every sport. Most famously, he won gold medals in the decathlon and pentathlon at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. A member of the Sac and Fox Nation, he was an All-American football player at the Carlisle Indian School, the star of the first class of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and played major league baseball for John McGraw’s New York Giants. Even in a golden age of sports celebrities, he was one of a kind.
-
-
Authors can’t always narate
- By SH on 09-05-22
By: David Maraniss
-
Wilt, 1962
- The Night of 100 Points and the Dawn of a New Era
- By: Gary M. Pomerantz
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the night of March 2, 1962, in Hershey, Pennsylvania, right up the street from the chocolate factory, Wilt Chamberlain, a young and striking athlete celebrated as the Big Dipper, scored 100 points in a game against the New York Knickerbockers.
-
-
Wilt, 1962
- By Paul on 05-11-05
-
Tall Men, Short Shorts
- The 1969 NBA Finals: Wilt, Russ, Lakers, Celtics, and a Very Young Sports Reporter
- By: Leigh Montville
- Narrated by: Leigh Montville
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They don’t set up any better than this. The greatest basketball player of all time–Bill Russell–and his juggernaut Boston Celtics, winners of ten (ten!) of the previous twelve NBA championships, squeak through one more playoff run and land in the Finals again. Russell’s opponent? The fearsome 7’1” next-generation superstar, Wilt Chamberlain, recently traded to the LA Lakers to form the league’s first dream team. Bill Russell and John Havlicek versus Chamberlain, Jerry West and Elgin Baylor.
-
-
Very good book with a caveat
- By Hebern on 12-06-21
By: Leigh Montville
-
The Last Folk Hero
- The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson
- By: Jeff Pearlman
- Narrated by: JD Jackson
- Length: 22 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the mid-1980s into the early 1990s, the greatest athlete of all time streaked across American sports and popular culture. Stadiums struggled to contain him. Clocks failed to capture his speed. His strength was legendary. His power unmatched. Video game makers turned him into an invincible character—and they were dead-on. He climbed (and walked across) walls, splintered baseball bats over his knee, turned oncoming tacklers into ground meat.
-
-
If you are a sports fan and over 35 years old, you have to listen/read this. Awesome!
- By betty sammons on 06-29-23
By: Jeff Pearlman
-
Wish It Lasted Forever
- Life with the Larry Bird Celtics
- By: Dan Shaughnessy
- Narrated by: Dan Shaughnessy
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Before primetime ESPN coverage, lucrative branding deals like Air Jordans, and $40 million annual player salaries, there was the NBA of the 1970s and 1980s. Enter Dan Shaughnessy, then the beat reporter for The Boston Globe who covered the Boston Celtics every day from 1982 to1986. It was a time when reporters travelled with professional teams—flying the same commercial airlines, riding the same buses, and staying in the same hotels. Drawing on unprecedented access and personal experiences, Shaughnessy takes us inside the legendary Larry Bird-led Celtics teams.
-
-
Enjoyable Read
- By Donna Daily on 12-03-21
By: Dan Shaughnessy
-
Their Life's Work
- The Brotherhood of the 1970s Pittsburgh Steelers
- By: Gary M. Pomerantz
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 16 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Pittsburgh Steelers of the 1970s won an unprecedented and unmatched four Super Bowls in six years. A dozen of those Steelers players, coaches, and executives have been inducted into the Hall of Fame, and three decades later their names echo in popular memory: "Mean" Joe Greene, Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, Mike Webster, Jack Lambert, Lynn Swann, and John Stallworth.
-
-
Great Book
- By cap on 07-18-18
-
Path Lit by Lightning
- By: David Maraniss
- Narrated by: David Maraniss
- Length: 23 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jim Thorpe rose to world fame as a mythic talent who excelled at every sport. Most famously, he won gold medals in the decathlon and pentathlon at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. A member of the Sac and Fox Nation, he was an All-American football player at the Carlisle Indian School, the star of the first class of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and played major league baseball for John McGraw’s New York Giants. Even in a golden age of sports celebrities, he was one of a kind.
-
-
Authors can’t always narate
- By SH on 09-05-22
By: David Maraniss
-
Wilt, 1962
- The Night of 100 Points and the Dawn of a New Era
- By: Gary M. Pomerantz
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the night of March 2, 1962, in Hershey, Pennsylvania, right up the street from the chocolate factory, Wilt Chamberlain, a young and striking athlete celebrated as the Big Dipper, scored 100 points in a game against the New York Knickerbockers.
-
-
Wilt, 1962
- By Paul on 05-11-05
-
Tall Men, Short Shorts
- The 1969 NBA Finals: Wilt, Russ, Lakers, Celtics, and a Very Young Sports Reporter
- By: Leigh Montville
- Narrated by: Leigh Montville
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They don’t set up any better than this. The greatest basketball player of all time–Bill Russell–and his juggernaut Boston Celtics, winners of ten (ten!) of the previous twelve NBA championships, squeak through one more playoff run and land in the Finals again. Russell’s opponent? The fearsome 7’1” next-generation superstar, Wilt Chamberlain, recently traded to the LA Lakers to form the league’s first dream team. Bill Russell and John Havlicek versus Chamberlain, Jerry West and Elgin Baylor.
-
-
Very good book with a caveat
- By Hebern on 12-06-21
By: Leigh Montville
-
The Last Folk Hero
- The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson
- By: Jeff Pearlman
- Narrated by: JD Jackson
- Length: 22 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the mid-1980s into the early 1990s, the greatest athlete of all time streaked across American sports and popular culture. Stadiums struggled to contain him. Clocks failed to capture his speed. His strength was legendary. His power unmatched. Video game makers turned him into an invincible character—and they were dead-on. He climbed (and walked across) walls, splintered baseball bats over his knee, turned oncoming tacklers into ground meat.
-
-
If you are a sports fan and over 35 years old, you have to listen/read this. Awesome!
- By betty sammons on 06-29-23
By: Jeff Pearlman
-
Red and Me
- By: Bill Russell, Alan Steinberg
- Narrated by: Peter Jay Fernandez, Bill Russell
- Length: 5 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
i>Red and Me is an extraordinary book: an homage to a peerless coach, showing how he produced results unlike any other; an inspiring story of mutual success, in which each man gave his all, and gained back even more; above all, it may be the best depiction of male friendship ever put on the page. Who would have guessed that such different men could have become such a tightly bonded pair? Few did guess it. Now Russell tells it.
-
-
An awesome story of Very respectable people
- By Ben Miller on 05-20-22
By: Bill Russell, and others
-
Summer of '49
- By: David Halberstam
- Narrated by: Jamie Renell
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The year was 1949, and a war-wearied nation turned from the battlefields to the ball fields in search of new heroes. It was a summer that marked the beginning of a sports rivalry unequaled in the annals of athletic competition. The awesome New York Yankees and the indomitable Boston Red Sox were fighting for supremacy of baseball's American League and an aging Joe DiMaggio and a brash, headstrong hitting phenomenon named Ted Williams led their respective teams in a classic pennant duel of almost mythic proportions—one that would be decided on the last day of the season.
-
-
Excellent
- By RJA on 11-03-22
By: David Halberstam
-
The Legends Club
- Dean Smith, Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Valvano, and an Epic College Basketball Rivalry
- By: John Feinstein
- Narrated by: John Feinstein
- Length: 15 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The riveting inside story of college basketball's fiercest rivalry among three coaching legends - University of North Carolina's Dean Smith, Duke's Mike Krzyzewski, and North Carolina State's Jim Valvano - by the king of college basketball writers, number-one New York Times best seller John Feinstein.
-
-
An absolute must for college basketball fans
- By Hebern on 12-12-18
By: John Feinstein
-
Barkley
- A Biography
- By: Timothy Bella
- Narrated by: Korey Jackson
- Length: 16 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
He's one of the most interesting American athletes in the past fifty years. Passionate, candid, iconoclastic, and gifted both on and off the court, Charles Barkley has made a lasting impact on not only the world of basketball but pop culture at large. Yet few people know the real Charles. Informed by over 370 original interviews and painstaking research, Timothy Bella's Barkley is the most comprehensive biography to date of one of the most talked about icons in the world of sports.
-
-
Great insight to the big man’s life.
- By marci rodee on 07-03-23
By: Timothy Bella
-
Dynasty’s End
- Bill Russell and the 1968-69 World Champion Boston Celtics
- By: Thomas J. Whalen, Bill Bradley - foreword
- Narrated by: David Cohen
- Length: 11 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this vivid and lively account, Thomas J. Whalen chronicles Russell's memorable last season and the Celtics' dazzling triumph. Set against the backdrop of the tumultuous 1960s and Boston's own turbulent and bitter struggles with race, he tells the fascinating story of how an improbable championship team overcame poor health, indifferent fans, disruptive personnel changes, and internal morale problems. Whalen recounts how Russell transformed the game of basketball during his remarkable career and revisits the outspoken superstar's conflicted relationship with Boston.
By: Thomas J. Whalen, and others
-
Straight Shooter
- A Memoir of Second Chances and First Takes
- By: Stephen A. Smith
- Narrated by: Stephen A. Smith
- Length: 8 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Stephen A. Smith has never been handed anything, nor was he an overnight success. Growing up poor in Queens, the son of Caribbean immigrants and the youngest of six children, he was a sports-obsessed kid who faced struggles, from undiagnosed dyslexia to getting enough cereal to fill his bowl. As a basketball player at Winston-Salem State University, he got a glimmer of his true calling when he wrote a newspaper column arguing for the retirement of his own Hall of Fame coach, Clarence Gaines.
-
-
Trash🗑
- By Maurice Davis on 01-25-23
By: Stephen A. Smith
-
The Great Air Race
- Death, Glory, and the Dawn of American Aviation
- By: John Lancaster
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The incredible, untold story of the men who risked their lives in the first transcontinental air contest—and put American aviation on the map.
-
-
Very entertaining/informative book
- By D. Littman on 12-09-22
By: John Lancaster
-
King of the Court
- Bill Russell and the Basketball Revolution
- By: Aram Goudsouzian
- Narrated by: J. D. Jackson
- Length: 17 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bill Russell was not the first African American to play professional basketball, but he was its first Black superstar. From the moment he stepped onto the court of the Boston Garden in 1956, Russell began to transform the sport in a fundamental way, making him, more than any of his contemporaries, the Jackie Robinson of basketball. In King of the Court, Aram Goudsouzian provides a vivid and engrossing chronicle of the life and career of this brilliant champion and courageous racial pioneer. Russell's leaping, wide-ranging defense altered the game's texture.
-
-
Portrait of a Basketball Revolutionary
- By Susie on 01-28-13
By: Aram Goudsouzian
-
Let Me Tell You a Story
- A Lifetime in the Game
- By: Red Auerbach, John Feinstein
- Narrated by: Arnie Mazer
- Length: 3 hrs
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
America's favorite sportswriter teams up with Red Auerbach, the most successful and admired coach in basketball history, to tell the best stories of a legendary life.
-
-
Red Who?
- By Kathy on 08-10-08
By: Red Auerbach, and others
-
Eleven Rings
- The Soul of Success
- By: Phil Jackson, Hugh Delehanty
- Narrated by: Matt Walton
- Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
During his storied career as head coach of the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers, Phil Jackson won more championships than any coach in the history of professional sports. This is the story of a preacher's kid from North Dakota who grew up to be one of the most innovative leaders of our time. Eleven times, Jackson led his teams to the ultimate goal: the NBA championship - six times with the Chicago Bulls and five times with the Los Angeles Lakers. This book is full of revelations.
-
-
Listener Beware
- By Robert S. Wegener on 07-12-13
By: Phil Jackson, and others
-
Showtime
- Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s
- By: Jeff Pearlman
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 18 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Best-selling sportswriter Jeff Pearlman draws from almost 300 interviews to take the first full measure of the Lakers’ epic Showtime era. A dazzling account of one of America’s greatest sports sagas, Showtime is packed with indelible characters, vicious rivalries, and jaw-dropping, behind-the-scenes stories of the players’ decadent Hollywood lifestyles. From the Showtime era’s remarkable rise to its tragic end - marked by Magic Johnson’s 1991 announcement that he had contracted HIV - Showtime is a gripping narrative of sports, celebrity, and 1980s-style excess.
-
-
Offended at the style used to voice black characters.
- By NP on 01-15-22
By: Jeff Pearlman
-
The Breaks of the Game
- By: David Halberstam
- Narrated by: Brian Troxell
- Length: 17 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A New York Times best seller, David Halberstam's The Breaks of the Game focuses on one grim season (1979-80) in the life of the Bill Walton-led Portland Trail Blazers, a team that only three years before had been NBA champions. The tactile authenticity of Halberstam's knowledge of the basketball world is unrivaled. Yet he is writing here about far more than just basketball. This is a story about a place in our society where power, money, and talent collide and sometimes corrupt, a place where both national obsessions and naked greed are exposed.
-
-
This book is a must read for all NBA junkies.
- By Kyle on 06-13-18
By: David Halberstam
Critic reviews
One of the Boston Globe’s Best Books of The Year
“The first Gary Pomerantz book I read was his biography of Wilt Chamberlain, which I thought was magnificent. Then I read Where Peachtree Meets Sweet Auburn, which I haven't stopped thinking about. Now I've lost myself in The Last Pass. The danger with reading Gary Pomerantz is that you'll become an addict.”—Malcolm Gladwell
“A master class. Students of NBA history are in awe these days, marveling at the depth of Gary Pomerantz’s new book. . . . [Pomerantz] is a master of exquisite detail. He has produced two of the finest sports books ever written, on Wilt Chamberlain (Wilt, 1962) and the Pittsburgh Steelers’ dynasty (Their Life’s Work). For fans of the Warriors, trying to become the first team since those Celtics to reach five straight Finals, there is invaluable perspective on how a great team sustains its brilliance.”—San Francisco Chronicle
“The Last Pass surely stands as one of the most intriguing sports books in recent memory, and maybe of all time.”—Christian Science Monitor
Related to this topic
-
Their Life's Work
- The Brotherhood of the 1970s Pittsburgh Steelers
- By: Gary M. Pomerantz
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 16 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Pittsburgh Steelers of the 1970s won an unprecedented and unmatched four Super Bowls in six years. A dozen of those Steelers players, coaches, and executives have been inducted into the Hall of Fame, and three decades later their names echo in popular memory: "Mean" Joe Greene, Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, Mike Webster, Jack Lambert, Lynn Swann, and John Stallworth.
-
-
Great Book
- By cap on 07-18-18
-
Sweetness
- The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton
- By: Jeff Pearlman
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 18 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At five feet ten inches tall, running back Walter Payton was not the largest player in the NFL, but he developed a larger-than-life reputation for his strength, speed, and grit. Nicknamed “Sweetness” during his college football days, he became the NFL’s all-time leader in rushing and all-purpose yards, capturing the hearts of fans in his adopted Chicago.
-
-
Honest Accounting Of A Fascinating Life
- By RevInTampa on 08-19-15
By: Jeff Pearlman
-
Showtime
- Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s
- By: Jeff Pearlman
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 18 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Best-selling sportswriter Jeff Pearlman draws from almost 300 interviews to take the first full measure of the Lakers’ epic Showtime era. A dazzling account of one of America’s greatest sports sagas, Showtime is packed with indelible characters, vicious rivalries, and jaw-dropping, behind-the-scenes stories of the players’ decadent Hollywood lifestyles. From the Showtime era’s remarkable rise to its tragic end - marked by Magic Johnson’s 1991 announcement that he had contracted HIV - Showtime is a gripping narrative of sports, celebrity, and 1980s-style excess.
-
-
Offended at the style used to voice black characters.
- By NP on 01-15-22
By: Jeff Pearlman
-
Pistol
- The Life of Pete Maravich
- By: Mark Kriegel
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 12 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Pistol is more than the biography of a ballplayer. It's the stuff of classic novels: the story of a boy transformed by his father's dream and the cost of that dream. Even as Pete Maravich became Pistol Pete, a basketball icon for baby boomers, all the Maraviches paid a price. Now acclaimed author Mark Kriegel has brilliantly captured the saga of an American family: its rise, its apparent ruin, and, finally, its redemption.
-
-
Extremely Good!
- By steve on 12-12-12
By: Mark Kriegel
-
Rising Tide
- Bear Bryant, Joe Namath, and Dixie's Last Quarter
- By: Randy Roberts, Ed Krzemienski
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 15 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The extraordinary story of how Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant and Joe Namath, his star quarterback at the University of Alabama, led the Crimson Tide to victory and transformed football into a truly national pastime. During the bloodiest years of the civil rights movement, Bear Bryant and Joe Namath - two of the most iconic and controversial figures in American sports - changed the game of college football forever.
-
-
Love Alabama football? Read this!!
- By Miss Faulk on 07-16-15
By: Randy Roberts, and others
-
Snake
- The Legendary Life of Ken Stabler
- By: Mike Freeman
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ken "The Snake" Stabler was the embodiment of the original Men in Black - the freewheeling, hard-hitting Oakland Raiders. The league's first swashbuckling pass thrower, the mythical southpaw Southerner famous for come-from-behind drives late in the game, Stabler led the Raiders to their first Super Bowl championship in 1977.
-
-
Great story about a childhood legend!!!
- By David Warnock on 07-18-19
By: Mike Freeman
-
Their Life's Work
- The Brotherhood of the 1970s Pittsburgh Steelers
- By: Gary M. Pomerantz
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 16 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Pittsburgh Steelers of the 1970s won an unprecedented and unmatched four Super Bowls in six years. A dozen of those Steelers players, coaches, and executives have been inducted into the Hall of Fame, and three decades later their names echo in popular memory: "Mean" Joe Greene, Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, Mike Webster, Jack Lambert, Lynn Swann, and John Stallworth.
-
-
Great Book
- By cap on 07-18-18
-
Sweetness
- The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton
- By: Jeff Pearlman
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 18 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At five feet ten inches tall, running back Walter Payton was not the largest player in the NFL, but he developed a larger-than-life reputation for his strength, speed, and grit. Nicknamed “Sweetness” during his college football days, he became the NFL’s all-time leader in rushing and all-purpose yards, capturing the hearts of fans in his adopted Chicago.
-
-
Honest Accounting Of A Fascinating Life
- By RevInTampa on 08-19-15
By: Jeff Pearlman
-
Showtime
- Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s
- By: Jeff Pearlman
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 18 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Best-selling sportswriter Jeff Pearlman draws from almost 300 interviews to take the first full measure of the Lakers’ epic Showtime era. A dazzling account of one of America’s greatest sports sagas, Showtime is packed with indelible characters, vicious rivalries, and jaw-dropping, behind-the-scenes stories of the players’ decadent Hollywood lifestyles. From the Showtime era’s remarkable rise to its tragic end - marked by Magic Johnson’s 1991 announcement that he had contracted HIV - Showtime is a gripping narrative of sports, celebrity, and 1980s-style excess.
-
-
Offended at the style used to voice black characters.
- By NP on 01-15-22
By: Jeff Pearlman
-
Pistol
- The Life of Pete Maravich
- By: Mark Kriegel
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 12 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Pistol is more than the biography of a ballplayer. It's the stuff of classic novels: the story of a boy transformed by his father's dream and the cost of that dream. Even as Pete Maravich became Pistol Pete, a basketball icon for baby boomers, all the Maraviches paid a price. Now acclaimed author Mark Kriegel has brilliantly captured the saga of an American family: its rise, its apparent ruin, and, finally, its redemption.
-
-
Extremely Good!
- By steve on 12-12-12
By: Mark Kriegel
-
Rising Tide
- Bear Bryant, Joe Namath, and Dixie's Last Quarter
- By: Randy Roberts, Ed Krzemienski
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 15 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The extraordinary story of how Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant and Joe Namath, his star quarterback at the University of Alabama, led the Crimson Tide to victory and transformed football into a truly national pastime. During the bloodiest years of the civil rights movement, Bear Bryant and Joe Namath - two of the most iconic and controversial figures in American sports - changed the game of college football forever.
-
-
Love Alabama football? Read this!!
- By Miss Faulk on 07-16-15
By: Randy Roberts, and others
-
Snake
- The Legendary Life of Ken Stabler
- By: Mike Freeman
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ken "The Snake" Stabler was the embodiment of the original Men in Black - the freewheeling, hard-hitting Oakland Raiders. The league's first swashbuckling pass thrower, the mythical southpaw Southerner famous for come-from-behind drives late in the game, Stabler led the Raiders to their first Super Bowl championship in 1977.
-
-
Great story about a childhood legend!!!
- By David Warnock on 07-18-19
By: Mike Freeman
-
42 Faith
- The Rest of the Jackie Robinson Story
- By: Ed Henry
- Narrated by: Ed Henry
- Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Journalist and baseball lover Ed Henry reveals for the first time the backstory of faith that guided Jackie Robinson into not only the baseball record books but the annals of civil rights advancement as well. Through recently discovered sermons, interviews with Robinson's family and friends, and even an unpublished book by the player himself, Henry details a side of Jackie's humanity that few have taken the time to see.
-
-
42Faith
- By Phillip L. on 04-11-17
By: Ed Henry
-
Pete Rose
- An American Dilemma
- By: Kostya Kennedy
- Narrated by: Ben Bartolone
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Pete Rose played baseball with a singular and headfirst abandon that endeared him to fans and peers, even as it riled others--a figure at once magnetic, beloved and polarizing. Rose has more base hits than anyone in history, yet he is not in the Hall of Fame. Twenty-five years ago he was banished from baseball for gambling, then ruled ineligible for Cooperstown; today, the question "Does Pete Rose belong in the Hall of Fame?" has evolved into perhaps the most provocative in sports, a layered, slippery and ever-relevant moral conundrum.
-
-
Good book, not so good production.
- By david d. on 05-01-14
By: Kostya Kennedy
-
Madden
- A Biography
- By: Bryan Burwell
- Narrated by: Mark Moseley
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Several years after his playing career was cut short by injury before it had a chance to really begin, John Madden was hired as an assistant coach by the Oakland Raiders, one of professional football's most iconoclastic franchises. Two years later he was named the team's head coach and proceeded to lead the Raiders to five championship games in his first seven seasons. Following years of heartbreaking losses in some of history's most memorable games.
-
-
Essential For Raider And Madden Fans
- By MovieGuy on 03-08-16
By: Bryan Burwell
-
The Game: Harvard, Yale, and America in 1968
- By: George Howe Colt
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On November 23, 1968, near the end of a turbulent and memorable year, there was a football game that would also prove turbulent and memorable: the season-ending clash between Harvard and Yale. Both teams entered undefeated and, technically at least, came out undefeated. The final score was 29-29. To some of the players on the field, it was a triumph; to others a tragedy. George Howe Colt’s The Game is the story of that iconic American year, as seen through the young men who lived it and were changed by it.
-
-
More than a game
- By Hebern on 11-05-18
By: George Howe Colt
-
Dream Team
- How Michael, Magic, Larry, Charles, and the Greatest Team of All Time Changed the Game of Basketball Forever
- By: Jack McCallum
- Narrated by: Dick Hill
- Length: 12 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Dream Team, acclaimed sports journalist Jack McCallum delivers the untold story of the greatest team ever assembled: the 1992 U.S. Olympic men's basketball team that captivated the world, kindled the hoop dreams of countless children around the planet, and remade the NBA into a global sensation. As a senior staff writer for Sports Illustrated, McCallum enjoyed a courtside seat for the most exciting basketball spectacle on earth, covering the Dream Team from its inception to the gold medal ceremony in Barcelona.
-
-
Great insight into the great basketball team ever.
- By James O'Brien on 09-04-12
By: Jack McCallum
-
The Mannings
- The Fall and Rise of a Football Family
- By: Lars Anderson
- Narrated by: Ian Alan Carlsen
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From New York Times best-selling author Lars Anderson comes a revealing portrait of the first family of American sports. What the Kennedys are to politics, the Mannings are to football. Two generations have produced three NFL superstars: Archie Manning, the Ole Miss hero-turned-New Orleans Saint; his son Peyton, widely considered one of the greatest quarterbacks ever to play the game; and Peyton's younger brother, Eli, who won two Super Bowl rings of his own.
-
-
The first family of football
- By Tyler Gordon on 09-08-18
By: Lars Anderson
-
Monsters
- The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football
- By: Rich Cohen
- Narrated by: Tom Taylorson
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For Rich Cohen and millions of other fans, the 1985 Chicago Bears were more than a football team: they were the greatest football team ever - a gang of colorful nuts, dancing and pounding their way to victory. They won a Super Bowl and saved a city. It was not just that the Monsters of the Midway won but how they did it....
-
-
For any Bears fans
- By Frank S. Saltiel on 11-18-21
By: Rich Cohen
-
Wonder Girl
- The Magnificent Sporting Life of Babe Didrikson Zaharias
- By: Don Van Natta Jr.
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Texas girl Babe Didrikson never tried a sport too tough and never met a hurdle too high. Despite attempts to keep women from competing, Babe achieved All-American status in basketball and won gold medals in track and field at the 1932 Olympics. Then, Babe attempted to conquer golf. One of the founders of the LPGA, Babe won more consecutive tournaments than any golfer in history. But at the height of her fame, she was diagnosed with cancer. Babe would then take her most daring step of all....
-
-
Great read
- By Jajam on 01-07-18
-
Tigerland
- 1968-1969: A City Divided, a Nation Torn Apart, and a Magical Season of Healing
- By: Wil Haygood
- Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 16 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Against the backdrop of one of the most tumultuous periods in recent American history, as riots and demonstrations spread across the nation, the Tigers of poor, segregated East High School in Columbus, Ohio, did something no team from one school had ever done before: They won the state basketball and baseball championships in the same year. They defeated bigger, richer, whiter teams across the state and along the way brought blacks and whites together, eased a painful racial divide throughout the state, and overcame extraordinary obstacles on their road to success.
-
-
Flashback to the Late 1960s
- By Toni Bowes on 09-05-19
By: Wil Haygood
-
Play by Play
- Calling the Wildest Games in Sports - From SEC Football to College Basketball, the Masters and More
- By: Verne Lundquist
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner, Verne Lundquist
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Verne Lundquist's remarkable broadcasting career has placed him at the center of major sporting events in America for more than 50 years, from Jack Nicklaus' final victory at the 1986 Masters to Tonya Harding's attack on Nancy Kerrigan at the 1994 Olympics to the Auburn-Alabama shocker of 2013. In his first memoir, he replays highlights from his career, taking sports fans behind the scenes of some of the most dramatic moments in modern sports history.
-
-
Decent Sorry, Bit Boring
- By Allena on 08-20-24
By: Verne Lundquist
-
The Great Nowitzki
- Basketball and the Meaning of Life
- By: Thomas Pletzinger, Shane Anderson - translator
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The seven-foot Dirk Nowitzki is one of the great players in basketball history. With a devastating fadeaway and unexpected agility, the Dallas Mavericks superstar helped to pioneer the modern three-shooting game and became a global ambassador for the sport. Award-winning novelist and sportswriter Thomas Pletzinger traveled with Nowitzki for more than seven years, seeking the secret of his success and longevity. In novelistic detail, Pletzinger tells the dramatic story of how a lanky kid from the German suburbs became a top-five all-time scorer and NBA champion.
-
-
👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
- By Anonymous User on 08-22-24
By: Thomas Pletzinger, and others
-
Arnie & Jack
- Palmer, Nicklaus, and Golf's Greatest Rivalry
- By: Ian O' Connor
- Narrated by: Alpha Trivette
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Surprisingly, one of sport’s most contentious, complex, and defining clashes played out not in the boxing ring or at the line of scrimmage but on the genteel green fairways of the world’s finest golf courses. Arnie and Jack. Palmer and Nicklaus. Their 50-year duel, in both the clubhouse and the boardroom, propelled each to the status of American icon and pushed modern golf to the heights and popularity it enjoys today. Yet for all the ink that has been spilled on these two essential golf figures individually, no one has ever examined their relationship in this way.
-
-
No Match
- By Craig Black on 05-11-15
By: Ian O' Connor
What listeners say about The Last Pass
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Hebern
- 11-19-18
A very good biography of Cousy
It is a biography of Bob Cousy. Cousy was the first of the flashy point guards in the NBA. When he retired he was the second leading scorer in NBA history. He’s gone way down that list since, but it shows the impact he had on the league at the time. He teamed with Bill Russell to create the Celtic Dynasty in the 1950s and 1960s. This is a period that has always interested me because I was an avid reader of sports books growing up and our school’s library didn’t have new books. The sports books I read were from this era.
This is a sports book, but it also examines race and in particular how race played a role in the treatment of Bill Russell at the time. When the greatest basketball player of all-time is debated few make the case for Russell. But, if you are naming the greatest basketball champion of all-time, few could argue against the case for Russell.
The book explores the differences in the way the Boston Celtics treated race and the way the city of Boston treated race. The Celtics were the first NBA team to draft a black player, the first NBA team to start 5 black players and the first NBA team to hire a black coach. The city of Boston was not nearly as open minded during the period on race. Russell in particular was not treated well because he was not one to quietly accept the discrimination and unfair treatment.
It is undisputed that Cousy never had a racist bone in his body, but as he aged he felt guilt that he didn’t do more to help the black players on the team, Russell in particular. The title of the book comes from a 90 year old Cousy reaching out to Russell to put those feelings of guilt into words.
The author does an ok job of reading his own book, but it would have been slightly better if a pro had been hired for the job.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jay T
- 10-07-20
Great read!
It was a much better read/listen (I got the audio book) than I expected. The story flowed very nicely and I discovered some wonderful personal insights on both Cousy and Russell. a great funny and sometimes sad book, very poignant. I found myself listening to it every chance I got, really glad I bought it!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Joe Kraus
- 11-06-18
Great Premise, Not Quite Fulfilled in Good Book
I picked this one up because I read a great excerpt of it in Time. As Pomerantz describes it, this is basketball great Bob Cousy doing something remarkable, let alone for a 91-year-old who’s lived most of his life as a celebrity: reflecting on his own role in race as it played out in his lifetime.
I don’t regret picking up the whole book, but I do feel marginally misled by that excerpt. This book does deal with Cousy as he reflects on his friendship with Bill Russell; the two of them were the twin stars – Russell clearly the greater one – of the first NBA dynasty, one electric and one rock steady, one white and one black. It deals with that friendship, or strange lack thereof, in a beautifully written opening section, and then somewhat less satisfying at the end.
In between this is a different book altogether, also a good one, but not quite what I’d been sold on.
The heart of this is a biography of Cousy, and it’s certainly well done. Pomerantz has great admiration for the man, and he certainly persuades me to share it. Cousy himself felt like an immigrant, felt like a child of the ghetto who experienced a fraction of the native distrust that so haunted Russell.
I had no idea Cousy was, essentially, French, that he was the child of two French immigrants and that English was his second language. (I got to thinking that, alongside Tony Parker and, maybe someday, Frank Nkitlina, the French have a lot to boast about in their point guards.) I’d taken his name for Irish and that, of course, would have made him royalty in Boston. Instead, he could never quite overcome a combination of accent and speech impediment, and he could never quite be home in the world of celebrity athlete that he had a real hand in creating.
Pomerantz has a number of fine passages where he gives a sense of what it must have been like to watch Cousy play in his early days. He was, after George Mikan, the second inventor of modern play. And, where Mikan brought a combination of low-post precision and brute size, Cousy brought flair and creativity. Cousy is the forerunner of the basketball wizard – the Houdini of the hardwood. I think his Youtube clips probably don’t show the great panache of his original moves. Next to the greats of today, to Step Curry to take the exemplar, he must seem drab. In context, though, as Pomerantz describes it, he was a revolution.
This does begin to drag a little in the second half. Pomerantz has some great material, but he recycles the best of it. I think, in the end, the book would have been just as effective, and a little sharper, if it were about 20 percent shorter.
But the culmination here is the profile of Cousy in his waning years. Pomerantz lets us see him as a man unafraid to ask himself a difficult question: how was it possible he could have enjoyed such spectacular on-court chemistry with Russell yet not known the extent of what he endured as an African-American in Boston. (In one harrowing scene – one we get at least three times – vandals broke into Russell’s home, painted racist graffiti, and defecated in his bed.) Cousy seems to have been well ahead of most of his contemporaries when it came to race – he roomed with the Celtics first black player, and he served as a Big Brother to a handful of adolescent African-American boys – so he could easily plead his own documented good works. Instead, he probes his conscience for times he failed to ask the necessary question, for times he might have been even braver than he was and put his hard-earned reputation at risk.
And, while there is a lot to chew on in those culminating reflections, the somewhat disappointing truth is that they’re unresolved. Outside of a powerful scene in which Cousy, in a live television interview, began crying when asked about his relationship with Russell (another scene repeated multiple times) Pomerantz isn’t able to show us too much detail in Cousy’s reflections. I’m persuaded to admire the basketball player, admire the dignified way he’s aging in a world slowly forgetting the magnitude of his innovations, but I don’t quite have a sense of how I should admire him.
Cousy, that is, deserves admiration for his intention to ask himself deep questions at a time most of his contemporaries have faded or died. Pomerantz deserves credit for laying out those intentions as clearly as he does (and for the loving and attentive biography he works around that project). In the end, though, we see only the first half of the play – the pass as it’s leaving the hands of thoughtful man Cousy and careful writer Pomerantz. Good as this is, I’d like to see the second half of the play, the part where we see the pass get caught, the part where we see the reconciliation with Russell. And that, I’m afraid – both in life and in this otherwise fine book – we do not get to see.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Robert P. Watkins
- 03-17-20
Best book on sport I have read !!
It is a great book about sport, about Boston , about men and what shapes them.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- MC
- 09-15-19
For the die hard Celtics fan.
More about Cousy than Cousy and Russell. But if you are interested in the Celtics and the early years of the NBA and want to learn about one of the original NBA stars, this book is for you. Also decent glimpse into the racism that bled into professional sports.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- LSmith
- 12-18-18
Fantastic book
Some consider the Boston Celtics of the 1950’s and 1960’s, when the team won 11 championships in 13 seasons, to be the greatest dynasty in the history of professional sports. The two players who were most important to these Celtics teams were Bob Cousy and Bill Russell. This excellent book focuses on Cousy’s life, but the driving theme is the relationship between these two iconic Celtics, especially Cousy’s self-questioning about whether he truly had done enough to help his teammate deal with the racism Russell faced in those times.
The book starts with the thoughts of Cousy, now over 90 years old, expressing regrets over how he handled his relationship with Russell. From there, Pomerantz smoothly tells the story of Bob Cousy, from his childhood in which his father was abused by his mother, his difficulty with speaking English (his first language was French) and to his basketball career. He achieved success at Holy Cross in college before his time in Boston, where he was the flashy point guard for the first six of the Celtics 11 titles, in which Russell was a key player for all of them.
While the book paints a terrific picture of NBA basketball, the Celtics and Cousy’s brilliance on the court, those are not what make this book one that must be read. The reader will learn about not only Cousy the player and Cousy the man, but also about his family and friendships as well. His beloved wife Missy passed away after more than fifty years of marriage. He maintained friendships with many teammates throughout the years, including with coach Red Auerbach. But he always had troubling thoughts about Russell and whether he did enough for not only the man, but for the man’s cause and rights.
The book will not answer those questions for either Cousy or the reader, but with the current state of racial issues in the country, it makes sense to show that there are still many unanswered questions. Yes, this is a biography of a basketball legend – but it is also so much more.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Lisa Cerasoli
- 08-21-19
Powerful, Poignant, insightful
I wanted to learn more about basketball because I have a teenage daughter who loves the game. (I never played.) I got an education from this book and so much more. Beautifully written and smartly performed, it was to stop listening. This memoir tackles so many important things: racism in our country, the human condition that we are all imperfect, the potential for greatness within us all, and the power of hindsight. I loved this book and recommend it to anyone of any age.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Joe Yak
- 05-07-19
Most excellent accounts of Cousy and the greats
Thank you for the gripping account of Cousy, Russell, and the Boston Celtics and other greats.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Craig
- 01-13-19
Pomerantz achieves Triple Double with his research, writing and narration.
My Dad said Cousy was his all time favorite and now I know why. Celtics come alive. Light the cigar for Gary M. He wrote a winner and I hope to soon interview author on The Craig Silverman Show.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!