FIRST TIME IN PAPERBACK!
THE LAMBEAU YEARS
PART TWO
​THE HISTORY OF THE
GREEN BAY PACKERS
VOLUME 2
ISBN-13: 978-09109375-71-9 TRADE PAPERBACK
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KINDLE EDITION COMING SOON​
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The myth: the Depression forced the Packers into
bankruptcy.
The truth: a lawsuit by an injured fan forced the Packers management to seek protection from the corporation’s creditors.
THE HISTORY OF THE GREEN BAY PACKERS – THE LAMBEAU YEARS – Part Two – finally gets the story straight.
In this controversial narrative of the Green Bay Packers, Larry D. Names has captured the essence of the team, the corporation that owns the Packers, and their riveting history. The numerous real life stories reveal how the Green Bay Packers managed to stay in the National Football League when the trend was to move to the big cities. Its detailed, documented style captivates the reader and involves him in the feelings of the times.
Football grew through its players, its coaches, its owners; and the history of these men and their exploits has been clouded in more than a few memories. However; this history while intriguing does not compromise the facts with fancy. As in Part One, the reader will find the truth about some of the greatest names and the greatest team in football history.
The author has finally done justice to the creation of the most unique sports franchise in American history. Through his exhaustive research, he has rediscovered football history.
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THE LAMBEAU YEARS
PART ONE
​THE HISTORY OF THE
GREEN BAY PACKERS
VOLUME 3
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ISBN-13: 978-0910937-72-6 TRADE PAPERBACK
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KINDLE EDITION COMING SOON​
Packers. Green Bay. The Green Bay Packers.
No matter how it’s said, one can’t say Green Bay without thinking of the Packers or say Packers without thinking about Green Bay, the greatest little city in all of professional sports. But when and how did this legend in pro sports begin? That question is answered in the first detailed history of the Green Bay Packers.
Larry Names tells the myths that color Packer history. Then he strips away the legends and finds the truth behind the tales. Did Curly Lambeau really start the Packers? What was George Whitney Calhoun’s role in Packer history? How did George Halas help save the Packers from extinction? Were the early executives of the Packers anti-Semitic? How did Gerald Clifford create the most unique franchise in all of professional sports?
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Then there was the team, the players. How did the coach and general manager of a small town team in the frigid north entice so many stars to play professional football for him for less money than they could get in bigger cities? Jug Earpe, Charley Mathys, Cub Buck, Vern Lewellen, Red Dunn, Lavvie Dilweg, Johnny Blood, Cal Hubbard, Mike Michalske, and more. Hall-of-Famers all.
The Green Bay Packers. The team and franchise too tough to die.
THE SHAMEFUL YEARS
​THE HISTORY OF THE
GREEN BAY PACKERS
VOLUME 4
ISBN-13: 978-0910937-73-3 TRADE PAPERBACK
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KINDLE EDITION COMING SOON​
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The two myths: Gene Ronzani and Lisle Blackbourn each resigned from being the head coach of the Green Bay Packers.
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The truth: both were fired, and the Packer organization to this day continues to deny that both were dismissed; one because of his ethnic background and the other because he tried to do the job he was hired to do.
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This fourth volume in the series on the history of the Green Bay Packers reveals the truth behind the headlines of the 1950s. After having fought for three decades for survival in a league consisting of big city teams, the Packers finally achieved financial solvency and even growth, only to have this incredible feat soiled by underhanded dealings by the corporation's executive committee.
Not all was rotten in Bay City. The Packers did make some remarkable strides in the '50s, the most memorable being the construction of a new stadium, which the corporation partially financed with the taxpayers of the city of Green Bay. The Packers got their new stadium despite some wheeling-and-dealing by the corporation's own president that might have cost Green Bay its franchise in the NFL.
Once again the Packers survived the turmoil within the NFL and in their own back yard. They appealed to the fans of Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for more money through a stock sale, then they appealed to the voters and taxpayers of Green Bay for a new stadium. In both cases, they received overwhelming support.
On the field, the Packers went through a trio of coaches from 1950 through 1958. Gene Ronzani had the unenviable task of rebuilding a team that had been decimated by the Pro Football War between the NFL and the AAC. He brought in some stars, but before he could really build a solid foundation, he was fired, mostly for being Italian, for being from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and for being a former player and coach for the hated Chicago Bears. Wisconsin native son Lisle Blackbourn was hired away from his job as head coach at Marquette University to replace Ronzani. He built on what Ronzani had begun, but he wasn't allowed to run the team as he saw fit to do. Finally, the second-guessers got him fired. Ray '' Scooter'' McLean, an assistant under both Ronzani and Blackbourn, was given the top post in 1958. A wonderful human being poor Scooter was a disaster as a head coach in the NFL.
​BURY MY HEART AT WRIGLEY FIELD
THE HISTORY OF
THE CHICAGO CUBS
​WHEN THE CUBS WERE THE WHITE STOCKINGS
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ISBN-10: 0910937122 KINDLE
ISBN-13: 978-0910937-12-2 KINDLE
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ISBN: 978-0-910937-30-6 TRADE PAPER
1876: America was 100 years old; the 7th Cavalry suffered the worst defeat in Plains Indian warfare; and the National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs was born in an hotel room in New York. Only two of the eight teams that began the inaugural year are still around: the Braves and the Cubs; and only the Cubs are in the same city where they were born.
Now baseball fans can re-live those exciting formative years of the National League through the history of the Chicago Cubs. Be there with William Hulbert, founder of the League, as he fought to clean up baseball by ridding the popular game of gamblers and other bad elements that he felt were degrading America's pastime to the level of cockfighting and bear-baiting. Be there with Al Spalding, Cap Anson, and Mike Kelly as they led the Cubs, then known as the White Stockings, to six NL pennants in 11 years.
Reviews –
“Larry Names’ BURY MY HEART AT WRIGLEY FIELD is an engaging history of the first decade of Chicago National League history, with more to come,,.”
– The SABR Review of Books
“Whether writing fiction or re-telling history, Larry Names brings the past alive, and he’s done it again in this entertaining and informative narrative that has a prominent position on my bookshelf.”
– Frank Roderus, Baseball Fan and author of over 100 books
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