I Hate the Dallas Cowboys: And Who Elected Them America's Team Anyway? edited by Bert Sugar

My first reveiw. As I stated in my disclaimer (see sidebar) there are people on Amazon, Barnes and Noble (and other book review sites) who will disparage a book just because they disagree with the book's content, not even having read the book in the first place. The morons who disparage this book can't even see the title says Bert Sugar is the book's editor. It is not "wriiten by" Bert Sugar. This is a dead giveaway that some people just found the book while browsing, and being the Dallas fans they are, wrote scathing denouncements of the book without ever having come in contact with the book. Of course, this is not a surprise to me, having lived in Texas all my life, I know how Cowboy fans are.

But this is supposed to be a review of the book, which is what I will do. Sugar has collected some two dozen essays from sportswriters, athletes and others on the subject. I will write about only a few of them so as not to spoil the entire book for you.

My favorite piece of this book is plain and simple. A writer, and even better artist, Bill Gallo draws the truie "America's Team" as an editorial cartoon. Hint:: none of them ever played for Dallas. These real America's team members are heroes from the heyday of cowboy movies (as opposed to Cowboy movies, like "North Dallas Forty") They include such notables as Gene Autry & Tex Ritter (true Texans and cowboys) and John Wayne (not a true Texan, but definitely a true cowboy).

The next one is by a guy named Thom Loverro who writes a fiction piece about a future where the destruction and decay of society is directly related to the sins of "America's Team". A father is telling his son of those days when the Cowboys were everywhere and doing everything evil for which they are known (drugs, hoodlumism, etc.).

Bill Conlin and Skip Bayless, veteran sports writers for Philadelphia and Dallas newspapers are featured here. If you are familiar with Skip Bayless' books about the Cowboys, you know he doesn't pull any punches, despite having worked in the city of Dallas. He doesn't here either. Most of the sports writers, by the fact of their profession do a better job of writing than do the athletes. But one of notable successes is Steve Bartkowski's piece. Although to be fair, it appears Steve's main grudge is that Dallas didn't use their draft pick on him. Suggesting that somewhere deep inside he would have liked to play for them.

At only 192 pages, it is far too short, but it is easily readable in an hour or two.
Rate this one 8 stars.

Next book is "Texas Hold-em" by Kinky Friedman

Winthrop