Bellano takes readers on a lively journey, from the streets of New York City and its surrounding suburbs to extended visits with cousins in hardscrabble western Pennsylvania towns, regularly reserving a close eye and gentle love for his numerous sports subjects. The unique differences he observes are striking and play a role in the man he becomes; like his hardworking immigrant family finding its way in a new country with a heavy influence from the Catholic Church, Bellano transforms as he grows, from precocious youngster to sensitive young man.

Sports fans who came of age during this period will appreciate Bellano’s recreations of timeless moments in ‘70s sports history, while also welcoming his intertwining of more serious news, such as the impact of Watergate and inflation on his generation. His recounting of such seemingly mundane things like the “finely manicured grass” of Yankee Stadium or the apparent desperation within Pennsylvania’s all-but-abandoned mining towns is unadulterated and nostalgic, as he reaches the happy realization that the ‘70s were not a “forgettable” decade by any stretch, but one of the greatest, and most under-appreciated, on the books, a “golden age” when “our appetite for sports was voracious.”

Takeaway: Emphatic tribute to the sports triumphs of the 1970s.

Comparable Titles: Mike Greenberg’s Got Your Number, Michael MacCambridge’s The Big Time.

Production grades
Cover: A-
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: B+
Marketing copy: A-