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Title: Glenn Dickey's 49ers: The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of the NFL's Greatest Dynasty by Glenn Dickey ISBN: 0-7615-2232-8 Publisher: Prima Lifestyles Pub. Date: 13 July, 2000 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.21 (14 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Intriguing look at the 49ers Dynasty
Comment: Glenn Dickey has written for the San Francisco Chronicle about San Francisco sports for the better part of at least three decades (if not longer), and is probably more qualified than most in writing a book about this prominent team. He takes us on a behind the scenes look at what went on inside the 49ers' organization while Montana, Craig, Lott, Rice, and company were on the field leading the team to victory every fall Sunday afternoon throughout the 80's and most of the 90s.
He starts off with Eddie DeBartolo buying the team in the mid 1970s, through the terrible times of the late 70s, the hiring of Walsh and the rebuilding of the team, Walsh's early innovations, "The Catch" in 1981 that sent the 49ers to their first Super Bowl, the struggle to stay on top through the 1980's, the turmoil that eventually motivated Walsh to quit coaching in 1989, the Seifert era of the 1990's to the disaster that was the 1999 season.
What I found especially interesting was the portrayal of Edward DeBartolo, the 49ers former owner. I had always thought he seemed like a true gentlemen, always gracious to the media and generous to a fault with 49er employees and players. Dickey paints a much different and truer picture of him behind the "facade." Here was a man who raged after every defeat, and whose vices eventually landed him in trouble.
Dickey has written several books about the 49ers and at least one I know of with Bill Walsh. If they're as good as this one, they're all well worth reading.
Rating: 3
Summary: good book, to many mistakes
Comment: this is a good book for all 49er fans, but if Dickey, who lives in the Bay Area is a 49er fan like he says, he wouldn't have made so many mistakes.
he talks more about what took place off the field than on.
he goes very briefly through the 49er games and rarely talks about some of the players and their achivements.
for the 1998 season, he never mentions Terrell Owens catching 14 tds and never mentions Garrison Hearst's 96 yard TD run vs. the Jets.
Dickey also makes very carless mistakes.
Roger Craig didn't win MVP of Super Bowl 19 like Dickey says and at times his writing is to repetive.
this book is mostly concerened about what the team did off the field, behind close doors. Dickey mentions Joe Montana's and Bill Walsh's fued, and how Debartalo was going to fire Walsh about 4 times but Carmen Policy stopped him. he also talks about the disaster behind Jim Druckenmiller and how the 49ers came to chossing him.
Dickey says that the 49ers were going to take a QB, and Walsh studdied 4 of them and said that Jake Plummer reminded him of Joe Montana, but he wasn't worth a 1st round pick. So the 49ers took Druck and it turned out to be a horrible pick.
Dickey also says that Bill Walsh was behind the pick of Reggie McGrew despite his knee injury.
what i don't like about this book is that i want to know more about what is going on on the field. the trades, the moves, some of the games, that stuff, this is mostly off the field.
good book though.
Rating: 3
Summary: Some Good Stuff... But Factual Errors Worry Me
Comment: I've always had an attraction to tell-all tomes about celebrities and such, so when I found out about Glenn Dickey's 'inside look' at the San Francisco 49ers during their championship years through to the horrific 1999 and 2000 seasons, I just hadda give it a read. And what an inside look it is! I was treated to owner Edward DeBartolo, Jr's boozing, gambling, and womanizing troubles, combined with his post-loss rages, and his removal from the team due to his involvement in a Louisiana gambling scandal in the late 90s. There's the disastrous and mercifully brief reign of GM Joe Thomas that marked the ignoble start of DeBartolo's ownership. There's head coach Bill Walsh under constant pressure from the front office to maintain a competitive team throughout the 80s, which eventually led to burnout and his retirement from coaching.
Also touched upon-though not in as great a deal of detail as I expected-is the battle between Joe Montana and Steve Young for control of the starting QB spot that kept the team in turmoil throughout the late 80s/ early 90s. And who could forget Walsh and George Seifert's respective invasions in the affairs of other Niners coaches where (according to the author) they shouldn't have gone? Also covered is the hiring of Steve Mariucci as coach following Seifert being forced out, the injuries that made Rice a less-effective receiver and forced QB Steve Young into retirement, and the 1999 season that marked the end of the team's winning ways. Triumphs, tragedies, ego clashes, bad blood, scandals- it's like a real-life soap opera for guys!
But before you dive in on the 'inside poop', be warned- there are more than a few factual errors throughout this hardcover's 276 pages that may sow seeds of doubt within your mind as to just how true some of the tales that Mr. Dickey recounts really are. On page 82, it is stated that the 49ers led 28-13 over the Miami Dolphins at halftime in Super Bowl XIX, and that RB Roger Craig was named the game MVP. In fact, the halftime score was 28-16, and QB Joe Montana grabbed the MVP honors. Page 85 claims the Niners failed to win the NFC West in 1986, and lost their second-straight wild-card game to the eventual Super Bowl champion New York Giants. Actually, SanFran DID win the West in '86, and the horrific season-ending loss to the Giants was a divisional playoff, not a wild-card playoff. On page 108, Dickey claims that the Chicago Bears' amazing 46 defense was named after the jersey number worn by Bears middle LB Mike Singletary. The only problem with this so-called 'factoid' is that Singletary wore number 50 throughout his career with the Bears! On page 115, it is stated that George Seifert was "certainly the first to be rewarded with a Super Bowl championship in his first season" as a head coach, when in actuality it was Baltimore Colts coach Don McCafferty who was the first to make such an accomplishment in Super Bowl V against Dallas. The 49ers beat the Vikings by the score of 41 to 13 in the 1989 divisional playoff, not 41 to 3 as is stated on page 119. On page 121, it is written that both the 49ers and the New York Giants were 10-0 when they faced off at Candlestick Park for a big Monday Night game during the 1990 season, when in actuality both clubs sported a 10-1 record going into the game. Finally, on page 151 former center Bart Oates is referred to as "Brad" Oates.
Thanks to this bevy of factual errors-- and the fact that a significant portion of the stories in this hardcover are partly based on conversations the author had with the "principals of this drama" whose own personal agendas and egos likely got in the way of them actually telling the entire truth about what they remembered-- I've taken most of what I'd read here with a pretty hefty grain of salt. The former concern is kinda strange, considering Mr. Dickey's reputation as one of the bay area's most celebrated sports columnists. Ironically, a blurb on the back cover by 49ers postgame show co-host Mark Ibanez states that Glenn Dickey's 49ers is "well-researched". Heh,I 'd sure hate to see what Mr. Ibanez considers "poorly-researched"! Another thing that annoys me is the book's format. Approximately half the pages have an inset that contains a sentence taken from the one of the page's paragraphs, but is written in a larger font to give it emphasis. There really isn't any need for these insets, as they are distracting and a waste of space. Besides, Glenn Dickey's 49ers is a pretty fast read, anyway-- it's not like it needs to have a page-by-page quick-reference synopsis...
Fortunately, I found the final chapter-- which discusses what the author feels must be done to bring the Niners back into contention as a premier NFL team-- to be on the mark for the most part. Dickey's thoughts on how to proceed (e.g. the York family selling the team to someone who has a local presence in the bay area and has the drive to make the team competitive again) are refreshingly rational. He also argues that the franchise should build and play in a new stadium somewhere in the southern peninsula or Silicon Valley. Although this idea may not sit well with purists who feel that teams should actually play within the boundaries of the cities they represent, the author cites more than a couple logical reasons (the hazards & expense of constructing a stadium on SF's unstable ground, the geographic concentration of ticket-holding fans, fewer traffic problems come game time) why a south peninsula / silicon valley home venue would be a great idea. I know I'd consider it pretty cool: if it were to happen, I'd be hangin' out in the parkin' lot during every home game, and do some serious tailgate partying!
'Late
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Title: Forty Niners: Collector's Edition by Joseph Hession, Joe Hession, George Seifert ISBN: 0942627334 Publisher: Woodford Publishing Pub. Date: September, 1997 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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