It's a world filled with armchair quarterbacks, designer blitzes, the Hogs, and Purple People Eaters. The colorful language of America's Game--football--is the subject of the newest work from broadcaster Jesse Goldberg-Strassler. Field generals throw back-shoulder passes to vertical threats, working off the bump and run. Penalties were originally signaled by horns, not flags. Tailbacks follow the big uglies to paydirt for a touchdown.
Football is a sport with its own lingo and jargon--a colorful patois that s developed over the years and millions of games, college and pro, with today's broadcasters developing their own descriptions of America's Game. In The Football Thesaurus, a fascinating compendium of football terms, Jesse Goldberg-Strassler--broadcaster, storyteller, talker, voice--explains what football terms mean and how they came to be. Whether it's a discussion of how Doug Plank was the inspiration for Buddy Ryan's 46 defense or why legendary Chicago Bears owner/coach George Halas referred to a football as a cantaloupe, Goldberg-Strassler's book succeeds both as a football reference and a history of the game.
"Football is the country's favorite sport, the heartbeat of most every town, community, and metropolis," Goldberg-Strassler says. "We watch it, we breathe it, and--above all else--we talk it. The Football Thesaurus is filled with all the ways the game is talked, from the casual jargon of the armchair quarterback to the barking cadence of the signal-caller in the shotgun."
The Football Thesaurus comes from the author of The Baseball Thesaurus. The Baseball Thesaurus has been an Amazon bestseller and is currently in a second edition.
The Football Thesaurus is a very worthy successor to The Baseball Thesaurus: it's a absorbing account both of the language of football and the history of the game. No matter if you're a fan trying to figure out the game or a veteran who can recall the first play of the second half of the third Super Bowl, you'll find The Football Thesaurus to be a fascinating read. For the casual fan, The Football Thesaurus weaves the basic concepts of the game with entertaining stories from Army's Lonely End to Michigan State s Little Giants, For the 12th Man, the Thesaurus collects every type of technique and play imaginable, sharing how to differentiate between a stalk and a trap block, a jet and an orbit sweep, and a flare and a banana route.
