Available instantly

Hardcover
$15.09

$15.09 with 40 percent savings

List Price: $25.00

FREE delivery April 18 - 24. Details

Only 1 left in stock - order soon.

$$15.09 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details

Ships from

Book EN Thingz

Sold by

Book EN Thingz

Returns

30-day refund/replacement

Payment

Secure transaction

$7.99

Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns

Has a sturdy binding with some shelf wear. May have some markings or highlighting. Used copies may not include access codes or Cds. Has a sturdy binding with some shelf wear. May have some markings or highlighting. Used copies may not include access codes or Cds. See less

FREE delivery Wednesday, April 16 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35

Or fastest delivery Tuesday, April 15. Order within 8 hrs 45 mins

Only 1 left in stock - order soon.

$$15.09 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details

Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.

Enhancements you chose aren't available for this seller. Details

${cardName} not available for the seller you chose

${cardName} unavailable for quantities greater than ${maxQuantity}.

Sold by Goodbooks Company and Fulfilled by Amazon.

Other sellers on Amazon

New & Used (37) from $6.85 & FREE Shipping

Image Unavailable

Image not available for
Color:

To view this video download Flash Player

Follow the author

Gary Andrew Poole

Follow

The Galloping Ghost: Red Grange, an American Football Legend Hardcover – September 10, 2008

by Gary Andrew Poole (Author)

21 ratings

See all formats and editions

{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$15.09","priceAmount":15.09,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"15","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"09","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"Cm1Ehz0EJuDB0TUcynqnFR%2FnFpaLZVZAU06HoT5wJKHsHkLsjtokA8v7YkPChigCuwFV02VPDrEmDtL4eGD8NzOk7wurC9fz1qWpqML8E2fqbyKBC4yu8czVRTieKmiNpObmrP%2FRPiPsB%2FuQN2HjjfoEQCktRtn3nmqVCqUTXfcvWJI0%2FuYa0PexMJaJIauw","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}, {"displayPrice":"$7.99","priceAmount":7.99,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"7","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"99","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"Cm1Ehz0EJuDB0TUcynqnFR%2FnFpaLZVZAm9l1Ykpmp91%2F%2FNgUPsCkv3nBKolxjTbpe31nzL2AbFAdtEr1VXlmnfddAWdT4dnDJBYacifCrlyvXkpWRcPCdXB7B%2F%2BpYmf0lEgIllwJ59UYWy%2Bp3Qaqwptn%2FDwAQWZ%2BuoOvLjzMS5l3FidP8PCLWgnEmOYuw0CM","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":1}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

In the 1920s four athletes defined American sports: Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey, Bobby Jones, and Red Grange. They were the country's first athletic pantheon, its Mount Rushmore, and for a few brief years Red Grange outshone them all. The Galloping Ghost tells the remarkable untold story of this fleet-footed college football player who inspired poetry, dazzled fans as he felled opponents on the field, and, with the help of an unscrupulous and utterly brilliant manager (the first real-life Jerry Maguire), helped launch and legitimize professional football, changing American sports forever.
In this first major biography of Red Grange, Gary Andrew Poole draws on exhaustive research and interviews to evoke the golden age of sports in all its splendor and outrageousness. He transports readers from college football rallies to barnstorming tours, from the locker room to the White House to Hollywood, as he recounts Grange’s rise and tragic fall. And he lays bare the fascinating and psychologically complex relationship between a star athlete and the nation’s first real sports agent—a relationship that encapsulated the good and shadowy sides of sports and how they inevitably intersected.
For fans of Cinderella Man, The Devil and Sonny Liston, and The Devil in the White City, The Galloping Ghost is a provocative, character-driven, atmospheric sports history that gives us a new understanding of a seminal sports figure, from raw and innocent athletic talent to mortal American icon. A symbol of rebellious manhood and virility, Red Grange is a reminder of the fleeting nature of fame, youth, and physical dominance.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The valuable part of the narrative is a story that many sports fans will not know, or at least know only in outline—namely, the increasing blurring of sports figure and cultural celebrity in the Depression era, especially once Hollywood began to recruit sports stars to turn up in all sorts of B-list productions. That blurring, after all, is what defines sports figures today, and Grange was an indisputable pioneer . . . A useful character study of a figure often overlooked today." Kirkus Reviews

"Puts Grange's great career in the context of its colorful time... Pays worthy tribute to a legend." Booklist, ALA

"Poole is eminently readable, and the accent on Pyle is a real bonus." Library Journal

"A lively, well-written biography of this towering figure. Grange revolutionized the game on the field and his business manager, C.C. Pyle, revolutionized it off it." -- Orange County Register

"...reveals how the game is played on the field, and how it resonates in the wider world." The Washington Post

"[Poole] recounts the rise and tragic fall of the first national star of the gridiron. Poole also lays bare the complex relationship between a prominent athlete and the nation's first real sports agent." -- (Chicago) Sun-Times News Group

"Poole gives us the first major biography of Grange." -- Time Out Chicago

"Football wasn't truly football until the coming of Red Grange" -- Chicago Magazine —

About the Author

GARY ANDREW POOLE has written for the New York Times, Time, GQ, USA Today, Wired, and other periodicals. He graduated from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The bears were exchanging the brutal Midwest winter for palm trees. The second leg, the southern swing, of the barnstorming tour had begun. Thirty players, managers, coaches, trainers, and hangers-on were in the Floridian, escaping a raging snowstorm. Wanting to make amends, Charlie had scheduled fewer games, provided two sets of jerseys, and booked first-class accommodations on the Pullman. Despite the more livable conditions, Red was still ignoring the signs from his most important asset, his body. He convinced himself he was ready to go again; the ten days’ rest, along with daily treatments under powerful heat lamps, had softened Red’s arm. The warmer climes would cure him, too, he hoped. Realistically, he needed at least three months to heal. No one was discouraging him from playing. Certainly not George Halas, who was actually making money for once and could feel the momentum of the public shift every time Red Grange stepped on the field alongside his Bears. And Charlie guaranteed that the second part of the barnstorming tour would be like a vacation. And it was in this way, the buzz saw of Red’s popularity pushing them, that Red and Charlie went forward. The first stop would be Coral Gables, Florida, where they would play on December 25, 1925. Charlie had tried to get even more games. They were supposed to have a few contests in the South — Georgia, Alabama, maybe even Cuba — but no one in those states or the island nation could come up with the money. Promoters were always coming to Charlie and promising that they would give him a percentage of the gate, but Charlie wanted his cash up front. He was very particular on this matter. The newspapermen made note of it and started calling Charlie "Cold Cash" Pyle, or "Cash ’n’ Carry" Pyle, a moniker that he loved. "Little do they know," Charlie told Liberty magazine, "how they flatter me." Well, the Coral Gables people did come up with some money, so "Red Grange’s Chicago Bears" would have a relaxing three-thousand-mile trip south where they would play on Christmas, then go to Tampa and Jacksonville (if those two communities came up with the cold cash), and then swing over to New Orleans, up to Los Angeles, Frisco, Portland, and Seattle. Along with some additional acolytes and Clem, the porter, who would serve the Bears the entire journey, Halas and Pyle signed some more players. They were trying to make the second leg less of a torture fest, and Red’s presence was attracting existing pros as well as college stars. They brought in Roy Lyman, Nebraska tackle, who had played with the Cleveland and Philadelphia pro teams; Richard "Dutch" Vick, former Michigan quarterback and more recently a member of the Detroit Panther eleven; and Harold "Swede" Erickson, former Washington and Jefferson back and a dandy passer who starred with the Chicago Cardinals. Michigan’s Paul Goebel, a six-foot-five All-American, captain of the 1922 Wolverines, was charged with blowing open the ends for Grange. "He came across as somewhat austere and intimidating but he was a true gentle giant," recalled his granddaughter Meg Goebel. Goebel was an excellent teammate — Michigan great Bennie Oosterbaan said "he always thought twice before doing anything for himself " — and the tall Teuton could buckle the knees of the opposition. In the first leg of the tour, Goebel played for Columbus and he had been so dominant that the Bears avoided his side of the line the entire game. Years later the blue-eyed Paul, who had served in World War I, would reenlist for World War II, earning the Bronze Star. In Coral Gables, Grange experienced the insanity of the 1920s land rush. "Don’t go to Florida," he would later warn friends, "even if you are invited on an excursion with all expenses paid and free money in your pocket." The Midwest seemed to be descending en masse on the Florida swamps. The Bears went to the field where they could smell the bare earth and freshly sawed planks. But where were the stands? Within forty-eight hours, workers constructed the bleachers for twenty-five thousand seats of a makeshift stadium. Pyle priced 50-yard-line box seats at $19.80, and he had plenty of takers. The players’ heavy boots, once wet from tramping in the mud, were now light and cracking, their uniform sweaters clean. Paul Goebel played his typical he-man game, destroying the opposing end and letting Grange get off his flying runs. The Galloping Ghost’s touchdown came in the second period, when, after a 33-yard sprint around end, he was given the ball on the 2-yard line and in two attempts went through center for the score. Grange played three full periods, and in the closing moments he gave the crowd another thriller, racing 45 yards, and had eluded the Coral Gables barrier when Red Barron, former Georgia Tech star, pulled him down. The Bears beat the Coral Gables Collegians 7–0. Red seemed to be back in form; at least there were moments when people were offered a glimpse of his excellence. But underneath it all his athletic ability wasn’t the same. It was an experiment gone wrong. Red always had great vision on the field. He could detect the future movements of all the players. He still had the vision but he wasn’t always reacting quite as quickly because he had played eleven pro games in thirty days. Before the barnstorming tour he had played a seven-game college schedule. Red had played eighteen games over a three-month period. He played offense and defense, and he took the brunt of the cheap shots. He still had eight games to go. On New Year’s Day the Bears faced off in Tampa against Jim Thorpe, one of America’s greatest athletes. Thorpe, a Sac and Fox Indian, was an Olympic gold medalist in the pentathlon and decathlon, played major league baseball, and starred in college and professional football, perhaps his greatest sport. Thorpe’s trainwreck speed once mowed over Dwight Eisenhower, inflicting the future president with a knee injury. Thorpe was one of the founding fathers of professional football, its first attraction, and the league’s inaugural president. He had even been in the Canton Hupmobile showroom in 1920 when the league was formed and helped give the league some credibility. But Thorpe was unfairly tainted. He had violated his amateur status by playing minor league baseball to earn a little pocket money and as a result had to surrender his track medals from the 1912 Olympic Games. Thorpe was a draw, but he was an Indian and all that that meant to the wider American public, and Thorpe never had a C. C. Pyle in his corner. About Thorpe the Pittsburgh Dispatch once reported: "This person Thorpe was a host in himself. Tall and sinewy, as quick as a flash and as powerful as a turbine engine, he appeared to be impervious to injury." Thorpe still had a regal presence from the faraway stands and on the field he was a relentless trash talker — "Let’s give ’em a show, let ol’ Jim run" — and if a tackler didn’t let him by he would drive his hip and shoulder into him, often knocking men cold, once demolishing Knute Rockne in a charity game. But Thorpe was almost forty and on the downside. Age and drink were hobbling him, and he was getting cut from every legitimate team he tried out for. Jim, probably the greatest athlete of all time, was becoming a novelty act. Grange would never have Thorpe’s world-class speed and he was tired. But on one of Grange’s touchdown runs, he bowled over the cirrhotic Thorpe. It was now Grange’s world.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Mariner Books; First Edition (September 10, 2008)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0618691634
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0618691630
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.2 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1.08 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,760,913 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,294 in Football Biographies (Books)
- #3,213 in Football (Books)

Customer Reviews:
21 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Gary Andrew Poole

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Gary Andrew Poole lives in Los Angeles. He has written for GQ, Esquire, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and TIME.

Customer reviews

21 global ratings

How customer reviews and ratings work

Review this product

Write a customer review

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews. Please reload the page.

Mother of 3
Good Read
Reviewed in the United States on June 10, 2009
Verified Purchase

I bought this for my brother, a history buff, after hearing the author on NPR. My brother said he was surprised at how good this was. He said not so much for the football content, but more about the feel of the era. He said regardless of how interested anyone might be in football or Red Grange, it did a great job depicting this time in our country's history. He is recommending it to others...something he rarely does.

Read more

4 people found this helpful

Helpful

Report
MeMeZ
good book
Reviewed in the United States on February 10, 2024
Verified Purchase
good book.

Read more

Helpful

Report
Bryan Dietzler
Love this Book!
Reviewed in the United States on September 9, 2017
Verified Purchase
Love this book! Anyone who loves Grange and football history will love this book.

Read more

Helpful

Report
Mark Jensen
Great football story
Reviewed in the United States on November 5, 2009
Verified Purchase
As a Chicago Bears fan I enjoyed this book a great deal! However, some of the slang terms used by the author such as "Num Nuts" caught me off guard and didn't seem to fit. Had they been quotes that would have worked well. But the author has written for several major publications and I expected better writing. At times it felt like he was trying too hard to be one of the guys in the locker room with Grange. The storyline between Grange and his manager CC Pyle was one of the best parts of the book.

Read more

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Report
A Christmas Music Fanatic
Worth Reading
Reviewed in the United States on September 29, 2011
I wanted to love this book. I love football history and stories about old school football players from bygone eras, and Red Grange is truly one of the biggest names in football history. I read Galloping Ghost on the heels of having read Johnny U: The Life and Times of John Unitas (which was excellent), and it didn't quite live up to my expectations.

Red Grange had been gone from football for about 3 decades by the time I was born, but his was still a household name when I was growing up. I don't ever remember NOT knowing who Red Grange was. So I was thrilled to find this book in our local public library.

The book is well written, so what is my problem with it? Well, through no fault of the author (I'm sure), Grange simply wasn't a particularly interesting character. By all accounts, his dazzling displays on the gridiron were spellbinding and unforgettable. Off the field, Grange seems to have been a great guy: polite, humble, a bit shy, but again, not terribly interesting. And though the writing is good, and though it may well have been true, I don't think a compelling case was made for Grange outshining Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey, and Bobby Jones for a time during the 1920s. And, though this has nothing to do with the book per se, I can't help but feel as though Grange is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame solely on the merits of his college career. I truly hate to say that, but the statistics don't lie.

As for CC Pyle, I get that he was a huge influence in Grange's life (and was more responsible than anyone for destroying Grange's pro career almost as soon as it started), and he may well have been the first sports "agent", not to mention a visionary of sorts. But so much of the book is devoted to him that by the time I was done with it, I felt as though I had read his biography instead of Grange's. No question I know more about him than I do about Grange.

Is the book worth reading? Sure it is. But whereas I had thought about buying it at one point, I'm glad I was able to borrow it from the library first. I might consider buying it at a bargain price, but I can't say that I strongly recommend it at full price. I do recommend Johnny U and, to an even greater degree, When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi. The latter is the best football biography I've read to date.

Read more

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Report
LuRita Boggs
Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on April 22, 2018
Verified Purchase
Good

Read more

Helpful

Report
Daniel M Cordosi
Running
Reviewed in the United States on July 4, 2020
Verified Purchase
If you're a football fan, this book is a look in the past, at one of Football's greatest players Red Grange not only on the playing field but also in his personal life.

Read more

Helpful

Report
Best Of All
The Ghost of Cool Gold
Reviewed in the United States on November 18, 2008
The history of football might have been extremely different if Red Grange only pursued basketball and track at the University of Illinois as he had initially planned. It may be far from carrying the moniker of "America's Game."

The importance of "The Galloping Ghost" to the gridiron is legendary, but author Gary Andrew Poole scrambles past the well-trodden turf to deliver a comprehensive biography on the man who made football professional. In Grange's first college game (1923) he rushed for three touchdowns against Nebraska, ultimately gaining 723 yards in seven games and notching a dozen TD's while leading Illinois to a "national championship."

But it was one year later - scoring four TD's in the first quarter versus Michigan - that solidified Grange's name in the "Golden Age of Sports." And in an era when college players were dissuaded by coaches in turning pro - even threatened with having to return their varsity letters - Grange signed with the National Football League's Chicago Bears one day after the end of the 1925 season and embarked on a 19-game barnstorming tour that earned him in excess of $100,000.

A salary dispute between Grange and the Bears led the player - along with his agent, C.C. Pyle, to form their own league - the American Football League - in 1926 to compete against the NFL, with the superstar playing for the New York Yankees. The upstart league lasted one year before folding, with the Yankees moving to the NFL for the 1927 and 1928 seasons, though Grange missed that second year due to a severe knee injury.

Though not the same player after the injury, Grange returned to the Bears (1929-1934) and helped the club to titles in 1932 and 1933. The iconic pop culture status was solidified through the marketing by Pyle; Grange appeared in two silent-films and a 12-part serial.

This "Ghost" was pure gold in a time when pro football needed a superstar. His name resonates today as signifying excellence and Poole delivers a great look into the incredible life and times of the "Ice Man."

Read more

4 people found this helpful

Helpful

Report

Follow the author

The Galloping Ghost: Red Grange, an American Football Legend Hardcover – September 10, 2008

Purchase options and add-ons

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Editorial Reviews

Review

About the Author

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Product details

Videos

About the author

Gary Andrew Poole

Customer reviews

Review this product

Images in this review

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews. Please reload the page.