[.ca] Browns Town 1964: Cleveland Browns and the 1964 Championship (ISBN 1886228728)

From Amazon.com:
The tough, blue-collar city of Cleveland loved its football team, the Browns (named after beloved coach Paul Brown). During their heyday in the late 1940s and 1950s, the Browns muscled their way into several championships and the hearts and minds of the fans. Even after change came in the 1960s with a new owner, Art Modell, and the forced retirement of Coach Brown, the team continued to flourish. When All The World Was Browns Town remembers those years, capped by the championship season in 1964, and juxtaposes this relatively innocent time with the present. Now the Browns are in Baltimore, moved by owner Modell, and renamed the Ravens. The money in big-time professional sports ultimately had its way with a town that was fanatical about football and its storied team.

Magnificent! Pluto rules! Browns rule! No rules! Rule, rule!:
I became a Browns fan in 1968 and remember most of the principals. I've read these football books since I was a kid, and this is definitely one of the 2 or 3 best.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRREAT!:
THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS I HAVE EVER READ IN MY ENTIRE LIFE

Fond memories of 1964:
This book brings back many memories of life and football in 1964 (not necessarily in that order!). The town of Aurora, Ohio was where Cleveland Browns Coach Blanton Collier, Asst. Coach Fritz Heisler, and GM Harol Sauerbrei lived as well as star players Bernie Parrish, Gary Collins and Dick Schafrath. In the Fall of 1964, Aurora High School's footbal was undefeated, the Ohio State Buckeyes were Big 10 Champs, and our beloved Browns were World Champions. Folks in Aurora, and Ohio in general, lived and breathed football. Especially for a then high school sophomore like me, this book brings back wonderful memories of an era as well as of a great football team. If you loved the Browns, you'll love the book!

Commendable:
For me, the acid test of books like these is whether they manage to engage the neutral. Certainly Browns fans will enjoy this pleasant wallow in nostalgia from a time when football was still football. I'm not a Browns fan but I found myself wallowing along with them. Pluto manages to capture the essence of the '64 season and yet not neglect the wider context. Fascinating stuff.

Another strong effort by Pluto:
Award-winning Akron Beacon Journal sportswriter Terry Pluto's latest work is When All The World Was Browns Town. It discusses the 1964 Cleveland Browns, the last Cleveland champion in one of the four major professional sports. Pluto is one of the most gifted sportswriters working today, and the calibre of the writing in this book, like The Curse of Rocky Colavito, is a fine example of his work. It is far better written than the average sports book, in part because Pluto, like David Halberstam, does a fine job of digging up how the people involved saw the events he discusses. One thing I did not care for about the book is that it takes too much of the season itself as a given. The season up until the playoffs only rates one chapter, for example. For those who grew up in Cleveland and remember the season, that's probably sufficient, but I would have liked more focus on it. It's also somewhat unorthodox and anticlimactic to have the title game discussion come in the middle of the book and not the end, and the brief discussion of the 1965 season comes off as whiny and does not give the outstanding '65 Packers the respect they are due. There's much more that is good than bad here, however. Pluto is masterful as usual at showing how different people saw the same events differently. He handles the discussion of Paul Brown well, and did a good job of getting Art Modell's perspective even as he is (rightly) critical of him for moving the Browns to Baltimore. In short, I think any football fan would enjoy this book, and those who remember the '64 Browns firsthand won't be able to put it down.