HEROES & BALLYHOO tells the story of the creation of America’s sports entertainment industry during the period of 1919-1930. The star athletes, over-the-top journalists, and cagey PR men had an extraordinary impact on the country, profoundly changing individual sports, establishing the secular religion of sports and sports heroes, and helping bond disparate social and regional sectors of the country. Sports became a cornerstone of modern American life in the Golden Age.

Freed from the agonies of World War I, Americans eagerly bounded into the “era of wonderful nonsense” — the Roaring Twenties. They threw off Victorian traditions and rural ways, and sought everything modern, from bobbed hair, bathtub gin, jazz, Model Ts, movies and radio to fads of all kinds. Moreover, the war-weary public embraced the drama and excitement of sports and its star athletes, in search of heroes not from the fields of Flanders, but from a field of dreams.

HEROES & BALLYHOO salutes the ten most prominent Golden Age heroes and relates their effect on sports and society. Babe Ruth, America’s greatest sports hero, leads the way, followed by boxer Jack Dempsey, college football’s Red Grange and Knute Rockne, tennis players Bill Tilden and Helen Wills, golfers Walter Hagen and Bobby Jones, and swimmers Johnny Weissmuller and Gertrude Ederle.

The book also celebrates the ballyhoo artists—sportswriters, promoters, and press agents—who hyped the stars to a receptive public. Reporters Grantland Rice and Damon Runyon set the pace for the press; promoters C. C. Pyle and Tex Rickard put P. T. Barnum to shame; and Babe Ruth’s press agent, Christy Walsh, founded the sports marketing business.

BALLYHOO (bal-ee-hoo), n.: loud, exaggerated, or sensational advertising or promotion.
BALLYHOOING, v.:to publicize noisily. First seen in the mainstream press around 1910, the
term’s usage peaked in the 1920s. Originally associated with carnival barkers.

For more information, please visit the publication’s official website:

website: http://www.bohnbooks.com/

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