Instant Replay: The Green Bay Diary of Jerry Kramer
by Jerry Kramer
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jerry KramerEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-09-05
ISBN: 0385517459
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Doubleday
Book Reviews of Instant Replay: The Green Bay Diary of Jerry Kramer
Book Review: Return to Packerland, 1967
Summary: 5 Stars
I read this book when it first came out, ca. 1968, when I was a high school senior in Racine, Wisconsin. I had been a fanatic Packer backer throughout the glorious early and middle 60s, but by 1968, Lombardi was no longer the coach, only the GM (and besides, I was now interested in other things). He would move on to the Redskins for the 1969 season before dying of cancer in the fall of 1970, so INSTANT REPLAY captures the end of an era, his last hurrah as coach in Green Bay.
As with another reviewer below, the Packers of the 60s have marked my life, especially Bart Starr, Ray Nitschke, and their leader, the great Coach, and I have always viewed INSTANT REPLAY as the period or exclamation point on my early infatuation with them.
Besides its subject matter, INSTANT REPLAY possesses its own literary merit. Kramer is clearly highly intelligent, and since intelligence is not stereotypically associated with the brute violence of the NFL, it's interesting to read his reflections on life in general and life in football, not to mention the ways he perfected his blocking skills. He talks about how his helmet was his best weapon in warding off defensive linemen--which certainly must have done something to his braincells and neck muscles. I also love the running joke about Lombardi's almost-weekly proclamation: "Gentlemen, this is the start of the big push!" as he exhorted the Packers to still-greater efforts in a long painful slog of a season. There's also an interesting description of how the Packers' veteran blockers made a rookie look slow--the vets had played together for so long they anticipated the snap, while the inexperienced new guy waited for it, losing a fraction of a second in the process.
And there's a mystery. With third and goal and 16 seconds left in the Ice Bowl, the famous sub-zero championship against the Dallas Cowboys, Kramer states flatly that Starr told the huddle, "31 wedge, and I'll carry the ball." This contradicts the more widely-accepted version, that Starr kept the QB sneak a secret, so everyone thought he would hand off to the fullback. What really happened? I would love to hear Kramer's side of this story.
INSTANT REPLAY is a wise reflection on NFL football and its greatest coach at a time when the sport was on the verge of making the transition to the overhyped, fabulously-profitable carnival it is today. For several years after it was published, it was the best-selling sports book of all time. Rereading it, it's easy to see why.
Summary of Instant Replay: The Green Bay Diary of Jerry Kramer
In 1967, when Jerry Kramer was a thirty-one-year-old Green Bay Packers offensive lineman, in his tenth year with the team, he decided to keep a diary of the season. ?Perhaps, by setting down my daily thoughts and observations,? he wrote, ?I?ll be able to understand precisely what it is that draws me back to professional football.? Working with the renowned journalist Dick Schaap, Kramer recorded his day-to-day experiences as a player with perception, honesty, humor, and startling sensitivity. Little did Kramer know that the 1967 season would be one of the most remarkable in the history of pro football, culminating with the legendary championship game against Dallas now known as the ?Ice Bowl,? in which Kramer would play a central role. Nor could he have anticipated that his diary would evolve into a book titled Instant Replay, first published in 1968, that would become a multimillion-copy bestseller and be celebrated by reviewers everywhere, including the Washington Post?s Jonathan Yardley, who calls it ?to this day, the best inside account of pro football, indeed the best book ever written about that sport and that league.?This groundbreaking look inside the world of professional football is one of the first books ever to take readers into the locker room and reveal the inner workings of a professional sports franchise. From training camp, through the historic Ice Bowl, then into the locker room of Super Bowl II, Kramer provides a captivating player?s perspective on pro football when the game was all blood, grit, and tears. He also offers a rare and insightful view of the team?s storied leader, Coach Vince Lombardi.
Bringing the book back into print for the first time in more than a decade, this new edition of Instant Replay retains the classic look of the original and includes a foreword by Jonathan Yardley and additional rarely seen photos from the celebrated ?Lombardi era.? As vivid and engaging as it was when it was first published, Instant Replay is an irreplaceable reminder of the glory days of pro football.
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