CINCINNATI SCHOOLBOY LEGENDS: Orange Frazer Press, Inc.

There has never been such a book. From their collaboration on the classic Cincinnati Game--called by Cooperstown's library "the best coffeetable book on baseball ever written"--Lonnie Wheeler and John Baskin have teamed up again, this time for a brassy, anecdotal collection of stories on Cincinnati's all-time grid legends.

Encyclopedic in detail, thoughtful in each appraisal, it's an odyssey through the legendary names, games, and teams of more than a hundred years of area football. It begins in the late 1800s with Woodward High School beating the University of Cincinnati and ends with Tony Pike's last pass in the Orange Bowl. In between, Schoolboy Legends brings to life a vital slice of Cincinnati culture. For it is unlikely that any other major American city does high school football quite like the Queen City and its environs. Its Friday nights speak vividly to our neighborhoods, parishes, and sporting ethic because it is here that Cincinnati competes, amuses and--in many ways--defines itself.