REVIEW: NEW BALTIMORE STALLIONS BOOK A REFRESHING JOG DOWN MEMORY LANE
Not going anywhere for awhile? Why not grab a book on the rich, colourful history of the Canadian Football League.
Might I suggest you start with the hot-off-the-presses edition The Baltimore Stallions, The Brief, Brilliant History, written by Baltimore-based writer Ron Snyder? The release of the publication by McFarland Books is coming at a great time, just before the 2020 CFL season, with Canadian football fans cooped up and starving for any info, facts and stories relating to the gridiron.
In the case of Stallions, Snyder’s 194- page masterpiece transports you back to early 1990’s Baltimore, MD when Charm City lost its beloved NFL Colts in a shady move by a shady owner literally in the middle of the night. (Imagine your favourite team pulling up stakes and leaving town under the cover of night without saying good-bye! Snyder sets the stage real well for the raw emotions football fans in Maryland’s largest city were feeling at the time).
Enter millionaire businessman Jim Speros – a one-time Clemson Tiger and hopeful of the Montreal Alouettes – to save the day and that’s where Snyder takes you on a colourful, detailed, winding journey of the construction of the CFL’s most-successful US franchise, its two trips to the Grey Cup, and then the unfortunate, surprisingly fast, demise of the team and its subsequent move to Montreal to become the Alouettes.
Clearly a skilled writer, Snyder covered it all with interviews with Stallions GM Jim Popp, seemingly most of the players including Tracy Ham, Chris Armstrong, Mike Pringle, Elfrid Payton, Shar Pourdanesh, members of the coaching staff, front office, the media, season ticket holders, and even the marching band!
In the book you’ll discover the marketing and business prowess of Speros, the core team-building values of Popp (tabbed by his players as “The greatest GM in CFL history”), the coaching genius of Don Mathews, how and why Stallions players couldn’t understand the anti-American bias against them from CFL fans coast-to-coast, and how they felt a ref’s call cost them the 1994 Grey Cup against the BC Lions in Vancouver. You’ll also learn why the Stallions succeeded while the other U.S. expansion franchises failed.
It’s fascinating!
Snyder’s Twitter bio lists him as: “Public Relations Professional, book author, Media Ethics/Mass Communications college professor” and it shows. He weaves feet-on-the-table storytelling along with hardcore stats and facts to tell the complete history of the only US-based team to win the Grey Cup. A wonderful footnote is a Where Are They Now feature of all Stallions players and coaches in the back of the book along with a complete listing of all games Baltimore played including statistical highlights (the Saskatchewan Roughriders never won a game against Baltimore in their existence).
As an author of three books myself, there’s always a nagging feeling when it rolls off the press that you forgot something. (Usually you did). However after completing Snyder’s work, there doesn’t seem to be a single thing he forgot or left out in telling the Stallions’ proud history.
And there could be no better endorsement than that.
You can order The Baltimore Stallions, The Brief, Brilliant History and have it shipped direct-to-home here:
https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/the-baltimore-stallions/
RP
@rodpedersen
