"The National Football League is a towering, distinctly American colossus taking in $14 billion in annual revenue and provoking intense national debate over issues from player safety to political protest. Yet its current dominance obscures a surprising origin story. As it turns out, in the beginning most people found the very idea of professional football absurd. In The League, acclaimed author John Eisenberg reveals how the five men who built the NFL took an immense risk by investing in the sport in the 1920s and 1930s. Art Rooney, George Halas, Tim Mara, George Preston Marshall, and Bert Bell first achieved renown as gamblers, bookies, and prodigal sons. What they shared, other than street smarts and a competitive streak, was an unusual passion for professional football at a time when the nation was obsessed with college football, baseball, boxing, and horseracing. As Eisenberg shows in this absorbing chronicle of the NFL's first decades, the League nearly failed numerous times. It w

"In Rocket Men, sportswriter John Eisenberg offers the definitive history of Black quarterbacks in the league-men who not only shaped the history of football, but made indelible contributions to the cause of civil rights in America. As Eisenberg recounts, white coaches, scouts, and team owners long perceived Black players as unfit for the quarterback position. Believing Black athletes could not play "in thinking roles," they relegated them to running back, defensive back, and receiver positions. In the late 1960s, a few teams began to bring on Black quarterbacks once more. Players like James "Shack" Harris and Marlin Briscoe proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Black men could play the position just as well--if not better--than their white peers. Yet it wouldn't be until the 1990s, when the league began hiring more Black coaches and general managers, that Black quarterbacks truly got the opportunity to shine. When they did, they transformed the game. Drawing on exclusive interviews w

"Justice league vs. Teen titans": Soon after Damian joins the Teen Titans as Robin, a rift develops between the Justice League and the Titans over Raven, whom the JL sees as being in league with her father, the demon Trigon, while the Titans see her as his victim. Soon the rift turns into an all-out war, as the Titans take it upon themselves to protect Raven from the League, while thwarting Trigon's plans to create a hell on Earth.