Product Description

They were Cleveland’s last champions.

They were a team of men in the truest sense of the words, men who didn’t expect to be coddled, men who didn’t believe the world should genuflect at the mere mention of their names.

They had the greatest running back in the history of football, and a coach who wore a hearing aid. Their quarterback had a Ph.D. in math. They had a defensive end who was a preacher, and a halfback who became a millionaire. Together, they won it all.

These were the 1964 Cleveland Browns.

Back before Free Agency, before shoe contracts and end zone dances, football was a tough game played by men who loved it. They had real jobs in the off season, as insurance salesmen or ­manufacturers’ representatives, and they lived in the community where they played. They were grateful to the fans for their support and believed that nothing they accomplished was important unless the team won.

In this nostalgic look back, sportswriter Terry Pluto tells the remarkable story of the upstart AFC Cleveland Browns’ surprise championship victory over the hugely favored Baltimore Colts and the colorful players who made that season so memorable. He takes us through the entire 1964 season from training camp at Hiram College to the championship game in Municipal Stadium. Along the way he recreates an era and a team for which pride was not just a slogan.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #367010 in Books
• Published on: 2003-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781886228726
• Condition: USED - VERY GOOD
• Notes:
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Amazon.com Review
The tough, blue-collar city of Cleveland loved its football team, the Browns (named after beloved coach Paul Brown). During their heyday in the late 1940s and 1950s, the Browns muscled their way into several championships and the hearts and minds of the fans. Even after change came in the 1960s with a new owner, Art Modell, and the forced retirement of Coach Brown, the team continued to flourish. When All The World Was Browns Town remembers those years, capped by the championship season in 1964, and juxtaposes this relatively innocent time with the present. Now the Browns are in Baltimore, moved by owner Modell, and renamed the Ravens. The money in big-time professional sports ultimately had its way with a town that was fanatical about football and its storied team.

From Library Journal
In 1963, the Cleveland Browns's new owner, Art Modell, fired legendary coach Paul Brown. The next year new coach Blanton Collier led the team to the NFL championship?the last title any Cleveland pro team would win. Pluto (Falling from Grace, LJ 11/1/95) tells of the team's season and dramatic win over the favored Baltimore Colts. He adds memories from Jim Brown, Frank Ryan, Bernie Parrish, and other key Browns. Collier would retire in 1970, and in 1996 Modell outraged the town and old players by moving the team to Baltimore. Like Steve Hubbard's Shark Among Dolphins (LJ 9/15/97), another tale of a coach's replacement, this is a good regional sports pick, for Ohio and elsewhere.?Morey Berger, St. Joseph's Hosp., Tucson, Ariz.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
Sportswriter Pluto (Falling from Grace, 1995, etc.) movingly reveals the substance of a mythic bond between men and a game, a team and a city--and thus lays bare how present-day pro football has surrendered its soul. During the late 1940s and early '50s, the Cleveland Browns were the class of pro football. Coached by the brilliant martinet Paul Brown (for whom the team is named), the Browns streaked to several AAFC and NFL championships. By the dawn of the 1960s, however, some felt that the game had passed Brown by, among them the brash young man from Brooklyn named Art Modell who, in 1961, bought the team. After the '62 season, Modell ``retired'' Brown and hired one of his prot‚g‚s, Blanton Collier. It was a move Pluto calls ``the best football decision Art Modell ever made.'' He worked with essentially the same raw material Brown had: quarterback-cum-math-Ph.D.-candidate Frank Ryan; aged legend Lou ``the Toe'' Groza; and running back Jim Brown, reckoned by many to be the greatest player ever; as well as several prominent rookies. Collier urged, cajoled, and otherwise motivated the Browns to a stunning season-capping 270 rout of the Baltimore Colts in the NFL Championship Game. Pluto recounts the giddy joys of training camp, the easy camaraderie among players and between the players and their fast-living owner. Pluto also notes that football was at the time not the lucrative profession it is today (at least not for the players) and reveals the subtle racism that was, and continues to be, a problem hounding the teams of the NFL. Today, the Browns play in another city (ironically, Baltimore), and as a result, Modell has gone from civic hero to pariah. Still, for Clevelanders, the 1964 championship will remain one of their most cherished memories. Thanks to Pluto, that moment has been lovingly preserved. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

Another strong effort by Pluto
Award-winning Akron Beacon Journal sportswriter Terry Pluto's latest work is When All The World Was Browns Town. It discusses the 1964 Cleveland Browns, the last Cleveland champion in one of the four major professional sports. Pluto is one of the most gifted sportswriters working today, and the calibre of the writing in this book, like The Curse of Rocky Colavito, is a fine example of his work. It is far better written than the average sports book, in part because Pluto, like David Halberstam, does a fine job of digging up how the people involved saw the events he discusses. One thing I did not care for about the book is that it takes too much of the season itself as a given. The season up until the playoffs only rates one chapter, for example. For those who grew up in Cleveland and remember the season, that's probably sufficient, but I would have liked more focus on it. It's also somewhat unorthodox and anticlimactic to have the title game discussion come in the middle of the book and not the end, and the brief discussion of the 1965 season comes off as whiny and does not give the outstanding '65 Packers the respect they are due. There's much more that is good than bad here, however. Pluto is masterful as usual at showing how different people saw the same events differently. He handles the discussion of Paul Brown well, and did a good job of getting Art Modell's perspective even as he is (rightly) critical of him for moving the Browns to Baltimore. In short, I think any football fan would enjoy this book, and those who remember the '64 Browns firsthand won't be able to put it down.

Commendable
For me, the acid test of books like these is whether they manage to engage the neutral. Certainly Browns fans will enjoy this pleasant wallow in nostalgia from a time when football was still football.

I'm not a Browns fan but I found myself wallowing along with them. Pluto manages to capture the essence of the '64 season and yet not neglect the wider context. Fascinating stuff.

Pluto's Best Book
What a book! It takes you back in time to when the Browns were not only part of the fabric of Ohio, but also the team that captured every heart. The section on the training camp and the players sneaking off to a local gas station is worth the price of the book alone. It was a special time and this book captures it beautifully.

I read it, loved it, and gave it to my Dad and he practically read it in one night.