Review of "Great Upsets of the NFL," by Richard Kaplan

 Review of

Great Upsets of the NFL, by Richard Kaplan ISBN 0394824660

Four out of five stars

Typical YA rendition of sporting events

 There have been many significant games in the NFL/AFL in the years before this book was published in 1972. The author has selected 10 games to label with the term “upset” and gives a brief description of each. As Kaplan states, the definition of upset is a very subjective one. Nevertheless, the term can reasonably be allied to all ten of these games. Surprisingly, Super Bowl III is not one of them.

 The prose is very typical of books about sporting events written for the YA audience. A great deal of low-level hype in combination with the facts of the game and the major plays that determined the outcome.

 Unfortunately, the author commits a major historical blunder on page 67. The first two sentences are:

“During the year 1957 two things were put in the air. One was called Sputnik I, the historic space capsule in which Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to orbit the Earth.”

Sputnik was a satellite 23 inches in diameter and Gagarin did not orbit the Earth until 1961. It is amazing that such an error would pass through the editing process.

 Nevertheless, if you are interested in reading about significant professional football games, this book will entertain you.