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Editor’s Choice for Spring 2014
The 1929 Bunion Derby
Johnny Salo and the Great Footrace across America
Charles B. Kastner
Cloth $24.95
| 978-0-8156-1036-6
| 2014
ebook 978-0-8156-5281-6
"Editor’s Choice" for Spring 2014
I’m delighted to highlight this season’s "editor’s choice"
selection, a fascinating but forgotten excerpt from the
history of sport in America. Kastner tells a compelling
human interest tale about the trans-America footrace,
read more »[hide »]
run just as the country teetered on the brink of the Great
Depression.
Accompanied by infamous sports agent
C. C. Pyle and his "Cross Country Follies," seventy-seven
athletes attempted to run 3,554 miles beginning in New
York City and ending in Los Angeles, maintaining a
marathon pace for nearly two months. From the pack
emerges blue-collar hero Johnny Salo, a policeman
from Passaic, NJ, who beat his closest competitor by
two minutes in what reporters called "the most exciting
finish in the history of sports." This remarkable account
of human endurance and long-distance running unfolds
against the backdrop of America’s swift decline from the
heady Roaring Twenties to the devastating Great Crash,
and is precisely the kind of underdog story that university
presses bring to light. Please enjoy this new offering from
Syracuse University Press.
—Suzanne E. Guiod, Editor-in-Chief
"This book reveals how C. C. Pyle and so many others who are part
of our strong national ultramarathoning history persevered in such
challenging times! Wonderfully inspiring."—Gary Theriault, ultramarathoner and ten-time Kona Ironman triathlon finisher
"It reads like a tale of shipwreck survivors adrift at sea. Yet these
men could end their suffering at any time. They chose not to because
they saw a better future, a chance to deepen their human experience,
or both at the finish line. Kastner’s commitment to accurate
historical documentation combined with gripping personal accounts
of the race make for a compelling and motivating story."—Kevin Patrick, Washington, DC, reporter and ultramarathoner
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View at YouTube
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Charles B. Kastner is a long-distance runner and the author of Bunion Derby: The 1928
Footrace across America.
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Book Description »[Hide Description »]
On March 31, 1929, seventy-seven men began an epic 3,554-mile footrace
across America that pushed their bodies to the breaking point. Nicknamed
the "Bunion Derby" by the press, this was the second and last of
two trans-America footraces held in the late 1920s. The men averaged
forty-six gut-busting miles a day during seventy-eight days of nonstop racing
that took them from New York City to Los Angeles. Among this group,
two brilliant runners, Johnny Salo of Passaic, New Jersey, and Pete Gavuzzi
of England, emerged to battle for the $25,000 first prize along
the mostly unpaved roads of 1929 America, with each man pushing the
other to go faster as the lead switched back and forth between them. To
pay the prize money, race director Charley Pyle cobbled together a traveling
vaudeville company, complete with dancing debutantes, an all-girl
band wearing pilot outfits, and blackface comedians, all housed under
the massive show tent that Pyle hoped would pack in audiences. Kastner’s
engrossing account, often told from the perspective of the participants,
evokes the remarkable physical challenge the runners experienced and
clearly bolsters the argument that the last Bunion Derby was the greatest
long-distance footrace of all time.
View other series books on Sports and Entertainment
6 x 9, 304 pages, 25 black-and-white illustrations, 11 maps, 3 tables, appendixes, notes, bibliography, index
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