Shropshire, Mike 1942-

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Shropshire, Mike 1942-

PERSONAL:

Born 1942.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Dallas, TX.

CAREER:

Sports journalist. Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Fort Worth, TX, sports reporter.

WRITINGS:

(With Frank Schaefer) The Thorny Rose of Texas: An Intimate Portrait of Governor Ann Richards, Carol Publishing Group (Secaucus, NJ), 1994.

Seasons in Hell: With Billy Martin, Whitey Herzog, and "the Worst Baseball Teams in History," the 1973-1975 Texas Rangers, D.I. Fine (New York, NY), 1996, University of Nebraska Press (Lincoln, NE), 2005.

The Ice Bowl: The Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys Season of 1967, D.I. Fine (New York, NY), 1997.

The Pro (novel), Thomas Dunne Books (New York, NY), 2001.

When the Tuna Went Down to Texas: How Bill Parcells Led the Cowboys Back to the Promised Land, William Morrow (New York, NY), 2004.

Runnin' with the Big Dogs: The True, Unvarnished Story of the Texas-Oklahoma Football Wars, William Morrow (New York, NY), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Mike Shropshire is the author of a number of sports-themed books and also, with fiction writer Frank Schaefer, of a biography of the second female Texas governor, a grassroots politician with many supporters. The Thorny Rose of Texas: An Intimate Portrait of Governor Ann Richards was released as Richards was in a race against George W. Bush for her second term. Donna Seaman wrote in Booklist: "This peppy love-fest of a bio will surely make Richards' Texas supporters smile."

Seasons in Hell: With Billy Martin, Whitey Herzog, and "the Worst Baseball Teams in History," the 1973-1975 Texas Rangers covers a period in the history of the team that had been the Washington Senators before moving to Texas in 1972. Manager Martin was notorious for his brawling, and he and manager Herzog, who preceded him, were two of the most memorable characters in baseball history. Booklist reviewer Wes Lukowsky described the book as "a funny, revealing, Ball Four-like romp through mid-seventies baseball."

The Ice Bowl: The Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys Season of 1967 is Shropshire's account of the legendary championship game. Players included many who would go on to become some of the best, and the coaches were Green Bay's Vince Lombardi and Cowboys coach Tom Landry.

Shropshire's novel, The Pro, is the story of golfer Del Bonnet, who leaves the Caloosahatchee Pines Country Club and his job as golf pro to play in the Senior Tour. Sports Illustrated contributor Charles Hirshberg compared Shropshire's fiction to that of sports novelist Dan Jenkins. "It's close," wrote Hirshberg, "but at least for me Shropshire leads by a couple of strokes."

In When the Tuna Went Down to Texas: How Bill Parcells Led the Cowboys Back to the Promised Land, Shropshire chronicles the success of Bill Parcells as coach of the Dallas Cowboys after many dismal seasons following three Super Bowl wins in the early 1990s. Parcells had honed several other teams, including the New York Giants, New England Patriots, and New York Jets prior to reviving the Cowboys, but there were times when he urged owner Jerry Jones to sell the team. Shropshire writes of players' run-ins with the law and the difficulty of keeping a franchise successful. Blogcritics Web site reviewer Damian Penny wrote: "The book is often vulgar, tawdry and riotously funny, and even the casual football fan—or the most unappeasable Cowboys hater, and they do have a lot of enemies—will enjoy the book immensely." Bookreporter.com critic Stuart Shiffman commented: "Most fans will enjoy this book for what it is: an irreverent and humorous look at the game of football and three of its icons—a franchise, an owner and the Tuna."

Shropshire provides an account of the annual rivalry that is decided in Dallas with Runnin' with the Big Dogs: The True, Unvarnished Story of the Texas-Oklahoma Football Wars, concentrating on the game of 1967, the first he covered. Lukowsky commented that Shropshire "meanders irreverently through the game's history."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, August 1, 1994, Donna Seaman, review of The Thorny Rose of Texas: An Intimate Portrait of Governor Ann Richards, p. 2019; July 1, 1996, Wes Lukowsky, review of Seasons in Hell: With Billy Martin, Whitey Herzog, and "the Worst Baseball Teams in History," the 1973-1975 Texas Rangers, p. 1795; October 15, 1997, Wes Lukowsky, review of The Ice Bowl: The Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys Season of 1967, p. 378; September 1, 2006, Wes Lukowsky, review of Runnin' with the Big Dogs: The True, Unvarnished Story of the Texas-Oklahoma Football Wars, p. 49.

Library Journal, August 1, 1994, Pamela R. Daubenspeck, review of The Thorny Rose of Texas, p. 96.

Publishers Weekly, July 11, 1994, review of The Thorny Rose of Texas, p. 71; May 6, 1996, review of Seasons in Hell, p. 65; August 9, 2004, review of When the Tuna Went Down to Texas: How Bill Parcells Led the Cowboys Back to the Promised Land, p. 246.

Southwestern Historical Quarterly, April, 1996, Megan Seaholm, review of The Thorny Rose of Texas, p. 582; April, 2006, Alan C. Atchison, review of Seasons in Hell, p. 591.

Sports Illustrated, August 13, 2001, Charles Hirshberg, review of The Pro.