Got Your Answers: The 100 Greatest Sports Arguments Settled

by Mike Greenberg, Paul Hembekides

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Don't go into a sports argument ill-equipped. Got Your Answers is here to arm you with the definitive truth and insights into the biggest fact-fights still being had to this day.

ESPN personality and New York Times bestselling author Mike Greenberg (Got Your Number) again partners with mega-producer Hembo to help you win every sports debate by answering the top 100 questions on every fan’s mind.

Sports fandom can bring us together like almost nothing else in today’s world. Still, that doesn’t mean everyone has to agree. In fact, nothing is better than a healthy debate about any and every element of sports with friends, family, coworkers, nemeses, or even strangers at your favorite hangout.

Armed with a wealth of knowledge and fandom experience, Greeny and Hembo tackle the 100 most-debated questions in the sports-talk world and provide 100 lists that will tell you who is the best of the best in football, basketball, baseball, hockey, boxing, and more. What is the most coveted trophy in all of sports? Who is the most clutch in Game 7? Which ballpark has the most bizarre concessions? And why is Rocky without a doubt the best sports movie of all time?

Greeny and Hembo have got your answers. They’re correct across the board, of course, but pick up the book and let never-ending argumentation commence.

Also don’t miss the 100 Sneaky Hembo trivia questions designed to confound and delight!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781368108584
Publisher:	Disney Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/24/2024
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	6,651
Product dimensions:	6.90(w) x 5.50(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Mike Greenberg has been among the signature faces, and voices, of ESPN for more than a quarter century. He is currently the host of Get Up (ESPN), the NFL Draft on ESPN, #Greeny (ESPN Radio), and Bettor Days (ESPN+). He previously co-hosted Mike and Mike with Mike Golic, for which the duo has been inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame and the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame. Mike is the author of several previous books, and multiple New York Times bestsellers. He is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, and a member of the Medill Hall of Achievement. Mike and his wife Stacy have two children and reside in New York City.

Paul Hembekides is a content producer for ESPN’s Get Up, and he partners with Mike Greenberg on ESPN Radio’s #Greeny. He has become best known for his daily trivia question, which earned him the nickname “Sneaky Hembo.” Paul began his career on Mike and Mike and is recognized as one of the premier researchers in the industry. He contrib­utes weekly to the Baseball Tonight podcast, and his research is regularly featured on ESPN.com. A graduate of Cedarville University (BA) and La Salle University (MA), Paul and his wife, Elizabeth, reside in New Jersey with their two daughters.

Read an Excerpt

INTRODUCTION
 
My parents were born two days apart. (Actually, they were born sixty years and two days apart, but the point is, their birthdays came two days apart.) Our family, as a result, always celebrated them as a single occasion—aka “their birthdays.” What we usually did to celebrate was go for dinner to our special occasion restaurant, which was called Jim McMullen’s, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. In my perception, it was the most sophisticated, magical place in the world. Movie stars and ballplayers and heads of state ate there every night, people who were famous for things they had accomplished (as opposed to today, where people seem to be famous solely for being famous and often haven’t accomplished anything at all).
 
I can still remember what the room looked like, and smelled like, and felt like; it felt important. When you were at Jim McMullen’s, it felt like you were in the center of the universe.
 
So, it was February of 1978, and we were in the restaurant for the birthday celebration. I was ten, my brother was six, and our parents were each a year older than they’d been the week before. The room was electric, as it always was, noisy and brimming with energy. And then, all of a sudden, just like that, it went silent. Not a word was spoken from the booths in the dining room, the raucous laughter quieted in the bar, even the bustle in the kitchen slowed to a crawl. Time seemed to stand still, the air ceased to circulate, as though something so monumental had happened that it superseded breathing. Glancing around I saw that everyone, including my parents, had their eyes glued in the same direction, up toward the entrance; whatever was happening, it was happening up there.
 
Being so small, I hopped out of my chair and took a cautious step or two toward the center of the room, hoping to find out what this commotion of quiet was about. That was when I saw him. It was Howard Cosell, the living legend of sports broadcasting, arriving to have dinner with his wife. Now it was me who couldn’t draw a breath. Asa sports-obsessed kid, I took Howard Cosell to be the most important person in the world, and the reaction of the room suggested everyone else agreed. (That’s not an exaggeration—in that moment it felt as though President Carter and Leonid Brezhnev, had they been, say, in a booth in the back of the restaurant, negotiating the end of the Cold War, would have agreed to pause a moment just to process the magnitude of Cosell’s arrival.) I share this story because despite the fact that my mother will tell you I used to sit in front of the television when I was six years old and announce the football games, it was that moment that was the first time I can remember thinking I wanted to be a sports announcer.
 
The question is: What made Cosell so special? So consequential? He was hardly the only famous sportscaster of the time. Jim McKay and Vin Scully and Marv Albert were all among the greatest in the history of the industry, and they were at their peak in the ‘70s. And yet, if the three of them walked into Jim McMullen’s naked and dragging a dead body, it wouldn’t have caused nearly the stir that Cosell did. The answer to it all came from Howard himself. He knew that what separated him from any of them, or from anyone who had ever come before, was tha the considered it his responsibility to tell it like it is. Before there was Stephen A. Smith, or PTI, or Mike and the Mad Dog, before anyone had ever even thought of being any of them, Howard Cosell figured out that if you offered sports fans passionate opinions, they would react. Some of them favorably, some quite the opposite. Howard Cosell may have been the most reviled person on television at the time, but everyone knew his name.
 
In a very roundabout way, that is how we arrive here—Hembo and I—with this book. Our first, titled Got Your Number, was a little bit about sports debate, but mostly it was about sports history. What made that book stand out, and what I am most proud of, was that even the most knowledgeable sports fan learned by reading it. Thanks to Hembo’s unparalleled research, and my unquenchable fascination with the history of sports, that book was exactly the sort that I grew up reading. As a kid, there was nothing I loved more than reading books about sports history. However, what it was not was a book Howard Cosell would have written.
 
That’s what Got Your Answers is.
 
We heard your feedback from GYN and took it to heart. You wanted more opinion, more debate, more declarative sports statements. Now you’ve got them. All of them. What you are about to read are the answers—definitive, unyielding, and unapologetic—to the one hundred most important questions in sports. You want to win every sports argument, every barstool brawl, every next-morning debate that you ever find yourself in? Now you will—because each and every answer is provided within the pages that follow. There is only one concern we share, and that is that once you are finished reading, there will benothing left to argue about, ever again.
 
Please enjoy—and thank you, always, for all your support.

Editorial Reviews

"Greenberg provides the facts and offers convincing takes for every one of his picks. Coauthor Hembekides delivers fun and relevant trivia at the beginning of each chapter. The authors' love of sports leaves an indelible mark on this book that can be read cover to cover or dipped into (to settle an argument, naturally!)."
—Booklist

“If anybody knows how to put historical sports debates in book form, it’s these two.  What a wonderful, thought-provoking historical look at some of the great performers that have graced our athletic fields over the past 70 years. I couldn’t get enough if it!”
—Chris “Mad Dog” Russo, former co-host of Mike and the Mad Dog on WFAN

“Greeny and Hembo have provided a cheat sheet with this fascinating compilation—never lose an argument again, and be all-knowing!”
—Michael Kay, Voice of the New York Yankees and host of The Michael Kay Show

“The way Mike Greenberg lays things out is nothing short of spectacular. He’s already in a couple of Halls of Fame, and after this book, I’m assuming another is on the way. A fantastic book with fabulous information.”
—Pat McAfee, sports analyst and retired ball kicker (on Got Your Number)

“Greeny looks at sports history with the eye of a storyteller. I knew I cared about these athletes, but Got Your Number reminded me of why I should care about what they accomplished.”
—Harlan Coben, #1 New York Times bestselling author  (on Got Your Number)

"Greeny's book isn't just a fun read. It's a guide to winning every sports debate for the rest of your life.”
—Seth Wickersham, ESPN Senior Writer and New York Times bestselling author of It’s Better to Be Feared  (on Got Your Number)

“Mike Greenberg and sports are synonymous—my favorite sports memories all have his voice attached.”
—Emmanuel Acho, Emmy-winning broadcaster and New York Times bestselling author of Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man

“In the introduction to this fabulous book, Mike wisely and wonderfully notes that sports can bring people together by fostering conversation, something he has done throughout his spectacular career and now does again with these terrific essays.”
—Amy Trask, sports executive and Princess of Darkness  (on Got Your Number)

From the Publisher