“Fields of Play: Sport, Race, and Memory in the Steel City”
Robert T. Hayashi
University of Pittsburgh Press; $28

Robert T. Hayashi, who was raised in Pittsburgh but teaches at Amherst College, writes “As an embodied cultural practice, sport is replete with both personal meaning and social significance, and few places more dramatically exemplify the meaning of sport to a community than Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.”

His book, “Fields of Play: Sport, Race, and Memory in the Steel City” is a fascinating study of the complex interplay of race, gender, politics and capitalism in our local sporting life.

Hayashi sheds light on some rarely examined corners of Pittsburgh sports, such as the role of soccer in many coal mining communities, the impact of racist laws on hunters and anglers, and the intolerance experienced by Asian athletes.

But it’s perhaps his look at the Pittsburgh Steelers and the team’s centrality to our city’s identity that is most illuminating. “Pittsburgh Steelers fandom performs a kind of racial alchemy,” Hayashi, a black-and-gold-diehard himself, writes, “whereby the bodies of young men of color become symbols not of their own historical struggles but those of white people, specifically the burdens of the white working class in industrial and now postindustrial America.”

“On the Clock: Behind the Scenes with the Pittsburgh Steelers at the NFL Draft”
Jim Wexell
Triumph Books; $19.95

Jim Wexell is no stranger to Steeler Nation; in fact, he published a book with that very title several years ago. Wexell has been writing about Pittsburgh sports for 40 years and has a deep insider’s knowledge of the Steelers. He literally wrote the book on Troy Polamalu.

His latest is “On the Clock: Behind the Scenes with the Pittsburgh Steelers at the NFL Draft.” Wexell is a wonderful raconteur and his book is full of larger-than-life characters and great stories. It’s all here, from the failures (What happened with Johnny Unitas? Why didn’t they draft Dan Marino?) to the successes (Joe Greene, L.C. Greenwood, Terry Bradshaw) that would lead to all of those Lombardi trophies. Of particular note is the loving tribute to Bill Nunn, whose drafting insight guided the team into their championship years.