The Quarterbacks: The Uncensored Truth about the Men in the Pocket

Starting with Sammy Baugh in the 1930s and concluding with current football player Joe Montana, this expert survey touches on great signal-callers Johnny Unitas, Bobby Layne, Roger Staubach, Fran Tarkenton and their brethren. It also includes those not great but merely good, such as Pat Haden and Billy Kilmer; others who served as backups and never got a chance to shine (Gary Kubiak, Babe Laufenberg) and men of intellectual as well as physical heft, like mathematician Frank Ryan and chemical engineer Charles Johnson, who proved that jocks can have formidable brains. Along the way, Herskowitz ( Cosell ) shows his talent for the delicious phrase, as in a description of the usually wild and roistering Layne, who turned in early one night and lost the game the next day, ``ravaged by clean living.'' Fans of football and good prose will be rewarded. Photos not seen by PW. (Oct.)