My first Christmas gift this year came from . . . me. On a recent trip to Barnes & Noble I spotted the new book The Golden Jet, written by Bobby Hull with venerable Chicago Tribune columnist Bob Verdi. I had to get it. Now that I have, I’m glad I didn’t wait for Santa to bring me a copy on Christmas Day.
The photos are definitely the book’s strong suit. As a Blackhawks fan since the late ‘60s, I thought I’d seen every photograph of Bobby Hull. Boy, was I wrong. The book contains hundreds of photographs completely new to me and, I’d imagine, most fans. At the same time, Bobby reveals a number of things that somehow had eluded me over the years—such as the fact that, during the 1961-1962 and 1962-1963 seasons, he wore the number 7. I knew about his first uniform number, 16, but not 7. I also couldn’t help noticing that Bobby chooses to never refer to his ex-wife (Joanne, in case you didn’t know) by name. Even in the photos in which she appears he refers to her only as “the mother” of his children.
Whenever I find a book like this, I can’t resist pointing out errors, since publishers supposedly employ fact checkers. I’ve found sports books that are heavy on photos generally come with a fair number of misidentified players. For all the photos that appear in this book, however, I could find only one mistake—on page 45. The goaltender is not (the right-handed) Johnny Bower but (the left-handed) Don Simmons Bobby recalls scoring against in Game 6 of the Cup Finals against the Maple Leafs in 1962.
Bobby Hull and Bob Verdi have teamed up on a wonderfully nostalgic profile of one of the most beloved players in Blackhawks history. This is the essential coffee table book for fans of the Hawks.
Tags: Bob Verdi, Bobby Hull, Chicago Blackhawks, Golden Jet
How interesting to hear you collected autographs at one time. So did I. I’m happy to hear you had an experience worth writing about with ol’ number 9. Since I’m aware of your skills with the written word, can I assume you got an “A” for that essay? As a kid I was always reading books on sports, and my writing assignments in school (from about 6th grade on) were always about the same thing. I can still remember my freshman English teacher at Lyons Township High School, Miss Gorman, saying to me, “You ought to think about reading something other than sports books.”