Green Bay Replay

There is something refreshing about Dick Schaap's ready admission that he's had a long-standing romance with Green Bay and its football team. "I do not come to this book with clean journalistic hands," he cops. And so much the better. In an era of cold, corporate sports and cold, cynical sportswriters, the Packers are the nation's only civically owned major franchise, and Schaap, one of the best observers of the sporting scene, adores them for it. His chronicle of the 1997 Super Bowl championship campaign warmly examines the town's special relationship with its team, and the team's special relationship with its past as it affectionately links current stars such as Brett Favre and Reggie White with their spiritual ancestors--Bart Starr and Willie Davis--from the dynasties of the Vince Lombardi-led '60s. A little soppy? Sure. But so what? There's no law that says baseball's the only sport allowed to split the uprights of emotion.