... who played the game. Mark Bavaro makes that clear from the first chapter of his debut novel, Rough & Tumble. It's one thing to say a tight end ran a five-yard hitch to make a catch, it's quite another to spend two pages describing every little juke, maneuver, and evasion technique it took to slip past the defense to get in place to make the catch.

But Rough & Tumble isn't a dry, drawn-out story about play on the field. It's a fast, enthralling look at the full life of a football player—from the morning routine on the trainer's table, to the boredom of team meetings, to the cheap shots suffered on even the most basic of plays.

Bavaro's alter-ego Dom Fucillo must deal with a cast of charact...

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