Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer: A Road Trip into the Heart of Fan Mania

What is it about sports that turns otherwise sane people into raving lunatics? Why does winning compel people to tear down goal posts, and losing, to drown themselves in bad keg beer? In short, why do fans care?

In search of answers, Warren St. John seeks out the roving community of RVers who follow the Alabama Crimson Tide from game to game. A movable feast of Weber grills and Igloo coolers, these are hard-core football fans who arrive on Wednesday for Saturday's game: The Reeses, who skipped their own daughter's wedding because it coincided with a Bama game; Ray Pradat, the Episcopal minister who watches the games on a television beside his altar while performing weddings; and John Ed, the wheeling and dealing ticket scalper whose access to good seats gives him power on par with the governor. In no time at all, St. John buys an RV (a $5,500 beater named The Hawg) and joins the caravan for a full football season, chronicling the world of the extreme fan and learning that in the shadow of the stadium, it can all begin to seem strangely normal.

Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer is not only a hilarious travel story, but a cultural anthropology of fans that goes a long way toward demystifying the universal urge to take sides and to win.

Author: Warren St John
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
Published: 05/31/2005
Pages: 288
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.49lbs
Size: 8.10h x 5.28w x 0.65d
ISBN: 9780609807132

Accelerated Reader:
Reading Level: 7.9
Point Value: 18
Interest Level: Upper Grade
Quiz #/Name: 86489 / Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer: A Journey Into the Heart of Fan Mania


Review Citation(s):
New York Times 08/07/2005 pg. 24

About the Author
Born in Birmingham, Alabama, Warren St. John is a reporter for the New York Times and has written for The New Yorker, the New York Observer, and Wired. He lives in New York.