Book cover: "I'd Rather Be Wright"

• Title: I'd Rather Be Wright
• Subtitle: Memoirs of an Itinerant Tackle
• Cover blurb: "A football rebel hilariously recounts the laughter, pain, and absurdities of fourteen years spent in the Lilliputian world of football's establishment"
• Author: Steve Wright (1942-present)
• Assistant authors: William Gildea and Kenneth Turan
• Cover artist: John Twohey
• Publisher: Prentice-Hall Inc.
• Original price: $6.95
• Provenance: Originally sold at Bookland in York, Pennsylvania, per the little gold sticker on the inside flap of the dust jacket; was once in the possession of Lee Stotsky, per the name written on the inside front cover; purchased recently for 50 cents at the antique store in York New Salem.
• Publication date: 1974
• Pages: 205
• Format: Hardcover
• Dust jacket excerpt: "With his lively charm and uncompromising wit, Wright recalls the many famous personalities he was associated with: Vince Lombardi, George Allen, Wellington Mara, Bear Bryant, Joe Namath, Fran Tarkenton."
• First sentence of foreword by Dave Anderson: "Steve Wright was never all-anything."
• First sentence of introduction by Gildea & Turan: "On first glance, the world is not crying for Steve Wright's book."
• First sentence: "When I think about the University of Alabama, I spit."
• Epilogue: "Even 6-foot-6, 250-pound football players can't arrange life the way they want it, and Steve Wright's first year out of the National Football League did not end up quite as he had envisioned. The energy crisis and its shortage of gasoline made his planned rambles through the wilds in a gas-eating camper impossible, and at the same time a new professional group, the World Football League, was formed. The league made Steve and offer and, ever pragmatic, he accepted and signed a three-year contract with the Chicago Fire. The beat goes on."
• Random sentence from middle: "One of the problems I had was that I'm a Levis and shirt guy, I dig comfort."
• Goodreads rating: 3.67 stars (out of 5.0)
• Goodreads review excerpt: In October 2011, Jake wrote: "It started out pretty funny and it had the potential of being a football 'Ball Four' but quickly devolved into a repetitious pattern of 'This team didn't understand me so screw 'em.'"
• Amazon review excerpt: In December 2004, Yolanda S. Garcia wrote: "If you want your athletes on pedestals, skip this book — but if you want to read about the real blood, sweat, booze, broads, pills, and road life from an earlier era of pro ball written by a guy with a wry self-knowledge and affection for the whole game, in spite of/because of everything — then this is for you."
• Note: The Steve Wright who wrote this book and played in the NFL in the 1960s and early 1970s should not be confused with the Steve Wright who played in the NFL and USFL in the 1980s and early 1990s and later appeared on Survivor: Redemption Island.