Blades, Bands, and Ballers: How Flash and Cash Rescued the Flyers and Created Philadelphia's Greatest Showplace

"Blades, Bands, and Ballers" is Lou Scheinfeld's heartfelt memoir of an America gone, a world of local spectacle and national pride. Dubbed America's showplace between its birth in 1967 and much-lamented death in 2009, The Spectrum formed the city's - and the nation's - prism, refracting a people's dreams, fears and fantasies as sporting icons and cultural heroes thronged the ice, the stage and field of play. The Spectrum has one last story to tell - how it came to be, how it really was, and how it ended. Lou Scheinfeld is the one man standing capable of telling this story of Ed Snider, Jerry Wolman, Frank Rizzo, Kate Smith, The Broad Street Bullies, Sinatra & the Philly Mob, Doctor J, Electric Factory, Springsteen, Elvis, Mick Jagger and more. It's a true story of impossible origins, improbable triumph and implacable memories.