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More entertaining when he talked about the playground legends than the 1970-71 Knickerbocker team.
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The City Game: Basketball from the Garden to the Playgrounds
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Pete Axthelm follows the 1969-70 season of the New York Knicks and provides a parallel focus on basketball as it was then played in the black neighborhoods of New York City. Throughout, he writes clearly, intelligently, and passionately about the game, bringing alive the players' efforts, accomplishments, and failures.
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Genres
sportsbasketballnonfiction
224 pages, Library Binding
First published January 1,1970
This edition
- Format
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224 pages, Library Binding
- Published
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July 1, 1999 by Buccaneer Books
- ISBN
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9781568497198
- ASIN
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1568497199
- Language
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English
About the author
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Pete Axthelm was a sportswriter and columnist for the New York Herald Tribune, Sports Illustrated, Newsweek and its Inside Sports. During the 1980s, his knowledge of sports and journalistic skill aided him in becoming a sports commentator for The NFL on NBC and NFL Primetime and horse racing on ESPN. While on the pregame telecasts for the NFL in the early 1980s, Axthelm was NBC's answer to CBS' Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder on The NFL Today, providing betting angles to the games. Later in the decade, he would be hired in a similar role by ESPN at the urging of John Walsh, who had been the editor of Inside Sports.
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Rating(4 / 5.0, 31 votes)
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31 reviews All reviews
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A groundbreaking book in the sense that Axthelm used interviews to chronicle the playground aspects of the "city game," but the Knicks sections are merely standard (albeit reasonably well written) year-in-the-life fare. There's no real effort to link this material together, although connections to the playground pasts of Chamberlain, Alcindor, et al are occasionally made.
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Great basketball playground book
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This was a mixed bag for me. I loved the idea of getting a more intimate knowledge of 60s NYC street basketball and I liked that this book did provide a glimpse to that world. As I expected, it brought the human aspect of the game and how the game was elevated due to its importance for a struggling community, and being a means of escape from drab day-to-day life for a lot of the kids. However, I expected even more of this and more in-depth detail on certain personalities or events of the city games. Instead, the book tried to stretch the similarities between the streetball and what was happening at the MSG. I found this to be the weakest part of the book. I.e. when it focused on the street, it was great, when it focused on the Knicks it was good but when it tried to combine both it felt weak.
Overall, it was a nice read especially for a book of merely 200 pages, so I guess it could be great introduction to both worlds for those who have very limited prior knowledge.
Overall, it was a nice read especially for a book of merely 200 pages, so I guess it could be great introduction to both worlds for those who have very limited prior knowledge.
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Great look back at basketball in NYC in late 60s/early 70s, great background on playground legends you don't hear much about.
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Somewhat disappointing and dated. Axthelm as a young journalist wanted to write a book about the phenomenal season the New York Knickerbockers had in winning the 1969-1970 NBA Championships. He noted, however, that many established writers were writing on that topic as well. One way he could differentiate from the others was to try to link the success the Knicks had with a study of the game played by African Americans in Harlem and the Bronx.
Axthelm goes back and forth between examining what happens at the playgrounds across New York with the season the Knicks enjoyed--culminating in their championship. While he describes some interesting playground players, including Herman the Helicopter and Funny Kitt, and while he is or was very good at painting the difficulty these street players had in trying to catch the eye of professional basketball recruiters and their experience as recruits to minor college teams in places such as Sheridan, Wyoming or Laurinburg, North Carolina--the parallels with the Knicks' journey are tenuous. One also gets the feeling that Axthelm only interviewed a handful of players and spectators of the game of the streets, one of which warns him not to paint the street game as a great gate of escape, as "for every one that does make it, there are many more who don't". Not a surprise, except that Axthelm feels he has to quote someone saying this to make the point.
Still, in describing the drugs and stereotypes against which those breaking out of "the ghetto", Axthelm does provide some valuable insights into the frustrations in the African American community of the late 1960s--with Vietnam still going on and in the wake of Black Power protests.
To readers more than 50 years later, the description of the Knicks' victories against Lew Alcindor (aka Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and the Milwaukee Bucks, or against Jerry West/Wilt Chamberlin of the LA Lakers is entertaining, as well.
Some small insights: the importance of private schools recruiting young players to play basketball, but also to invest in these players' education--noting that the public school teachers in which these players previously studied "did not care" and did not teach any classes that could have helped these students prepare for college. Incentives totally missing there, were--perhaps selfishly--made up for by the private schools that recruited the street players.
The writing was a bit cliche and here and there labored, as with "Playing with the haunting knowledge that a playoff defeat would dull a lot of the glitter of their lavishly praised season..."
But on the whole, as a time capsule of especially New York City in the last 1960s, one could do worse than read this book.
Axthelm goes back and forth between examining what happens at the playgrounds across New York with the season the Knicks enjoyed--culminating in their championship. While he describes some interesting playground players, including Herman the Helicopter and Funny Kitt, and while he is or was very good at painting the difficulty these street players had in trying to catch the eye of professional basketball recruiters and their experience as recruits to minor college teams in places such as Sheridan, Wyoming or Laurinburg, North Carolina--the parallels with the Knicks' journey are tenuous. One also gets the feeling that Axthelm only interviewed a handful of players and spectators of the game of the streets, one of which warns him not to paint the street game as a great gate of escape, as "for every one that does make it, there are many more who don't". Not a surprise, except that Axthelm feels he has to quote someone saying this to make the point.
Still, in describing the drugs and stereotypes against which those breaking out of "the ghetto", Axthelm does provide some valuable insights into the frustrations in the African American community of the late 1960s--with Vietnam still going on and in the wake of Black Power protests.
To readers more than 50 years later, the description of the Knicks' victories against Lew Alcindor (aka Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and the Milwaukee Bucks, or against Jerry West/Wilt Chamberlin of the LA Lakers is entertaining, as well.
Some small insights: the importance of private schools recruiting young players to play basketball, but also to invest in these players' education--noting that the public school teachers in which these players previously studied "did not care" and did not teach any classes that could have helped these students prepare for college. Incentives totally missing there, were--perhaps selfishly--made up for by the private schools that recruited the street players.
The writing was a bit cliche and here and there labored, as with "Playing with the haunting knowledge that a playoff defeat would dull a lot of the glitter of their lavishly praised season..."
But on the whole, as a time capsule of especially New York City in the last 1960s, one could do worse than read this book.
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Truly enjoyed this all too short recounting of the effect of Basketball on New York in the 60's and early 70's. At times, written with almost poetic style, Axthelm has produced a beautiful sports themed novel. His stories about the Knicks of that era as especially the young men who dominated the city on the outdoor courts is a wonderful read and a must for any fan of the game.
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Excellent story about basketball in NY comparing and contrasting 1969-70 Knicks to playground stars
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