This first book by a pair of veterans of Sports Illustrated is a
highly intelligent look at the colorful world of playground hoops
and, with it, the ghettos that support the game. Basketball has
changed more radically in the past half-century than any of our
other major sports, and the influence of playground ball has been
one of the major reasons. From its opening portrait of street
legend James "Speedy" Williams, a 29-year-old black man from
Brooklyn who supports himself by playing in games organized by drug
dealers and hustling one-on-one contests with unsuspecting marks,
Pickup Artists is an unusually well-written and astute picture of
the ways that basketball has evolved in this country. The soil from
which the game sprung to its current tremendous size can be found
in the cracked blacktop of dozens of inner-city playgrounds where
creative athletes challenge one another with reputation and
sometimes money on the line, a way for disadvantaged youth to climb
out of the economic trough. As Anderson and Millman amply show,
that reality has begun to change subtly. Big corporate money has
found the playground - big college money, too - and the playground
has succumbed in ways that are leading to its demise as an arena
for self-expression, turning instead into a showcase for talent
that resembles a meat market. Along the way, the authors give
telling glimpses of an array of near-mythical figures, from Nat
Holman to Earl "The Goat" Manigault (who died shortly after the
book's completion). They mince no words in reporting on the ugly
deaths and drug problems that have clung to the playground game.
Indeed, after reading this volume, one realizes that playground
ball has often been a fabulous jewel with a lethal curse; one
wonders how something so beautiful can destroy so many. An
exemplary piece of reporting and writing, transcending sports to
give us a somber view of America's crumbling cities. (Kirkus
Reviews)
The history of blacktop basketball in fast-paced words and
pictures. A New York street hustler. A lonely man in a Maryland
prison. A confused Native American on a reservation in Idaho. What
do they all have in common? They are among the best pickup
basketball players in the country. In Pickup Artists, Lars Anderson
and Chad Millman tell the complete story of the street game from
its mythical past to its glorious present. Using original reporting
to examine the evolution of playground basketball, Anderson and
Millman are the first journalists to unravel the thickly woven
tapestry of the sport's subculture. Today's super-hyped,
corporate-sponsored tournaments weren't always the norm. The
foundation of the game was laid with sweat in the 1920s and it has
grown from a rudimentary sport to a sophisticated exhibition.
Basketball is more than macho melodramas acted out in America's
inner cities. It's a town meeting in the heart of Indiana and
symbol of freedom for prisoners in jail. Anderson and Millman tap
into the essence of pickup basketball, examining its importance
everywhere the game is played. They profile not just legends like
Earl Marigault and Joe Hammond, but players like Fred "Spook"
Stegman, the man who carries the legacy of being the first to
connect the playgrounds with colleges, and Gregory Vaughn, whose
tragic death in the 1980s exposed the underground world of drugs in
basketball. Forget about the NBA and showtime. Pickup basketball is
about basketball on the blacktops, at its most basic level. It's
about the unusual lives of some of the nation's best players you've
never heard of. Until now.
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