Crashing the Borders: How Basketball Won the World and Lost Its Soul at Home |
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You Are Here: Home > History Books > Basketball History > Item 209
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Crashing the Borders: How Basketball Won the World and Lost Its Soul at Home
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by Harvey Araton
Sales Rank: 590259
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List Price: $25.00
$19.00
At Amazon
on 8-6-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Hard Cover with 224 pages
Published by: Free Press November 1, 2005
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0743280695
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0743280693
Book Dimensions:
9.1 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
Weighs: 12.8 ounces
From Booklist
The catalyst for this book by an award-winning New York Times columnist was the November 2004 Detroit brawl in which Indiana Pacer basketball players went into the stands in pursuit of cup-tossing fans, and the fans spilled onto the court in search of arrogant, multimillionaire players. Araton sees the brawl as symptomatic of the racial and economic divide that currently characterizes professional basketball. Mostly black, multimillionaire players perform in all their cornrowed, tattooed glory before emissaries of corporate America, in attendance because their companies provided tickets. The spectators often aren't real fans but are increasingly antagonistic in berating the players. Araton points out the obvious: a disconnect between players and fans is terrible business for any sport. Araton gives the college game a beating, too, from coaches who ride the backs of great players to a better job elsewhere to universities that focus on income generation rather than academic integrity. This is an intelligent overview of a sport losing fans in droves by a fan who wants the bleeding to stop. Wes Lukowsky
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Product Review
"Harvey Araton has been the most original and provocative of sports columnists, and his bittersweet paean to basketball is as devotional as it is critical. It's advocacy journalism at a fine, high pitch."
-- Frank Deford, senior contributing writer, Sports Illustrated; voted sportswriter of the year six times
"Harvey Araton -- like every great artist -- possesses incredible levels of vision, passion, perspective, emotion, and touch. His newest book, Crashing the Borders, takes us on a journey through the game and world that we love and cherish so much. Combining scalpel-like efficiency with powerfully thunderous analysis, Araton has put together the perfect game. By challenging our souls on every front, Harvey has done his job. The rest is now up to us."
-- Bill Walton, Basketball Hall of Fame member
"Harvey Araton has been one of the preeminent sportswriters in the country for two decades, and Crashing the Borders shows why. Gracefully written and provocatively argued, it is a narrative rich with depth, originality, and freshness. It does what Araton's writing always does: It makes you think. If a basketball book could be a lottery pick, this would be my first-round selection."
-- Wayne Coffey, author of The Boys of Winter
"Harvey Araton has that rarest of virtues among sports writers: the ability to think critically about a game he loves. Then again, Crashing the Borders isn't really sports writing. Sure, Araton knows what makes basketball gorgeous. But he also understands how the sport intersects with race and money. As Dick Vitale might say, 'It's America, ba-bee!' But now it's Argentina, Italy, and Croatia as well. This book captures the game's culture and its contradictions with just the right mix of outrage, affection, and intellectual rigor."
-- Mark Kriegel, author of Namath: A Biography
"Crashing the Borders is a hoops version of Paradise Lost. A moving elegy to a sport that was once a thing of beauty and is now a train wreck, Crashing the Borders points fingers and names names in a way that sports books almost never do. Essential reading for all basketball fans."
-- Joe Queenan, author of True Believers: The Tragic Inner Life of Sports Fans
Reader Reviews
While I enjoyed this quick and easy effort from Araton, it left me with one question at the end - "What exactly was the author trying to prove in writing this?" The title would indicate that we should expect a treatise covering several topics: the decline of basketball fundamentals in America, the fall of the U.S. as a basketball empire, the MTV-ization of the game, and a few others that would all contribute to proving what the title claims. Instead, this is a disjointed effort, part lecture, part memoir, and part history lesson. Personally, I think that this would have worked better as a simple memoir of Araton's time spent covering the game. He could have told more of the interesting personal stories that he interjects here, especially considering how long he's been around the game. This is a book that becomes repititious, and that might have been avoided had he included more about his interactions with players, coaches, etc. He could have talked about how he believes the game has declined here, but it wouldn't have had to be the centerpiece of his book. I believe that a great book about the decline of basketball here in the U.S. needs to be written, but I don't think this is it. This doesn't dig nearly deep enough into the underlying causes of the decline, and the format is so scattershot as to keep the reader guessing exactly what might be the point of certain parts of the book. Again, this is an enjoyable and fast read, but I was expecting something more.
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Crashing the Borders: How Basketball Won the World and Lost Its Soul at Home
Available from Amazon
Price: $19.00
Updated on 8-6-2008.
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