The Biographical History of Basketball [Illustrated] [Paperback]

Peter C Bjarkman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1999

The Biographical History of Basketball gives readers a much-needed antidote to basketball's historical amnesia. Author Peter C. Bjarkman presents entertaining and fact-filled career summaries of the sport's great players, its ground-breaking coaches and administrators, and its other often-forgotten and less-publicized figures who authored developments crucial to basketball's century-long evolution. While baseball buffs can usually cite chapter and verse for the diamond sport's most memorable events and personages, basketball fans often have little collective memory of the game's past heroes and milestones, especially those of the nine decades preceding Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, and Magic Johnson. The Biographical History of Basketball sends readers on a nostalgic trip through the entire 100-year span of hoops history with personal portraits and little-known facts about the 500 most significant on- and off-court personalities of the game's past and present. Detailing the feats of the men and women who are responsible for elevating basketball to its current status as the new American national pastime, Bjarkman gives readers a fascinating glimpse into the lives of some of the game's prominent players--past and present--including James Naismith, Phog Allen, and Doc Meanwell; on-court innovators Hank Luisetti, George Mikan, and Bob Cousy; legendary Hall of Famers Oscar Robertson, Wilt Chamberlain, and Red Auerbach; and modern-era idols like Jordan, Shaquille O'Neal and Grant Hill. Peter C. Bjarkman is one of the country's leading historians and author of more than 30 books on the history of basketball and baseball. A winner of the 1994 Macmillan-SABR award for best baseball research, he is a longtime resident of Lafayette, Indiana.

Product Details

• Paperback: 608 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (September 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1570281343
• ISBN-13: 978-1570281341
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,477,426 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Peter Bjarkman is widely recognized as a leading authority on Cuban baseball, both pre- and post-revolution. He has covered the Cuban League and the Cuban national team for the popular website www.BaseballdeCuba.com since 2007 and has traveled widely with the Cubnan national team to international tournaments for the past fifteen years. His volume entitled A HISTORY OF CUBAN BASEBALL, 1864-2006 (McFarland, 2007) is universally considered the seminal work on the history of the island nation's national pastime. Bjarkman has also written widely over the past 20 years on Latin American baseball, major league baseball, and NCAA and NBA basketball. He has appeared in numerous television and radio interviews and in more than a dozen documentary films on baseball and basketball history. Bjarkman can also be found at www.bjarkman.com, www.BaseballdeCuba.com, and on his popular MLB Blog (Bjarkman's Latino and Cuban Baseball History Page) which has been an MLB "Top 100 Blog Site" for the past two years (2008, 2009).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must for Hoops Fans!, April 8, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Biographical History of Basketball (Paperback)

Here's a tome that's a must for serious students of the game's history for generations to come. the author answers every question about basketball except how they get "Sha-shef-ski" out of Krzyewski. The book offers up a smorgasbord of biographical and historical roundball facts about the game. Included are the famous, like Dr. James Naismith and John Wooden, and the all-but-forgotten - but equally important - like Danny Biasone, the father of the shot clock. Bjarkman traces the game from the lackluster days of jmp balls after each basket and stationery, two-handed set shots all the way through to today's above-the-rim action. The amply-illustrated book is divided into seven sections. Along the way, the author plumbs basketball's murky origins, and surfaces with some surprising finds. For example, one of the coaches in the first 5-on-5 collegiate hoops contest was Amos Alonzo Stagg, better known as a gridiron coaching legend. The biographical material is divided into three eras: 1891-1954; 1955-1980 and 1981-present. Bjarkman maintains that basketball (which he calls an "appropriate mirror image of a frantically paced, highly impersonalized" modern society) has replaced baseball as the National Pastime. This definitive work makes a very strong case for Bjarkman's thesis.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Needs a little work in order to be complete, February 13, 2000

By 

Michael J Woznicki "Michael J Woznicki" (Holland, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Biographical History of Basketball (Paperback)

Doctor James Naismith is credited with the invention of a game mainly to be used as a form of relaxation for businessmen. Since the inception of the game changes have occurred at almost every level and Peter Bjarkman has put together once of the most complete books on those changes.

In the over 575 pages covering one of America's most loved games, you'll be treated to more than 500 portraits of those that played this game and transformed it from the peach basket to the break away basket. Bjarkman's remarkable look should have this book in the hall of fame in Springfield, MA.

While the book is broken down to cover the major periods of the game, the reading is often not fluid. I found that book can be read from any chapter without having to read the previous ones. The book covers just about everyone who ever played and this was a certain treat.

From the Big O, Wilt, Dr. J., Bird, Magic, Isaiah Thomas, and of course the best of all Jordan, you'll have a never ending treat of players right at your finger tips and best of all the book cost less than the price of tickets to see these men play. Overall a very good job.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Basketball Amnesia Fixed, May 5, 2000

By 

"cdrada" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Biographical History of Basketball (Paperback)

Basketball, unlike its counterparts in baseball and even football, hockey and tennis to a lesser extent, does not respect and revere its rich history. Too many "fans" today think the game started with Larry, Michael, Magic and Shaq. But the truth is, without mostly forgotten basketball men like Mikan, Luisetti, Holman, Lambert, Meanwell and many others, there would be no game as we know it today. Peter Bjarkman's "Biographical History of Basketball" sets out to rectify this oversight with over 500 incisive portraits of basketball's well-known and more importantly, lesser-known significant contributors to the game's history. Included is also an insightful look into why the game has become the national pastime, at least for the under-35 set, by examining basketball's one on one aspects. Its ability to have a single player affect the action more than in other team sports, as well as our society's increasing need to make heroes out of individuals in these often confusing, leader-less times, has made the game even more appealing. Most of the book's importance lies in its homage to the forgotten, underappreciated past of hoops as it recounts A-to-Z the overlooked men (and women) of the game from Bevo Francis to Dave Zinkoff. But it also traces the game's roots from the early barnstorming era to college basketball's heyday and the evolution of the game from "hardwood to hangtime." "The Biographical History of Basketball" is a lively, fun and informative look into how the game has moved from a loosely organized, dimly-lit past to status as perhaps the world's most popular sport by one of the nation's most prolific and knowledgable sports writers, Peter Bjarkman.