Customer Reviews

The Cockroach Basketball League: A Novel

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The Commercial Basketball Association (wink, wink) may be minor league, but Charley's novel describing a year there certainly isn't.

This is as honest a portrayal as we are likely to see about any sport. Exposing the dark side of the basketball business -- and most of it's participants -- at first left me yearning for a more wholesome, less complicated (and more naive) view of the game. Soon the story hooked me and I was able to look at the ugly, and alongside it the excitement and beauty as well.

It is a human triumph that one's love for the game, and for one's teammates, survives assaults of all kinds. Charley's love shines through. If you love hoops, this is one of a handful of books I'd call, "must read."

Phil Jackson groupie and sometime ESPN.com writer Charley Rosen turns in a fun, but sometimes off-putting fictionalized account of minor league basketball life. He develops the characters well and puts forth a decent plot. However, Rosen's personal oddities drag the book down. Rosen is absolutely obsessed with bodily functions and he repeatedly goes into way too much detail about farting, urination, defacation, etc. At times, the book reads like an immature third grader's delight. My roommates and I all read it and the general consensus was that the book was enjoyable, but Charley Rosen is a really weird guy.

Just finished Rosen's Cockroach Basketball League and thought it was a good, not great read. I am a pro basketball fan and have been for 30 years. Rosen gives a great look at the inside world of minor league basketball (surely based on his own experiences kicking around the CBA for years) from the perspective of a coach struggling with multiple issues, his team, the GM, fans, cops and his personal life. Enjoyed the basketball game play-by-play and that Rosen doesn't talk down to you as a basketball fan. The language is as real as it can get both from the BB perspective and also the "culture" of the game. Would recommend this book to any fan of the game.