The City Game by Pete Axthelm

The City Game Reviews

• 
  Julio Pino

  A female political friend once told me, "basketball is the most beautiful of all sports. It brings every part of the body into motion.".Another political friend and professional colleague once invited me to his house for a summer BBQ, then chided me for watching an L.A. Lakers game, "that opiate of the masses!" Robert Coover used baseball as a metaphor for the history of the universe in THE UNIVERSAL BASEBALL ASSOCIATION, J. HENRY WAUGH, PROPRIETOR. Don DeLillo utilized football to stand for America's addiction to war in END ZONE. (It's no coincidence football is the one pro sport prisoners are not allowed to play in U.S. jails; even field copy is permitted.) Peter Axthelm, a professional sports writer had less lofty goals for basketball yet nevertheless managed to produce a masterpiece. Basketball is for him the all-American game, with multimillionaire players at one end and city kids at the other both playing "hoop dreams" of fame, money and, in the case of America's inner city underclass, a taste of political, meaning racial, power. The most touching chapter in Axtthelm's mini-history of the game is "The Tragedy of Earl' The Goat' Manigaut", arguably the greatest pickup basketball player who ever lived whose career in college basketball was cut short by a nasty heroin addiction yet came back alive thanks in part to Axthelm's tribute chapter in this book.
• 
  Tung

  Axthelm was a columnist who covered sports in the Big Apple during the prime of the Knicks’ great teams in the late 60’s/early 70’s. This book is a documentary look at the team that captured the NBA championship at the end of the 1969-1970 season. Axthelm spends individual chapters describing the great players from that team – notably Bill Bradley, Clyde Frazier, Dave Debusschere, and Willis Reed – and how their unique personalities and skills perfectly complimented each other during that championship year. The latter half of the book goes through the ups and downs of the playoff series against the Bullets, Bucks, and Lakers, highlighting not only the Knicks’ players, but also the important players from the other teams (especially Lew Alcindor who was a rookie, and Chamberlain and West who were at the tail ends of their careers). In addition, Axthelm sets the cultural context for NYC basketball by describing the street basketball scene in Harlem, and the importance of basketball to African-Americans living in poverty in the NY boroughs. Alongside the chapters on individuals like Willis Reed, Axthelm spends chapters on talented neighborhood players who failed despite their talents because of social issues related to poverty and racism during that era. These two stories (Knicks basketball and neighborhood basketball) don’t always mesh perfectly, and there was a time or two I felt like Axthelm was telling two stories at once, but overall they work together to make this a documentary not only about the Knicks, but also about the larger game of basketball and its connection to urban areas and society at large. The language is a bit dated, as Axthelm often uses terms like “last year” or “next year” in reference to his writing this in 1970. But its place in time also lends a unique perspective since Axthelm predicts certain things like Bill Bradley’s political career and Lew Alcindor’s success years before either materialized. One minor criticism is that – like most non-fiction works – Axthelm tends to lionize players and teams, but when you’re covering legendary events like the Willis Reed appearance in Game 7 of the NBA championship, sometimes it’s appropriate to use superlatives. Overall, a very engaging and fascinating non-fiction read. This is a must-read for fans of the Knicks or of basketball, and a recommended read for everyone else.
• 
  Uchechukwu

  Very interesting read on the New York basketball scene in 1970, a year the Knicks won the NBA championship. It felt like one book on the Knicks championship season and then a half book on the street basketball scene jammed together when I thought it could be integrated together a bit better. The overall writing is very good though and it had the best descriptions of game-action that I have read so far.
• 
  kareem

  This is a great book for anybody interested in the history of basketball. It was written in 1970 and tells the story of the Knicks championship season while juxtaposing the personalities on the Knicks (Willis Reed, Bill Bradley, etc) with New York's playground legends (Earl Manigault, Herman the Helicopter, etc.)
  
  It's a really nice snapshot in time of New York basketball, and a must-read if you've ever found yourself on YouTube watching great Rucker Park videos like this:
  
  
  http://youtube.com/watch?v=_TdqITTvZlY
• 
  MOL

  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.
• 
  Thurston Hunger

  The nicest thing about this was that it was loaned to me as a thoughtful thank you gift from a parent/teacher at my kids school as his 1st grader joined in some of our 3rd grade basketball Sunday practices.
  
  I hope young Rhys ends up loving basketball as deeply and as long as Axthelm did. Not sure if the book's text merits a rating of "poetic" rating but in contrast to this era of SportsCenter quips and stabs at catch phrases, I understand.
  
  Like a lot of sports reporting when I was young, this book is well written and avoids the obvious and catches players that are not caricatures of caricatures. These days, maybe effort along these lines goes into TV documentaries, which are easier (you film a guy) but more compelling (you actually see the guy playing, or talking from prison). Indeed if you dug this, I suspect you would also enjoy "Town Game" which contrasts Leon Powe and "Hook" Mitchelle just as Axthelm held up Willis Reed and his team versus "The Goat" and other playground legends from New York.
  
  I thought the game recaps were well-done, not so in-depth as to squeeze the life out of them. Even though the Reed limping down the tunnel was before my time, I had seen it enough times that it was nice to hear some of the backing to it. Also the notion of the NBA in its infancy and where they would play and to whom, also worth checking out.
  
  A good summer read if you can find it, or are lucky to have it loaned to you as I was. But in general, sports stories just don't appeal to me as much as they once did, not sure if it is a function of me, or the sports-entertainment world itself.
  
  
• 
  Ivan Zullo

  Close your eyes, take your time machine, then open this book. You are seated at Madison Square Garden and eager to live one more time that epic season. But it's not over. We're in NYC, so basket is a faith and you have a sanctuary to visit: it's Rucker Park. Here you can earn the immortal respect.
  Pete Axthelm superbly goes with you page after page in a marvellous jorney in the city of basketball, "the city that knows and love it best".
  It's not only a sport book, it's a free entry for Basketball City of New York.
• 
  Anselm

  Three stars but four beers. I'd like to say my favorite part of this book is Phil Jackson being out for the season with a bad back, but the writing on the playground players is very good, as are the chapters on the playoffs. You have to believe the Knicks were once an incredibly beautiful team to watch play (if you're younger than 45 and care about such things), but that shouldn't be any harder to believe than going to the library to plagiarize a term paper.
• 
  Oliver Bateman

  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.
• 
  Matt Moran

  Nothing to get excited about. Typical season recap sports story that tries to intersperse tales and profiles of city ball. Axhelm's grasp of city basketball is much less extensive than Telander's in 'Heaven is a Playground' and the structure of this book doesn't work.
  
  Another SI Top 100 book where the makers of the list chose a former staff writer.
  
  
• 
  Micah

  I liked this book - especially the juxtaposition between the Knicks and the street ballers - but it reads like an extended newspaper article at times as Axthelm relies far too much on extended quotations that can go on for paragraphs at a time.
• 
  Conal

  Been awhile since I read this but memory tells me I enjoyed the stories of the playground legends (Earl "the Goat" Manigault, Herman "the Helicopter" Rawlings and several others) more than the back story of the Knicks championship season. A good read if you can find a copy...
• 
  Bax

  Fantastically entertaining history of basketball in NYC.
• 
  Christopher Borden

  Great look back at basketball in NYC in late 60s/early 70s, great background on playground legends you don't hear much about.
• 
  Riccardo Leroux

  Great basketball playground book
• 
  Zach

  More entertaining when he talked about the playground legends than the 1970-71 Knickerbocker team.
• 
  Miles

  This sports book was groundbreaking back in its day (1970). The book was a forerunner to many later great sports nonfiction books, and ultimately, to the ESPN 30-for-30 documentaries. "The City Game" tells two intertwined stories that took place in New York City in the late 1960s and 1970: the rise of the New York Knicks through their championship run in 1970, and the stories of a number of New York City playground basketball legends - some of whom made it to the NBA, but many who didn't. The one theme that is consistent throughout is New York's love of basketball, and the fact that the sport truly is a city game, unlike our other major sports. Axthelm does a great job with both storylines, and it is amusing at this point to contrast where the NBA is today compared with where it was back in 1970. A couple of examples that stood out were the fact that teams played their games in multiple locations (for example, the Knicks played the Seattle SuperSonics in Portland and the Golden State Warriors in Fresno) and court side playoff seats were bought by high rollers for $12.50 a ticket.
  
  As a kid who grew up as a Knick fan, I particularly enjoyed the book. My era came slightly later (starting with the 1973 championship team), but the story told here sets the table for all that came after. All of the big names are here - Reed, Bradley, DeBusschere, and Frazier (although Earl the Pearl Monroe was on the Bullets at this time). Another interesting aspect was the way that the big men of the era were perceived - Bill Russell (just recently retired), Wilt Chamberlain (nearing the end of his career), and Kareem (just getting started). I definitely enjoyed the book and recommend it for any basketball fan.