The Breaks of the Game
by David Halberstam
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Book Summary Information
Author: David HalberstamEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Published)
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2009-02-17
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 416
Publisher: Hyperion
Book Reviews of The Breaks of the Game
Book Review: Another Halberstam Classic
Summary: 5 Stars
David Halberstam was one of the most astute observers of American culture of the past century. His skill as a reporter was not only in his meticulous accumulation of facts and his canny ability to piece them together into a coherent historical perspective. His true genius was the realization that history is driven by people, not events, and his consumate skill in making individuals come alive on the printed page. Whether he dealt with Korean war figures, Viet Nam era politicians or famous professional athletes, the reader was made to understand how and why these men behaved as they did in times of duress.
I had overlooked this book for some reason despite being an aficionado of both Mr Halberstam and basketball. It proved to be a history of the changing face of American sports and the metamorphasis of the sport of basketball from one era into another. Along the way we are introduced to and come to understand and care about characters as disparate as Jack Ramsay the Trailblazers driven coach, Bill Walton, his flawed superstar, Larry Weinberg, Portland's Jewish businessman owner, and Billy Ray Bates, a black sharecroppers's son. My only mild criticism is that Halberstam tended to become so enamored of peripheral characters in the basketball world in which he traveled that he wandered down long circuitous pathways which contributed little to the overall premise of his book. But, oh, what interesting pathways, and what an astute guide for the fortunate reader.
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