Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: The Punch: One Night, Two Lives, and the Fight That Changed Basketball Forever by John Feinstein ISBN: 0316279722 Publisher: Little Brown & Company Pub. Date: November, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.22
Rating: 4
Summary: This brings out both the best and the worst of Feinstein
Comment: John Feinstein is one of the keenest observers and commentators of the general sports scene around today. His previous books have been uniformly excellent and serve to demonstrate his tremendous talent as a journalist as we as his incredible range of play, covering professional tennis and golf, college basketball, and so on.
In The Punch: One Night, Two Lives, and the Fight That Changed Basketball Forever we see Feinstein at both his best-and his worst. Overall the book is great. No one can render an athletic event and the emotions and feelings surrounding it better than feinstein. In this book, Feinstein does a masterful job of painting the whole picture-particularly the culture within the NBA of the time that fostered the environment wherein this event took place. Feinstein also does a masterful job of thoroughly conveying the aspects-in terms of personality, history, temperament and relative stature-of the participants. By the time The Punch is thrown, we feel like we are there reliving the event-no small accomplishment given that the only visual rendering available is a horribly unfocused, grainy black and white photo on the book cover.
Where the book breaks down-and where Feinstein generally has problems-is when Feinstein starts to track the consequences of The Punch. Those parts dealing with the players professional careers are fine. It's when we get to "social" issues that things break down. I have a hard time believing that Washington's later financial problems or Tomjanovitch's drinking problems can all be laid at the feet of the event in questions. Rudy drank before The Punch, and Washington's problems seem to founder more on bad choices in investment advisors rather than any deep seeded psychological problems.
Nevertheless, this was an epochal event in terms of both the future of the NBA as well as the future of these two players, and while I wish Jon would leave the psychoanalysis to psychologists, the book on the whole is a truly great rendering of the effects extreme violence can have on a sport and it's participants.
A must read for sports fans in general and pro basketball fans in particular.
Rating: 2
Summary: Reduntant and Disappointing
Comment: A very good subject for a book, however Feinstein leaves the reader wanting and exhausted in many aspects. Firstly, he is overly reduntant in many areas, in fact, reading the book I thought somehow I had a brainfart and skipped back a few pages. Secondly, for a book published by a big time house the grammatical error of putting an apostrophe on the end of words ending in an 'S' is unforgivable and happens at least 5-10 times. Lastly, I think a part of the book never explored, expcept in recollections by Kevin Kunnert is the fact that Kermit Washington, even after all these years is utterly an un-sympathetic figure. John Lucas said it best when Kermit should sayin "i'm sorry without all the buts". It is obvious fromt he way he was coddled in colelge that as a 50 year old man he is unable to accept responsiblity and quickly resumes to playing the race card when complaining about is "lack of oppportunities" after is NBA career. Feinstein shoudld've taken him to task for this, but alas I think he wuld've felt it was race bating. In addition, Kermit comes off kind of stupid,which is especially sad for someone with a degree from American University. Oh yes, one more point there should've been picutres of 'the punch' and I felt the lack of pictures sorely wanting.
Rating: 3
Summary: Not Quite a Knockout
Comment: John Feinstein is one of the preeminent sports writers in the country and his new book, The Punch, is yet another solid work. The story centers around a game on December 9, 1977 between the Los Angeles Lakers and Houston Rockets at the Great Western Forum in LA. At the time, the NBA was not the institution it is today. Drug use was rampant, fighting was commonplace and the league was really an afterthought to most fans. In fact, the NBA finals were not even broadcast live on TV. So, the game between the Lakers and Rockets was just an average early season contest between two mediocre teams. The incident started when Laker center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Rocket center Kurt Kunnert got tangled up at center court. Being that Abdul-Jabbar had hurt himself in a fight earlier in the week, Laker forward Kermit Washington got involved to protect Abdul-Jabbar. Rockets forward Rudy Tomjanovich, who was at the other end of the court, saw the melee and ran down to try and break it up. As Tomjanovich was running at full speed, Washington felt his presence, turned and delivered a crushing blow to Tomjanovich's face. The force was so severe that it basically broke Tomjanovich's face. Tomjanovich was rushed to the hospital, where it was discovered he was leaking brain fluid and actually if not for the good sense of the Laker trainer to call a head trauma specialist, he may have died. The book is at its best when it details how due to this one brief instance, the lives of two men were irrevocably changed. Tomjanovich's career got back on track, he returned the next year and was a starter on the Western Conference All-Star team, and he eventually became coach of the Rockets and won two NBA titles in the 1994 & 1995. But the physical and emotional trauma that he was left with still haunt him. He could never seem to accept accolades as he felt they were bestowed on his out of pity. He also became an alcoholic. Kermit Washington fared far worse. His career never was the same. He was suspended for an indefinite period of time and his career became defined by the punch. Even though he was an enforcer and tough guy on the court, off the court he overcame many odds to succeed in life. He was from a tough neighborhood in Washington, DC, but went to American University and not only was a star basketball player, but an Academic All-American and class valedictorian. But since the punch, he was virtually been blackballed from getting a job in the NBA. Mr. Feinstein does a great job of detailing the lives of the two men and how their colors, Tomjanovich is white and Washington is black, helped play a role in how the incident was received. What The Punch fails to do though is to explain how this incident really changed basketball. Outside of adding a third referee and scaling back on the fighting, Mr. Feinstein glosses over that aspect. Basketball was changed and elevated to the level it is today basically due to Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan and Larry Bird. The Lakers and Celtics rivalry in the 80's and Jordan's pure athletic excellence propelled the sport and helped to overcome any stigmatism left from the 70's. Mr. Feinstein does a good job of getting into the effects on the two players, but he takes what is essentially an ugly footnote in league history and tries to make into a pivotal, league defining and altering event.
 |
Title: My Losing Season by Pat Conroy ISBN: 0385489129 Publisher: Doubleday Pub. Date: 15 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
 |
Title: Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy by Jane Leavy ISBN: 0060195339 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: 17 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
 |
Title: I May Be Wrong but I Doubt It by Charles Barkley, Michael Wilbon ISBN: 037550883X Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 01 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
 |
Title: The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1941-1945 by Michael R. Beschloss ISBN: 0684810271 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 22 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
 |
Title: Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? Inside IBM's Historic Turnaround by Louis V. Gerstner Jr. ISBN: 0060523794 Publisher: HarperBusiness Pub. Date: 12 November, 2002 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
