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Playing It Out

by 06/26/2022
Neighborhood: Morningside Heights, Upper West Side

Everything got worse in New York except my jump shot. Though I looked the part —  white, six foot and fair featured, like some towhead from the Midwest — shooting was not my ticket on the court. In the small school league in Washington where I had starred, I got my points going to the […]

The Best Basketball You Never Saw

by 08/15/2020
Neighborhood: Downtown Brooklyn

It was the dying days of the springtime professional circuit known as the United States Basketball League (USBL).  A one-time proving ground for NBA hopefuls, the League had fallen on hard times. Teams going out of business weren’t being replaced. In the 2006 season, the USBL was a faded attraction, split in two between a […]

To The Basketball Playing Men and Women of Letters

by 03/14/2012
Neighborhood: All Over, Brooklyn, Brooklyn Heights, Caroll Gardens, Carroll Gardens, Manhattan, Upper West Side, West Village

I recently read a fanciful article in which a literary East/West  all-star basketball game is imagined and scouted. Dave Eggers and Stephen Elliott are the starting back court for the West. Ben Marcus is cast as the starting center for the East not on the grounds of basketball skill but because, according to the writer, […]

Street Ball

by Thomas Beller 08/09/2009
Neighborhood: West Village

Poke, poke, poke went his finger against my head. I was playing basketball at my local basketball court and some static had developed between me and a guy nicknamed Homicide. I stared straight ahead, trying to ignore his jabbing finger. “You stink!” he yelled, barking right into my face. “You know that?” He was six […]