A lively history of the Los Angeles Lakers, focusing on Earvin ``Magic'' Johnson's infection with the HIV virus. Basketball-expert Lazenby (The NBA Finals, 1990, etc.—not reviewed) opens by describing the NBA's ``Studhorse Sweepstakes'' and Johnson's reputation as a ladies' man, his dramatic announcement of having contracted the virus, and his October 1992 comeback attempt after a one-year layoff. Although Johnson had played in the 1991 All-Star Game and on the ``Dream Team'' at the Barcelona Olympics, the 1992 preseason games were his first real competitive test since his announcement—but his most difficult challenges proved to be the daily press conferences, the nasty rumors, and other players' complaints and concerns about possible infection. Johnson's abrupt second retirement was only a formal coda, Lazenby says, to the ``swan song for Showtime''—the glamour and excitement generated by the Lakers during the 1980's, when they captured five championships. With little regard for strict chronology, Lazenby traces the Lakers' history back to 1946, when the Detroit Gems, with an awful 4-40 record, were sold to a Minneapolis group for $15,000. With George Mikan, ``the first dominant giant,'' and Jim Pollard, the ``first jumping jack,'' the Lakers won six titles early on. Since 1960, when they moved to L.A., their storied players have included Jerry West, now the general manager; Wilt Chamberlain; Elgin Baylor; and Kareem Abdul- Jabbar, whose unforgettable farewell tour in 1988-89 is given some space here. The Lakers have missed the playoffs only four times in 46 years—winning 13 championships and making it to the finals another 13 times—and Lazenby's recaps of seasons and particular games, especially the dramatic 1987 finals against the Detroit Pistons, bring the excitement on to the page. Captures the glory days, as well as moments both sweet and bitter. (Photographs—eight pages color, eight pages b&w—not seen)
Pub Date: Nov. 30, 1993
ISBN: 0-312-09840-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1993
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.
A study of swimming as sport, survival method, basis for community, and route to physical and mental well-being.
For Bay Area writer Tsui (American Chinatown: A People's History of Five Neighborhoods, 2009), swimming is in her blood. As she recounts, her parents met in a Hong Kong swimming pool, and she often visited the beach as a child and competed on a swim team in high school. Midway through the engaging narrative, the author explains how she rejoined the team at age 40, just as her 6-year-old was signing up for the first time. Chronicling her interviews with scientists and swimmers alike, Tsui notes the many health benefits of swimming, some of which are mental. Swimmers often achieve the “flow” state and get their best ideas while in the water. Her travels took her from the California coast, where she dove for abalone and swam from Alcatraz back to San Francisco, to Tokyo, where she heard about the “samurai swimming” martial arts tradition. In Iceland, she met Guðlaugur Friðþórsson, a local celebrity who, in 1984, survived six hours in a winter sea after his fishing vessel capsized, earning him the nickname “the human seal.” Although humans are generally adapted to life on land, the author discovered that some have extra advantages in the water. The Bajau people of Indonesia, for instance, can do 10-minute free dives while hunting because their spleens are 50% larger than average. For most, though, it’s simply a matter of practice. Tsui discussed swimming with Dara Torres, who became the oldest Olympic swimmer at age 41, and swam with Kim Chambers, one of the few people to complete the daunting Oceans Seven marathon swim challenge. Drawing on personal experience, history, biology, and social science, the author conveys the appeal of “an unflinching giving-over to an element” and makes a convincing case for broader access to swimming education (372,000 people still drown annually).
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-61620-786-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
Effectively sobering. Suffice it to say that Pop Warner parents will want to armor their kids from head to toe upon reading...
A maddening, well-constructed tale of medical discovery and corporate coverup, set in morgues, laboratories, courtrooms, and football fields.
Nigeria-born Bennet Omalu is perhaps an unlikely hero, a medical doctor board-certified in four areas of pathology, “anatomic, clinical, forensic, and neuropathology,” and a well-rounded specialist in death. When his boss, celebrity examiner Cyril Wecht (“in the autopsy business, Wecht was a rock star”), got into trouble for various specimens of publicity-hound overreach, Omalu was there to offer patient, stoical support. The student did not surpass the teacher in flashiness, but Omalu was a rock star all his own in studying the brain to determine a cause of death. Laskas’ (Creative Writing/Univ. of Pittsburgh; Hidden America, 2012, etc.) main topic is the horrific injuries wrought to the brains and bodies of football players on the field. Omalu’s study of the unfortunate brain of Pittsburgh Steeler Mike Webster, who died in 2002 at 50 of a supposed heart attack, brought new attention to the trauma of concussion. Laskas trades in sportwriter-ese, all staccato delivery full of tough guy–isms and sports clichés: “He had played for fifteen seasons, a warrior’s warrior; he played in more games—two hundred twenty—than any other player in Steelers history. Undersized, tough, a big, burly white guy—a Pittsburgh kind of guy—the heart of the best team in history.” A little of that goes a long way, but Laskas, a Pittsburgher who first wrote of Omalu and his studies in a story in GQ, does sturdy work in keeping up with a grim story that the NFL most definitely did not want to see aired—not in Omalu’s professional publications in medical journals, nor, reportedly, on the big screen in the Will Smith vehicle based on this book.
Effectively sobering. Suffice it to say that Pop Warner parents will want to armor their kids from head to toe upon reading it.Pub Date: Nov. 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8757-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2015
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