Tall Men, Short Shorts

The 1969 NBA Finals: Wilt, Russ, Lakers, Celtics, and a Very Young Sports Reporter

By: Leigh Montville

Narrated by: Leigh Montville

Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins

Publisher's summary

This "part memoir, part sports story" (Wall Street Journal) from the New York Times bestselling author of The Big Bam chronicles the clash of NBA titans over seven riveting games—Celtics versus Lakers, Russell versus Chamberlain—covered by one young reporter. Welcome to the 1969 NBA Finals!

They don’t set up any better than this. The greatest basketball player of all time–Bill Russell–and his juggernaut Boston Celtics, winners of ten (ten!) of the previous twelve NBA championships, squeak through one more playoff run and land in the Finals again. Russell’s opponent? The fearsome 7’1” next-generation superstar, Wilt Chamberlain, recently traded to the LA Lakers to form the league’s first dream team. Bill Russell and John Havlicek versus Chamberlain, Jerry West and Elgin Baylor. The 1969 Celtics are at the end of their dominance. The 1969 Lakers are unstoppable.

Add to the mix one newly minted reporter. Covering the epic series is a wide-eyed young sports writer named Leigh Montville. Years before becoming an award-winning legend himself at The Boston Globe and Sports Illustrated, twenty-four-year-old Montville is ordered by his editor at the Globe to get on a plane to L.A. (first time!) to write about his luminous heroes, the biggest of big men.

What follows is a raucous, colorful, joyous account of one of the greatest seven-game series in NBA history. Set against a backdrop of the late sixties, Montville’s reporting and recollections transport readers to a singular time–with rampant racial tension on the streets and on the court, with the emergence of a still relatively small league on its way to becoming a billion-dollar industry, and to an era when newspaper journalism and the written word served as the crucial lifeline between sports and sports fans. And there was basketball–seven breathtaking, see-saw games, highlight-reel moments from an unprecedented cast of future Hall of Famers (including player-coach Russell as the first-ever black head coach in the NBA), coast-to-coast travels and the clack-clack-clack of typewriter keys racing against tight deadlines.

Tall Men, Short Shorts is a masterpiece of sports journalism with a charming touch of personal memoir. Leigh Montville has crafted his most entertaining book yet, richly enshrining luminous players and moments in a unique American time.

©2021 Leigh Montville (P)2021 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

Named a Best Book of the Year by The Los Angeles Times and FanSided

“Montville’s chronicle–both reported and reflective–is part memoir, part sports story.... Montville takes us through all seven games in a pastiche of newspaper stories, radio accounts and his own reminiscences. It is all remarkably engaging.... A classic.” (The Wall Street Journal)

“The definitive account of a pivotal season in one of sports’ great rivalries, supplemented by the personal, often hilarious, memories of a generational observer of sports.” (The Los Angeles Times)

“[A] wonderfully told story of a young Montville covering the 1969 Bill Russell vs. Wilt Chamberlain, Celtics vs. Lakers NBA Finals. It’s great storytelling (a Montville staple) and pure fun. Montville brings Boston’s 1969 Boys of Spring to life in spectacular fashion. Take it to the beach. Thank me later.” (The Boston Globe)

A great listen

Being 29 when the series was played I can remember most of what happened but it’s fuzzy. Mr Montville brings it all back to life describing the games , and of course the atmosphere of the time., Including the players , fellow writers, and other characters who I also remember and read but never knew all their backgrounds and idiosyncrasies . All brought to life here with excellent writing . Really a very well done book and the narration by the author makes it even better.
A great read listen and story. .

Super interesting basketball book

I really liked so much of this book. The focus is the 1968-69 Boston Celtics season, with a focus on the NBA finals: Boston vs. LA Lakers. The Russell vs. Chamberlain rivalry was fascinating. The author looks back 50 years to his first year as a Boston Globe sports reporter covering the Celtics. I liked the way the author tells the story from his younger eyes. This is filled with profiles of all the big players on those teams, and touches on the issues of racism in Boston and the NBA in that era. This was definitely one of my favorite sports books in recent years. It's about basketball and sports writing. The author reads it adding real authenticity - that was a good choice to have him read. My only complaint is that there was a little too much filler background material, which was likely needed to stretch this out to full book length. That was still somewhat interesting, but kept this a tiny bit short of a 5-star rating to me. If you like basketball or sports in general, there is a lot of good stuff here. If you are a Boston sports fan from that era, this is a must listen. This book made the game, the players, and the time and place come alive through good writing.

Not quite enough for a full novel…

Thought this would be a timely book to listen to with the NBA Finals going on. It was a story that promised a lot of stars, and a lot of enigmatic people. Those components didn’t disappoint. However, while I thoroughly enjoy Leigh Montville as one of the top writers of SI lore, he just didn’t seem to have quite enough storylines to truly fill a full novel here. Relying on the old story recaps and press clippings just wasn’t enough. And while I give Montville credit for trying with the TBYM angle, it got tired after a while. And I am always desirous of the author voicing their own book, and while Montville even self-effacingly pokes fun at his own voice, he’s right: he doesn’t really have the voice chops to do this. But it was a Catch-22, since I don’t think an average narrator would have known all of the places for inflection. You get what you get.

Montville At His Best

I have read all of Leigh Montville’s books and this is, by far, his best work!

Childhood Memories

Fresh angle on writing. Unique story presentations. Strongly recommend. I’m sixty seven years old and only had limited knowledge of basketball at the time.

A book for diehard NBA fans

If you love the NBA, especially the Celtics and Lakers this is a great listen!

Great story not only of games but of history

Really relayed the feelings of the times & personalties -- strategy egos courage & challenges of players & coaches - great insight into Bill Russell

Very good book with a caveat

I like Montville’s books. He’s a great sports writer. There was just one thing in this one that kept it from meeting his normally high standards. This book is about the 1969 NBA finals and his experience as a young reporter covering it for a Boston Newspaper. It was so long ago that he considers himself a different person. So he refers to himself in the third person. But even worse he calls the younger version of himself “the bright young man”. To hear that once would be somewhat pretentious and egotistical, but I could quickly move past it. To hear it literally 100s of times if not 1000s is so annoying as to affect the enjoyment of the book. Which is a shame, because the rest of the book is really really good. It’s a Wilt vs. Russell finals. Too many people who talk about the GOAT in basketball today fail to mention those two and it just shows that such conversations are about recent history only. Bill Russell is the greatest winner in the history of basketball and it’s not even close. He won 11 NBA titles, 2 NCAA titles and an Olympic gold medal. Wilt Chamberlain is the greatest individual statistical player in NBA history. For his career he averaged 30 points, 23 rebounds and 4.4 assists a game. No one comes close to those numbers. It’s a really good book that tells the tale of those two and others if you can stand hearing about “the bright young man”.