Loose Balls

De: Terry Pluto

Narrado por: Bo Foxworth, Jack Garrett, William Harper, Michael McConnohie, J. D. Jackson, P. J. Ochlan

What do Julius Erving, Larry Brown, Moses Malone, Bob Costas, the Indiana Pacers, the San Antonio Spurs and the Slam Dunk Contest have in common? They all got their professional starts in the American Basketball Association.

The NBA may have won the financial battle, but the ABA won the artistic war. With its stress on wide-open individual play, the adoption of the 3-point shot and pressing defense, and the encouragement of flashy moves and flying dunks, today's NBA is still -- decades later -- just the ABA without the red, white and blue ball.

Loose Balls is, after all these years, the definitive and most widely respected history of the ABA. It's a wild ride through some of the wackiest, funniest, strangest times ever to hit pro sports -- told entirely through the (often incredible) words of those who played, wrote and connived their way through the league's nine seasons.

©1990 Terry Pluto (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Excellent

And I hate sports. Listen to Crime and sports after if you enjoy this book.

Incredible stories!

One of the best sports oral histories ever written. Hilarious, candid … a rollicking good time! Highly recommend!

Better late than never

I took too long to get around to it. Really glad I did! Your turn.

Fun and an education on some of the building blocks of what we now call the NBA!

What a roller coaster ride this book is. Up, down and around. Surprises around every turn. Too bad that so little is preserved for the annals of history. However, this book allows for the stories to live on through its pages. The narration is mostly done by the actual characters recalling the stories they lived through in their own words.

Enjoyable, even with distracting mispronunciations

The stories of the players and coaches are entertaining and enlightening and raise fond memories. As with many audiobooks, mispronounced words are annoying and distracting. Dave DeBusschere is pronounced “DeebooSHEER,” Lou Carnesecca is “Carnesca,” Norfolk, Virginia as “NorFALK,” and there are several others. It seems these narrators would read ahead and be sure of pronunciations before recording, and producers would be sure words are pronounced correctly.

Interesting Read

This is a very well researched and interesting book. I did not realize how much the NBA tool from the ABA.

I also did not realize how many great players came rom the ABA.

One of the best sports books.

Incredible, entertaining, and unbelievable story of the ABA. Crazy innocent times and Pluto captures that aura through meticulous interviews and prose. The audio disappointment is the countless mispronunciations of player names. Isn’t there someone who polices/reviews the performances prior to publication? That being said, I didn’t want this to end.

Great Story funny & Very informative!

Growing up in NC, my Dad took me to see the Carolina Cougars in Greensboro, NC. I really loved the Cougars and especially that Red-White-Blue basketball!

This book brought back a lot of great memories and was very informative.

The only negative comment: Several of the narrators continually mispronounced names of key people and players. (Don't they rehearse?)

Other than that,...GREAT BOOK!!

Great History Lesson

I have always heard about the ABA but it was before my time; great to have such a book!

Best Book About The ABA

The American Basketball Association is and has always been hated by the nba and that makes absolutely no sense. The nba has taken so many things from the ABA and now they act as if they were the ones who thought it all up. The ABA added excitement to the game when nba basketball was boring. I recently saw a special from KDKA in Pittsburgh which celebrated all of that cities Championships and there was one glaring error. They made no mention of the Pittsburgh Pipers who with Connie Hawkins, had won the 1st ABA Title in the 1967-68 season. When I called to enquire about this, I was greeted by a very snobby young man who proclaimed to me "The ABA wasn't a real pro league!" Wow, I wonder if he'd say that to the likes of Julius Erving or David Thompson? Anyway, this book was a great read when I purchased the 1st edition in 1990 (I didn't put it down until I'd read it all) and is still great today. I will ALWAYS love the ABA!