Loose Balls

By: Terry Pluto

Narrated by: 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.