Tuesday Update: February 20th, 2024
In which I write a five-paragraph paper
I have been in the absolute dregs with regards to finishing anything in recent weeks. It’s probably my main writing problem right now, that I’ll get started with an idea, not like where I’m going with it, or otherwise feel like I don’t want to put it out front anywhere. I wouldn’t call this writer’s block, necessarily, as I write quite a lot, more like a struggle with feeling like I have anything I care to put out into the zeitgeist under my government name. I’m also dealing with the dregs of a separation from the zeitgeist. The zeitgeist itself seems to be heavily fragmented at this point in time anyway, so one of the big humps that I’ll need to get over in writing is the terrifying freedom brought about by my current life situation. I have a career in writing that is completely separate from any of my online writing ventures, I’m involved in many creative ventures that I enjoy, and I’ve also become disinterested in the internet in general.
Anyway, during this crisis, or whatever you’d call it, I have been working on my writing in an active sense. I am in a creative writing workshop class right now, I’ve been reading books about writing for the class, and what follows was borne out of an exercise in Patricia Long’s The Portable Writer’s Mentor about the value of pre-structuring a piece out of its component parts.
I had a lot to say about David Halberstam’s The Breaks of the Game, and when I have a lot to say about something, I tend to let that get a bit too far ahead of me, and when that happens, the piece of writing is left to die in a Google Doc somewhere. What follows is a review that I wrote in five paragraphs.
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I have wanted to read this book since reading Bill Simmons' "The Book of Basketball" in 2013 as a Freshman in college, started actually reading it in the summer of 2021, forgot to bring it with me on the Canada venture, lost it in my parents' move, found it in my last move, and now, having slowly gnawed through it over the past 21 months am finished with it. This was a BaPOL (Back Pocket of the Levi's) book, so it's beaten to hell now, but I like it when my books end up like that -- Torn cover, cracked seams, marked pages, some bleeding from water or coffee spills, they all provide physical indication that I read that book, actively.
Halberstam's sports-writing is densely packed and highly detailed. I admired this in his book about Michael Jordan, Playing for Keeps, and felt he ran out of material to stretch in The Punch, about Kermit Washington's punch on Rudy Tomjanovic. He turns every possible stone that he can in this one, which at times had me enthralled (my favorite section was the one about Network TV battles, ABC's 'Trash Sports' program 'The Superstars', and the cold war over car company sponsorship opportunities in sports leagues), and unfortunately, I found myself not that interested in the 1979-80 Portland Trail Blazers team, problematic given the fact that they are the primary focus of the book.
As with any era-specific piece of sports writing, the most interesting aspect of my reading experience was the opportunity to examine what made that point in time unique - What was kairotic about the moment? With 45 years of hindsight, I kept thinking of how unaware the league seemed of the precipice at which it stood when this book was published. It was a truly odd moment, almost out of time, just between dynastic eras, at the tail of a period in history in which Portland, Seattle, and Washington could win titles. The two players who moved the league into its modern era (Magic Johnson, Larry Bird) were both rookies (both well-covered in the book), but the league had no idea (and could have no idea) about the three entities that would come along and change everything in short order: The league’s executive vice-president who would soon take over as commissioner, the quaint all-sport cable channel run out of a trailer in Bristol, Connecticut, and the shooting guard making his way through high school in Greensboro, North Carolina. So many of the league's problems as depicted in the book - drugs, network TV contracts, Bill Walton's feet - would fall out of prominence over the rest of the decade. It’s like reading from an alternate dimension, hard for me to recognize this version of the NBA, given that I grew up during the era in which the league was unquestionably positioned as one of the pillars of American sport.
There are echoes that I can feel now, though - The NBA Of the late-70s suffered from a succession problem, a vacuum of crossover stars after the conclusion of the era of Russell and Chamberlain, or at least charismatic media personalities who didn't struggle with injuries or addictions (as well as a league office that didn't know how to market those that it had). The current NBA is not at that dire of a point, but it will have to deal with a slate of their biggest stars (LeBron James, Stephen Curry, and Kevin Durant primarily) retiring from the sport in short order, without a clear sense of who stands to seize the 'face of the league' role like James, Curry, and Durant did in the 2000s and 2010s. We're also at a point with sports broadcasting that we don't fully understand. Cable sports networks, at least the regional ones, seem to be on their last legs, and leagues have started to shirk the traditional cable model. What I've experienced with MLS' recent walled garden approach is that it serves the dedicated fan very well, while leaving the casual fan on the exterior. If the NBA finds itself there, I suspect that I'll enjoy it, but it could hurt their appeal given how firmly the league has built its image on its crossover star players.
That is the utility I've found in The Breaks of the Game - This reflects how hard it is to really prognosticate a future in sports. The NBA of 1980 seemed to get washed away in history, leaving this book as a fascinating artifact. If you like to dig deep, it's a great sports history read, but be warned, you will dig deep.
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So, there you go!
HOT TRACK OF THE WEEK:
I love how these guys have their instruments in every shot of this video. I don’t know if that was a band decision (i.e. “We want everyone to know we’re the only New Jack Swing band that plays our own instruments”) or a label decision (i.e.“We want everyone to know that our client is the only New Jack Swing band that plays their own instruments) but it is funny to imagine them setting up that drumset everywhere for this video. The little bass fill in the bridge (About at the 3:00 minute mark of the video) is one of the best ~2 seconds of 1990s popular music.