Loose Balls

Terry Pluto

Simon and Schuster, Jul 19, 2011 - Sports & Recreation - 464 pages

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.

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.

Contents

• Cast of Characters: 13
• ABA Team Logos: 20
• Birth Pangs: 39
• The First Jumper: 48
• Finding Players: 58
• The 3Pointer: 70
• The Hawk: 79
• 196768: 89
• The Leaders Crumble: 99
• 196869: 108
• Sideshow in Miami: 118
• 196970: 127
• The Boston Celtics of the ABA: 134
• Star Wars: 177
• 197071: 200
• The Meanest Men in the ABA: 215
• Enter the Doctor: 222
• From the Sublime to Johnny Neumann: 234
• 197273: 246
• An ABA Original: 266
• Coach Chamberlain: 274
• The Rivalry: 285
• The Legend of Doctor J: 317
• The Ultimate Underclassman: 323
• The ABAs Frontline Team: 329
• 197475: 347
• Escape Claws: 390
• A Rock in the ABA: 395
• The Last Championship: 417
• Aftermath: 433

About the author

Terry Pluto is an award-winning sportswriter who writes primarily for The Plain Dealer. He was a sportswriter for the Akron Beacon Journal from 1985-2007. He has twice been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and twice been honored by the Associated Press Sports Editors as the nation's top sports columnist for medium-sized newspapers. He is an eight-time winner of the Ohio Sports Writer of the Year award and has received more than fifty state and local writing awards. He is the author of twenty-one books, including The Curse of Rocky Colavito, Unguarded, and Loose Balls. He lives in Akron, Ohio.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Loose Balls
• Author: Terry Pluto
• Publisher: Simon and Schuster, 2011
• ISBN: 1439127522, 9781439127520
• Length: 464 pages
• Subjects: Sports & Recreation / Baseball / History; Sports & Recreation / Basketball; Sports & Recreation / General