Type of bind: Hardcover
Format: Bargain Price
Printing Date: 1999-02
Sale Popularity Level: 855794
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Product Description:
In Playing for Keeps, David Halberstam takes the very first full measure of Michael Jordan's epic career, one of the great American stories of our time. A narrative of astonishing power and human drama, brimming with revealing anecdotes and penetrating insights, the book chronicles the forces in Jordan's life that have shaped him into history's greatest basketball player, and the larger forces that have converged to make him the most famous living human being in the world.
From The Breaks of the Game to Summer of '49, David Halberstam has brought the perspective of a great historian, the inside knowledge of a dogged sportswriter, and the love of a fan to bear on some of the most mythic players and teams in the annals of American sport. With Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls he has given himself his greatest challenge, and produced his greatest triumph. The book is rich with Halberstam's professional signature: incisive, carefully woven human portraits of the major figures. We see the various players and teams the Bulls must overcome on their long, hard journey to six world championships, including Larry Bird and the Celtics, Isiah Thomas and the Pistons, and Magic Johnson and the Lakers. We get a rare insider's view of the dynamics between Jordan, the star, and the others who played critical roles in the championship seasons, including the shrewd, thoughtful Phil Jackson, the enigmatic Scottie Pippen, and the curiously shy Dennis Rodman. In addition, we see the bitter divisions between players and management on the Bulls, and the NBA's interior pressures and conflicts as basketball grows during Jordan's reign into a phenomenally successful big-time celebrity sport. This book is, as well, about fame in America, the forces that create it and its consequences. Among other things, we see how David Falk and Nike launched the campaign that sold Jordan to the world, abetted by a small Oregon ad agency, Wieden and Kennedy, and a struggling young Brooklyn filmmaker named Spike Lee.
The product of tireless on-the-ground reporting suffused with the wisdom and imagination of one of our greatest writers, Playing for Keeps is a book that, in defining Michael Jordan, also helps to define America in the Jordan Era.
Amazon.com:
One of the finest nonfiction writers in any lineup, Halberstam likes to alternate what he's deemed his serious work--books like The Best and the Brightest, The Fifties, and The Children--with his sporting interludes, though in his hands, sports are much, much more than fun and games. Books like The Breaks of the Game and October 1964 use sports as a prism. Culture, race, society, and history are all filtered through it, and Halberstam refocuses--and interprets--what comes out the other side.
That he would now turn his considerable abilities to exploring Michael Jordan is not surprising. Halberstam loves hoops, and Jordan not only defines the game, he defines an era. His fame crosses international borders as easily as he dribbles past half-court lines. In focusing on Jordan--as athlete and force of nature--and his osmosis from a young hoop dreamer to product pitchman to the world, Halberstam is really examining intangibles like myth and legend, celebrity and fame, wealth and image, excellence and genius, race and style, the qualities of heroism and the pursuit of perfection. 'That there had been even one Michael Jordan seemed in retrospect something of a genetic fluke,' he writes, 'and the idea that anyone would arrive in so short a span of time and do what he did both on and off the court seemed highly unlikely.' But the phenomenon that is Jordan did just that.
Understanding, even admiring, what he did, how he did it, and what it means in a basketball context and a larger one is Halberstam's goal, and, despite Jordan's lack of cooperation--or maybe because of it--Halberstam's muscular prose and thinking scores powerfully. Yet, there is a wistfulness, in the end, to Playing for Keeps; the game doesn't seem as much fun and collegial as it used to for Halberstam, and Jordan, great as he may be, emerges with less of the historic grace exhibited by Jackie Robinson, Ali, and Arthur Ashe than with a quality that Halberstam deems the athlete-explorer 'in terms of going beyond previously accepted limits of what was humanly possible, and somehow by dint of physical excellence and unmatched willpower, pushing those limits forward that much more.' Dazzling, certainly, but not necessarily heroic. Playing for Keeps is also available on audiocassette. --Jeff Silverman
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Rated by buyers 
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This book not only offers the most incisive portrait of Jordan, the Bulls championship years, and the NBA of that era, but is also wonderful Halberstam, who tells the story with an epic sweep. Simply a beautiful work from cover to cover.
Rated by buyers 
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Nike turned Michael Jordan into a dream. Nike funneled in 1984 all of Nike's advertising resources in one player instead of in several teams. Nike made Michal Jordan a cultural icon and featured him as a star amidst other entertainment stars. And in the beginning Jordan didn't even like Nike sneakers. He preferred Adidas. Ultimately Nike paid Jordan in roughly 1 million dollars a year for five years. In 1984 no one realized that Nike was getting one of the great bargains of the time. Nike was a shoe company in great trouble. Michael Jordan saved Nike by his appeal to the youth. In the mean time basketball benefited from satellite reception that was just opening the world of cable television. Satellite reception facilitated cheap broadcasting. Bill Rasmussen obtained channel space on a communications satellite. His ESPN opened new broadcasting opportunities for basketball. In Playing for Keeps David Halberstam tells the tale of Michael Jordan in the broader cultural context. In this book Halberstam displays his usual journalistic skills. But somehow I missed the emotional involvement of his other books. The Summer of 49 and The Breaks of the Game learned me more about the relevance of sports.
Luuk Oost
Rated by buyers -
As someone very familiar with Michael Jordan's career I was startled by all the new bits of information crammed in this book. Its clear Halbertstam did his homework. He employed an exhaustive interview process that yields so many new anecdotes and perspectives of Michael Jordans career. I particulary enjoyed all the stories of Jordan showing flashes of greatness early on while being recruited by North Carolina. The book makes it clear that even at those early stages while no one could predict what was to come, those around Michael had never seen anything like him.
Halbertstam also reveals the background story for many of those surrounding Jordan during his run with the Bulls. Namely Phil Jackson, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman, Jerry Krause, Jerry Reinsdorf, and others. He delves into their lives, paints a picture of their character, and allows you to understand what motivated all these contrasting personalities along the way.
It must be noted that the writing of David Halbertstam is just incredible. If you're a fan of Michael Jordan or just basketball this book is a must read. The subject could not be approached by a more accomplished author.
Rated by buyers -
I'm not a big Halberstam fan, and this book didn't change that opinion.
The subtitular "world that he [Jordan] made" is never really explored in any depth, and this is a surface-skimming bio of Jordan with the addition of some mini-bios on major figures in his life (David Falk, Dean Smith, Phil Jackson, etc.).
The research is limited and insight is scant as Halberstam leans heavily on material already published, pulling entire sections of the book (e.g., his thumbnail bio of Jackson) from the subject's own earlier book. He returns to quote the same two or three sports writers time and again (Sam Smith - Chicago Trib and Jordan biographer - OK, but Bob Ryan - Boston Globe - a dozen quotes???).
"Playing for Keeps" is a fast-reading Jordan sketch, a 400 page magazine article, during which Halberstam defers to Jordan too frequently: no real examination of the gambling, glossed over recount of James Jordan's murder, no meaningful exploration of Jordan the global commercial icon.
For my taste, this book is another disppointment from Halberstam.
Rated by buyers -
Halberstam does it again. With a keen eye and a knack for pulling the reader in, David Halberstam is one of our great modern writers. Just when you thought you knew Jordan, "Playing for Keeps" shades new light (not all of it flattering) on our greatest modern basketball player.
Well worth it.
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