A thoroughly enjoyable read and a useful tool for any serious NBA fan.
Bishara, in a must-read for professional-basketball junkies, chronicles his journey as he sees 25 National Basketball Association games without paying face value for the tickets.
The author, a diehard NBA fan, understands the frustration that so many people feel when they see the exorbitant prices that teams charge for tickets. His debut serves as a guide for fans who want to find the best deals on tickets but don’t have experience dealing with scalpers or scouring the Internet. Bishara takes readers game by game as he explains how he acquires his ticket for each of 25 games, lists how much he paid, and compares that price to the ticket’s face value. However, these stories not only provide practical advice for getting the best bargains, but also offer plenty of entertainment. Whether he’s scoring free tickets from a local bartender or getting ripped off by a scam artist in Chicago, the author’s love for the game of basketball and for bargain hunting is always apparent. The stories don’t always end with a ticket purchase, either; Bishara scopes out each city’s nightlife and each arena’s beer selection and provides smart commentary on the state of each franchise. He writes in a conversational style, reporting on every aspect of his experience as a helpful friend might, and breaks up the stories with interviews with a veteran scalper and the head of a dynamic-pricing software company. Both interviews are incredibly interesting, and offer readers insiders’ perspectives on two very different sides of the ticket market. Although Bishara writes from the point of view of an average fan, he also displays a thorough understanding of how ticket pricing works and how that market is evolving. He also provides a valuable “Reflections” chapter, in which he hands out awards for the best arena food, the most thriving scalper trade, the most attractive cheerleaders and more.
A thoroughly enjoyable read and a useful tool for any serious NBA fan.Pub Date: June 8, 2013
ISBN: 978-1479264186
Page Count: 334
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A meticulously researched and occasionally moving biography of the man judged by many to be the greatest baseballer ever. Although his on-field exploits were well known and highly praised by admirers ranging from Casey Stengel to Ernest Hemingway to Paul Simon, Joe DiMaggio was always something of an enigma to his adoring American public. Here, in text and a collection of rare photographs, DiMaggio emerges as a ballplayer of unmatched elegance whose growth as an athlete far outpaced his social growth. This early relative immaturity coupled with prejudice against Italian- Americans, still prevalent in the 1930s, helped set DiMaggio at a distance from his fans. Yet due to his immense prowess, Joltin' Joe quickly became the game's biggest draw since Babe Ruth. Throughout his career, DiMaggio exhibited a less tangible greatness than the Babe or even the contemporary with whom he is most often paired, Ted Williams (who wrote the foreword to this volume and who is the subject of a 1991 illustrated life by Johnson and Stout). Apart from his 56-game hitting streak in 1941 (a record that still stands) and his nine World Series and ten American League pennants in 13 seasons, DiMaggio set few records. But as Luke Salisbury and Tom Boswell point out in essays contributed to this volume, statistics mean little in assessing Joe DiMaggio. As a symbol of the game in an uncertain era that began during the Depression and ended at the dawn of the Cold War, DiMaggio was a constant and comforting presence for a nation that found little comfort elsewhere. Joe's life away from the game kept him in the limelight- -he was briefly wed to a rising starlet named Marilyn Monroe and later was a baseball instructor and a pitchman of outstanding success (in the '70s, kids knew him as ``Mr. Coffee''). Today, DiMaggio appears to be a man at peace with both himself and his legend. In their thoughtful treatment, the authors make it clear that he has earned that peace. (180 b&w photos)
Pub Date: Dec. 7, 1995
ISBN: 0-8027-1311-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Walker
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1995
A mix of giddy admiration and honest reporting that's as wobbly as a junior skater attempting a triple flip. Brennan, a sports reporter for the Washington Post, organizes her book around the cycle of one competitive year, yet the narrative is all over the place, jumping from quick portraits of various up-and-coming skaters, such as 12-year-old media darling Tara Lipinski, to the effect of AIDS on the skating community, to sometimes fawning, sometimes critical, sometimes informative portraits of stars such as Brian Boitano and Katarina Witt. The chapter focusing on the 1995 US national and world championship competitions has the momentum and drama that show what this book might have been. Here Brennan follows some of the top junior and senior amateur skaters as they fall prey to, or triumph over, the vicissitudes of competition and the prevailing attitudes of judges. One of the most poignant losers is 14-year-old Michelle Kwan, who skated two flawless programs at the World's yet finished in fourth place. ``The only thing Kwan couldn't do in front of the judges was grow up and become sixteen, which is what they were waiting for,'' Brennan sharply concludes. Brennan does convey the upheaval wrought in the skating world by the sport's newfound popularity and notoriety: intense media attention, the lure of big dollars; the rush of agents to cash in on a new group of sports celebrities. But Brennan is much more forgiving than Joan Ryan (Little Girls in Pretty Boxes, p. 542) of those who control the fates of these young athletes. After pointedly reporting the frequent injustice of the judges, Brennan then protests that, after all, they are only human. Ironically, she is harder on the skaters, who divide into good girls and boys (e.g., Kwan, Todd Eldredge) and bad (Nicole Bobek, Christopher Bowman). Best read both Ryan and Brennan for a balanced picture of a grueling yet beautiful sport. (8 pages b&w photos, not seen) (Author tour)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-684-80167-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1995
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