Summer reads

"Can I Keep My Jersey? 11 Teams, 5 Countries, and 4 Years in My Life as a Basketball Vagabond"
By Paul Shirley
Villard, $23.95

Like lots of sports fans, I've often dreamt about what it would be like to play professionally. But after reading Paul Shirley's "Can I Keep My Jersey? 11 Teams, 5 Countries, and 4 Years in My Life as a Basketball Vagabond," I wouldn't wish that dream on anyone. In the tradition of Jim Bouton's "Ball Four" and Ken Dryden's "The Game," Shirley takes readers inside the world of pro sports, but rather than a view from the top, Shirley -- who has suited up for, among others, the Chicago Bulls, the Phoenix Suns and UNICS Kazan in the Russian league -- offers the vantage point of a bench warmer. Whether enduring rickety plane rides to away games with his Spanish club, trying to collect his pay from shifty team owners in Greece or boiling through endless desert bus trips in the lowest depths of American pro ball, first-time author Shirley chronicles, in intelligent, sarcasm-laced prose, the day-to-day existence of his life as a baller with enough talent to eke out a living, but not enough to be a star.

A star could never have written this book, though. With no image to protect or endorsement deal to endanger, Shirley is free to take aim at the locker-room lunacy the sports pages are never privy to: shifty doublespeak from coaches; players with Bible scripture tattoos who double as serial adulterers; the mind-boggling ignorance of a guard with a multimillion-dollar contract who hopes to win the lottery and be "set for life." But beneath Shirley's exasperation (and envy) is the same thing that keeps us watching overpaid, undersmart athletes put a ball through a hoop -- basketball is a beautiful game. It's Shirley's love for the sport that keeps him going through the boos and the bungled plays. The truth is: Playing basketball for a living isn't a dream come true, but it's still pretty cool. So is this book.

-- David Marchese

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