Penny Jordan Books In Order

[Liisa Komara]

Confrontedwith the deplorable (I suppose) absence of an NBA

season, basketball fans of a literary bent may take heart in the

appearance this holiday season of a plethora of books on their

stalled sport. Some are even worth reading.

Consider, for example, Values of the Game, in which the former

senator from New Jersey takes a loving look back on the game

that brought him to national prominence. Bradley reflects on his

career as a Princeton All-America and a key member of the

two-time NBA champion New York Knicks of the early 1970s.

Bradley doesn't simply recall his playing days. Instead, he

defines the truths he learned on the court. The result is a book

heavy on homilies but leavened with insights, at least one of

which seems foreign to the modern game: "The society we live in

glorifies individualism. Basketball teaches a different lesson:

that untrammeled individualism destroys the chances for

achieving victory." Victory, in fact, is "the bond that

selflessness forges."

One player with no such lofty scruples is that demon hawker of

shoes, and much else: Jordan. His Airness stoutly defends his

salesmanship, even though when he signed on with Nike as a

rookie in 1984, the league fined him again and again for

displaying footwear on court that was deemed out of sync with

the rest of his Chicago Bulls apparel. "Nike didn't blink,"

writes Jordan. "Nike said they were willing to pay every penny,

and I agreed. It would have cost millions of dollars to come up

with a promotion that produced as much publicity as the league's

ban did."

Jordan's book is about much more than shoes. He not only reviews

his entire NBA career--including his ill-considered baseball

sabbatical--but he also comments candidly on some of the more

notable participants who have been a part of it, neatly carving

up front office turkeys Jerry Reinsdorf and Jerry Krause, among

others.

The author portrays in words and pictures 21 women athletes.

Some, like Jackie Joyner-Kersee and Tara Lipinski, are famous;

others, like sprinter Aimee Mullins, are lesser-known but

certainly worthy. Mullins, a double amputee, is a world-record

holder in the Paralympic 100 meters and the long jump.

One hundred-best lists are apparently a fin de siecle

affliction, yet they are not without charm. Selecting the best

ballplayers of the century is not, as Sporting News editorial

director John D. Rawlings acknowledges, "a pure science."

Modra has been photographing baseball players, mostly for this

magazine, for more than 25 years, and here he gives us more than

200 pictures, along with observations on his subjects. There are

brief contributions by present and past stars. A delightful

look, a delightful read.

Russell, an outstanding linebacker on the great Pittsburgh

Steelers teams of the 1970s, portrays his teammates on the field

as well as far off it, in such unlikely places as a war zone in

Vietnam and on hair-raising wilderness adventures. Russell, now

a Pittsburgh businessman, writes well, and his friends come

solidly to life. Or to death, as in his extraordinary

description of the fatal heart attack suffered by his closest

Steelers pal, Ray Mansfield, on a 1996 backpacking trip in the

Grand Canyon.

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