Cages to Jump Shots: Pro Basketball's Early Years

by Robert W. Peterson

Book Overview

Robert Peterson has emerged as one of America's finest writers on sports history. His groundbreaking book Only the Ball Was White won wide acclaim as a compelling account of baseball's Negro leagues in the days before Jackie Robinson. Now comes Cages to Jump Shots, an insightful and entertaining look at early professional basketball from the birth of the sport through the first years of the NBA.
In Cages to Jump Shots, Peterson paints a vibrant...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195053109
• ISBN13: 9780195053104
• Release Date: October 1990
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Solid History of Early Basketball

A year ago I went to the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, MA and was disappointed that the gift/bookstore did not have a single history of early ball. I returned to the new Hall of Fame (a must see by the way) last month and found this paperback reprint of a book that appeared about ten years ago. Peterson's book is a well researched, well written history of pro basketball from the 1890's to about 1950. While baseball has dozens of books written about its early years, basketball has, other than this one,none that I could find. This one is very satisfying, and provides a good roadmap for hopefully even more books about the early years and teams, which Peterson shows are filled with colorful characters and great scenes from American life. If you like basketball, you ought to know about its history, and this is a good (and-other than visting the Hall of Fame-practically the only) place to start.