To the Hoop: The Seasons of a Basketball Life

A noted sports editor once observed that every sportswriter is a jock manque; that particular sneaker fits perfectly New York Times columnist Berkow (Red). A high school and college basketball player, he's continued as a cager throughout life, mostly in pick-up games--until now, when at age 56, he writes about the court adventures that made him refuse to retire to the locker room. He's met all the greats, from George Mikan to Oscar Robertson to Michael Jordan, and has even played ball with some of them, acquitting himself respectably, he says. Here he offers a number of entertaining anecdotes about those encounters: an amusing sidelight is his cajoling former New York governor Mario Cuomo into setting up a one-on-one basketball contest. The appeal to Berkow readers will be strong, as it will to middle-agers who still play the games of their youth. Deeply moving, although extraneous, is the author's account of his brother's illness and death from cancer. $35,000 ad/promo; author tour. (May)