Halberstam

I am almost finished with David Halberstam's "Powers That Be," which details how some of the most powerful and influential media companies in the US came to be.

Of course, the media landscape has rapidly changed since its publication 30 years ago so it's a bit dated, but still is a fascinating read.

I'd like to give a deeper insight about the book, but I don't have the time. Feel free to contact me, if I have piqued your curiosity. I am wiling to lend the book. Just make sure you don't add to the wear and tear it has already endured.

Anyway, I am hoping to find another Halberstam masterpiece,"Breaks of the Game." I've been looking for one since reading about it a few years back, but I haven't had luck yet. So if anyone can point me to a place that sells a copy or a person who is willing to part with his, I'd greatly appreciate it.

To give an idea of how good this supposedly is, here is an excerpt of a tribute to the book and the author written by one of my favorite writers, Bill Simmons of ESPN.

More importantly, I didn't understand how to write. I had written short stories as a little kid, read every book in sight, even finished every Hardy Boys book before I turned ten. But I didn't know how to write. "Breaks of the Game" was the first big-boy book I ever loved. Within a few pages, I came to believe that he wrote the book just for me. I plowed through it in one weekend. A few months later, I read it again. Eventually, I read the book so many times that the spine of the book crumbled, so I bought the paperback version to replace it.

Through college and grad school, as I was slowly deciding on a career, I read it every year to remind myself how to write -- how to save words, how to construct a sentence, how to tell someone's life story without relying on quotes, how to make anecdotes come alive. It was my own personal writing seminar. When the paperback suffered a tragic beach accident from an unexpected wave, I bought a third copy at the used books store on Newbury Street for $5.95. Best deal of my life. Every two years, I read that book again to make sure that my writing hasn't slipped too much. Like a golfer visiting his old instructor to check on his swing.

The last time I read "Breaks" was two summers ago. We were due for another reunion this summer, a date that already feels bittersweet because the author suddenly passed away on Monday. He was 73 years-old, a Pulitzer winner, the first respected journalist to question the war in Vietnam. I'm not sure what made him decide to tackle the NBA, but there hasn't been a better basketball book before or since. He nailed everything. He picked the perfect season for the perfect league -- Magic and Bird's rookie year -- and took a 362-page snapshot of a professional sport right as it was shifting from a downtrodden era to a lucrative one. Maybe the timing was incredible, but so was the work itself. And it changed my life for the better.

Just know that I have tons and tons of sports books: Three overflowing bookcases in my house, more in my garage, even more at my father's house and my mother's house. The one that matters most? "Breaks of the Game," the perfect book about the perfect team. If Dr. Jack, Kermit, Mo, Walton and Billy Ray were my friends, then David Halberstam was definitely my friend. I will miss him.