
Tall Men, Short Shorts
The 1969 NBA Finals: Wilt, Russ, Lakers, Celtics, and a Very Young Sports Reporter
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Narrated by:
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Leigh Montville
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By:
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Leigh Montville
About this listen
This "part memoir, part sports story" (Wall Street Journal) from the New York Times bestselling author of The Big Bam chronicles the clash of NBA titans over seven riveting games—Celtics versus Lakers, Russell versus Chamberlain—covered by one young reporter. Welcome to the 1969 NBA Finals!
They don’t set up any better than this. The greatest basketball player of all time–Bill Russell–and his juggernaut Boston Celtics, winners of ten (ten!) of the previous twelve NBA championships, squeak through one more playoff run and land in the Finals again. Russell’s opponent? The fearsome 7’1” next-generation superstar, Wilt Chamberlain, recently traded to the LA Lakers to form the league’s first dream team. Bill Russell and John Havlicek versus Chamberlain, Jerry West and Elgin Baylor. The 1969 Celtics are at the end of their dominance. The 1969 Lakers are unstoppable.
Add to the mix one newly minted reporter. Covering the epic series is a wide-eyed young sports writer named Leigh Montville. Years before becoming an award-winning legend himself at The Boston Globe and Sports Illustrated, twenty-four-year-old Montville is ordered by his editor at the Globe to get on a plane to L.A. (first time!) to write about his luminous heroes, the biggest of big men.
What follows is a raucous, colorful, joyous account of one of the greatest seven-game series in NBA history. Set against a backdrop of the late sixties, Montville’s reporting and recollections transport readers to a singular time–with rampant racial tension on the streets and on the court, with the emergence of a still relatively small league on its way to becoming a billion-dollar industry, and to an era when newspaper journalism and the written word served as the crucial lifeline between sports and sports fans. And there was basketball–seven breathtaking, see-saw games, highlight-reel moments from an unprecedented cast of future Hall of Famers (including player-coach Russell as the first-ever black head coach in the NBA), coast-to-coast travels and the clack-clack-clack of typewriter keys racing against tight deadlines.
Tall Men, Short Shorts is a masterpiece of sports journalism with a charming touch of personal memoir. Leigh Montville has crafted his most entertaining book yet, richly enshrining luminous players and moments in a unique American time.
©2021 Leigh Montville (P)2021 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
Named a Best Book of the Year by The Los Angeles Times and FanSided
“Montville’s chronicle–both reported and reflective–is part memoir, part sports story.... Montville takes us through all seven games in a pastiche of newspaper stories, radio accounts and his own reminiscences. It is all remarkably engaging.... A classic.” (The Wall Street Journal)
“The definitive account of a pivotal season in one of sports’ great rivalries, supplemented by the personal, often hilarious, memories of a generational observer of sports.” (The Los Angeles Times)
“[A] wonderfully told story of a young Montville covering the 1969 Bill Russell vs. Wilt Chamberlain, Celtics vs. Lakers NBA Finals. It’s great storytelling (a Montville staple) and pure fun. Montville brings Boston’s 1969 Boys of Spring to life in spectacular fashion. Take it to the beach. Thank me later.” (The Boston Globe)
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You don’t have to be a fan
- By paul on 04-17-19
By: Wayne Coffey
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Pounding the Rock
- Basketball Dreams and Real Life in a Bronx High School
- By: Marc Skelton
- Narrated by: Pete Larkin
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Welcome to Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School, in a working-class corner of the Bronx, where a driven coach inspires his teams to win games and championships - and learn Russian history and graduate and go on to college.
By: Marc Skelton
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The Church of Baseball
- The Making of Bull Durham: Home Runs, Bad Calls, Crazy Fights, Big Swings, and a Hit
- By: Ron Shelton
- Narrated by: Ron Shelton
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Bull Durham, the breakthrough 1988 film about a minor league baseball team, is widely revered as the best sports movie of all time. But back in 1987, Ron Shelton was a first-time director and no one was willing to finance a movie about baseball—especially a story set in the minors. The jury was still out on Kevin Costner’s leading-man potential, while Susan Sarandon was already a has-been. There were doubts. But something miraculous happened, and The Church of Baseball attempts to capture why.
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Great movie, great story
- By Kathy Morris on 07-11-22
By: Ron Shelton
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The Back Roads to March
- The Unsung, Unheralded, and Unknown Heroes of a College Basketball Season
- By: John Feinstein
- Narrated by: John Feinstein
- Length: 14 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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John Feinstein has already taken listeners into the inner circles of top college basketball programs in The Legends Club. This time, Feinstein pulls back the curtain on college basketball's lesser-known Cinderella stories - the smaller programs who no one expects to win, who have no chance of attracting the most coveted high school recruits, who rarely send their players on to the NBA. Feinstein follows a handful of players, coaches, and schools who dream, not of winning the NCAA tournament but of making it past their first or second round games.
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A love letter to college basketball
- By Hebern on 01-27-22
By: John Feinstein
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Cheated
- The Inside Story of the Astros Scandal and a Colorful History of Sign Stealing
- By: Andy Martino
- Narrated by: Andy Martino
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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The ensuing scandal rivaled that of the 1919 "Black Sox" and the more recent steroid era, and became one of the most significant that the game had ever seen. The fallout ensnared many other teams, either as victims, alleged cheaters or both. The Los Angeles Dodgers felt robbed of a World Series title, and fended off accusations about their organization. Same for the New York Yankees. The Boston Red Sox were soon under investigation themselves. The New York Mets lost a promising manager before he ever managed a game.
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Take away the 2017 WS Trophy!!
- By Sonny on 07-10-21
By: Andy Martino
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Swell
- A Sailing Surfer's Voyage of Awakening
- By: Liz Clark
- Narrated by: Liz Clark
- Length: 12 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Captain Liz Clark spent her youth dreaming of traveling the world by sailboat and surfing remote waves. When she was 22, she met a mentor who helped turn her desire into reality. Embarking on an adventure that most only fantasize about, she set sail from Santa Barbara, California, as captain of her 40-foot sailboat, Swell, headed south in search of surf, self, and the wonder and learning that lies beyond the unbroken horizon.
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such a disapointment
- By Mikel marchant on 01-21-20
By: Liz Clark
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First Man
- The Life of Neil A. Armstrong
- By: James R. Hansen
- Narrated by: Jeremy Bobb
- Length: 16 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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When Apollo 11 touched down on the Moon’s surface in 1969, the first man on the Moon became a legend. In First Man, author James R. Hansen explores the life of Neil Armstrong. Based on over 50 hours of interviews with the intensely private Armstrong, who also gave Hansen exclusive access to private documents and family sources, this "magnificent panorama of the second half of the American twentieth century" (Publishers Weekly, starred review) is an unparalleled biography of an American icon.
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Not really 'unabridged'
- By A Reader on 06-06-18
By: James R. Hansen
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The Plague Year
- America in the Time of COVID
- By: Lawrence Wright
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Looming Tower, and the pandemic novel The End of October: an unprecedented, momentous account of Covid-19 - its origins, its wide-ranging repercussions, and the ongoing global fight to contain it.
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Best book about Covid-19 I’ve read so far
- By KarenT on 06-11-21
By: Lawrence Wright
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The Comedians
- Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels and the History of American Comedy
- By: Kliph Nesteroff
- Narrated by: Kliph Nesteroff
- Length: 15 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Comedians, comedy historian Kliph Nesteroff brings to life a century of American comedy with real-life characters, forgotten stars, mainstream heroes and counterculture iconoclasts. Based on over 200 original interviews and extensive archival research, Nesteroff's groundbreaking work is a narrative exploration of the way comedians have reflected, shaped, and changed American culture over the past 100 years.
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Performance issues
- By E. A. Smith on 09-02-19
By: Kliph Nesteroff
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Becoming Dr. Seuss
- Theodor Geisel and the Making of an American Imagination
- By: Brian Jay Jones
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 18 hrs
- Unabridged
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The definitive, fascinating, all-reaching biography of Dr. Seuss. Dr. Seuss is a classic American icon. Whimsical and wonderful, his work has defined our childhoods and the childhoods of our own children. The silly, simple rhymes are a bottomless well of magic, his illustrations timeless favorites because, quite simply, he makes us laugh. The Grinch, the Cat in the Hat, Horton, and so many more are his troupe of beloved and uniquely Seussian creations.
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Good enough to read but not listen to.
- By Vetbo on 05-21-19
By: Brian Jay Jones
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The Abyss
- Nuclear Crisis Cuba 1962
- By: Max Hastings
- Narrated by: Max Hastings, John Hopkins
- Length: 19 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Bestselling author Max Hastings offers a welcome re-evaluation of one of the most gripping and tense international events in modern history—the Cuban Missile Crisis—providing a people-focused narrative that explores the attitudes and conduct of Russians, Cubans, Americans, and a terrified world that followed each moment as it unfolded.
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Good book, but has some issues
- By Mike From Mesa on 11-10-22
By: Max Hastings
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Messi vs. Ronaldo
- One Rivalry, Two GOATs, and the Era That Remade the World's Game
- By: Jonathan Clegg, Joshua Robinson
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Wall Street Journal reporters Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg offer a deeply reported account of the intertwined sagas and legacies of two of the greatest soccer players of all time—Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo—examining how their rivalry has grown from a personal competition to a multi-billion-dollar industry, paralleling the stunning rise, overwhelming excesses, and uncertain future of modern international soccer.
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Geez. Learn proper name pronunciation
- By steve finkelstein on 01-11-24
By: Jonathan Clegg, and others
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Paradise Found
- A High School Football Team's Rise from the Ashes
- By: Bill Plaschke
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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From LA Times columnist and ESPN Around the Horn panelist Bill Plaschke, a story of tragedy, triumph, and the remarkable power of high school football in one small California town.
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amazing strength
- By Patricia M. Copeland on 10-20-23
By: Bill Plaschke
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The Escape Artist
- The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World
- By: Jonathan Freedland
- Narrated by: Jonathan Freedland
- Length: 11 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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In April 1944, Rudolf Vrba became one of the very first Jews to escape from Auschwitz and make his way to freedom—among only a tiny handful who ever pulled off that near-impossible feat. He did it to reveal the truth of the death camp to the world—and to warn the last Jews of Europe what fate awaited them. Against all odds, Vrba and his fellow escapee, Fred Wetzler, climbed mountains, crossed rivers, and narrowly missed German bullets until they had smuggled out the first full account of Auschwitz the world had ever seen.
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Good
- By Matt on 11-10-22
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Good for a Girl
- A Woman Running in a Man's World
- By: Lauren Fleshman
- Narrated by: Lauren Fleshman
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Lauren Fleshman has grown up in the world of running. One of the most decorated collegiate athletes of all time and a national champion as a pro, she was a major face of women’s running for Nike before leaving to shake up the industry with feminist running brand Oiselle and now coaches elite young female runners. Every step of the way, she has seen the way that our sports systems—originally designed by men, for men and boys—fail young women and girls as much as empower them. Written with heart and verve, Good for a Girl is a joyful love letter to the running life.
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Authentic and Relatable
- By AnneMarie on 01-28-23
By: Lauren Fleshman
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Ancient Mesopotamia
- Life in the Cradle of Civilization
- By: The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Professor Amanda H. Podany PhD
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Original Recording
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Mesopotamia is the ancient name for the region that is now Iraq, a remarkably advanced civilization that flourished for two-thirds of the time that civilization has existed on Earth. Mesopotamians mastered irrigation agriculture; built the first complex urban societies; developed writing, literature, and law; and united vast regions through warfare and diplomacy. While civilizations like Greece and Rome have an unbroken tradition of written histories, the rich history of Mesopotamia has only been recently rediscovered, thanks to the decipherment of Mesopotamia's cuneiform writing less than 200 years ago.
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Time with a great scholar & fantastic lecturer
- By jgmegill on 07-14-18
A great read listen and story. .
A great listen
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Not quite enough for a full novel…
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Super interesting basketball book
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Montville At His Best
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Childhood Memories
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A book for diehard NBA fans
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Great story not only of games but of history
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Very good book with a caveat
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