Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Asphalt Gods: An Oral History of the Rucker Tournament

Asphalt Gods: An Oral History of the Rucker Tournament

Mallozzi, Vincent M.

Paperback

FictionBasketballGeneral Sociology

ISBN10: 0385520999
ISBN13: 9780385520997
Publisher: Doubleday Books
Published: Jun 17 2003
Pages: 272
Weight: 0.76
Height: 0.61 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
The real basketball deal-the inside story of Harlem's legendary tournament and the pros and playground legends who have made it world famous.

Earl The Goat Manigault. Herman Helicopter Knowings. Joe The Destroyer Hammond. Richard Pee Wee Kirkland. These and dozens of other colorfully nicknamed men are the Asphalt Gods, whose astounding exploits in the Rucker Tournament, often against multimillionaire NBA superstars, have made them playground divinity. First established in the 1950s by Holcombe Rucker, a New York City Parks Department employee, the tournament has grown to become a Harlem institution, an annual summer event of major proportions. On that fabled patch of concrete, unknown players have been lighting it up for decades as they express basketball as a freestyle art among their peers and against such pro immortals as Julius Erving and Wilt Chamberlain. X's and O's are exchanged for oohs and aahs in one of the great examples of street theater to be found in urban America.

Asphalt Gods is a streetwise, supremely entertaining oral history of a tournament that has influenced everything from NBA playing style to hip-hop culture. Now, legends transmitted by word of mouth find a home and the achievements of basketball's greatest unknowns a permanent place in the game's record.

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