To the Hoop
The Seasons of a Basketball Life
Published on 20. November 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
304 pages
978-1-68358-510-7 (ISBN)
Description
"A wonderful book-not just for basketball fans, but for everyone." -Earvin "Magic" Johnson
Ira Berkow steps out from behind his New York Times reporter's notebook to spin the wonderful and moving tale of his love-for the game of basketball, for his friends and family, and for life itself. His enduring passion for the hardwood began in his boyhood in Chicago in the 1940s and '50s, and has continued in pickup basketball with the same vigor and competitive fire of his youth, often against opponents half his age.
To the Hoop tells the story of a year in his basketball life, as he resolves to enhance his game and stave off the ravages of time amidst a looming family tragedy. Here he runs the court with Oscar Robertson, talks strategy with Walt Frazier, and find fellowship and good humor across the country on playgrounds, in gyms, even in some of the world's most famous arenas. Ira Berkow's poignant book transcends the game and approaches a kind of wisdom usually unavailable in writing about sports.
Ira Berkow steps out from behind his New York Times reporter's notebook to spin the wonderful and moving tale of his love-for the game of basketball, for his friends and family, and for life itself. His enduring passion for the hardwood began in his boyhood in Chicago in the 1940s and '50s, and has continued in pickup basketball with the same vigor and competitive fire of his youth, often against opponents half his age.
To the Hoop tells the story of a year in his basketball life, as he resolves to enhance his game and stave off the ravages of time amidst a looming family tragedy. Here he runs the court with Oscar Robertson, talks strategy with Walt Frazier, and find fellowship and good humor across the country on playgrounds, in gyms, even in some of the world's most famous arenas. Ira Berkow's poignant book transcends the game and approaches a kind of wisdom usually unavailable in writing about sports.
Reviews / Votes
Praise for To the Hoop"An extraordinary look into the art of pickup basketball. Who would have guessed that, along with his writing talents, Ira knows how to play the game!" -Bill Bradley
"Ira Berkow is one of the best sportswriters around, so it is no surprise that his basketball odyssey is one of the best sports books of this or any other year." -George Plimpton
"One of the best sports books to appear in many years, it is filled with humor and humanity....It speaks to fans of all generations." -Choice
"A fine book by a fine writer and a wise man." -Booklist
Praise for Ira Berkow
"Nearly twenty years ago in the Tribune magazine, I wrote a story in an attempt to answer a question posed in the headline: 'Does Baseball Still Matter?' Berkow's book Baseball's Best Ever shouts, 'Yes!' even though most of its characters and heroes are long gone. There are plenty of them in this book's nearly 500 pages....There is so much to enjoy here, to savor."
-Rick Kogan, Chicago Tribune
". . . Berkow can turn a phrase like an all-star second baseman turning a double play . . . . [a] collection well worth reading." -Steven V. Roberts, Washington Post (for Baseball's Best Ever)
"In How Life Imitates Sports, Ira Berkow [does] remind us how great sportswriters have enriched us by writing about the world, on and off the court." -George Vecsey, author of Baseball: History of America's Favorite Game (for How Life Imitates Sports)
"Ira Berkow gets inside people. It can be stated as a law that the sports writer whose horizons are no wider than the outfield fences is a bad sports writer because he has no sense of proportion and no awareness of the real world around him. Ira Berkow knows that what is important about a game is not the score but the people who play it." -Red Smith, from the foreword to Beyond the Dream
"Ira Berkow is one of the best sportswriters around, so it is no surprise that his basketball odyssey is one of the best sports books of this or any other year....Very few sports columnists have the genius to produce a timely piece that is also timeless. Ira Berkow has that ability in spades." -George Plimpton (for To the Hoop: The Seasons of a Basketball Life)
"With the keen eye of a reporter, the literary touch of a highly skilled writer, and above all a feel for the humanity in every story, Ira takes his readers to a place beyond and above what even competent sports writing generally delivers." -Bob Costas
"Ira Berkow over the years has regularly given us sports writing of the most elegant kind-his work glistens with intelligence and sensitivity." -David Halberstam
"Like anyone else who I think is good, Ira Berkow can write just as well about things other than sports as he can about sports." -Dick Schaap
"Ira Berkow is simply one of America's best writers, sports or otherwise." -Jim Bouton (for Pitchers Do Get Lonely: And Other Sports Stories)
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 210 mm
Width: 143 mm
Thickness: 21 mm
Weight
304 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-68358-510-7 (9781683585107)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Ira Berkow is both a Pulitzer-prize winner for national reporting and a Pulitzer-prize finalist for distinguished commentary, and the author of twenty-six books, including the bestsellers Red: A Biography of Red Smith, Maxwell Street: Survival in a Bazaar, and Rockin' Steady: A Guide to Basketball and Cool (with Walt Frazier), as well as nine anthologies of his journalism. A sports reporter and columnist for the New York Times for over two decades, his work has regularly been reprinted in literary anthologies, college rhetoric textbooks, in the prestigious annual anthology Best American Sports Writing, as well as The Best American Sports Writing of the Century. He resides in New York City.