Tall Men, Short Shorts The 1969 NBA Finals: Wilt, Russ, Lakers, Celtics, and a Very Young Sports Reporter

A lively and colorful account of the 1969 NBA Finals--one of the greatest upsets in basketball history--through the eyes of future sports writing legend Leigh Montville, who was covering the coast-to-coast event as a brand-new twenty-four-year-old reporter for The Boston Globe.

In 1969, the L.A. Lakers and Boston Celtics were two of America's powerhouse NBA franchises. The Lakers were stacked with stars like Wilt Chamberlain, Elgin Baylor, and Jerry West, and the Celtics were built around the legendary Bill Russell. The Lakers were destined to win it all that year, while the Celtics struggled to get to the Finals at the end of Russell's career. Covering that epic series was a very young, green sports reporter named Leigh Montville. Years before becoming an award-winning sports writing legend himself at The Boston Globe and Sports Illustrated, Montville was twenty-four and was told by his editor at the Globe to get on a plane to L.A. (first time!) to write about his heroes. What results in this book is a dynamic telling of that incredible basketball series, and personal moments that are both riveting and charming.

Three-time New York Times bestselling author LEIGH MONTVILLE is a former columnist at The Boston Globe and former senior writer at Sports Illustrated. He is the author of Sting Like A Bee, Evel, The Mysterious Montague, The Big Bam, Ted Williams, At the Altar of Speed, Manute, and Why Not Us? He lives in Boston.