The Punch: One Night, Two Lives, and the Fight That Changed Basketball Forever

The Punch: One Night, Two Lives, and the Fight That Changed Basketball Forever by John Feinstein, 366 pages.

This was another of the books pulled from the list of those that had not left our shelves in a long while. I had always meant to read Feinstein. He's a well-regarded sportswriter, and many of his books circulate well. The fact that this one had not had a reader in while had me suspecting that it was one of those lesser books by a good writer. I was surprised to find out that this was not the case. The story Feinstein tells of a fateful night in 1977, when the Los Angeles Lakers played the Houston Rockets, and of the fight that broke out during the game was and is an interesting one.Kermit Washington, the Lakers power forward, was involved in a fight of sorts with the Houston center, Kevin Kunnert. As players from both teams rushed toward the altercation, Washington turned and punched one man who was running toward him, Rudy Tomjanovich. Tomjanovich was seriously injured. Both men were haunted by that split-second action, and though both continued to play, neither one had the career they seemed destined to have before that night. Feinstein does a great job of putting the events in context, of giving a balanced view of the incident and of the many consequences, and of letting all of the principals tell their stories.
This one is a keeper.
I also enjoyed reading a book that featured Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as a character as I was beginning to read Abdul-Jabbar's excellent novel, Mycroft Holmes.