Publisher's Weekly Review
It's been one of the most well-documented and popular rivalries in sports history. Perhaps no book has examined the countless battles between Bird and Johnson like this one, which tells that nearly 15-year war mostly in their own words, with journalist MacMullan helping to craft the story. Bird and Johnson were a "study in contrast... it was East Coast versus West Coast... the gritty leader versus the flashy star." Yet as MacMullan shows, the two legends were more alike than most ever knew. Both started from humble beginnings in the Midwest, practicing their craft early each morning because of an insatiable work ethic. And both emerged as superstars at the same time, starting with their fabled battle in the 1979 NCAA Championship. From there, their rivalry took off, as Bird and Johnson combined to play for eight NBA champions during the 1980s and faced off three times in the final series. This book goes well beyond the fierce competition on the court. In a book full of amusing anecdotes and heartbreaking emotion, MacMullan looks at how their battle crossed racial lines, how Bird dealt with crushing injuries and his father's suicide and how Magic dealt with the fallout from his shocking announcement that he had contracted HIV. Through it all, the two players went from archrivals to friends and left the game together after achieving a gold medal at the Olympics. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
NBA legends Bird and Johnson, fierce rivals during their playing days, team up on a mutual career retrospective. With megastars LeBron James and Kobe Bryant and international superstars like China's Yao Ming pushing it to ever-greater heights of popularity today, it's difficult to imagine the NBA in 1979, when financial problems, drug scandals and racial issues threatened to destroy the fledgling league. Fortunately, that year marked the coming of two young saviorsone a flashy, charismatic African-American and the other a cocky, blond, self-described "hick." Arriving fresh off a showdown in the NCAA championship game in which Johnson's Michigan State Spartans defeated Bird's Indiana State Sycamoresstill the highest-rated college basketball game everthe duo changed the course of history not just for the league, but the sport itself. While the pair's on-court accomplishments have been exhaustively chronicled, the narrative hook here is unprecedented insight and commentary from the stars themselves on their unique relationship, a compelling mixture of bitter rivalry and mutual admiration. This snapshot of their respective careers delves with varying degrees of depth into the lives of each man and their on- and off-court achievements, including the historic championship games between Johnson's Lakers and Bird's Celtics, their trailblazing endorsement deals and Johnson's stunning announcement in 1991 that he had tested positive for HIV. Ironically, this nostalgic chronicle about the two men who, along with Michael Jordan, turned more fans onto NBA basketball than any other players, will likely appeal primarily to a narrow cross-section of readers: Bird/Magic fans and hardcore hoop-heads. Doesn't dig as deep as it could, but offers a captivating look at the NBA's greatest era. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
New York Review of Books Review
FOR many fans of professional basketball, revisiting the 1980s with Larry Bird and Magic Johnson will seem like channel-surfing from the couch and coming across a favorite old movie, a "Casablanca" or "Annie Hall." There aren't any major revelations in WHEN THE GAME WAS OURS (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $26). Still, greatness commands our attention. Bird and Johnson were the best of a decade that many believe to be unrivaled in basketball history, one that melded oldschool fundamentals with new-age athleticism. What began with a celebrated national college championship game in 1979, matching gifted sons of the Midwest, became a phenomenon of contrasting cultures when the two college stars turned professional: left coast (Los Angeles) versus right (Boston), black (Johnson) versus white (Bird), flash (Lakers) versus fury (Celtics). Writing in The Boston Globe during the Bird-Magic era, the sports columnist Leigh Montville imagined them at a nursing home years into the future, engaged in a cutthroat game of checkers. Bird and Johnson aren't in a nursing home (yet), but in any case their collaborative memoir, written with Jackie MacMullan, is much more than checkers. It should satisfy both those who saw them play and younger fans inclined to snicker at television images of the legendary rivals in their tight short shorts. While Bird and Johnson do most of the reminiscing, MacMullan, a longtime Boston sportswriter, supplies enough reporting to enrich the narrative, drawing on others to help illustrate what the sport has come to lack, or fake. During the playoffs last spring, airwaves were flooded with commercials starring combative Kobe Bryant and LeBron James puppets in anticipation of a finals matchup that never occurred. But Bird and Johnson memorably dueled three times in N.B.A. finals in the '80s. These transcendent, team-first players were lucky to have each other to lift the bar. Better yet, they knew it. Building on what Bird and Johnson achieved, the N.B.A. flourished as a business, especially once Michael Jordan took ownership of the sport, flying gloriously solo. In September, his immodest Hall of Fame acceptance speech reminded us he would have had it no other way. And yet, aweinspiring as Jordan was, he never had that constant opponent to provide him with competitive context. As a result, there was an executioner's aloofness to his reign: it was easy to extol, more difficult to embrace. If Jordan was incorrigibly corporate, Bird and Johnson fit snugly into more engaging roles, the blue-collar Bostonian and the Hollywood icon, stoking passions together as they realized they were far more alike than they had initially believed. Their book is at its best when it examines this evolving relationship, which began icily but warmed considerably after Johnson traveled to Bird's rural Indiana home to shoot a commercial. To be sure, they weren't playing for the sheer joy of sport any more than Jordan was. But in an age of competitive incivility, Bird and Johnson's account of how much they grew to care about each other while maintaining their ferocity is especially uplifting, peaking at the book's emotional climax, when Johnson describes his agony after testing positive for the virus that causes AIDS. On the day he went public, Nov. 7, 1991, Johnson told his agent, Lon Rosen: "You've got to call Larry. . . . I don't want him to find out about this on the news." Bird was napping when his wife told him he needed to call Rosen back. He tells MacMullan that the feeling he experienced was comparable to when his father "took his own life." Thanks to treatment, Johnson's fate wasn't sealed. He and Bird have remained in each other's lives and, as they so often say, in each other's dreams. If ever there was a two-man Dream Team, they were it.
Excerpts
APRIL 9, 1978 Lexington, Kentucky The errant shot came off the glass at a sharp angle, but Larry Bird, charting the flight of the ball, pulled down the rebound and advanced without hesitation, swiveling his head as he examined his options. Earvin Johnson had already begun to head down the court the moment the ball was in flight. He'd been playing with Bird for only six days on a team of college All-Stars in this international roundrobin competition, yet already Johnson had determined that Bird was the most resourceful rebounder they had. Bird filled the center lane, and Magic streaked down the right side, calling for the ball, but the forward looked away, as if he had pressing matters elsewhere. For one brief instant, Magic was disappointed. "I guess he's not going to give it to me," he murmured. And that's when it came: a behind-the-back missile that landed directly on Magic's right palm. It remained there just long enough for Johnson to disarm defender Andrei Lapatov with a crossover dribble, then sling it back over his shoulder with a no-look feed to Bird. Indiana State's star barely aligned the seams before his touch pass was back to Magic, leaving no time for the overmatched Soviet player to react. As Johnson banked in the lay-up, the crowd at Rupp Arena in Lexington, Kentucky, roared with delight. Magic turned and charged toward Bird to offer him his signature high-five. Bird slapped the teenager's hand, and the two jogged back down the floor, side by side, one skipping, clapping, and celebrating as he went, the other, head down, expressionless, as if nothing remarkable had occurred. The intertwined basketball journey of Earvin "Magic" Johnson and Larry "Joe" Bird had officially begun -- as teammates. Johnson had never met Bird before the tournament. He was stunned at how well the forward passed the ball, and when Bird fed him the no-look pass, Magic told himself, "I'm not going to let this guy upstage me." "It was an incredible three seconds of basketball," Magic said. "It was boom, boom, boom! I'm thinking, 'Man, I love playing with this guy!' And believe me, the crowd loved it too." Some thirty years after that collaborative transition basket, executed against the Soviet Union's national team when Magic was just 18 years old and Bird only 21, both remember the play with startling clarity. "The defender was stumbling to keep up with us," Bird recalled. "We were coming at him so fast that his head was going around and around, and he ended up in a circle. I was sort of laughing, because the poor kid didn't have a clue." He wasn't the only one. No one thought to chronicle the footage of Bird and Magic's wizardry in the open floor. There were no breathless descriptions of the artful passers in the morning papers. In 1978, though both had displayed a developing basketball pedigree, they were not widely recognized as elite players. At that juncture, neither had won an NBA championship, a league MVP, or, for that matter, an NCAA title. The irony of Bird and Magic commencing their storied relationship as teammates did not register because their parallel careers had not yet evolved into one of the compelling rivalries in basketball history. "They were certainly good," noted Michael O'Koren, their tournament teammate, "but they weren't Magic and Larry -- not yet." Instead, Johnson and Bird were second-stringers on an amateur basketball team participating in an international round-robin competition called the World Invitational Tournament, or WIT, attempting in vain to prove to the coach, Joe B. Hall, they were worthy of prime-time minutes. Although Bird and Magic occasionally shared knowing glances when the two of them outwitted the starters in practice, Bird revealed little of himself to Johnson. He was a young man of few words -- until he went back home to French Lick, Indiana, and tracked down his brother, Mark Bird. "I've just seen the best player in college basketball," Larry gushed. "It's Magic Johnson." ### The World Invitational Tournament was a whirlwind, made-for-television event that assembled a group of top college players and held three games in five days against the Soviets, Cuba, and Yugoslavia at rotating venues: the Omni in Atlanta, Carmichael Auditorium on the campus of North Carolina, and Rupp Arena in Lexington. Bird had just completed his junior season at Indiana State as a first-team All-America selection who would be drafted by the Boston Celtics within the next three months. Magic had just finished his first year at Michigan State, a third-team All-America pick who had dazzled the Big Ten with his array of no-look feeds, alley-oops, and backdoor bounce passes. Yet, on the World Invitational team, also known as the Converse Cup, Johnson and Bird were afterthoughts. The headliners were Joe B. Hall and his Kentucky Wildcats, who had beaten Duke 94-- 88 the previous week to capture the NCAA championship. Coach Hall placed five of his guys on the WIT roster: swingman Jack "Goose" Givens, who had poured in 41 points in the title game against Duke; Rick Robey, their rugged big man; point guard Kyle Macy; lefty forward James Lee; and guard Jay Shidler. Givens, Macy, and Robey garnered most of the minutes in the tournament even though the second team, anchored by Johnson and Bird, dominated them in practice. Privately, both players fumed as they sat and watched inferior players gobble up their minutes. "There were the Kentucky players, and the rest of us were fillers," Bird said. "Hall wanted to go around the country and show off his guys." Bird and Magic spent a total of eight days together during the WIT. They engaged in no more than four or five conversations, even though they ate together, practiced together, and rode the bus together. While Magic hobnobbed with Arkansas star Sidney Moncrief, blasting his boom box and jiving to the beat of the Ohio Players, Bird remained largely to himself, surveying the Kentucky scenery out the bus window while Magic's music -- and personality -- overtook the team. "Magic was nonstop chatter," said Rutgers star James Bailey. "And Larry said zero. It was 'Good morning,' and don't expect a lot more." The World Invitational Tournament was the concoction of television executive Eddie Einhorn. While professional basketball in the 1970s produced dismal ratings, the colleges, provided the matchups had some national appeal, were proving to be a market with potential. Einhorn had already successfully televised exhibition games against Russians and felt that a competition with some international flavor would prove to be successful. Thus, the WIT was born. Einhorn enlisted the help of Brandeis athletic director Dick Rodis and Providence College basketball coach Dave Gavitt, prominent members of the Amateur Basketball Association of the United States (later renamed USA Basketball), to fill out the roster around the Kentucky players. "At that time, I really didn't even know who Magic and Larry were," Einhorn admitted. "I would venture to say most other people didn't either." Gavitt was painfully aware of the abilities of Michigan State's imposing point guard. Just weeks earlier, Magic and his Spartans had steamrolled Gavitt's Providence Friars in the opening round of the 1978 NCAA Mideast Regional in Indianapolis. Magic scored 14 points and dished out 7 assists, but his ability to push tempo and provide his teammates with high-percentage shots (Michigan State hit 61 percent of its field goals) was what caught Gavitt's eye. Johnson saw the game differently than the other players, almost as if he were watching the action unfold in slow motion. Bird's Indiana State team posted a 23--9 mark that spring but was left out of the NCAA field, relegated instead to the less prestigious NIT tournament. Gavitt had never seen him play and knew little about him. Since Indiana State was not being featured on network television, many basketball fans assumed Bird was African American. Boston Globe writer Bob Ryan hadn't seen Larry yet either, but was already well versed in Bird lore. Ryan was in Indianapolis to cover Providence but informed Gavitt he also was driving to Terre Haute to check out the Sycamores and this mysterious hidden gem, whom Celtics scouts assured him was a legitimate NBA prospect. Ryan embarked on his pilgrimage with Providence Journal sportswriters Mike Madden and Jayson Stark, who were openly skeptical of Bird's credentials. He was playing at a small school in a small conference, which, they surmised, accounted for his prolific offensive numbers. The writers barely had time to remove their jackets before the right-handed Bird snared a rebound and started up the left side of the floor dribbling left-handed. Just shy of midcourt, he fired an underhand rocket pass to his guard off the dribble for a lay-up. "From that moment on, I was hooked," said Ryan. Indiana State went on to win by a point on a jumper by Bird. Ryan was so animated talking about his performance on the way back to Indianapolis, he was driving 75 miles per hour when the state police pulled him over. "Sorry," Ryan told the trooper. "I'm just excited because I'm coming back from the ISU game." "Oh, yeah?" said the cop, ripping up the ticket. "Who won?" The next morning the scribes were back court-side in Indianapolis to witness another legend in the making: a 6-foot- 8 (and growing) floor general who dominated play without a consistent jump shot. Magic was a whirling dervish of energy and enthusiasm. Even though he was just a freshman, he barked orders to his older teammates and after every successful play slapped hands, whooped, and celebrated with his teammates. The Friars players took offense at his histrionics, particularly in light of the lopsided score (77--63). "Some people thought he was a hot dog," Gavitt said. "I never did. He played like he loved the game. There was a lot of high-fives and fist-pumping, which you didn't see a whole lot of back then. "I suppose it was annoying if you were on the other team. I asked his coach, Jud Heathcote, about it, and he said, 'Dave, he's like that every day in practice. Not some days -- every day.'" After Gavitt met with the press and gave proper credit to Michigan State and their remarkable blossoming star, he bumped into Bob Ryan in the hallway. "So, how did your 'hidden gem' do in Terre Haute?" he asked. "Dave," Ryan answered, "I just saw one of the game's next great players." When it came time to flush out the World Invitational team roster, Gavitt recalled Ryan's endorsement and added both Magic and Bird to his list. Bird was ecstatic about being chosen, until he learned the identity of the coach. Joe B. Hall recruited Bird out of Springs Valley High School in French Lick, Indiana, but after watching him, Hall determined that Bird was "too slow" to play Division 1 basketball. A wounded Bird vowed to prove him wrong someday and was disappointed that he never had the opportunity to play against Kentucky in college. "I wanted a crack at that guy," Bird said. The odds of that happening were slim. Kentucky was one of the more prestigious programs in the country. Their conference, the Southeastern, was known primarily as a football hotbed, with heavyweights Alabama, Auburn, Florida, and Georgia among its members. The Wildcats, under the tutelage of Adolph Rupp, had established themselves as one of the top basketball powers in the country in the late 1940s, winning four NCAA championships in ten years. Indiana State simply didn't measure up, and neither did Michigan State -- at least not until students named Earvin and Larry arrived on their respective campuses and instantly altered the basketball landscape. Excerpted from When the Game Was Ours by Jackie MacMullan, Larry Bird, Earvin "Magic" Johnson All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.