Passing fancy, from the NBA to Jersey City

Page 2 of 2 -- Wojnarowski acknowledges that he was won over by Hurley's success and his commitment to St. Anthony High School, which, Wojnarowski maintains, would have ceased to exist long ago if not for Hurley's dedication and financial support. Readers will have to decide for themselves whether the coach needs to be such a foulmouthed bully to succeed. Wojnarowski's contention is that though the world has changed, Hurley has not, and that if he had, lots of the youngsters whom he's insulted, sworn at, and demeaned would have been lost to the streets rather than saved by the type of discipline he brings to basketball. He does not explore the possibility that players who win because the coach screams at them and tells them their lives will be meaningless if they don't submit to his tyranny may find they have no particular motivation to continue playing, let alone succeeding, when they've left that coach behind.

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On Feb. 19, 1948, the Minneapolis Lakers played a game of basketball against the Harlem Globetrotters. The game came about in part because the owners of the two teams each maintained he had the best team on the planet. As far as author John Christgau could determine, most of the players involved initially regarded the exercise as just another night's work. But the contest drew 18,000 fans to Chicago Stadium, and when it was over and the Globetrotters had won on a last-second shot, it began to become apparent that the game had not only changed basketball but had sent some serious ripples out into the swamp of racism in the culture at large.

''Tricksters in the Madhouse" strings various intriguing vignettes and contentions along with the narrative of the game itself, which Christgau has convincingly re-created.

It's possible that John Feinstein eats and sleeps. It's also possible that producing books at the rate he maintains leaves him no time to do those things. His latest, ''Last Shot," is a brisk novel set in the madness of the NCAA's Final Four and aimed at young readers. Exceptionally knowledgeable about the college basketball world, Feinstein has a fine time lampooning broadcaster Dick Vitale and the bureaucrats who populate the NCAA itself. The blackmailing plot that unfolds over the course of Final Four weekend threatens a student-athlete who isn't a student, implicates an ethics professor with no ethics, and otherwise introduces to young readers the sleaze beneath the glitter of college basketball's biggest show.

Remarkably, Feinstein pokes holes in the illusions without diminishing the excitement of the games themselves as seen though the eyes of two eighth-grade reporters. He writes as if he's having a fine time at the keyboard, and the result will entertain not only young readers, but the oldsters looking over their shoulders as well.

Bill Littlefield hosts NPR's ''Only a Game" each Saturday from WBUR in Boston.