A different type of book
Montvillw goes back to his roots and literally places the reader back in 1969.
For those who weren’t around at that time it will most probably be an eye opener with regards to journalism back in the day as well as a time when the NBA was not the industry it is today

I love this era of sports and culture. The book helped transport me to a different time through a game I know in the present

They were longtime champions, but in 1969, no one expected the Boston Celtics – the fourth-place team in the East – to make it to the NBA Finals, let alone win. But in the final quarter of Game 7, they clinched a shocking victory. The thrilling story of how Boston triumphed over the Los Angeles Lakers is chronicled in “Tall Men, Short Shorts: The 1969 NBA Finals: Wilt, Russ, Lakers, Celtics, and a Very Young Sports Reporter” by Leigh Montville.

The Lakers thought they had the championship in their sights. The addition of the basketball force Wilt Chamberlain – a 7-foot-1-inch marvel – at last tipped the scales in Los Angeles’ favor. The team only needed to prove themselves in the best-of-seven series, but Celtics star player and coach Bill Russell was never going to make it that easy for them.

Montville recounts the 1969 finals, incorporating articles from the time, including many of his own from The Boston Globe. Combining memoir, historical context, and player statistics, he brings the period to life. Montville’s writing is punchy and hilarious – at times even self-deprecating as he pokes fun at his younger self – but always with an eye on riveting storytelling. “Tall Men, Short Shorts” is a triumph.

Subtitled: The 1969 NBA Finals: Wilt, Russ, Lakers, Celtics, and a Very Young Sports Reporter

I received an advance reader copy of this book from the publisher through Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

I was 8 years old when the championship series this books revolves around happened, so while I was familiar with the big-name players, most of the role players on each team were unknown to me. Author Leigh Montville was a 25-year-old sportswriter just getting the feel of what it meant to cover big sporting events when he was assigned to cover the series for his newspaper.


The book examines the series through a combination of contemporary newspaper articles written by Montville and others along with current-day observations about how the NBA and sports media in general differs today versus what they were more than 50 years ago. The series matched the star-studded Lakers (Chamberlain, West, Baylor) with the workman-like Celtics dynasty (Russell, Havlicek). The Lakers had traded for Wilt Chamberlain in the off season with the specific aim of countering Boston center Bill Russell and finally defeating the Celtics for the NBA title.

I gave Tall Men, Short Shorts four stars on Goodreads. From a statistical standpoint, the Celtic dynasty still doesn’t quite make sense to me but after reading this book I got a little bit of a grasp on how Boston’s approach was so successful.

I’m a sucker for sports history. It doesn’t even really matter the sport – I generally lean toward the Big Four, but honestly, any discussion of the athletic past will work. I have my sporting foci – baseball and football foremost among them – but as a general fan, I can derive joy from coverage of just about any athletic endeavor.

The moral to the story is simple: With the right pairing of subject matter and author, a work of sports nonfiction can really sing.

Longtime Boston sports journalist Leigh Montville is one of the best to ever do the gig, with a decades-long body of work covering some of the most iconic moments in American sports. His latest book is “Tall Men, Short Shorts – The 1969 NBA Finals: Wilt, Russ, Lakers, Celtics, and a Very Young Sports Reporter,” a look back at the series that would ultimately mark the ending of the lengthy Celtics NBA dynasty of the 1950s and 1960s. A series that saw a certain bright young man – just 24 years of age and setting out on what would become an iconic career as an ink-stained wretch – crisscrossing the country as part of the now-legendary NBA Finals matchup between the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers in 1969.

It’s also a wonderful bit of autobiographical writing, a reflection on the beginnings of a storied career. Those moments of memory and memoir are what elevate this book from what would be a perfectly adequate work of sports history into something more, a wry look back from someone who understands that the person he once was had a lot to learn.

Basically, it was like this. The year was 1969. The Boston Celtics were an NBA juggernaut, the proverbial 900-pound gorilla – they went where they wanted when they wanted. And where they wanted to go was the NBA Finals. In the previous 12 seasons, Boston had won 10 titles. From Cousy to Heinsohn to Havlicek to keeping up with the Joneses (K.C. and Sam), the Celtics were stacked with legends – none more legendary than Bill Russell.

By 1969, many argued that Boston’s time had passed. Russell had taken on the role of coach alongside his duties playing center; Red Auerbach had moved from the bench a while prior. The team finished a mere fourth in their division, squeaking into the playoffs.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Lakers of that time were poised for a breakout. Not only did they have the elite talents of Jerry West and Elgin Baylor on their roster, but they had added the human cheat code that was Wilt Chamberlain, perhaps the most purely physically talented player in NBA history. With his addition, L.A. had assembled the first dream team.

To many, this seemed like it had to be the year of the Lakers. Sure, they’d faced the Celtics in five NBA Finals series in the 1960s and lost all five, but with Wilt the Stilt on their side, they finally had a way to counteract Bill Russell. The sky was the limit.

In the midst of all of this was a newly-minted reporter for the Boston Globe, one with maybe a bit (or more than a bit) of unearned confidence in his abilities, making his way from coast to coast in an effort to cover what might be the end of the Celtics dynasty.

“Tall Men, Short Shorts” is full of basketball, of course – dynamic and engaging accounts of a see-saw battle between great teams featuring some of the best players to ever hit the hardwood. Montville’s memories of those games are as enthralling a snapshot as anything you’ll find in the most meticulously researched work of sports history.

Perhaps my favorite conceit is the use of the actual newspaper stories filed on each day as the introduction to each chapter. Some of these stories are game recaps, sure, but others – perhaps the more interesting – are the ones filed on the off days, in the in-between moments when nothing’s happening on the court, but the printing press still hungers.

Those two things – basketball and the act of writing about basketball – come together beautifully throughout the book. It’s a clever and compelling marriage, with the basketball action blending with the journalistic realities and becoming a story that is somehow both and neither.

Because there’s more here. Mostly about Russell, who was, while playing and coaching an NBA Finals team, also dealing with the racial and cultural impact of his status as a prominent and vocal Black man in a time and place that wasn’t always ready for such things. This is the first-ever Black coach in the NBA we’re talking about here – there’s a LOT on the man’s plate.

There’s a delightful tone of bemusement throughout as Montville the elder statesman and journalistic legend looks back on the BYM he once was; he shares freely his memories of the arrogance and envy that that young man carried with him. It’s an acknowledgement of just how far he has come, a charming and self-deprecating recognition of his own decades-long evolution as a writer.

“Tall Men, Short Shorts” is a killer basketball book, to be sure. It’s the story of a series that remains in the conversation for best NBA Finals ever, despite being over a half-century in the rearview. But it’s also a look back by a remarkable writer, one whose inflated ego gradually settled into the humility and self-awareness that would let him become one of the best to ever do it. I won’t say that this is the best union of subject and author ever, but I’d be hard pressed to name a better one.

This is a nostalgic tale of a great NBA series and especially of interest for me since it was the first NBA championship to which I paid attention. I was in a parochial school in Lynwood, Ca when players from this team came to my school. I don’t remember all who came, but they were not the stars like West, Baylor, or Chamberlin. I do recall Tommy Hawkins and I believe it was Keith Erikson who played at UCLA. The team announcer was the legendary Chick Hearns and he was there too. I recall saying something clever to him like, “I really like listening to you on the radio!” I know that must have impressed him. /s

I have no idea why they would have come to my rather small school in an out-of-the-way place like Lynwood, but there they were, and they stood on our school’s gravel, outdoor court, and shot baskets, dribbled, and passed the ball around. But as was made clear in this book, the NBA of then was not much like the NBA of today. Hall of Fame coach, Red Auerbach of Boston would personally take fans to look at the seats they would have if they joined as season ticket holders. Sold-out games at Boston Garden were a novelty despite the city having a team that dominated the 60s pro league much like UCLA dominated the college level.

The book takes us through the 1969 championship of the Los Angeles Lakers (obviously my favorite) and the (to my view) hated Boston Celtics. The author was then a young staff writer who happened to be given the assignment because more established writers preferred following the less heralded but in Boston, more beloved hockey team.

The author refers to himself in the third person but not in a cocky manner. It took me a while to get used to his self-references and I enjoyed reading about his awe for the players and the position he was in. He gives plenty of first-hand information about the star players and the Lakers’ coach (Boston’s coach was also their star player, the great Bill Russell). This book was nostalgic for me because of reminding me of my childhood, my disappointment of my team losing yet another championship (how they lost this one is what makes this series so different and frustrating for Lakers fans), and how different was the pro game then as opposed to the current game. I hate to say it, but I’m rarely interested in watching the NBA and prefer the college game. But regardless of your level of interest in the NBA, this book is worth reading for many reasons. If nothing else, it’s an excellent read for the upcoming summer.

Note: My review can be found on Amazon,
https://www.amazon.com/Tall-Men-Short-Shorts-Reporter-ebook/dp/B08P48J2HZ/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

This was a book that I came into with some trepidation and it thankfully exceeded my expectations. Leigh Montville, a longtime sportswriter for the Boston Globe and later Sports Illustrated, recounts the 1969 NBA Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and his hometown Boston Celtics. That championship had a lot to offer in terms of intrigue (the Celtics had won 9 of the last 10 league titles and were 5-for-5 against the Lakers but were dealing with an aging roster and the Lakers had acquired superstar Wilt Chamberlain) and drama (the Celtics and Lakers ultimately went seven games in 1969), but because of that it has been mined pretty deeply for content already. Again we run into the problem where the kind of person who would read a book about the 1969 Celtics-Lakers series (i.e. someone already at least somewhat interested in NBA history) likely already has some familiarity with what happens. Probably not what went down in that specific series, but certainly a passing familiarity with the basics and major exploits of the bigger players like Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, and John Havlicek. Thankfully, Tall Men, Short Shorts is not just a love letter to the NBA of the late 60s and those classic Celtics teams (though it accomplishes that too). Rather, it is a de facto memoir from Montville and also a love letter to print and radio journalism, the social climate of the late 60s, the looser and smaller-scale brand of basketball of the period, and much more. This different angle makes for quite a compelling read.

Tall Men, Short Shorts is structured in chronological order, covering each day of the NBA Finals, with frequent asides to set the stage for the series and provide additional color. Again, this is not a book about the 1969 NBA Finals but what it was like to cover the 1969 NBA Finals as a cub reporter from Boston. Montville has an outstanding eye for detail and memory and vividly presents his experiences interfacing with Celtics players, hunting for stories (and making sure player/coach Bill Russell followed through on his commitment to provide a column offering his own thoughts after each game), and contending with deadlines and the fact that he had to dictate his stories back to the Globe office. The book is effectively Montville’s diary from the Finals, and he includes game recaps and columns from the series written by both himself and other Boston beat writers to give readers a taste of what changed (writers rigidly fitting their stories into a predetermined narrative written earlier in the game due to deadlines) and what didn’t (an unfortunate reliance on insipid post-game player comments). This was a time when the NBA had only 6 employees, the games were blacked out locally on television, and newspaper writers and radio announcers played a tremendous role in providing fans with details about the on and off-court proceedings. Throw in all of the personalities and drama involved and this formula works quite well.

I don’t really have any massive nits to pick with the book. Montville almost exclusively refers to himself in the third-person as “The Bright Young Man” which is a weird and stylistically awkward choice (especially when he occasionally slips in some first-person as well), some of the more personal anecdotes (mainly detailed passages around a high school basketball championship he attended and his military service) struck me as a tad self-indulgent, and I sensed some “get-off-my-lawn” sentiment when the 77 year-old Montville lamented about the state of the modern NBA and features like its reliance on analytics, but these are all small issues and didn’t detract from the reading experience that much. Overall, it’s a very solid read.

8/10

A tremendous fusion of memoir and reportage that takes you deep into the story of the 1969 NBA finals, an environment much different than it is now save for the whirlwind excitement that remains the game's constant. By his own admission, Montville's memory is imperfect, which means certain scenes aren't as detail-rich as you might want a book like this to be. Nevertheless, TALL MEN, SHORT SHORTS is an outstanding book, offering unvarnished analysis of the series' huge personalities (Russell, Wilt, Auerbach, Jerry West) and illustrating the strange, almost mundane reality that the league occupied at that time.

Leigh Montville, a well-known Boston sportswriter, covered the 1969 NBA Finals between the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers for the Boston Globe and it was one of the biggest assignments in his burgeoning career. His reflection on both his writing about that event and the two teams involved is the subject of his latest book.

The book reads like the current septuagenarian Montville wants to talk to his 25-year old self. However, that isn't because he has advice that he has learned over the years and wants his younger self to treat the plum assignment any differently. Instead, it reads almost like a time travel memoir in which the older man is back in 1969 and viewing what his younger self was doing while covering the last hurrah for one of the longest dynasties in professional sports.

In 1969, the Celtics were getting older as their star throughout their dominance in the 1960's, Bill Russell, became their player-coach and knew that his time left to play was getting short. They were not their usual dominant selves in the regular season but had enough left to make it back to the finals, where they had won 10 of the last 12 NBA championships. On the other side were the Lakers, who were frequent victims to the Celtics in those years. They too had their superstars, had just recently acquired Wilt Chamberlain to match up against Russell and also had an aging star, Elgin Baylor, who wanted his one last shot at a title.

The writing in the book on the teams and the players (including other stars on the teams like Jerry West and Sam Jones) was very good- and much of it was due to his columns written during that series. However, it is the manner in which he reflects on his more daring self during that time that makes the book a great read. Montville refers to his younger self never by name but by "the bright young man" or TBYM. This is the case even when that TYBM makes some youthful mistakes, but these are never documented in a scolding or regretful way. Indeed, the whole book reads like one great wonderful memory from his youth and that is why it is such a fun basketball book for any fan, of any era.

While the Celtics did go on to win that series in seven games and capture that 11th title in 13 years, it is not one that only Celtics fans should read, nor is it the typical sports memoir. As noted above, anyone who enjoys basketball should read it.

I wish to thank Doubleday for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

In the 1960s and 1970s, I lived in Southern California and was a huge fan of professional basketball in general and the LA Lakers in particular. I followed the team closely, every season, through the playoffs, with the too-frequent finale being a loss to the Boston Celtics in the NBA Championship Finals. Back in the late 60s, there was a 24-year old, inexperienced sports reporter named Leigh Montville covering the Celtics and, although he didn’t keep a journal during 1969, he has a great memory that he put to good use writing Tall Men, Short Shorts. Subtitled The 1969 NBA Finals: Wilt, Russ, Lakers, Celtics, and a Very Young Sports Reporter, it is a fascinating look at how the sport and the league used to be, and wow, has it changed.

In 1969, it seemed a given that the L.A. Lakers were destined to win the title, and as Bill Russell’s career was coming to an end, the Boston Celtics were struggling to even get to the Finals at the end of the season. Sports were different then in both Boston and LA: “Baseball was the undisputed king in both cities. Hockey is second in Boston, football or horse racing second in Los Angeles.” To emphasize the way things have changed for basketball, “...best indicator of the NBA’s place in the 1969 world is that none of the first four games of the series …will be shown on television in Boston.”That young sportswriter got on a plane for the first time in 1969 and flew from Boston to LA to cover the Finals. Back then, a reporter’s job was wildly different: he “had to look in the phone book, the Yellow Pages, to find a Western Union office,” where someone else would retype his words and send them to his paper. Things were different in LA: “Hair was long, skirts were short…Marijuana was everywhere.” He went on to a prize-winning career writing for the Boston Globe and Sports Illustrated, and this book captures his love for the game and the team, as well as the details of all seven games. Spoiler Alert: he went home happy at the end of the series. A great read for any fan of basketball in general, and Celtics fans in particular will LOVE it. Four stars, and thanks to Doubleday Books and NetGalley for an advance copy in exchange for this honest review.