The whole basketball world knows about Muggsy Bogues now, but Baltimore knew about him first. From the time he was a diminutive youngster growing up on Orleans Street in East Baltimore, anybody who knew anything about basketball could see he was unique.
As a mere lad living in the Lafayette Court housing project, he and best friend Reggie Williams engaged in memorable battles in rec ball against a Cecil Court team that featured David Wingate and Reggie Lewis. The four would be reunited on the Dunbar High School teams of the early 1980s that won 59 games in a row, then would become stars in college. All four went on to play in the National Basketball Association, a remarkable occurrence.
That Muggsy Bogues was a part of this group was especially remarkable because he is only 5-foot-3, by far the smallest player in the history of the NBA. As he notes in this engaging autobiography, his mother was only 4-foot-11, his father 5-foot-6: "I knew I had no chance of ever getting out of the five-foot range, no matter how hard I wished and dreamed about getting taller."
Mr. Bogues never did get taller, but he certainly got better. Today, as a member of the Charlotte Hornets, he's one of the more accomplished point guards in the NBA and, for my money, one of the five most enjoyable players to watch. How can you not love a player who will challenge anybody, will steal the ball from players a foot and a half taller, or drive on a 7-footer? He's a player who works hard, knows the game, and plays with enthusiasm.
That enthusiasm suffuses this book and is one reason it is considerably better than the standard jock autobiography. As with most books in this genre, there is a co-author who, one assumes, did a lot of the actual writing. But even the best ghostwriter can't supply his subject's character, or warmth, or honesty. These traits are found in abundance in "In the Land of Giants."
Mr. Bogues is forthcoming about such matters as the birth of his daughter to a girlfriend when he was a senior at Dunbar. "I had no money, and I was just seventeen," he writes. "I knew I didn't want to marry her mother. I had to grow up quickly."
Then there was the matter of his father, Richard, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for armed robbery when Muggsy was 12.
"I understand now that when he wasn't at home, he was out hustling for whatever money he could make, doing whatever it took to make sure his family had enough to eat," Mr. Bogues writes. "He got into some things he shouldn't have. He was selling drugs. He was committing stickups and robberies."
But this is where character comes in. The young Muggsy stayed in touch with his father, concluding, "I refused to let his being in prison affect my relationship with him in a negative way. . . . We still had our conflicts, like most fathers and sons, but he was my dad first, last, and always."
Mr. Bogues writes about growing up in Lafayette Court with mixed feelings. He grew up in a close-knit, caring family, and the love for his mother, Elaine, is quite clear. He made many friends, chief among them Mr. Williams, now playing for the Denver Nuggets.
He also learned that hard knocks can bring many lessons. "It's an environment that can bring out the best in an individual, or the worst," he observes. "I think for my family, it brought out the best."
But the young Muggsy also saw the worst: the druggies and drug-dealing, the violence. He saw someone beat another man to death with a baseball bat, a memory that haunts him to this day. He notes, "For a long time I was afraid to walk past any row of bushes because a rat might jump out of it."
But he persevered. The 1982-1983 Dunbar team went 31-0 and was proclaimed the national champion; a publication that covers prep sports recently picked it as the greatest high school team of all time (a sentiment that Mr. Bogues shares).
He had a sterling career at Wake Forest and led the U.S. team to a gold medal in the 1986 world basketball championships. Never a great scorer, he did all the things that point guards must do: He passed, played defense and set up his teammates. In the gold-medal game against the Soviet Union, he didn't score a point. But he had 10 steals, an extraordinary figure, and five assists.
"In the Land of Giants" would be an appealing book even if Muggsy Bogues weren't from this city. That he is, and that he has consistently honored his family, his friends and his sport, make it even more so.
Mr. Warren's reviews appear Mondays in The Sun.
BOOK REVIEW
Title: "In the Land of Giants: My Life in Basketball"
Author: Tyrone "Muggsy" Bogues with David Levine
Publisher: Little, Brown
Length, price: 233 pages, $19.95