No Blood, No Foul

March 31, 2008
Foxsports.com pundit Rosen (Barney Polan's Game
) hits the hardwood in this entertaining sports novel. Pearl Harbor makes Jason Lewis, a promising senior guard for New York's Metro University, into an army enlistee. When he comes back from the Pacific missing several fingers, Jason is reduced to selling insurance for his father-in-law. Although he considers referees a necessary evil (“rogue cops with whistles”), he jumps at a chance to officiate high school games. Jason discovers that he enjoys just being around the game, but his elevation to the professional ranks coincides with a trifecta of personal and professional crises. Rosen's deep knowledge of basketball history and his nimble prose make this bittersweet sports novel a light swish.

June 1, 2008
Jason Lewis is a star basketball player at Metra College in New York. Then Pearl Harbor happens, and Jason enlists. He makes it home but without two fingers on his right hand. His playing days are over, and before he knows it, he is married to his high-school sweetheart, has a baby on the way, works selling insurance for his father-in-law. But he misses basketball. To stay close to the game, Jason begins refereeing high-school games, then college, and finally pro games. Just being close to the rhythm of the game is a therapeutic respite from the residual terrors of war and his failing marriage. Rosen, a wonderful sportswriter and novelist who coauthored More than a Game (2001) with his friend and old coaching buddy Phil Jackson, has forgotten more basketball history than the best fans will ever know. He is also the games premier evangelist, preaching that basketball can be spiritual and redemptive. The message comes through powerfully in this moving novel about a man who finds peace, order, and a sense of self on the hardwood.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)