Our Last Season

Starred review from June 8, 2020
New York Times sportswriter Araton (Driving Mr. Yogi) delivers a fascinating memoir of his many years covering the New York Knicks and his longtime friendship with one of the team’s “most devoted fans,” Michelle Musler. The daughter of a Jewish steamfitter and an Irish immigrant mother from working-class Hartford, Conn., Musler attended college, raised five children, became a Xerox executive, and eventually developed a career “managing and coaching corporate executives.” Early on she began following the Knicks, and with the help of friends with season tickets, became a courtside fixture—known to players and coaches alike as “the woman behind the Knicks bench... as big a staple at the Garden as Spike Lee.” Araton recounts his early development as a sportswriter and meeting Musler, who became “a friend to keep me grounded” and “a well-placed source to help keep me enlightened.” She shared impressions she had from what she had seen behind the bench, such as recognizing that the troubled career of Patrick Ewing, for example, was really “a reflection of the team’s notoriously capricious ownership.” Musler’s “instincts and insights and tough but dedicated love had guided me through so many professional and personal storms,” Araton writes. This heartwarming look at the life of a friend and die-hard sports fan is effortlessly charming.

September 1, 2020
A sportswriter pays tribute to one of professional basketball's most passionate fans. New York Times scribe Araton, who has written multiple books about the NBA, was relatively new to sportswriting the day he met Michelle Musler, a New York Knicks fan 16 years his senior, when she "crashed an evening gathering of media regulars" at the 1981 All-Star Game. Musler was a Knicks season-ticket holder from the early 1970s to the mid-2010s, most of those years at courtside. She died in 2018 at age 81. In this affectionate memoir, the author describes his decadeslong friendship with this mother of five who divorced her cheating husband when she was in her 30s and started a global executive-training business that often took her away from her kids. Much of the book focuses on Araton's career and Knicks history. Curiously, Musler is in the background for long passages, a bench player rather than a starter. A lot of the basketball talk--who got traded for whom and so on--is strictly for fans, and some readers may be discomfited by the privilege on display. Not every passionate fan can contact a Knicks source to get tickets to championship road games or have a friend at the Times who "straddled or crossed a fine professional line" by publishing her obituary in a paper that reserves that recognition for more famous figures. At its best, the book shows Musler and Araton addressing universal questions--whether they lived honorable lives, made lasting contributions, or spent enough time with family. Former Knicks coach Pat Riley said a season can end only in winning or misery. For Musler, "her love of the journey was what defined her as a fan." That's the message of this book: Between birth and the misery of death, find the happiness in between. A wise if occasionally rarefied look at the forms that love can take.

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Starred review from October 1, 2020

Journalist Araton writes a moving story of his friendship with Michelle Musler, a dedicated fan of the New York Knicks and a holder of season tickets to Knicks games for over four decades. The two met at Madison Square Garden, and forged a close bond throughout the years, with Musler guiding Araton's progress as he married, had a family, and progressed in his career as sportswriter. Musler's path to the Knicks began when, as a divorced mother of five, she needed to support herself and her family. Starting out as a teacher, she moved on to the corporate world where a colleague asked her to a Knicks game during their 1973-74 season. She invested in season tickets, later securing a seat behind the Knicks' bench. Stories of players and coaches are included throughout the book. As her health declined, Musler had to reduce her times at the Garden. The last season Araton and Musler shared was 2017-18; Musler was diagnosed with cancer and later died in 2018. An outpouring of grief from Knicks players coaches (past and present) came after her death. VERDICT A wonderful and engaging book, not only for basketball and Knicks fans, but also a meaningful look about the importance of friendship.--Lucy Heckman, St. John's Univ. Lib., Queens Village, NY

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