When basketball is in your blood

A review of Dan Grunfeld’s “By the Grace of the Game”

By Carole J Greene

I lived nearly half my life in Indiana, where, as most of the world knows, basketball is the favorite sport. When I saw that this season’s Jewish Book Festival would offer a book that blended NBA basketball with the struggle for immigrants to adapt to their new country and, at the same time, feature Holocaust survivors, I had to read it. I was not disappointed.

Author Dan Grunfeld intertwines three generations of the Grunfeld family on a journey that would not have been possible without the sport of basketball. After his father, Ernie, and himself, Dan needs only a few fi ngers to count the number of Jews who ever managed to make it to the NBA. Lovers of the game will recognize their names, alongside other stars Ernie and Dan played with or against. Dan goes into loving detail about his association with Larry Bird, whom he worships.

But this book is far more than a true story about the grueling work and lucky opportunities necessary to become a professional athlete. It weaves its way through the lives of grandparents who survived the Holocaust and eventually made their way from communist Romania, through Israel, to the U.S. How they risked their lives to flee Romania is a story itself worth an entire book. Be sure to ask Dan how comedian Buddy Hackett fits into this.

Dan switches seamlessly from the grandparents’ tale to the challenges his father had to conquer as an underdeveloped teen newly emigrated to Queens, who was bullied because he couldn’t speak English. Basketball becomes his salvation. As he grows in stature and skills, Ernie discovers that basketball is his ticket to the American dream. The sport that saved him from bullies earns him college scholarships, an Olympic gold medal and a significant career in the NBA.

Dan follows in his father’s footsteps, becoming a high-scoring star in college, sure to be drafted by the NBA — until disaster strikes. (No spoiler from me. Read the book!)

Dan’s love and respect for his grandparents, Anyu and Apu, form the foundation of his work ethic. If they could labor for seven 12-hour days per week in their New York City fabric shop, he could find the energy and persistence to train his way back to the basketball court after that disaster. Maybe not to the NBA yet — baby steps first — but on European teams that took him to Spain and, surprise!, his family’s original home country, Romania. How that happens is fascinating.

Ernie spent a significant amount of his NBA time associated with the New York Knicks, first as a player, then in management. Dan recalls with humor and love being a little kid at the Knicks’ worksite — Madison Square Garden — following his dad everywhere, as if to absorb the grace of the game into his own DNA. It is not mere luck that paves the way for Dan, years later, to play for his beloved Knicks.

Throughout the book, Dan returns often to the nurture he received from his grandparents. Not only does Anyu make sacrifices in order to attend his games, she cooks his favorite Hungarian recipes for any meal he can arrange to get to. At first, I wished Dan had translated the Hungarian names for those foods, so I’d know the recipes that meant so much to him. But after a while, I understood that my not knowing the Hungarian is akin to Ernie’s struggles with the language when he first came to the U.S. as a kid. Smart writing, Dan!

This book is full of smart writing. It cruises along in storytelling mode then slips in a lyrical turn of phrase that underscores Dan’s skills as a writer. Be sure to read the acknowledgments, where he pays tribute to the oft-forgotten folks who midwife a book into life.

IF YOU GO

A review of Dan Grunfeld’s “By the Grace of the Game”

When: Nov. 30 via Zoom.

Buy your ticket at JewishBookFestival.org.