Can I Keep My Jersey?: 11 Teams, 5 Countries, and 4 Years in My Life as a Basketball Vagabond-Fast Shipping

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He’s been called a journeyman. Even Paul wouldn’t dispute that classification. Regardless,Bill Simmons, ESPN’s “The Sports Guy,” has said of Paul Shirley, “We could finallyhave an answer to the question ‘What would it be like if one of our friends was anNBA player?”

There’s no denying that Paul Shirley is the closest thing pro basketball’s got to Odysseus. In Homeric fashion, he has logged time practically everywherein the roundball universe, from six NBA cities to pro leagues in Spain and Greeceto North America’s pro ball Siberia, the minor leagues. Hell, he’s even played inthe real Siberia. And in Can I Keep My Jersey?, Shirley finally puts down roots longenough to deliver one of the great locker-room chronicles of the modern age.

Withsharp elbows and an even sharper wit, Shirley–whose writings have been describedas “wildly entertaining” by The Wall Street Journal–drops hilarious commentary, revealingwhich teams have the best cheerleaders (he’s spent many a time-out watching themply their trade), why Christ is rapidly becoming every team’s “sixth man,” and eventhe best ways to get bloodstains out of your game uniform, using only an ordinarybar of soap and a hotel bathroom sink.

From sharing the court with Kobe and Shaqto perusing the food court at some mall in a bush-league burg; from taking pregamelayups to getting laid out by a stray knee from an NBA power forward; from hoppinga limo to the team’s charter jet to dashing to catch the van home from a B-leaguegame in Tijuana, Shirley dishes on what it’s like to try to make it as a professionalathlete. Can I Keep My Jersey? is a rollicking, thoughtful, even thought-provokinginsider’s look at a pro baller’s life on the fringe. Like Jim Bouton’s Ball Four or John Feinstein’s A Season on the Brink, Shirley’s odyssey deserves to find a homeon every sports fan’s bookshelf.