Shake and Bake

Sometimes an athlete can have a very good career and while he was recognized and lauded by the fans, the press and teammates while playing, that player may not be remembered after his or her playing career ends. Archie Clark could be considered one of those athletes. He was an All-Star guard who played for five NBA teams – Los Angeles Lakers, Philadelphia 76ers (he was one of the players in the famous Wilt Chamberlain trade), Baltimore/Capital Bullets, Seattle SuperSonics and Detroit Pistons. He was one of the early pioneers of the crossover dribble and used it quite effectively, hence the title of this book by Bob Kuska that looks back on his NBA career.

The subtitle, however, can be a bit misleading as the book does not cover his "life and times" very much – whether it is Clark's personal life, his childhood or his playing days in high school and the University of Minnesota. These parts are not completely missing, and there are segments in which Clark himself talks about some of this, such as when his first marriage was ending. But the vast majority of the text is about Clark's NBA career.

That career was enough to make the book a very interesting and enjoyable one to read. A reader will learn much about the life and times of a professional basketball player in the 1960's and 1970's - maybe it is here that the subtitle is appropriate. In addition to the games and seasons on the court, the book contains many stories about contract negotiations, the NBA's reserve clause preventing players from becoming free agents at the end of their contracts. That was being fought in the courts during much of Clark's playing career, eventually being deemed illegal. Because of his own sometimes tenuous contract negotiations, Clark became a champion for player's rights, including retired players. Reading about his negotiations, the means of how owners or their representatives would trick players into signing for less than their worth or even Clark's adventure with trying to find the best agent is great reading. As one who likes to read about the business side of sports, this was very enlightening.

Other stories about the life of a NBA player include the flights on road trips on commercial airlines, the meager amount of per diem meal money that sometimes resulted in vending machine food having to be a player's dinner and the conditions of some of the arenas at the time. These stories are very interesting. The writing about the games, playoff pushes (Clark was on a playoff team every season of his career) and other stories about his teammates and owners is also informative and entertaining.

Any basketball fan who followed the game during the era in which Clark played will enjoy this book immensely as it felt like it would take the reader into a time machine when professional basketball had a very different look than it does today.

I wish to thank University of Nebraska Press for providing a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Subtitled: The Life and Times of NBA Great Archie Clark

I received an advance reader copy of this book from the publisher through Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

Before reading this book, I was only familiar with the name and basketball career of Archie Clark because of a basketball card of his from nearly 50 years ago. When I saw his biography available on Net Galley, I requested it right away so I could learn more about him.


Clark’s NBA career got off to a late start because he spent three years in the Army after graduating from high school. After four years of college at the University of Minnesota, Clark was drafted by the L.A. Lakers and became a 25-year-old NBA rookie. Clark moved around a lot during the course of his career, primarily because of his skills as a scorer, passer, and team leader, but also because Archie Clark stood up to ownership and insisted on being paid a fair salary for those skills. In an era where many players simply accepted what ownership wanted to pay, this resulted in him being traded multiple times.

I gave Shake and Bake four stars. I did learn a lot about Archie Clark the basketball player as well as Archie Clark the person. However, there numerous descriptions of airline flights and drives home from the airport that added little to the story.

While I did not take this into account when determining my rating of this book, I do need to say this about the ARC I received. This was the most challenging review copy I’ve ever read. There were several letter combinations that were deleted from the text (ff, fi, ft, Th at the beginning of a sentence) that made it difficult to read. And sometimes hilarious. In one section where Clark was playing his way back into shape mid-season following a contract dispute, the book said he was “hung and pung.” I figured there was an “i” before the “ng” in each word; from there it was easy to substitute in the frequently missing letters to figure out he was “huffing and puffing.” In addition, numbers were total absent unless they were spelled out. Thus there were no times, dates, scores, etc. Acronyms such and NBA, ABA, ABC, CBS, NCAA, and UCLA were also missing from the text. Like I said, this was very challenging to read, but I continued with it because I wanted to hear the story of Archie Clark’s life.

Basketball fans and historians alike will love this chronicle of Shake-and-Bake Archie Clark's life. From the early days of NBA/ABA battles and the uncertainty of the future of the game, Clark's journey takes readers across the country as we root for him to find success and belonging with a team.

**I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.