This Book Has Balls

Sports Rants from the MVP of Talking Trash

Michael Rapaport

• Publisher: Atria Books
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781501160325
• eBook ISBN:
  9781501160332
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

The sports world according to Michael Rapaport—actor, Top 50 podcaster, award-winning film maker, and sports fanatic—from the greatest and downright worst athletes, players, teams, and jerseys, but minus statistics, analytics, or anything else that isn’t pure hustle in this “hell of a book” (Shaquille O'Neal).

In 1979, nine-year-old Michael Rapaport decided he was going to do whatever it took to be a pro baller. He practiced and practiced, but by the time he was fifteen, he realized there was no place for a slow, white Jewish kid in the NBA. So, he found another way to channel his obsession with sports: talking trash.

In the “crazy, passionate, funny and intense” (Colin Cowherd) This Book Has Balls, Rapaport uses his signature smack-talk style and in-your-face humor to discuss everything from why LeBron will never be like Mike, that Tiger needs the ladies to get his golf game back, and how he once thought Mary Lou Retton was his true love. And, of course, why next year will be the year the New York Knicks win the championship. This book is a series of rants—some controversial, some affectionate, but all incredibly hilarious. “Something is wrong with Michael Rapaport but that’s what makes him right,” (Charlamagne tha God).

Table of contents

• Cover
• Dedication
• An Imperative Note from the Editor
• Disruptive Behavior 101
• An Open Apology to Larry Legend
• Ain’t No Fact Checkin’
• Why Lawrence Taylor Is the Greatest Football Player Ever
• An Open Letter to Tiger Woods
• My Gold Medal Sweetheart, Mary Lou Retton
• Good Men in Bad Pieces
• Bill Russell Is Overrated, Deal with It
• Dolph Schayes and the Athletic Jews of Yesteryear
• Allen Iverson and the Weeping Woman
• The Michael Rapaport Celebrity Scouting Report, Volume 1
• #MadShaming
• Question Time for Bill Belichick
• Hookers, Pills, Dwarfs, and the Las Vegas Raiders
• Fa Fa Fantasy Football
• Twenty-Second Time-Out: Hamilton, the Musical That’s Not Hip-Hop
• Catching Punts
• LaVar Can’t Ball!!!
• The Magic of Magic
• The Beautiful Audacity of Muggsy Bogues
• Geno, Go Get Your Shine Box, Geno
• Fuck Spin Class
• Even When We Suck, New York City Is Still the Mecca
• The Irony of Charles Oakley
• The Eviction of Phil Jackson: An Absurd One-Act Play
• Halftime!: My Spiritual Connection with the Housewives of Bravo TV
• Rapaport’s Real Housewife Top Twenty Power Rankings, Volume 1
• 23 Reasons Why LeBron Will Never Be Like Mike
• Venus and Serena Kicked All the Ass, but Richard Williams Is the MVP
• Phife Dawg: Words from the Five-Foot Assassin
• If Iron Mike Tyson Can Find Inner Peace, So Can I
• Great in the Ring, Shitty in Life
• The Great White Hype of Ronda Rousey
• Why Boxers Make More Money Than MMA Fighters
• Rocky Is Great, but Not the Greatest
• The Bronx Bull, the Raging Bull
• Caitlyn, Caitlyn, Caitlyn
• Stickmen: The Ultimate List of Great Stickmen, Part 1
• These Sneakers Are Made for Walking
• Me and Ali
• The Champ
• The Skinny-Jeanification of Sports
• The Bachelor of Montana
• The Greatest Ever Eva!!!!
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Index