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After World War II, when basketball courts sprang up in Philadelphia neighborhoods, thousands of young men devoted their teenage years trying to become superstars. During the 1950s and 1960s, players like Tom Gola, Ernie Beck, and Dippy Carosi, and later Hal Lear and Wilt Chamberlain, recreated the game of basketball into an East Coast love affair. In May of 1949, at age thirteen, author Doug Leaman fell in love with basketball, and his quest for stardom revolved around a pair of sneakers, ...