Bobbito Garcia's Life in Basketball

Bobbito Garcia is an influential New York DJ, author, filmmaker, radio host, and park hooper. He grew up in the city obsessed with the game of basketball, especially the unique culture of New York City outdoor pickup. He discusses his new memoir, Bobbito’s Book of B-Ball Bong Bong!: A Memoir of Sports, Style, and Soul, and listeners share stories about their time spent playing pickup ball in New York.

Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart, live from the WNYC Studios in SoHo. Thank you for spending part of your day with us. I'm really grateful that you're here. On today's show, we'll hear a live performance from singer-songwriter Eleri Ward. I just met her. She's lovely. We'll continue our Full Bio conversation about the abolitionist Charles Sumner, and we'll get some suggestions for what to add to your podcast queue, and we want to know what you're listening to. That's our plan, so let's get this started with Bobbito's book of B-ball bomba.

Two documentarians refer to Bobbito Garcia as a basketball sage. While he has been a legendary DJ and cultural historian, basketball has always been central to who he is. He played at every level of the game as a pro in Puerto Rico in college and high school, but his obsession started on courts and playgrounds around New York. Perhaps most importantly, The Goat on 99th and Amsterdam. For Bobbito, basketball has been his muse, so it's fitting that he has written a new memoir about his life story through his memories of hooping. He writes, the book is dedicated to those who "those who have crashed against poles, chain link fences and asphalt after taking it to the butter and have gotten up and kept playing." The book is called Bobbito's Book of B-Ball Bong Bong! It's out today.

Bobbito Garcia, welcome back to WNYC.

Bobbito Garcia: [exclaims] Wow. Hi, first of all. So good to see you, so great to hear your voice. Just big-up to Luke and your entire production staff for making this happen because this has been months in the making. I was like, am I going to get on? [laughter] Like a little kid.

Alison Stewart: Of course, you're going to get on. It was interesting, though, because we're going to talk about your history and all, but there's something really interesting in your book. You write, playing ball was enriching my soul. How did basketball have such an impact on your soul growing up?

Bobbito Garcia: Yes. Well, it's not just growing up. It's still to this day. The memoir documents my life from-- I'm born in 1966. It's 2025. We're living in a pandemic. We have a new administration. There is a lot of things going on globally that just are detrimental to our joy as we watch them unfold. I've constantly-- whether it's been my educational quandaries as a youth or as an adult dealing with social justice issues, I always turn to basketball as that eternal space for me to express myself in my most unique, creative, and natural way. I don't feel like myself in any other environment other than when I'm on the asphalt.

That's not to say-- You mentioned that I've made some marks as a DJ and as a filmmaker and in other entertainment realms, but ultimately I'm a ballplayer first, I'm a ballplayer last. That's how I want people to know me. Yes, I felt it was a joyride to write this book. Shout-out to Edge of Sports/Akashic for publishing it, and to any mom-and-pop brick-and-mortar stores out there carrying it today, [chuckles] big-up, thank you. Thank you. I hope it's right by the cash register. Give me a nice placement.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: Your memory is unbelievable. You write about specific plays that happened in games way back in the '70s. How did you rely on your memory for this?

Bobbito Garcia: Sure.

Alison Stewart: Any other material did you use to suss it out?

Bobbito Garcia: Sure, absolutely. Well, as any historian will tell you that you rely on your sensibilities and your own writings. I've been keeping a journal since 1990. I have very fond memories of my childhood, very exact. Some people have called me a B-ball sage. Some people have called me a savant. What I've witnessed, to me is life-affirming but also life-changing. How could one not remember the first time that they hold their newborn, or the first time that they eat a slice of pizza when they've never had-- Just all these things that we go through. The marvel, for me, and the fascination is with basketball, and that's why I remember some stuff.

I am a fact-checker and I'm a nerd, and I double-checked. If I made a claim that this woman was the best player in the city in this era, I went to like five different coaches and players and, "Would you agree with the statement?" The beauty of New York City playground history is that there's a lot of folklore; a lot of it is not embedded in documentaries and other books. The catch of it is that I was able to write about this in an honest manner and authentic one as a Latino voice who was raised on hip-hop, so that puts my book in a unique space that is unprecedented.

There's other books about the city game, and they've been incredible, but never in the voice that I present it. No knock on other authors, but most of them aren't from New York, or they're not people of color. Not to say they don't have the ability to write about it, but the way I'm writing about it is an insider's take in a passionate way and a rhythm that a ballplayer who doesn't read The New York Times would still appreciate, but it's also copy-edited and presented and it's tight so that the literary world could also be like, wow, this book is incredibly written. That's my hope, that I have multiple audiences enjoy it.

Alison Stewart: Listeners, did you grow up around New York City? Did you play basketball? We want to hear from you. Give us a call. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Do you have a favorite court to play on? Do you like watching pick-up games at tournaments in the summer? Our number is 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. My guest is Bobbito Garcia. His new book about him, about his life, about basketball is Bobbito's Book of B-Ball Bong Bong! Part memoir, part history of pick-up basketball in New York.

You played every day for years. You cut high school to go play. You bring your ball everywhere, and then serious hours to get better. When was the moment when you became obsessed with basketball, when you became dedicated to the game?

Bobbito Garcia: Yes. That's 1980/'81, the winter. I'm not proud of having cut classes at Brooklyn Tech, but I just caught the fever like nobody's business, and I had to become a better ballplayer. Basketball in the city, as some of your callers will share, is everywhere. You can't escape it. We have 700-plus courts. I did a love letter in documentary form titled Doin' It in the Park: Pick-Up Basketball, NYC. It was on PBS, Netflix. This was released 12 years ago.

I've been documenting this movement for decades. I was writing for the SLAM magazine, and VIBE magazine, and The Source in the '90s, and prior to that-- My book is not just a history of New York City basketball since 1960. It's my personal narrative, but it's also an art book. My 35mm photography is in there for the last 30 years, most of which has never been published. It's a triple threat that I'm very proud of.

Yes, when I was 14, I just got overtaken where-- I'm pop culture challenged, Alison. People make jokes about, I don't know, good times or- I don't even know, what's happening, whatever TV shows are huge, and Mad Max. I don't know anything about that. I was playing ball.

Alison Stewart: That's it.

Bobbito Garcia: That's all I wanted to do. That's all I still want to do. I'm about to be 60 in 2026. I just want to play ball. I have dreams about playing basketball, you understand? As a 58-year-old, I'm still having-- waking up, I'm at the park. It's ingrained in me.

Alison Stewart: What about New York basketball makes it a unique experience?

Bobbito Garcia: Well, New York just, period, is a unique experience. We know that as New Yorkers, if you're born and raised here or if you've moved here and lived here long enough. In the basketball space, you have an intersection with hip-hop. You have an intersection with sneakers. You have an intersectionality, as Linda Sarsour likes to say.

I've played at courts where one player is unhoused. That's not going to happen at NYU Coles Center. That's not going to happen at the Levien Gym in Columbia. That's not going to happen at the New York Athletic Club. That's not going to happen at the Reebok Club. It's not going to happen at Parks and Recreation Department gyms. It can only happen in an outdoor space. I've had games where members on the court were non-binary, non-gender conforming. I've had such a range. I've played 3-on-3s with priests. I'm not saying like all five players were priests and me. It was like, there's a priest, there's me, there's a yuppie. Where are you going to get that mix of players? Not at a tennis club, not at the golf club. It's basketball. It's the number one [crosstalk]--

Alison Stewart: It's the true meaning of diversity. It's a true meaning of diversity.

Bobbito Garcia: Yes, it's the true essence of activity. It's the number one participatory sport in the world right now, and it hasn't even reached its peak. That's the most uncanny thing about it. We live here in New York, in the centerpiece of the movement. It's the Mecca. I've traveled to 47, 48 countries around the world, 6 continents. New Zealand, Senegal, Costa Rica. Everybody wants to play in New York outdoors. They don't say, I want to play in Madison Square Garden. They say, I want to play at West 4th and Rucker Park. [chuckles]

Alison Stewart: Yes, go to The Cage.

Bobbito Garcia: That's incredible. We are household names for this sport globally. No other city can say that.

Alison Stewart: Let's take a couple calls. Let's talk to-

Bobbito Garcia: Sure, please.

Alison Stewart: -Craig from the Bronx. Hi, Craig. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Craig: Hey, how are you doing? There used to be a court way over on the East Side in the '90s. That was one of the only courts that was lit with lights at night [crosstalk]--

Bobbito Garcia: Lighted, yes, 96th and First Avenue, right by FDR Drive. Absolutely.

Craig: It was so awesome, and we used to play there. Me being a tall, lanky white kid, we were lucky if we stayed on for two rounds. These guys were so freaking good. If you had a breakaway, there was no one near you, and you were going to the basket on your own, you knew you were getting thrown in the fence and you were praying that it wasn't that hard. We used to call that the Aunt Jemima treatment because you have the chain link lines all over your body when you got thrown in, so that was-- but loved playing there, and like you said, you meet everybody. We even played with a couple of girls who were way better than me.

Alison Stewart: [laughs] Thanks for calling, Craig. Let's talk to Leah from Manhattan. Hi, Leah. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Leah: Hi. I'm so excited to hear this conversation. I just joined my first pick-up basketball league this summer. I did it because, like you, I'm just so passionate about playing basketball and getting to join the people on my crew and on the team. Shout-out to [unintelligible 00:12:59] basketball. I travel from Inwood all the way down to Greenpoint just to play these games, but it's been fun. It's a coed team, and as a woman, it's been fun [unintelligible 00:13:09] the first time [unintelligible 00:13:10] demographic where I thought it was really just a men's sport, but I love hearing how you've seen it change demographically. Is there any women's pick-up team that you follow or that you're excited about, you want to give a shout-out to?

Bobbito Garcia: Absolutely. Well, there's a dear friend of mine named Amber Batchelor. She was featured in New York Times- well, I was the one who told The Times about her, but she started an all-women's pick-up run on Sundays at The Goat, which is a legendary park in basketball folklore, but it's also legendary in the hip-hop space too because it's also known as Rock Steady Park. It's on 99th Street and Amsterdam. They're there Sundays.

From the pick-up run catching so much steam, she started a tournament called Ladies Who Hoop and then Future Ladies Who Hoop for young girls, but Ladies Who Hoop is the first tournament possibly in the world that's run by women, all the referees are women, the announcer is a woman, and all the players are women. They're on 92nd Street between Central Park West and Columbus every weekend. Look up Ladies Who Hoop online. You can find out more information about them.

Amber is as a leader in this space, and she set off-- now there's other pick-up runs around the city, in Brooklyn, right off of Fifth Avenue and 5th Street and Park Slope, there's an all-women's run. There's a trans run organized by Basketball Dolls in Brooklyn and Bushwick as well. Again, the outdoor space is just so welcoming. It's not always cute either. Things could set off in a violent context because that's just what the city is. You're not walking into a secure space, but for the most part, people are respectful and joyful and participate and love what they get out of it and who they meet while they're playing.

Alison Stewart: I wanted to ask you about Goat Park at 99th and Amsterdam. It got its name from a guy named Earl Manigault. Tell us who Earl Manigault was and his history to New York City basketball.

Bobbito Garcia: Yes, absolutely. He is as large of a figure as it gets. He was mentioned initially in the Pete Axthelm book in 1970 called The City Game, where Axthelm followed the New York Knicks, but he also started following all these legendary figures uptown in Harlem: Helicopter Herm, Earl Manigault, AKA The Goat. I was fortunate to grow up right across the street from 99th and Amsterdam, and so Earl Manigault was a mentor and an inspiration not just to me, but to everybody from our community on the Upper West Side, as well as Harlem. Cats would come downtown, women would come downtown to 99th and play.

He ran a tournament there as well starting in the '70s called Walk Away From Drugs. He passed away in the late '90s. The Parks and Recreation Department renamed the court in his honor. I run a tournament called FC21, which is 1-on-5, in 30 international locations. Every summer, all the winners come to New York to compete for the title of the best 1-on-5 player in the world, both in men's and women's, high school boys and high school girls, and I do it at The Goat. That's me paying homage to the legend, because I could do it in whatever park I want, but it's also where I grew up, and so that park is very dear to me.

There's a whole chapter about The Goat-- actually, there's two chapters about The Goat in my book, both me as a player coming up, but also about him, the person, and who just gave so much back to all of us, and his memory lives on. There was a film about him on HBO called Rebound, and Don Cheadle, the great actor, portrayed Earl Manigault. Yes, he's as legendary as it gets.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Bobbito Garcia, author, filmmaker, DJ, and a big figure in New York City basketball. We're speaking about his new book, Bobbito's Book of B-Ball Bong Bong! It's part memoir, part history of basketball in New York. Are you like Bobbito and you grew up playing pick-up ball around the city? What makes New York a great experience to play pick-up hoops? Our number is 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. We'll have more with you, our callers, and with Bobbito after a quick break. This is All Of It.

You're listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest is Bobbito Garcia. We're speaking about his new book, Bobbito's Book of B-Ball Bong Bong! We are talking about pick-up basketball in New York City. His book is about memoir about his life's experience with basketball. You played it your whole life, and you played it in both sort of organized ball, Bobbito, in high school and college, and you've also played it at the court. What's the difference between the two?

Bobbito Garcia: Huge. There's a great divide there. Of course, there's plenty of similarities in that you have a ball, you have a rim, you have a backboard, but when you're playing outdoors, you don't necessarily need a backboard or a rim. You could just be dribbling on the sidewalk in front of your building or in front of a bodega, looking at the reflection in the window, working on your handle.

When you play in a park, you could walk up, and there's no referees, there's no coaches. You get on a court, and now you're trying to figure out how to win the game against someone who you have no idea is, you have no scouting report. You would have teammates. It's a lot of spontaneous activity, a lot of spontaneous creation. In the context where you don't have a play, and you have to figure out how to score and how to win, that allows someone, one, to grow and develop and evolve not just as a ballplayer, but as a human being.

There's a book by Professor David Hollander at NYU called How Basketball Can Change the World. He really talks about how the sport really allows community, partnership, all these qualities that really would improve life. I'm on his team for that. He was able to get United Nations to create World Basketball Day on December 21st, which is the day that the game was first played back in 1891.

Yes, outdoors is just people can play on a trash can, on a fire escape, they could play on the monkey bars. It's endless. That's why it's the number one participatory sport, because you can't stop it. You don't need a field, you don't need cleats, you don't need a bunch of equipment. You just need a ball, and sometimes you don't even need a ball.

Alison Stewart: It was interesting hearing you talk. You described to me a creative endeavor for a person, having to think about how he's going to perform, in a way.

Bobbito Garcia: Well, it's almost and the absence of thinking, because once you get into the rhythm of the game and you-- I mean, you have to think. You have to get the fundamentals; how do I bend my knees? How do I dribble? How do I pass? How do I shoot? Once you get past that stage, with either a mentor or a coach or a trainer or your parent or an elder, then you get to the space where you're really just flowing. In the organized context, there are moments when you are allowed to do that, but in the pick-up space, that's all it is.

Then you have kids who freestyle, who aren't even in a contest to win or lose, but just doing tricks, ball handling, fancy, and that space is infinite. I was part of a commercial in 2001 called Nike Freestyle. I'm one of the people who makes a cameo with NBA players and a bunch of talented ballplayers from New York and beyond. That commercial won awards in the advertising realm, but it still to this day is being mimicked. Still today, people are doing freestyle on camera, on social media.

That's why basketball-- Football, we call it soccer here in the United States, has a lot of the same qualities and a lot of similarities as well. You see people dribbling with their foot for 15 minutes, doing incredible things, catching it on their head. Basketball has that same space.

Alison Stewart: We got good calls. Andy is calling in from Manhattan. Hey, Andy. Thanks for taking the time to call All Of It.

Andy: Hey, thank you for taking my call. Hey, I'm glad to hear Bobbito wrote a memoir. I used to play with him down on 14th Street at the Y on the lunchtime run. He's a great guy.

Bobbito Garcia: Hey, Andy. I remember you. Hi.

Andy: Hey, Bobbito. Good to hear. Hey, you mentioned you played with a bunch or cast of different kinds of people. We used to play with a lot of people down at the Y that were a lot of actors and writers. It was an interesting group of people. The artists are another group that we used to play with. One of my memories was one time, Woody Harrelson came down and played, and the White Men Can't Jump, so it was a fun thing for me. I was guarding him in one game.

Seriously, I have a question for Bobbito. I'm two years older than him, and he is in love with basketball as well, but it doesn't age too well, Bobbito, so what's the plan for the 60s? How are you going to keep your game going? Like tennis has pickleball. We need a sport that can keep us going into our 70s.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: Andy, good call.

Bobbito Garcia: Yes. Well, Andy, you just brought up a memory that actually, I mentioned the 14th Street Y in my memoir, Bobbito's Book of B-Ball Bong Bong! I don't know if you remember Adam Rapp, who later became a Pulitzer Prize author, playwright. He was a regular at the 14th Street Y as well. Ramón Rodríguez, who worked at the 14th Street Y, is now the lead actor/executive producer/director of the ABC hit series Will Trent. Then we had Old Man Johnny, who was literally in his late 60s playing pick-up with us on a regular basis, who had an eight pack. He used to get us upset because he would take his T-shirt, like, "Johnny, please put your T-shirt on," and be like, "No, man, I got an eight pack in my 60s. I'm proud of this." "All right, cool. Play with your T-shirt off." That's the greatness of pick-up basketball.

Regarding as I enter my 60s in 2026, I stretch, I stay hydrated, I run. I don't play basketball to get in shape; I get in shape to play basketball. I think that's a big difference. That I've always been an advocate of taking care of yourself, wellness, meditation, sleep, all those things. Of course, supplements for my knees, Chondroitin, and-- What is it? I forget the name. I'm spacing on it right now, but there's vitamins you could take that-- fish oil for your knees and all these other things that help support people who are aging, but basketball still for those as well.

People are always like, oh, how do you play on the asphalt all these decades? Look at Jack Ryan. Jack Ryan is a playground legend who's in his-- How old is he now? He's like 63, 64, and he's still going park to park on his bicycle, playing, schooling young kids. I'm an advocate and evangelist for the sport for all that it could present. Even if it's just going out there and just shooting three-foot jump shots on the backboard, you still get a sweat. You don't have to be playing 5-on-5 and all that.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Michael from Manhattan. Hey, Michael. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Michael: Hey, how are you doing? This conversation reminded me of one of the funniest stories of my-- When I was in my 20s, I had a friend visit from San Francisco, and like most San Franciscans, he was from the Midwest and medium height, white guy. We went out-- As a good New Yorker, I took him out to the Blue Note, listened to some jazz, and then we're walking by the cages on West 4th, and his eyes just like popped up, and he's like, what is this? I'm like, this is where the best ballplayers in the city play.

He was in like an oxford shirt and khaki pants and sneakers, and he just got on the court, and he played until like 2:00 in the morning. He was like the biggest adrenaline rush for him. He must have played some college ball, but that was the last I saw my friend for the whole week. He just went there every day. [laughter] It was crazy for him. It's an amazing energy in that cage that this guy just tapped into, and it was the funniest thing.

Bobbito Garcia: It's intoxicating. I can say as a player at West 4th playing pick-up as well as the organized tournament that they've been doing there since 1977, both for men and for women, it's one of the premier locations in the world. A ton of NBA players have played there, Anthony Mason, Smush Parker, Mario Elie, but a ton of people have just played pick-up there, and it's theater. You can get entertained at the Blue Note, you can get entertained at the Minetta Lane Theater right down the block, and then you can come to West 4th, and there's people talking smack, there's people on a fence. It's as animated as it gets. I loved playing there. I loved playing there.

Alison Stewart: All right, we've got one more minute, but I feel it's really important to ask you this.

Bobbito Garcia: Okay.

Alison Stewart: What lessons do you think you've learned that you could have only learned from being on the court?

Bobbito Garcia: Too many, but I will say this. I was scouted to play professionally in Puerto Rico on the asphalt. It was at The Goat, AKA Rock Steady Park, where I grew up. That was the opportunity of my life, because not only was I able to fulfill my dream of playing professionally overseas, my father's dream. That's nuestra patria. That's our homeland. The light bulb went in my head. I was like, wow. I worked seven, eight years towards a goal, and it was presented to me by playing pick-up, and I'm not the only one.

What I've learned from playing outdoors is that the universe opens up in such a beautiful way when you work hard and when you're creative, and you put your time in and your effort, and I've carried that to every career shift and pivot that I've had ever since.

Alison Stewart: Bobbito's Book of B-Ball Bong Bong! It's available now. Bobbito, it's nice to talk to you.

Bobbito Garcia: Aw, thank you, Alison. This is like my third or fourth visit here, and every time it's just a thrill. I feel like I'm at The Cage right now, but--

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: Thanks, Bobbito.