Anyone who has spent time in Syracuse, New York, knows that basketball season is the most wonderful time of the year. And while the local popularity of the sport is known nationwide, the region also has a long and rich basketball history. Sports historian Mark Baker traces the evolution of Syracuse's "hoops roots,"? beginning in the early days, when local, national and college basketball organizations were primitive institutions. It was during this time that one of the first teams to gain a national following was founded here by an Italian immigrant, Danny Biasone, and it was in Syracuse that the 24 second clock was invented. From the outset, Syracuse residents and fans were hooked, and this love of the game has endured, feeding the fanaticism that sustains the sport today.
Mark Allen Baker is a former business executive (General Electric/Genigraphics Corporation, assistant to the president and CEO), author (fifteen books), historian and writer (over two hundred articles). A graduate of the State University of New York, with postgraduate work completed at MIT, RIT and George Washington University, his expertise has been referenced in numerous periodicals, including USA Today, Sports Illustrated and Money magazine. Following his 1997 book, Goldmine's Price Guide to Rock & Roll Memorabilia, he appeared as a co-host on the VH-1 series Rock Collectors. Baker has also been a featured speaker at many events, including the Hemingway Days Festival and Writers Conference in Key West, Florida. He may also be familiar to some as the former co-owner of Bleachers Restaurant & Sports Bar (Liverpool, New York). Acting as a historian for the International Boxing Hall of Fame, Baker is the only individual who has been a volunteer, chairperson and sponsor of an Induction Weekend event, both inside and outside the village of Canastota. He has also published artwork, articles and books related to the museum. Baker turns his attention to the hardwood for a book about basketball to be published in the fall of 2010.