Shawn's Blog

A reminder, I'm writing at tvfury.wordpress.com

2011-12-27T16:06:00.003-05:00

If you've missed me pontificating for thousands of words on the NBA or Janesville, I've been doing a bit of it at tvfury.wordpress.com. Check out my posts here. But I will keep posting on my own blog as well, especially when I need to rationalize slow starts by the Lakers.

Seeking hope from the 1991 Lakers

2011-12-27T08:00:00.001-05:00

See if this sounds familiar:

The Lakers, led by a legendary guard, start the season 0-2. A new coach takes over, replacing a legend who won multiple titles but went out in embarrassing fashion in the second round of the playoffs. That legendary guard isn't what he once was, but is still one of the best in the game. The second-best player is probably a bit past his prime but still effective, though he, too, is coming off a disappointing playoff performance. A beloved bench player left town. The new coach preaches a different style, a new offensive system that replaces one that was so well-known - and so dominant - it went by a single word.

That's the 2011-12 Lakers. But it was also the 1991 Lakers. Chances are this season doesn't end like that one, but Lakers fans can at least hope it does, by looking back on how that 1991 season began.

Magic Johnson was the legendary guard, not Kobe Bryant. Mike Dunleavy was the new coach, not Mike Brown. Pat Riley was the legendary coach, not Phil Jackson, and the Lakers lost 4-1 to Phoenix, instead of being swept by Dallas. James Worthy was the second-best player, not Pau Gasol. The beloved bench player who left was Michael Cooper, not Lamar Odom. And Mike Brown has replaced the Triangle, in the same way Dunleavy - and the Lakers' older legs - spelled the end of Showtime.

Like this season, the Lakers started the 1991 campaign on national television, losing 110-99 to San Antonio in a game that's only memorable because it was the first regular season game broadcast on NBC, which had replaced CBS. Hello, John Tesh. The Lakers lost to Portland in overtime in their second game and after a victory, dropped two more to fall to 1-4, inciting panic throughout LA. The Lakers were done. Magic was too old, Dunleavy too dumb, Worthy too horny (he was arrested in Houston early in the year for soliciting a prostitute). The Lakers had picked up Sam Perkins and Terry Teagle in the offseason, but these weren't the '80s Lakers. Portland, which won the West in 1990, becoming the first team other than the Lakers or Houston to win the conference since 1979, was the overwhelming favorite.

But on their way to the graveyard - where they could join other '80s relics like the 76ers, the Rockets and the Celtics - the Lakers turned their season around. They won eight in a row, then, later in the season, ripped off a 16-game winning streak.

The Lakers adapted, making things nice and easy for headline writers who must have scribbled a "From Showtime to Slowtime" line at some point during the season. They could still run on occasion - even today, at 52, Magic could probably lead a break as well as anyone and he certainly could in 1991. But Worthy and Scott had slowed down and Cooper was gone. Instead the Lakers relied on a devastating post-up game. Magic and Worthy could dominate in the paint. Vlade Divac was in his second year and had developed a nifty game, when Magic wasn't yelling at him. And Perkins showed off a back-to-the-basket arsenal few knew he possessed. Four players who could post up at anytime, an advantage that was unmatched in the league. Was it as fun to watch as the 1987 Lakers? Hardly. But it was still highly effective.

Not effective? New addition Terry Teagle. This seems weird to say 20 years later, but I was quite excited when the Lakers signed Teagle before the 1991 season. Teagle. He came with a reputation as a streak scorer, someone who would provide instant offense off the bench. Instead he never found his role, his awkward-looking baseline jumper clanked out more than it fell and not even Magic could turn him into the sixth man they needed.

Still, the Lakers won 58 games and swept Houston in the opening round. The second round featured an entertaining matchup against Golden State, led by Tim Hardaway, Mitch Richmond and Chris Mullin. The Warriors - who played defense then the same way they play it now - stunned the Lakers in the second game and barely lost Game 3. They eventually fell in five but not before Lakers fans had flashbacks to previous playoff flameouts against Phoenix and Houston.

In the Western Conference Finals, the Lakers faced heavily favored Portland. But after stealing the first game and winning Games 3 and 4 with ease in LA, the Lakers held the advantage. Game 6, when LA eliminated Portland, featured Magic's famous clock-killing pass to no one in the final seconds.

The Finals were a dream matchup that year, with everyone finally getting to see Magic vs. Michael, a series people waited years to witness, in the same way everyone's waited for Kobe to face LeBron. Unfortunately, one player - Jordan - was in his athletic prime while the other wasn't quite as dominant as he had been. Again the Lakers stole Game 1, winning it on a Sam Perkins 3-pointer and a Jordan miss at the buzzer - yes, Michael Jordan did not hit every game-winning shot he attempted, no matter what the kids might have heard. The series turned in Game 3, when the Lakers squandered a double-digit advantage in the second half and Jordan drilled a difficult game-tying shot over Vlade in regulation, before sealing the deal in overtime. Two games later, Jordan had his first title. Five months later, Magic retired. It was another decade before the Lakers won another title.

But back to those Finals. I still believe the Lakers would have had a great chance at victory if they'd won Game 3 and taken a 2-1 lead. More importantly, they could have won if James Worthy had not been hobbled by a devastating ankle sprain, which he suffered in Game 5 of the Portland series. The injury robbed Worthy of all his quickness, he was unable to take advantage of Scottie Pippen down low, who famously switched to guarding Magic later in the series. Alas.

The series ended with Worthy and an injured Byron Scott sitting out Game 5. Seven Lakers played that game: Magic, Perkins, Vlade, Teagle, Tony Smith and rookie Elden Campbell. Blech. Yet the Lakers led late. And Magic still managed to dish out a remarkable 20 assists. Twenty assists, while passing to those teammates. For those who sometimes say Magic was made much better by playing with Kareem, Worthy and so many other great players, Game 5 of the 1991 NBA Finals should be offered up as proof that Magic could rack up assists playing next to anyone. The difference, of course, was on the scoreboard.

So now, 21 years later, can the Lakers repeat that performance and pull out one more magical run behind an aging legendary guard? Who knows. In the shorter season, there's less room for error. With Kobe Bryant's injuries racking up on a nightly basis, he's not as dominant as Magic was in 1991. Gasol seems to have lost something - a step or his fire - in a way Worthy had not in 1991. But at 0-2 it's far too soon to bury the Lakers, even if that sounds like someone whose head is buried in the sand. The West isn't what it was a few years ago, when 50-win teams only had the 8 seed. Dallas is in disarray, the Spurs are another year into their fossilization and who knows if Memphis can repeat what it did in 2011. Oklahoma City's the clear favorite, just like Portland was in 1991. The Clippers look like a force (okay, so that is something that's different from '91). If the Lakers can stay relatively healthy and get homecourt at least in the first round of the playoffs, they could do some damage.

And then maybe they'll face the Heat in the Finals, who will take on the role of the Bulls. They'd be younger and hungrier than the old warriors from LA. They'd probably win it in five or six games. LeBron - in his prime, while Kobe is not - would get his first title, just like Jordan won his. It wouldn't be the worst ending for the Lakers.

But first they have to win at least one game in the regular season.

****

A bunch of vids from 1991, including from the invaluable YouTube user non-player zealot. Search 1991 on his page for a bunch more.

A look back at Big Game James

2011-10-16T19:09:00.000-04:00

I'm not a conspiracy theory guy. Birthers, Truthers, New World Orders, whatever.

But for awhile I firmly believed that an anti-Laker cabal operated NBA TV's programming. This is a small conspiracy group - our numbers are, well, one. And it's not the type of conspiracy that attracts the attention of Art Bell, Alex Jones or Jesse Ventura. But it affected me. For years - but even more so since the lockout started and NBA TV's programming has consisted of old NBA games, 87 screenings of Teen Wolf, 76 of One on One and 64 of The Fish that Saved Pittsburgh - I watched as the network seemed to only play Lakers losses or Celtics victories. Seemed like every time I turned it on, NBA TV showed Game 4 of the 1984 Finals, or Game 7 from that series or Game 5 of the 1987 ECF or Game 2 of the 1991 Western semis. They showed Lakers collapses and Celtic triumphs.

I wasn't sure who was in charge but I figured they wore green to the office and spoke with an annoying accent.

But a few weeks ago, I flipped to NBA TV and settled in for a long night that celebrated Laker players and victories. Specifically, the network aired Game 7 of the 1988 Western Conference Finals and Game 6 of the NBA Finals, both dramatic LA victories. Plus, a biography of James Worthy's career played before those two games. Hmm, how would this affect my conspiracy theory? Surely it punched holes in my beliefs, and if I actually analyzed the programming I'd realize that I had often seen games from the 1985 NBA Finals or even '87. We'll see. Perhaps I'll accept that there's not anti-Laker bias at the network. Or, like other conspiracy theorists, I'll simply ignore the evidence and bend small pieces of unrelated evidence into a grand theory that re-affirms my warped outlook.

Regardless, that night gave me a chance to watch five hours of James Worthy at his finest. And James Worthy at his finest was strong in the post, fast on the break, quick on the block, efficient on the perimeter, powerful at the rim and practically technically perfect in the paint.

He was the third most-important member of the 1980s Lakers, but while Kareem Abdul-Jabbar towered over the league and Magic Johnson created Showtime, Worthy proved the perfect complement to both and an often-dominant force in his own right. Along with Kareem's sky hook, Worthy's low-post game gave the Lakers an unstoppable inside combination, two options the Lakers always went to whenever someone did slow down the fast break.

Ah, the fast break. Showtime would have existed without Worthy - in fact, it did before the Lakers drafted him with the first pick in 1982 - but it wouldn't have been as effective. And it certainly wouldn't have been as breath-taking.

Worthy came to the Lakers after starring at North Carolina, where he led the Tar Heels to the 1982 national championship. Here's a great video on Worthy's Tar Heels days.

Watching this, you see many of the moves that he later perfected with the Lakers, minus the goggles. And hearing one of the coaches talk, it sounds like Worthy had many of the same moves going all the way back to 8th grade. Probably had the same beard. Strangely, Worthy's freshman year ended when he broke his leg, the same way his rookie year ended with the Lakers in 1983. In the 1982 title game - which ended with Worthy accepting a misguided pass from Georgetown's Fred Brown in the closing seconds - Worthy dominated, hitting 13-for-17 from the floor for 28 points, though he was overshadowed by the winning shot by a freshman named Jordan.

The Lakers drafted Worthy a few weeks after winning the 1982 NBA title, taking advantage of the No. 1 pick through moves that seemed to define the early 1980s, when great teams got even better thanks to bizarre trades with bad teams that always got worse.

For his career, Worthy averaged 17.6 points and shot 52 percent from the floor. That shooting percentage actually dropped quite a bit at the end of his career, when Magic went away, followed by Worthy's knees and quickness. His first eight seasons in the league, Worthy never shot below 54 percent. But Worthy made his reputation in the playoffs - Big Game James did not earn the moniker because of December games against the Kings. In the postseason, Worthy increased his career scoring mark to 21.1 points per game.

Not that Worthy was infallible in the biggest moments. Lakers fans can still picture his pass in Game 2 of the 1984 NBA Finals. The Lakers were up 1-0 in the series against the Celtics and by two in the game. But Worthy's lazy pass - which hung in the air like a Ray Guy punt - never found its target. Gerald Henderson stole it, went in for a layup while Johnny Most's black heart burst with joy, and the Celtics stole the game and eventually the series, also helped along by big missed free throws by Worthy in Game 4. Five years later, in another Game 2, this one against the Pistons, Worthy missed a free throw in the final seconds that could have forced OT, though without Magic and Byron Scott, the free throw likely would have only delayed the inevitable.

But usually Worthy more than lived up to his nickname, and his last name. His greatest moment came in Game 7 of the 1988 NBA Finals, when he scored 36 points, grabbed 16 rebounds and dished out 10 assists as the Lakers survived against the Pistons and became the first repeat champion in 19 years. That performance came against one of the great defensive teams of all time, the Bad Boys. Mahorn, Rodman, Salley, Laimbeer, the Pistons threw everything at Worthy, and he kept throwing everything down.

A year later the Pistons got their revenge as the gods took out Magic and Scott's hamstrings. The undermanned Lakers - Kareem was on his last legs, in his last games, and David Rivers and Tony Campbell had prominent roles - lost in four, even though they led in the fourth quarter of the final three games. The final game, however, saw Worthy again at the top of his game. He finished with 40 points. It's one of his most underrated performances, lost in the defeat and in his own Game 7 effort from two years earlier. But everything in the Worthy arsenal was on display.

Here's the first quarter from that game. It's a long video. Worth it.

At one point Worthy hits eight straight shots, again against one of the best defenses in league history. It's a unique mixture of power and finesse, aggressiveness and patience. If you want to fast-forward a bit, go to the six-minute mark - that's when Worthy hits his first shot and then a brawl nearly breaks out after Mahorn flattens Michael Cooper.

Worthy's real explosion begins at the 14-minute mark: Jumper from just inside the 3-point line; up-and-under fake, back with the left hand; fearless drive to hoop for finger roll; turnaround jumper on post; 15-foot jumper; monster dunk off the break (great no-call on a possible charge on Coop); 17-foot jumper.

Worthy put on those types of displays throughout his career. Hakeem Olajuwon and Kevin McHale were generally regarded as the two post players with the best moves down low during that era, but Worthy wasn't far behind. He possessed the full array, moves he perfected and practically patented. When he faced the basket and a defender, he was equally comfortable going left or right. A drive to the right often brought a finger-roll. To the left he could explode to the basket for a dunk. He'd hold the ball for a few seconds, staring into the defender's eyes. He'd do a bit of an Ali shuffle and then make his move, when he wasn't simply pulling up for a better-than-you-think jumper.

When he pump-faked inside, Worthy used both arms, his head and nearly his entire upper body to sell the move. Defenders might not bite on the first or even the second, but he'd do it until they did and finish it off with a finger-roll. He could spin off a defender the second he caught a pass with his back to the basket and roll in for a dunk. Or he could simply nail a turnaround jumper, spinning to the baseline or the paint.

But the reason Worthy's low-post brilliance doesn't resonate quite as much is because the enduring image of the 6-9 forward is of him swooping from the lane for a dunk on a Lakers fast break. He might have been the best finisher in NBA history, able to glide in for a layup or power in for a dunk. When Magic grabbed the ball Worthy ran down the court like a 100-meter sprinter, looking up once he crossed halfcourt, just waiting for the moment when Magic would deliver a no-look pass.

Worthy's dunks almost always looked the same. Right arm fully extended, it seemed like all he had to do was flick his wrist at the rim.

People occasionally debate just how good Worthy would have been if he hadn't played with the Lakers, specifically with Magic. It seems people have that discussion about Worthy more than they do about any other Hall of Famer. Worthy's numbers - especially his shooting percentage - did drop when Magic retired. But the years he spent running full speed while Magic played contributed to his decline once Magic left. His knees finally gave out. Physically he was nowhere near the same player, meaning the easy baskets didn't come like they once did. He still could dominate down low. And he showed in those '89 Finals - when Magic played about a game and a half - that he would have been able to score no matter who was at point.

Worthy wasn't a great ball-handler and he was never a shutdown defender, although he did a good job of harassing Larry Bird in both the 1985 and '87 Finals. Plus, one of the most famous plays of his career - the steal in Game 6 of the '87 Finals - came on the defensive end. But he was the perfect offensive weapon for the Showtime Lakers, sleek, dangerous, a cruise missile flying down the Forum's court, launched by order of Pat Riley and controlled by Magic Johnson.

In Worthy's final Finals appearance, he limped along in a way that foreshadowed his final seasons. Worthy suffered a severe ankle sprain in Game 5 of the WCF against Portland. He managed to play as the Lakers clinched in six. But against the Bulls, Worthy staggered along, robbed of all his quickness. Each time he scored, he labored back. There were no fast-break dunks, few classic Worthy finishes in the paint. People said Scottie Pippen got the best of him, but that was only because Worthy was on one leg. Yet he still averaged 19 a game, before finally sitting out the decisive Game 5.

If he'd been healthy...I tell myself the Lakers might have pulled it off. They would have won a sixth title since 1980, would have delayed the Bulls dynasty a year. And 20 years later, NBA TV would have replayed the Lakers' victory in the 1991 NBA Finals.

Or not replayed it.

Death of a friend

2011-09-23T13:05:00.001-04:00

When someone dies following an illness, the obituary often reveals the deceased "was surrounded by family and friends." The line is an affirmation that in their final moments, when they left this life and death arrived, they were with those who loved them most. It can also provide at least a shred of comfort to the survivors during a tragic time.

Last Saturday, Janesville native Keith Wiste died at the age of 39 in Mankato. He took his own life, after battling depression for years. He left behind his devastated parents, older brothers Paul and Rob, younger sister Catherine, nieces, nephews and countless friends. Anyone who knew Keith liked him, and those who knew him well loved him. The thought of Keith being alone in his final moments is unbearable, the mental images something out of a nightmare. It rips at your guts, brings tears to your eyes and an ache to your heart.

Even in a town of 2,000 people, it's not quite true that everybody knows everybody. But everyone knew Keith and his family. Keith's dad, Ron, owned Wiste's grocery store, a renowned meat market that had been a fixture in Janesville seemingly since the time the town first appeared as a dot on a map.

Growing up, I looked up to Keith, who was three years older than me. Like small towns everywhere, sports drove life in Janesville. Keith played football, baseball and basketball. At his parents' house, Keith, his brothers and dad hosted countless basketball games at the hoop in their backyard. Every kid in town knew about the hoop at Wistes and had an open invitation to shoot anytime they wanted.

When I was younger I couldn't beat Keith or the other older kids who would one day go on to star at our local high school. But I tried. Keith graduated in 1990, a member of the first graduating class from the newly formed Janesville-Waldorf-Pemberton. He graduated from Southwest State University in Marshall. Over the next decade, he coached girls' and boys' basketball teams at numerous schools in southern Minnesota, staying involved in the game he'd loved since childhood. For a few years he coached at his old school, JWP, a tenure filled with difficult losses and even tougher times, but even that did little to dampen Keith's enthusiasm for a life on the sideline. Coaching was in his blood. He also umped and reffed. It wasn't just coaching - sports were in his blood.

He also owned his own successful business, Wiste's Continuous Concrete Edging; of the numerous online tributes to Keith, many include comments from customers, who remember him for his work ethic, craftsmanship and personality.

Those are just a few of the facts of Keith's life.

Keith the man? He was funny, generous, personable, outgoing, helpful, quick-witted, empathetic and owned a smile that lit up his whole face and any room he was in. He loved his nieces and nephews. He had one maneuver - a point and smile - that he executed so often and so well, a friend noted online that it was a "patented" Keith move. He was...alive.

And he suffered from depression. Keith endured a couple of debilitating bouts with the dreaded disease, but had been doing well for more than a decade, committed to taking the medications he knew helped him stay healthy. But his latest, final battle with the disease came after he had stopped taking the medicine. He reached out to his family, who, like always, rallied to his side. By the time he started back on his medication, the darkness must have been too overpowering. Suicide was the cause of death, but depression killed him, as surely as cancer and diabetes kills its victims.

His wake on Tuesday brought hundreds of people to the Janesville funeral home, situated along the old Highway 14. The people came to remember Keith and to offer comfort and support to his grieving family. Scheduled to run between 4 and 8 p.m., the wake lasted until just before 10 p.m., the line of people stretching out the door practically from the time it began until it finally ended six hours later. The people who stood in line were his friends, or knew his folks, or shopped at Wiste's, or graduated with his sister or worked with his brother or hired him for a job. So often, when a person commits suicide, their life becomes defined by the way it ended, instead of how it was lived. Those people made their way to the funeral home because Keith died, but they were really there because of the way he lived.

It's impossible to fully understand the pain that drives someone to suicide, just as it's equally difficult finding the words to describe what was lost. Anything besides "I'm so sorry for your loss" sounds inadequate. You could search the writings of prophets and poets and still never find the words that adequately explain the pain the victim felt or the hurt that crushes those left behind.

His funeral on a cool, rainy Wednesday packed the Lutheran church in Janesville. Those who crammed into the pews and balcony said goodbye to Keith and listened to the thoughtful, comforting words of pastor Larry Griffin, who attempted to explain the unexplainable. But not even the heavens can ever truly answer the question we'll never stop asking: why?

Death brings small towns together, physically and emotionally. There's comfort in numbers, or at least a bit of support. You see people you grew up with and thought you'd grow old with, before college and relationships and jobs and...life separated you from them and your town. You gather to mourn, while regretting that it took the death of a friend to bring everyone together. At Keith's wake and funeral I talked to people I haven't seen in 15 years, sat next to folks I've barely spoken with since graduating 18 years ago. It was like an all-school reunion. If you took all the old basketball talent that gathered together you would have had an alumni team that could compete against just about anyone. Of course, we would have been missing the guy with a potent outside shot - Keith.

I last saw Keith over Christmas, when I was home from New York and attended a basketball tournament in Mankato. As I walked out of one of the gyms at Bethany, I spotted Keith near the exit, standing, watching hoops and smiling, a scene that had taken place hundreds of times in his life and one I'd seen dozens of times. I stopped to say a quick hello, how are you? Figured I'd slide out of that gym and head to another one for a different game.

Two hours later... I never left that gym and never actually budged from my spot near the doorway, next to Keith. We spoke about our lives and old times, about basketball, the games we played and the ones he coached. We laughed. We talked about our dads. We talked about our jobs and a few of our goals. We said goodbye and promised to stay in touch. Maybe catch a game the next time I was in town. The regrets about never catching that next game will surely linger, but not as long as the memories of that night and of his life.

Keith Wiste died on September 17. He was laid to rest on September 21. He was surrounded by his loving family, his friends, a town that loved him, a town that will miss him and a town that will never be the same.

*****

NBA Flashback: Benson, Breuer and more

2011-09-01T10:00:00.002-04:00

I'm resigned to the fact I probably won't get to watch another live NBA game for about five or six months. Normally when October rolls around and the nation's sports fans are focused on the NFL or Boston or New York or one of those other cities that are home to Major League Baseball franchises that are recognized by Bud Selig but not Fox Sports, I'm gearing up for the NBA season. I'm ordering the NBA TV package. I'm scouring message boards or debating on Lakers forums about whether it really would be in the best interests of the team to trade Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol for a future first-round draft pick. I'm throwing out everything that's green - including money and recycling bins - in our household in preparation for another year of Celtics hatred.

But this year, thanks to the lockout, I'll probably do none of that. And with nothing in the present and a bleak future, I'll retreat to the past. There I'll find old NBA tapes tucked away and discover magical YouTube clips. Or, like I did tonight, I'll spend four hours watching NBA-TV and classic games from the league's past.

Tonight the network carried several "playoff gems," games that included a vintage performance from George Gervin, a Randy Breuer sighting in a Bucks-Sixers playoff game and Vinnie Johnson's unbelievable scoring binge against the Celtics in the 1985 Eastern Conference semifinals.

Ah, the NBA in the '80s. There's still nothing quite like it, even though I, unlike many others, still love the league as much today as I did back then. But now, let's roll back the videotape, pull out the history books, and in the voice of that guy who narrates the formerly omnipresent VH1 shows, let's rediscover why we loved the '80s. A potpourri of hoops from the glory days.

* The Vinnie Johnson game was amazing. He scored 22 points in the fourth quarter in Game 4, against the defending champs. This is why he was the Microwave. For the game he hit 16 of 20 from the field, most of them on tough jumpers with that odd form from that oddly shaped body.

A few months later, Vinnie's effort led to one of my favorite narration scenes in NBA history and surely the most awkward. I've written extensively on the Return to Glory video before. My campaign to have it win a retroactive Emmy remains in full effect - I'll send another letter to the committee after this blog goes up. It's all about the Lakers finally defeating the Celtics, the begoggled wonder, Worthy's dunks and Magic's passes, paired with creepy, inspiring music from the 1980s. But early on in the video, while recapping the Celtics-Pistons series, Dick Stockton describes the action by well, talking about a lot of Johnsons. I won't embed the video for fear of violating obscenity laws in 22 states. Here's the link. Go to the 5:20 to 5:52 mark. And here's the transcript:
"For Chuck Daly, Johnson was right on target. Johnson's heroics also baffled the Celtics, for it wasn't Detroit's three All-Stars who evened the series, but an unheralded, happy-shooting man named Johnson. Appropriately, the Celtics had a Johnson of their own. Dennis Johnson, another guard who sparkles in the playoff limelight. DJ's aching wrist made him miss the morning practice. But no injury could slow him down from a 30-point evening. Daly turned to his own version of Johnson."

Oh, Dick.

* That game also featured the work of Kent Benson, the No. 1 overall pick in the 1977 NBA draft. That previous sentence is completely accurate, though perhaps the word featured is a bit much. But the Milwaukee Bucks really did take Benson No. 1. The former Indiana star averaged 9 points and 5 boards in his career. He also famously used his mug to break Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's hand when the Captain's fist struck the young center's face. Benson's face should have been suspended. That's not the only time the word bust was used in connection with Benson. The next seven players taken after him had higher career scoring averages. Some of the guys taken after him? Otis Birdsong, Marques Johnson, Walter Davis, Jack Sikma, Bernard King, Cedric Maxwell and Norm Nixon. Yes, it's safe to say Benson didn't work out as well as Milwaukee's previous No. 1 overall pick - Kareem. The Bucks had a thing for overachieving Hoosiers who underachieved in the NBA. A year earlier, they took Benson's old teammate, Quinn Buckner. Somehow they avoided Scott May.

* As I mentioned on Twitter, it was odd watching the 1986 Bucks-Sixers game. The Sixers crew handled the broadcast. The analyst had a familiar voice but I couldn't place it. I finally figured it out - Doug Collins.Then I also realized why it took me so long to place him: I'd been watching for 20 minutes and not once had he mentioned he coached Michael Jordan.

* On NBA-TV it was a big night for tall white guys from the Midwest. The Bucks game also gave a glimpse at the giant Minnesotan, Randy Breuer. The Lake City legend battled under the boards against Charles Barkley. At one point, after a collision in the lane, it appeared, just for a second, that Barkley might be capable of snapping the skinny Breuer with just a bump from his ample ass. By the way, big Randy is no longer the all-time leading scorer in Lake City history. That honor now belongs to Lance Meincke. Still, Breuer did lead the school to back-to-back state titles. Unfortunately, there weren't a lot of people videotaping Minnesota prep games back in the late '70s. There were people videotaping NBA games in the 1980s. And here's one of the few online clips of Breuer as Michael Jordan viciously dunks in the tall fellow's stunned face - or, if you prefer, posterizes him.

* What's America's longest-running punchline? Historians can help me out here. What's something that could get a laugh decades ago and still could today? My vote: The San Diego/LA Clippers. If it seems like you've been making fun of the Clippers forever, it's because you have. Fathers pass the jokes down to their sons who pass it on to their sons who pass it on to their sons. At some point, daughters get in on the joke. The Clippers. They've changed cities, but rarely their fortunes. And guess what? In the 1980s? They were really bad.

1989: 21-61
1988: 17-65
1987: 12-70 (!!)
1986: 32-50
1985: 31-51
1984 (San Diego) 30-52
1983: 25-57http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
1982: 17-65
1981: 36-46
1980: 35-47

The most frightening thing about that 1987 season is that the Clips started it 3-3. So they finished a tidy 9-67. They actually dropped from 3-3 to 3-15, lost 12 in a row. And how about this? After they won to snap the losing streak, the Clippers then lost 16 in a row. So a 1-28 stretch. They also finished the season the way you want to finish it if you're really trying to make a mark as being one of the worst teams in NBA history - they lost the final 14 games of the year. Of course, since they are the Clippers, they pulled off the Timberwolvesesque achievement of missing out on the first pick in the lottery, which turned into David Robinson. Instead they took Reggie Williams with the fourth pick. He failed to change the franchise's fortunes.

* The 1984 season ended in heartbreaking fashion - at least for Magic Johnson and 9-year-old Shawn Fury. In Game 2 of the Finals, Magic forgot how much time remained in regulation and the Lakers failed to get a shot off, while Kareem stood on the block, arm raised, waiting for a pass that never came as the Lakers waited for a title that never came. But before that, the Lakers benefited from someone forgetting about the scoreboard. In this case that player was young Dallas guard Derek Harper, who, in Game 4 of the Western semis, thought his team led the Lakers even though it was tied. The tough-to-watch footage - even for a Lakers fan it's hard to watch someone publicly shamed like this, perhaps because we now know what was down the line for Magic - is here, starting about the 3:40 mark. Yes, the Lakers won in OT. Just like the damn Celtics did a few weeks later.

And since I can't end on a downer about the Lakers and Magic, there's this:

Jack, Nikita & some nukes

2011-08-19T01:22:00.000-04:00

I don't remember when we learned about the Cuban missile crisis in school. Probably in 8th grade, likely in the final 10 minutes of the hour-long class, perhaps after the 11 minutes spent on the Korean War. The teacher likely left us with a message of, "And tomorrow, we'll cover Vietnam, Watergate and the Iran hostage ordeal."

The story always fascinated me, even when I only knew the broad strokes and simplistic version: Dastardly Soviets sneak nukes onto Cuba; U.S. discovers it; John F. Kennedy appears on TV to tell Americans they'll all die; generals want to invade the island; blockade; Soviets back down; America wins; USA! USA!

Learning about the crisis nearly 30 years later made it impossible to really understand what it must have been like in the country during those days. It was laughable thinking about my parents hiding under school desks as a mushroom cloud rose outside of Fulda - "True, these shoddily made desks collapse under the weight of our heftier students, but they will shield our youngsters from a thermonuclear device." Kids still feared nuclear annihilation, primarily because of the TV movie The Day After. But the Soviet Union's eventual collapse meant there was no longer an ever-present enemy waiting to hit the button and send us scurrying into bunkers or under desks. We had 30, 40 years of living with Mutual Assured Destruction and most people felt confident leaders for both countries really did understand the theory. Students felt scared because of what happened to Jason Robards on TV, not because of what nearly happened in real life three decades earlier. At that stage, America seemed protected, isolated from danger, if not the world.

Certainly September 11 changed that view. But even in the aftermath of the horror of the worst day in the country's history, I didn't ever feel - and I don't think the majority of people did either - that the entire country was in danger of total destruction. In so many ways the danger was more terrifying than the Cold War, because it was random, unpredictable, and could seemingly happen anyplace, and at anytime. Even with that, there wasn't the fear that the entire country - the whole world, for that matter - could be brought down in the matter of hours, with just a push of a button.

That was what I imagined life was like in the early '60s, as the United States and Soviet Union escalated their arms battle and it all came to a (war)head in Cuba. But still I only knew the children's book version.

Several years ago I watched - and thoroughly enjoyed - the movie Thirteen Days, though I was somewhat surprised to learn Kevin Costner (or at least his character, Kenneth O'Donnell) had saved the world back in 1962. For the most part, the movie received praise for its accuracy. There were a few notable exceptions, the main one probably being that O'Donnell, who served as Kennedy's special assistant, didn't have much of a role during the two-week drama, even if he had a big one in the subsequent two-hour one that came to theaters.

Still, entertaining flick.

But now I finally feel like I've read the definitive account of the crisis. Michael Dobbs' One Minute to Midnight came out in 2008 and has been called "extraordinary," "fast-paced, suspenseful," and a "welcome introduction to that perilous time." Those were some of the official reviews and I can't add much to those. The book filled in any missing gaps I had and shed new light on old issues I thought had been settled long ago. It's literally a minute-by-minute account of the crisis. Half of the book focuses on one day - Saturday, October 27 - when the world really did come close to witnessing a nuclear exchange between a pair of superpowers who would have been anything but in the aftermath of another world war.

Dobbs' book puts the reader in the moment. Now I feel like I do know what it was like and why it was so terrifying, even though the most frightening aspect of the book isn't necessarily the fact the world came so close to the brink, but how it came so close to destruction.

One of the primary strengths of the book is it tells the story from all perspectives - American, Soviet, Cuban. Dobbs gets into the heads of Soviet soldiers in Cuba and leaders back in Moscow. He takes you inside the cockpit of a U-2 and into the White House. He explains Fidel Castro's motivations and the obsessions of the politicians who were determined to eliminate him, seemingly at any cost.

The book opens with some amazing anecdotes, which any conspiracy theorist would read and exclaim, "Told ya so!" On the first pages, Robert Kennedy meets with a group focused on eliminating Castro. These were the folks who brainstormed the idea of using "chemical agents to destroy Castro's beard, so that he would become a laughingstock among the Cuban people." It's not known if a night of heavy pot use prompted that idea. But Dobbs reports on how far the U.S. was willing to go to rid itself of the former baseball player turned ruler:

"The State Department drafted plans for the sabotage of the Cuban economy; the Pentagon came up with a scheme for a wave of bombings in Miami and Washington that could be blamed on Castro." Fake bombings blamed on a stooge? Okay.

RFK was meeting with that group when the missile crisis started. From there, Dobbs meticulously documents why events escalated, culminating in "Black Saturday," when nuclear war seemed possible.

The American generals were eager for some action. General Thomas Power told an aide to defense secretary Robert McNamara, "The whole idea is to kill the bastards." If there were "Two Americans and one Russian" left alive at the end of the war, "we win." Dobbs writes that McNamara's aide replied, "You had better make sure the two Americans are a man and a woman." And, preferably, attractive ones.

At the time, the United States did possess an advantage in sheer number of nukes. We could have blasted the Soviets and "won" a war, while losing tens of millions of Americans. And, terrifyingly, some in the military seemed all right with that proposition.

Looking back, it's frightening to see how a little thing could have led to a big war, whether it was the Soviets shooting down a plane in Cuba or an American spy plane accidentally venturing into Russian airspace. Imagine WW3 starting because of a befuddled pilot. It's absurd. And was completely possible. Fortunately, John Kennedy also spent time looking back during those crucial days. He reflected on how World War I started because of "mistakes, misunderstandings and miscommunication" and how that unleashed "an unpredictable chain of events, causing governments to go to war with little understanding of the consequences."

If nothing else, Dobbs' book is a great reminder about the benefits of civilian control over the military. Support the troops? Sure. But make sure you oversee their leaders. Their job is to win wars, but it's the politicians who have to be trusted with knowing when they should begin.

And that goes for the Soviets too. Nikita Krushchev, like Kennedy, fought to control a situation that had first spiraled out of control because of his own actions. For eventually pulling the missiles out of Cuba, Krushchev was basically labeled the loser in the event, by people on both sides. What a wimp! Didn't have the guts to go through with a war! Actually, he helped save the world, after almost helping destroy it. Just like Kennedy.

Dobbs writes:

"The question the world confronted during what came to be known as the Cuban missile crisis was who controlled history: the men in suits, the men with beards, the men in uniform, or nobody at all. In this drama, Kennedy ended up on the same side as his ideological nemesis, Nikita Krushchev. Neither man wanted war. They both felt an obligation to future generations to rein in the dark, destructive demons they themselves had helped to unleash. ...Something more than dumb luck was involved in sidestepping a nuclear apocalypse. The real good fortune is that men as sane and level-headed as John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Nikita Sergeyevich Krushchev occupied the White House and the Kremlin in October 1962."

We should all be thankful for Krushchev? I think we missed that part in school.

Update: New post on TVFury, new post coming here

2011-08-18T01:14:00.002-04:00

Today on TVFury, we had an interview I did with former SJU quarterback Tom Linnemann. As always, Linnemann was extremely entertaining and very willing to share his opinions on a wide range of subjects. Check it out here:

The Fury Files: An Interview with Tom Linnemann.

Later Thursday night I should have a new post up here on shawnfury.blogspot. Nothing too long - probably not 4,000 words on basketball movies from the '70s - but a little book review about the Cuban Missile Crisis. It'll be just like history class!

And Friday on TVFury, we'll have our links post up - The Tapes - and perhaps my podcast with Terry Vandrovec.

Robby Benson, a tutor, a basketball, and a red-hot poker

2011-08-15T18:18:00.002-04:00

Any child of the '80s who dreamed of becoming an NBA star, or even only fantasized about hitting a game-winning jumper in the state tournament while under the guidance of a crusty old coach who just got off a boat, surely watched Hoosiers dozens of times. It remains the standard-bearer of all sports movies, and is certainly the best hoops movie ever made.

But another basketball film, released a decade earlier, probably maintains a spot in the heart of those same future hoop stars, especially if those players were a bit more mature — and a lot hornier.

One on One starred a young, floppy-haired Robby Benson, who also co-wrote the film (his dad, Jerry Segal, was the other writer). Last night, after midnight, just as I was headed to bed, I stumbled upon the movie on NBA TV. Despite having to wake up at 6:30 in the morning, I stayed up until 2, watching Robby overcome tough odds, an abusive coach, disdain from arrogant hippies, bullying teammates and his infatuation with a red-headed tutor.

The movie came out in 1977. When I was younger, One on One always seemed to pop up on TBS about once a year, usually on a Saturday afternoon, probably before a 4:05 Braves game. Back then, I felt frustrated at the lack of basketball scenes in what I thought was a basketball movie.

Instead, Robby's character, Henry Steele, spends his time on the bench, riding the pine while pining for his tutor, played by a fetching Annette O'Toole. Watch the trailer again. How would anyone even know the movie focused on a basketball player? It looks more like young Mr. Steele stumbles upon a swingers compound. If the movie is a porno, he certainly seems to have an appropriate name for such a role. "The story of a winner." A winner in what?

Benson attends the generically named "Western University" and struggles to adjust to the large campus. He doesn't help matters by speaking in a voice that's one level above a whisper. What kind of guidance did the director give Robby before his scenes? "We need you to speak like a frightened 11-year-old girl. All the great guards, from Maravich to Robertson, do this. Not only is it great with the ladies, but it's a fine way of inspiring your teammates as their floor general."

Yet he becomes something of a ladies' man. At one point an intoxicated older woman gives him head while Robby drives a car and, to paraphrase Lou Reed, he never loses his head, creatively bribing a police officer who had pulled him over for speeding by offering up a pair of tickets to the big Notre Dame game. It's the last time anyone was excited about Notre Dame basketball.

It's Robby's on-court life that proves to be a nightmare for much of the movie. He fights for playing time. The intensity bothers him. During one practice, his friend gives him speed. As a "Say No To Drugs" performance, it ranks up there with the famous Dragnet episode about the dangers of acid. Robby acts like a cokehead as his embarrassed teammate, who provided the drugs, realizes perhaps he should have first introduced the small-town rube to pot. Once he gets back on the court, Robby continues his out-of-control ways, just the type of performance you'd want from a point guard. It does give him a bit more quickness, but at what cost?

Veteran character actor G.D. Spradlin has the best role in the movie. Spradlin portrays the old-school coach, Moreland Smith. Throughout his long career, Spradlin — who worked as an attorney for an oil company before getting into acting - specialized in playing ruthless, uncaring, occasionally evil men. He was the sleazy senator in The Godfather Part II, the leader of an assassination attempt against the California governor in Nick of Time and a corrupt sheriff in the classic Tank.

In One on One he mentally abuses Robby. He allows the other players to do it physically.

To his credit, Robby refuses to back down. He's Henry Steele, damn it, and that means he's strong. Sure, he looks like a 98-pound weakling out on the court with the men - and probably weighed 108 pounds in real life - but he will not allow coach Smith to break him, even as he's occasionally breaking down.

Another classic scene. Weirdly, this is the same speech my junior college coach, Mike Augustine, gave to me. Making it even stranger? We didn't even have scholarships.

In the end, of course, Robby/Steele wins the girl and the big game.

About that game: Overall, the hoops scenes in One on One are to basketball what the kiss between Norman Dale and Myra Fleener was to romance. In the final game, the one where Steele comes in off the bench in the final 3 minutes to rally Western to a rousing victory, the opposing team hits approximately 23 consecutive layups in the final moments. It's shocking to see an intense coach like Smith lead a team that plays defense like the 1991 Denver Nuggets. Steele scores, opposition gets a layup. Steele nails a jumper, opposition gets a layup. Steele dishes, opposition gets a layup. Yet somehow Western narrows the deficit, although they still trail by 5 with less than a minute to play. After Steele slices it to 1, Western again steals it and gets the ball on the sideline with four seconds left. Steele hits the winning layup after an improbable series of events leaves him wide open under the hoop, a sequence that could have only been accomplished in four seconds if the timekeeper from the 1972 Olympic gold medal game manned the scoreboard clock.

The basketball scenes are at least played on a real college court, in a real arena at Colorado State University, unlike so many movies and TV shows, when the action is compressed onto a 30-foot court that makes the athletes look like oafs.

Young Henry feels pretty cocky after those three minutes of stardom. Three minutes. To that point he'd shown next-to-nothing, other than an inability to hold his uppers. His jumper still looks shaky, he needs a year in the weight room or a week with BALCO, and he falls for any girl who looks him in the eye and says hello. But like he was back in his Colorado hometown, he's now the man. And he tells coach Smith what he can do with that scholarship, in probably the best part of the movie.

The first reviews are fun to look back on. Take the one in The New York Times, which says the ending includes a "smashing basketball game." Well, that is one opinion, especially if a British reporter wrote it.

It's impossible - at least for me - to watch One on One, or any basketball movie, and not think about Hoosiers, even if one movie was more about getting laid than layups.

Compare Henry to Hickory star Jimmy Chitwood. On the court, there's not much comparison. While Henry plays for a Division I school and we only see Jimmy at little ol' Hickory, Jimmy is the superior player. There's a decent chance he eventually landed at Indiana, or perhaps Purdue. Better jump shot, better basketball build, smarter player, moves without the ball much better, underrated ball-handler. Off the court, though, Jimmy probably would have dreamed of having Henry's life. Beer! Car! Speed! Chicks!

Both guys labored under a tutor. But while Jimmy studied the War of 1812 under the angry, bitter eyes of Myra Fleener, Henry learns about the origins of World War I from Janet Hays, who wants to explore the finer parts of anatomy while also discussing history. I remain convinced that Jimmy never kissed a girl, much less got lucky with one. Who knows, maybe he flamed out once he landed at Indiana - or Purdue - when he, like Steele, discovered women. Steele proved he could balance women and ball. Jimmy still hasn't.

One on One attempts to show some of the corruption of big-time college athletics, but someone watching this movie 30 years after its release has been desensitized by sports scandals, whether it's money in the mail, point-shaving, payouts, abusive coaches or...tutors who do everyone's homework - but don't hook up with the players. One on One has a message and a good one, but a message never trumps an underdog story, especially one that's still referenced every March anytime a plucky club upsets a superior foe.

One on One is no Hoosiers. In some ways it's hardly a sports movie. But it's a good film for anyone who loved hoops, girls or hoops and girls at the same time.

If you don't agree with that? You can take this blog, find a red-hot poker and, well, you know.

*****************

As I wrote awhile back, I'm also writing over at TVFury, with my former co-worker Terry Vandrovec. I'll continue to write here as well, and hopefully with more frequency than you've seen the last month. If I stumble upon anymore Robby Benson sports movies at 1 a.m., you'll read about it here.

But here are some links to some stories so far at TVFury. And make sure to visit every day, as we get new - EXCLUSIVE! - material up there every weekday.

I stink at Fantasy Football.

Podcast with Terry.

I watch Kevin Durant dunk and Michael Beasley mush.

A look back at Friday Night Lights, the book.

New post on TVFury

2011-07-28T08:59:00.001-04:00

I have a new post up on TVFury. Surprisingly, it's about basketball.

A new adventure

2011-07-20T10:07:00.004-04:00

A brief announcement.

There's now yet another place to read me online. The world needed this.

I've teamed up with my old friend and former colleague Terry Vandrovec for a site called TVFury.

Check it out here.

My first post is up here.

We were going to wait until August 1 to launch the thing and I suppose that's still the official start date. But, well, it's basically launched, so please check it out when you get the chance. We're still not sure exactly what will all be on the site but basically it'll be us writing about whatever. Primarily sports, but other things too. Sort of like my blog here.

I'll still be posting here on my own blog so don't abandon this one.

But TVFury should be pretty fun. We had heated negotiations about the name. I fought for Fury to be first. Lawsuits were mentioned, but things settled down. For now.

We're going to update the site throughout the week. Once August 1 hits we've talked about each of us having a post a day three or four times a week so we'll see how that works out. We're also going to have podcasts so you'll get to listen to our radio-ready voices.

Terry is a kick-ass sports reporter at the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, where he covers South Dakota State University and writes about 95,000 words a week with stories, blogs, live chats and tweets. I've known him since 2000, when I started working at The Forum in Fargo. He was attending Concordia at the time and was something of a wunderkind. He's had the same work ethic since he was in school - extraordinary - and is an extremely talented and passionate writer. He's all right for a Cobber.

He's so passionate he just couldn't wait until August 1 to start writing on TVFury. And I couldn't let him have all the glory, could I? So there we are and there we'll be. Hope you enjoy it.

For those on Facebook - I know, pretty much everyone but me - there's a Facebook page: Facebook.com/tvfury

And we're on Twitter.

But how would Gandhi handle the sales staff?

2011-07-18T21:33:00.000-04:00

Nelson Mandela turned 93 today. One of the most important figures of the 20th Century continues to inspire a decade in to the 21st, though he long ago gave up his official power in South Africa.

Like so many of her fellow South Africans, Louise reveres Mandela. She vividly remembers his release and fears the day when the country loses the man who symbolized and led one of the world's greatest human rights struggles.

Pick up a copy of his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom for all of the stunning details of his life. He's of course known for his 27 years in prison, but there was so much before the incarceration and so much he did after his release.

Perhaps the most important thing he ever did came after he left prison, when he played the key role in preventing a civil war in South Africa after apartheid died and white rule ended while black leadership began.

But forget saving a country. Perhaps Mandela's most important achievement was inspiring a new generation of IT people.

Check out this three-year-old blog entry.

Nelson Mandela avoided a civil war. IT Managers can learn a lot from how he did this. So what's a CIO or tech manager to do when they get plopped down in the middle of a battlefield?

If you saw Invictus - and you're an IT manager (I'm going with the lower-case on managers, they have big enough egos as it is) - you'll know the answer involves rugby. So, anonymous IT manager stuck in a cubicle or, if you're lucky, an office, take heed of Mandela's strategies. Implement them the next time some co-worker or underling begins to annoy you.

"It was Mandela who said "You don't address their brains, you address their hearts." IT managers can learn a great deal from all of this. When placed in a situation where there are multiple warring sides, a good manager needs to move quickly to diffuse the situation."

Perhaps if Mandela ever releases another book in his final years, he'll reveal how he made it through the inhumane conditions at Robben Island by wondering what an IT manager would do. Those lessons learned would have led him to being bored, dismissive, arrogant or incredulous. He would have shook his head in pity at someone who failed to do the most basic of tasks. He would have cracked bad jokes and probably been unsocial.

The blog - with the awkward, and somewhat unsubtle headline W.W.N.M.D? What Would Nelson Mandela Do? - is at least a temporary break from tough-talking businesspeople who quote Sun Tzu's The Art of War (or does that only happen in movies?). You wouldn't find many world leaders who would serve as a better example for tech geeks and the employees who frustrate them. No one wants to work under an IT manager who sports a yellow bracelet that wonders what Gaddafi would do.

Mandela is one of the most remarkable people of the last 100 years and one of the most important. He's inspired millions, in dozens of countries. No one should ever take him for granted, and his birthday is a perfect time to appreciate him. And, of course, the next time your work computer freezes up and Bill from the IT department gets into an argument with Joe about the cause, but finally relents when their manager intervenes and reminds them that everyone's on the same team and working toward the same goal, you might want to say thanks to Mandela. Yeah, he saved a country. But he might have also saved your desktop files.

Magic's 1996 comeback: Not a complete disaster

2011-07-03T22:30:00.000-04:00

If I had to make a list of iconic images from Magic Johnson's career, I'd come up with the familiar ones known to Lakers everywhere: mauling Kareem after The Captain's game-winning hook in Magic's first game as a pro; the hug after Magic's 42-point performance in Game 6 of the 1980 NBA Finals; the bullet pass to Worthy for a dunk in Game 6 at the Boston Garden in 1985; the no-look, behind-the-head pass to Worthy against Golden State; the junior, junior skyhook; flinging the ball downcourt against Portland.

All of those moments took place between 1979 and 1991. I could probably list 200 moments and games before I'd ever list one that happened during the 1996 season. The comeback. Like many Lakers fans, I've ignored details from Magic's 1996 return to the game, treating it the way De Niro fans must treat the last 10 years of his career. It was the year after the Lakers' surprising run in the 1995 playoffs and the year before the Shaq-Kobe era began. It was a pretty young team whose most famous player was an old guy who hadn't played in five years. The season ended with an ugly playoff loss and that was - finally - it for Magic's career. It wasn't as disastrous as Magic's talk show, but it wasn't a whole hell of a lot better.

I saw one game that season, when the Lakers drilled the Timberwolves in Minnesota. But for the most part I've blocked out much of that season, even though it was the final one for my all-time favorite athlete. You'd think I'd remember more about the actual end of his legendary career.

The last few days I've been looking back a bit more at that 1996 season, reading old stories and watching old games. And maybe it's time for me to re-assess that half-season. The season didn't add to Magic's legend, but it didn't necessarily detract from it either. He was no longer one of the top two or three players in the league, but he was still plenty good for a 36-year-old who sat out four-and-a-half seasons. He was older and slower, grouchier and, at times, a bit angrier. He wasn't the Earvin Johnson of old but there was still a touch of magic.

In 1995, the Lakers finally emerged from the mediocrity that afflicted the franchise after Magic's 1991 retirement and went 48-34, before upsetting Seattle in the playoffs and losing to San Antonio in six games. The team had young talent, with Nick Van Exel, Anthony Peeler and Eddie Jones emerging as legitimate players. Cedric Ceballos turned his career around and averaged 21 a game. They had a flopping Vlade at center, Elden Campbell - or, as he was officially named The Enigmatic Elden Campbell - at power forward and decent depth. But they struggled at the start of the 1996 season. They started the year 13-13. They were 24-18 after a victory over the Nets on January 27.

And that's when Magic returned. This classic Gary Smith article tells much of the story of Magic's decision. There was the All-Star game return in 1992, the Dream Team and then an abbreviated comeback in the fall of that year, which basically ended when Magic got cut during a game and the video of him bleeding on the court became yet another iconic image of his career, only this one didn't leave anyone smiling.

But in 1996 he returned, and not just for one game or a few exhibition contests. He returned in the middle of a season to a team that was 24-18.

The first game was at The Forum, the site of so many classic moments, against the Golden State Warriors and rookie Joe Smith. The Lakers won 128-118, a flashback game that looked more like one from 1986 than '96. Magic played 27 minutes and had 19 points, 10 assists and eight boards, a decent night for any player, an extraordinary performance for a guy coming off the 1,800-day disabled list.

At the 1:20 mark of that video comes perhaps Magic's most famous play that season, the fake pass that left Latrell Sprewell bewildered and the crowd delirious.

Reality, for the team, hit a game later, when the Bulls - who came into the game sporting an absurd 40-3 record - rolled to a 99-84 victory in LA. Following the game, Michael Jordan - who was in the middle of a triumphant comeback but would eventually attempt his own ill-advised one - proved something of a prophet when he said he told Magic he had a killer instinct look in his eyes but his teammates didn't.

If there was any question about that, it was proven when Ceballos - apparently forgetting that he was Cedric Ceballos - left the team in March, upset about playing time. He eventually returned but the team was seemingly divided. Later, Van Exel was suspended for bumping a referee. Magic, being the leader he was and wanting to show the younger guys how to properly intimidate the stripes, did the same, albeit a bit softer, a few games later and earned his own suspension. And once the playoffs began, it seemed almost inevitable that the two-time defending champion Rockets, despite not having homecourt, would eliminate the Lakers, which they did in four games.

But there were plenty of highlights, despite the fact I've blocked many of them over the last 15 years. And many of them are online. YouTube user nonplayerzealot is one of the best online historians of all-things Lakers and he has a huge collection of games from that 1996 season.

This game against the Jazz was something of a grudge match, four years in the making. When Magic first returned in 1992, Karl Malone expressed reservations about playing against someone with HIV. Malone took some heat for the comments, though he was only expressing thoughts that were surely shared by many other players at that time. Magic prevailed on this night, though, scoring 21 points to go along with seven rebounds, six assists and one Showtime flashback at the 2:30 mark.

Here against the Bucks, Magic finished with 20 points and eight assists.

The Lakers had some impressive victories in the second-half of the season. They handed Orlando its first home loss of the season, after the Magic had won their first 33 games at home. After Magic joined the team, LA went 29-11, basically a 60-win pace. Magic averaged 14 points and seven assists a game. One of his signature moves during his comeback came in the post, where he often tossed lobs to Jones or Ceballos who cut through the lane while Magic backed the defender down into the paint. He still had the hook, he still possessed the set shot from deep. He still smiled. And, on occasion, he could still lead a break, running it at 36 like he did when he was 26.

Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of Magic's 1996 comeback is that it showed what the Lakers lost when he left the first time. Magic was still great in 1991 and was still good in 1996. How far could he have led the Lakers in 1992 and beyond? His knees had a lot of mileage on them but in 1992 the Lakers had finally signed a decent backup point guard in Sedale Threatt. Magic would have changed his game but remained effective and, likely, dominant for at least a few more seasons. He still would have been the smartest player on the court and few backcourt players would have had a chance against him in the post. Maybe the Bulls don't have their first three-peat if Magic stayed around. But then they probably don't get Shaq or Kobe and who knows where the franchise would be today.

No, there no iconic moments from that comeback season. But there were just enough Magic moments in 1996 to conjure up memories of the '80s and to remind people of what was lost in 1991.

Life at camp. Or not

2011-06-27T23:05:00.000-04:00

Lots of talk about camps these days. Friends are sending kids to swimming camps. Others are going to basketball camps. Teenagers we know are headed to acting camps. They're all sleepaway camps, a chance for young kids to stay away from home for the first time and an opportunity for teens to leave the nest and enjoy some freedom before returning back to their parents, a nice preparation for life after college.

My parents never had any desire to send me off to any camps other than basketball ones and for that I'm forever grateful. I understand their appeal. City-dwellers pack their little ones off to camps in the country where they see real pigs and real crops. Suburban moms and dads load their kids onto a yellow bus that takes them to a green lake where they get to be around water for the only time all year. They learn how to interact with other kids. They learn, I don't know, woodworking skills, so when they return home they can show off the shabbily made hat rack they constructed at camp. It boosts their self-esteem, at least when it's not being stomped out of them by a goon named Billy and his giggling 11-year-old henchmen.

I dreaded the idea of those types of camps as a kid.

Here's how I spent my summers during my elementary school years:

Shot baskets at the city park for five hours a day. Pepper with friends at the baseball field. Played quarterback or wide receiver in pickup football games. Stood on Mott Street alone, throwing a tennis ball against a rock wall for hours at a time, practicing my fielding. Ran around the tennis court for three straight hours, took a half-hour break, went back for two hours. Rode my bike around Janesville, including trips to Lake Elysian. Bought cheap baseball cards at Wiste's with my friend Brandon. Beat everyone in town who had the guts to challenge me in ping-pong.

And I was supposed to give that up for a week or two or three spent at some lake with dozens of kids, none of whom I knew, many of whom likely displayed sociopathic tendencies when lodged in poorly constructed cabins and supervised by horny teens who look the other way at camp shenanigans while getting to second-base with their fellow counselors? Certainly the fact I was not an outdoorsman played into my perhaps-ignorant disdain for camps. I loved being outside, but not if it involved fishing, hunting, fires, tents, bugs, hikes or treks. I wasn't a Boy Scout, at least not an upper-case one.

Only once did I ever come close to going to a real camp. In the summer before sixth grade, I learned I'd been selected to attend the school safety patrol camp in Legionville, near Brainerd. The camp - which supposedly is the only one of its kind in the United States - lasts a week and teaches kids to be crossing guard captains. It's on a lake. I wanted to remove myself from consideration, but I don't know that anyone had ever been done so in the program's history, which goes back decades.

Crossing guards are apparently a Minnesota invention, like Bisquick and the Green Giant. At the camp you learn safety patrol essentials, although I'm not sure what the essentials are: how to hold the flag, how loud to yell at students who walk outside the lines? You learn how to lead your fellow crossing guards. But you also swim and canoe. The camp apparently works, as does Minnesota's attention to school safety patrol. According to this trooper, "since the school patrol began in 1920, there has never been a fatality at a crossing where the school patrol has been on duty."

It's a great achievement. Still, I'm not sure if the camp deserves all the credit for that great safety record. Specifically, how does canoeing and swimming help the junior safety patrol members? What's the connection? Do they teach crossing-guard training at swimming camps?

I fortunately never found out what exactly happens at the crossing guard camp. My parents had already planned a vacation for the week in question, a trip to Kansas City to see my uncle Jerry. Later I heard some stories about the camp, some of which I believed involved depantsings of weaker children. Instead of spending that week in Legionville, I spent it in K.C., taking in a Royals game in their beautiful stadium, seeing Top Gun on the big screen and watching the Celtics clinch the NBA title. All right, so not everything about the week went well.

I missed the camp and missed out on my chance to be a captain. In fact, I didn't become any type of crossing guard, though I did enjoy their efforts as they helpfully kept us safe on the mean streets of Janesville.

My prejudices weren't restricted to sleepaway camps. For a few years, Janesville's Catholic church, St. Ann's, ran a little camp early in the summer, where we gathered with other little Catholics from other little towns for a week of bible study and games. It was as boring as it sounds - sorry, Mom. And with the church one alley away from our home, I had no chance of avoiding the camp or scripture.

Finally, in the summer before seventh grade, I went to my first sleepaway camp. A Pacesetter basketball camp. A week-long camp where I knew no one and had to show off my Janesville skills in front of southwest Minnesota's young hoopsters. It wasn't too stressful, though. The camp was in Fulda. And instead of sleeping in a bunk bed with a snoring roommate, I stayed with my grandma, in an upstairs bed. Instead of eating burnt marshmallows, I ate French toast and bacon - every morning - and hamburgers, roast beef and chocolate shakes at night. It was the type of sleepaway camp I could handle.

Louise didn't have much time for camps as a kid either. She hated the sports and other activities but did manage to capture one honor - the prestigious Boy Chaser Award. She still has the certificate. As parents, we'll probably ignore our own youths and pack our bawling children off to sleepaway camp, where they'll learn crafts and woodworking and improve their self-esteem. They'll swim and canoe and write letters home, telling us how much they love the camp, or at least that's the letters we'll read once the camp censors are finished with their edits.

Or maybe we'll schedule some family vacations for those weeks.

While crowning the new Tiger, don't bury the old one just yet

2011-06-19T23:22:00.001-04:00

Padraig Harrington suggested it, others agreed. Rory McIlroy might have a better chance of passing Jack Nicklaus' record of 18 major championship victories. Rory McIlroy, winner of one major. Rory McIlroy has the better chance and not Tiger Woods, winner of 14 majors.

There are a hundred reasons someone might believe it, although relatively few that make much sense. McIlroy's effort was awe-inspiring, because of the results and the ease with which he dominated. The winning score of -16 would catch your eye if it happened in an August tournament that no one cares about, one that doesn't even end on CBS because it drags on past the 7 p.m. hour and 60 Minutes must start on time. To do it in the U.S. Open is mind-boggling. Yet that score might not even be the most impressive aspect of McIlroy's performance. The when is just as important as the what. He did it two months after collapsing in the final round of the Masters, when he trudged around the course looking like a kid who'd been beaten up on the way to school.

How many sports equivalents can you think of that compare to McIlroy's rebound? It'd be like Buckner hitting three homers in Game 7 of the 1986 World Series, or Nick Anderson burying 15 straight free throws in the fourth quarter of Game 2 of the 1995 NBA Finals. Athletes who collapse don't bounce back like this, at least not immediately. They can rebound in a year, maybe two, but rarely will it happen in the next big event and often it never happens at all. There's likely never been anyone who's ever dominated like McIlroy did just one major following his disastrous final round. I struggle to think of comparisons. In tennis, Jana Novotna blew the 1993 women's final at Wimbledon and cried on center court. She eventually won her Wimbledon title - five years later.

No, McIlroy stands alone, in more ways than one. But as people praise the kid from Northern Ireland and pronounce him to be the main threat to Jack's record, it's worth stepping back and looking at the guy who's still the dominant figure in golf - even if he's no longer it's dominant player.

With his physical injuries and mental maladies, Tiger Woods has never seemed so diminished, as McIlroy's youthful dominance reminds people of what Tiger once was while making them wonder if he'll ever be close to that again. But this isn't football, baseball or basketball, where athletes peak in their 20s or early 30s. This is golf - the sport where a 60-year-old could be within a par on the 72nd hole of winning a major.

The leg injuries make Tiger seem older than he is and they might ultimately end his career prematurely, along with his chase of Nicklaus. But the calendar says he is still 35, even if his body and our eyes say different.

He's 35. And he's won 14 majors. It seems like he hasn't won one in forever and it seems like he never will again. Think of the columns that run after every one of his major failures. He might not catch Nicklaus. He's losing time. He's blowing too many opportunities. Nicklaus is out of reach. The articles have been written since his dramatic U.S. Open victory in 2008.

But then think about this: If Tiger wins one of his next 11 majors - just one out of the next 11 - he'll be ahead of Nicklaus' career pace. Jack didn't win his 15th major until the 1978 British Open, when he was 38 years old. He didn't win 16 and 17 until he was 40. The last two and a half years Tiger's gone winless in the majors and to hear commentators - who dissect his swing with the intensity of Oliver Stone looking at the Zapruder film - you'd think he had the ugliest game outside of Charles Barkley. Terrible swing, he's lost it with the putter, no confidence. Yet since 2009, these are his finishes in the majors:

2009: T6, T6, Missed cut, 2.
2010: T4, T4, T23, T28.
2011: T4.

And that's with a bad swing and no game. What if he gets more comfortable with his swing and with his new life? Is it that difficult to picture him again reeling off victory after victory?

This drought is also nothing new for Tiger, even if the circumstances - crashes! women! sex! Perkins waitresses! rehab! golf clubs to the head! - are unlike anything else. He's played in nine majors without a victory. After his 1997 Masters triumph, he went 10 majors without a victory, before winning the 1999 PGA. Then, after steamrolling golf in 2000-2002, he went 10 more majors without a victory, before winning the 2005 Masters. During those dry spells, the same columns were written - he's lost his confidence, he's lost his swing, what's he doing, who's the next Tiger? But both times he figured it out. And when Tiger begins to win, when he does figure out the new swing that everyone thinks looks worse than the old one, the victories come in bunches - three majors in a year, four in two years. We've seen these struggles before, but we've also seen the turnaround. He's gone nine majors now without a victory. Maybe it will again be 10. But then?

The injuries, of course, provide a driver-sized asterisk to all of this. If he can hurt his knee while swinging under a tree at the Masters, what's going to happen the next time he takes one of his vicious cuts from a vicious lie? Health is the great unknown, as it is for any athlete. But we should know what will happen if he does stay upright.

And one more note on McIlroy's victory and how it compares to Tiger's 2000 romp at Pebble Beach. Was it more dominant? More impressive? It was certainly a lower score. Rory won by eight, a nearly unfathomable number. Yet Tiger nearly doubled that margin of victory, winning by 15. And this year, 38 players finished the U.S. Open at +2 or better. In 2000? One player - just one - did that.

Does it mean Tiger Woods will ever be that good again? Of course not. But chances are - whether it's this year or next, two majors from now or five - he'll again be great.

Reverend George and the Lakers

2011-06-13T20:43:00.001-04:00

I'll never forget June 13, 2004. I remember it on the anniversary every year.

The Detroit Pistons defeated the Lakers 88-80 in Game 4 of the NBA Finals, taking a commanding 3-1 series lead, despite 36 points from Shaquille O'Neal. At the end of the night I knew the Lakers' dynasty was all but dead. The championship run had ended the year before and now the Shaq-Kobe-Phil era was entering its final days.

I also got married that day.

Happily, the details of the ceremony remain more vivid than those from the game.

The ceremony took place near a pond in Central Park. Perfect setting. Nice weather - which prevented me from having to answer my dad's earlier-asked question, "What are you doing if it rains?" My parents, sister, and two of my oldest friends flew in from Minnesota. Louise's mom was there from Cape Town. A small group of friends gathered. People enjoying a picnic in the park cheered after the vows.

And then there was Reverend George.

We found Reverend George in the Yellow Pages. An interfaith minister who could perform any ceremony for the right price, the reverend said he possessed decades of experience and came highly recommended - I believe there were two exclamation points next to his Yellow Pages ad. A few weeks before the ceremony, George came to our apartment for the quickie equivalent of pre-marriage counseling. I suppose he had to make sure we were a male and female and he said he wanted to chat with us about the ceremony and get to know us better. Instead the night turned into a therapy session for the reverend, who expressed his frustration with an ungrateful daughter. He complained about her and cut her down. For every question he asked us, he delivered a pair of stinging insults about his child. At various times I retreated to the kitchen with Louise, leaving Reverend George with her mom, where I asked her, "Did we hire a psycho for our wedding? But you said he's pretty affordable, right?"

Still, he seemed competent. Perhaps even licensed. On our wedding day, he showed up wearing a robe and a smile. Very personable man in public. He joked with my folks and organized the gathered guests. He didn't know anything about us - our histories, personalities, likes or dislikes - yet he collected a few scraps of info we provided and cobbled together a short speech about "Shawn and Louise." He mentioned the long-distance relationship we had and said Louise's accent must have surely made it easier. It did. Good line.

Then he started talking about the vows and he brought up the accent again. He knew I wouldn't forget hearing Louise's vows, not with that accent. Oh, that accent. The accent. Finally, because it was getting weird and because I felt like I had to defend my role as Louise's husband - even if in the law's eyes I wasn't technically fulfilling that role yet - I interrupted the reverend and said, "Hey, who's the one getting married here?" It snapped him out of his accent-induced haze.

He stammered, regained his composure and finished the ceremony. Later, as we accepted congratulations from our friends and family, Reverend George slid up to me and apologized if he had overstepped his bounds. For a brief second, he flinched, as if he thought I might belt him in front of all our guests and all his gods. I assured him I wasn't offended. We invited him to the reception back at our apartment. He politely declined, perhaps spooked off by the possibility that in his inebriated state he'd reveal even more about his love of South African accents and his hatred for his daughter.

We were lucky we still had a reception to offer up. Two days earlier, Louise called a few friends of hers, telling them the reception - although not the marriage - was off. The cause? Our pilot light had gone out. Now, we had just moved into our apartment. I came from a land of electric ovens, Louise came from a land where you cooked outside over fire. When the pilot light went out, and the smell of gas polluted our small kitchen in our studio, we both expected the worst - death, perhaps by explosion, maybe by poisoning. Before I had a chance to look online, knock on the super's door or call my parents - pilot-light veterans - Louise hopped on the phone and called the whole thing off. Without a pilot light, she couldn't cook the food she had planned for the reception. Not to mention the logistical difficulties that arise from holding a wedding reception in a burning apartment.

A few minutes after those calls, our super came and relit it. Then I talked to my parents and they said it happens all the time. And in the seven years since, it has happened several times and we've managed to light it back up every time.

We had a blast at the reception, figuratively. My parents were able to talk to Louise's mom for the first - and thus far, the only - time in their lives. My old Minnesota pals met my new New York friends. My sister got sick because of too much South African wine and not enough food. Throughout the night I glanced at the TV, and watched the Lakers take the lead, before they fell into a tie, and then fell apart for good.

The night concluded with us taking the train to the Pennsylvania Hotel. We enjoyed our wedding night in a gorgeous suite. Our first night as man and wife. I turned on ESPN to see the final score of the Lakers game. I knew that night was the end of an era.

But even better, I knew it was the start of a new life.

Happy anniversary, honey.

The night Magic and Barkley both had 30-20 games

2011-06-11T19:12:00.001-04:00

Late November NBA games are usually forgotten by early December. It's the first month of an eight-month season and barring a season-ending injury, the results are all-but inconsequential, at least in terms of division races or playoff positioning. But special performances, even at the start of the season, will be remembered long after the end of it. And thanks to dedicated fans with internet connections, old game tapes and time on their hands, those games are now preserved decades after they were played.

Such is the case with a game between the Lakers and Sixers on November 28, 1988. The Lakers won a close one, but the individual performances from a pair of Hall of Famers are what stand out. Barkley played all but one minute and scored 31 points - despite making only 5 of 14 free throws - grabbed 23 rebounds and had six assists. Magic kept pace with 32 points, 20 assists and 11 boards.

The '89 season was a strange one for the Lakers, one that marked the end of a career and an era. It was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's final season and there was no doubt it was time. Kareem was no longer the Kareem of 1975, or even '85. In 1987, at the age of 40, he scored 32 points in Game 6 of the Finals. A year later, again in Game 6, the Lakers went to him in the closing seconds and he hit a pair of free throws as the Lakers held off the Pistons and clinched their second straight title in Game 7. But he struggled throughout his final campaign, a season that saw him honored and celebrated in cities throughout the league. Before the games would begin, the teams would present Kareem with gifts - some heartwarming, some corny, some ridiculous - honoring his efforts and unparalleled career. He often played like the old man he'd become, averaging only 10 points per game.

As a team, the Lakers were now firmly under Magic's control. He won his second MVP in 1989, averaging 22 points, 12.8 assists and 8 rebounds a game. Michael Jordan - the second-best player in league history after LeBron James - finished second in the voting, despite averaging an absurd 32 points, eight rebounds and eight assists for a Bulls team that went 47-35.

The Lakers started the 1989 season 15-3, but soon lost six of seven and meandered through the remainder of the never-ending campaign. They finished 57-25, but found their game in the playoffs, sweeping the first 11 games before facing the Pistons in the Finals, in a series where David Rivers and Tony Campbell played prominent roles. It didn't end well. I forget the details.

But all that was still far down the road when the Lakers traveled to Philly. The Lakers had lost their previous game to Detroit and Magic must have suffered some type of leg injury - his season of course ended with a hamstring injury against those same Pistons - as Chick Hearn says, early in the game, that Magic isn't limping.

The Sixers managed to win 46 games in 1989, despite running out a lineup that had prominent roles for Mike Gminski and Chris Welp. Barkley was, of course, the star, averaging 25 and 12 rebounds. He still had a lot of the roundness that gave rise to his nickname and he was still a year away from a season that saw him finish second in the MVP voting. But he was certainly a force.

To the tape.

* I always loved watching games on television from Philadelphia's Spectrum. The games somehow looked different in the famous old arena, whether it was the distinctive color scheme or having the benches on the near-side, so we see the back of Riley's perfect hair instead of his strained face.

* Magic starts the game with several patented drives, showing off his ability to slide through the defense with the ease of a player six inches shorter. Perhaps the short shorts helped by providing less resistance as he flew through the paint.

* At the 2:20 mark, a low point for Kareem - Mike Gminski easily blocks the Captain's shot. It wasn't a hook, but humiliating nonetheless. The all-time leading scorer, one of the most dominant forces in league history, perhaps the most dominant college player in history (I know, I know, Walton was a "better" college player, but Kareem's the one with three NCAA titles), and now, here, in his 20th season, he's rejected by Mike Gminski. A Dukie. It was time to retire.

* I love the pass from Magic to A.C. Green at the 3:05 mark. Green was no Worthy on the break. Still, he often found easy baskets by running down the middle of the court, ahead of Magic, who had the ability to laser or lob a pass to the power forward. Passes like the one at the 40-second mark of this video. Green had a reputation, deserved, for blowing layups. At least he converts this one.

* Worthy put up 14 points and seven rebounds in the first quarter. Never known as a great rebounder, Worthy proved it by grabbing only three more the rest of the game.

* At the 5:12 mark, a Scott Brooks sighting! Scrappy, short, not very good. The player Timberwolves fans would come to know in the coming years. Michael Cooper easily rejects Brooks' shot at one point, a play that looks like me defending my 11-year-old niece. Create, Scotty. Pass. Scrap. Annoy. Don't shoot.

* The game is a dunkathon for Barkley, who one minute, as he wanders up the court after a rebound, looks like a 54-year-old banker trying to keep up with a 21-year-old at a noon YMCA game, but the next looks like the heaviest sprinter in Olympic history as he rumbles down the lane, filling it in a way that A.C. Green could never imagine.

* Brooks defends Magic. Forget this looking like me going against my 11-year-old niece. This looks like my 11-year-old niece trying to guard Magic. Not the highlight of Jim Lynam's coaching career.

* Stu Lantz is now in his fourth decade as an analyst for the Lakers. Today he talks constantly on broadcasts, dominating the conversation. He's the analyst in this game with Chick. He doesn't get many words in, other than providing wrong information five seconds into the broadcast when he says the Lakers have won seven straight games in Philly. Chick corrects him - they'd won seven straight overall. Otherwise, Lantz delivers three-second remarks while Chick carries the broadcast in his unique way, commenting that the mustard's off the hot dog after an errant fancy Magic pass and controlling the pace of the broadcast with the type of ease and confidence Magic used while controlling the game on the court.

* Magic's assist pace actually faltered. He picked up his 12th at the 5:20 mark - of the second quarter. But as he did in so many Lakers games, especially when he took over as the primary scorer from Kareem, he looked for his own offense when the game got tight in the closing minutes.

* The force of nature Barkley displays his jaw-dropping abilities at the 10:20 mark, making the steal, pushing it upcourt and delivering a perfect behind-the-back pass for a layup. Awesome to watch.

* After the Sixers take their first lead of the game, Magic responds with a 3-pointer, which Chick says is just his third of the season, in 16 attempts. The '89 season would actually be the first when Magic showed any real ability to threaten from beyond the arc. He made 58 three-pointers total his first eight seasons. He made 59 in 1989, 106 the following season. In 1988 he hit 19 percent of his three-pointers. Horrific, yet quite a bit better than 1983, when he went 0 for...21! By 1990 he was hitting 38 percent. Yeah, he worked on his jumper in the pros.

* At the 14:29 mark, with 30 seconds left in the game, Magic throws in an impossible lefty shot in the lane that puts the Lakers up six. Chick, somewhat surprisingly, puts the game in the refrigerator, even though it was still only a two-possession game. The Sixers still had a shot, actually. They had Hersey Hawkins, a threat from deep. They still had Barkley who could barrel to the lane quickly and turn it into a free-throw shooting contest.

But Chick still puts in the fridge, shuts the door with the light off and the eggs cooling. Why? Because he knew the Lakers had Magic.

Heating up before cooling down

2011-06-07T19:30:00.000-04:00

Louise says fuck maybe 20 times a year. She used 15 of them today. It's what happens when we install an air-conditioner. Today it was the bedroom one.

We moved into our apartment in January 2005 and the bedroom A.C. went in about four months later. It stayed there until this past January, through six summers and just as many winters. We knew we'd have to put the old gal out of her misery after last summer, when it seemed ready to die every time it powered on. It coughed and wheezed, rumbled and sputtered. Occasionally we had to adjust the power cord because if you held it...just...so, it would run.

The A.C. lasted as long as it did simply because we dreaded replacing it. We don't have a good history with air conditioners. More specifically, I don't have a good history with them.

Years ago - I think when they were still dreading their upcoming 50th birthdays instead of lamenting being on the other side of 60 - my parents bought a three-ton apparatus that still survives. It lives in the rear of the garage nine months of the year. Every year my mom fights to get the beast installed the first time the Janesville Bank announces a temperature of 80 degrees, and every year my dad fights it off until temperatures reach triple digits. You'd think the person who's melting would hold the upper-hand in the debate, but it's not always so. When I lived at home I carried it in with my dad, up the flimsy porch steps that verge on collapse even under the best of circumstances, through the sliding door and around the TV.

The curse words fly there too, usually in relation to a bad back, a wayward chair or crushed fingers. It never goes smoothly. Occasionally feelings are hurt, in addition to limbs. Legend has it my brother-in-law, or was it one of his friends, carried the damn thing by themselves one year but that might just be a Janesville myth. The A.C. goes in the living room, an old bucket sits on the porch underneath it collecting water. It's a monumental moment the first time someone flicks it on. A 747 on takeoff makes less sound than my parents' air conditioner but the thing keeps blasting out that cold air in the hot summer months. My nephew has taken over my role in the installation process. It's nearly a hundred in Minnesota now. I'm guessing there's some cursing and aching backs in the near-future for those in the Fury household.

During my time in Fargo, I never paid for utilities. I took this as a reason to abuse the environment. In the summer months my A.C. ran constantly, even if I was at work. When I lived in the infamous Universal Building, I had an A.C. that cost about as much as a supersized value meal at McDonald's. Remarkably it worked, and I got the most out of my purchase. It ran night and day, when I was at home and when I was away. To turn it off meant courting death, as the temperature and humidity in my upper-floor apartment rivaled anything found in the tropics. Eventually ice formed in the window. Big chunks. Large, white chunks. It looked like the inside of an unthawed refrigerator. It was time to turn it off.

In New York, we went without an A.C. in our living room for two years. My two oldest nephews visited in the summer of 2005, right when a suffocating, evil heat wave hit the city. As we relaxed in our cool bedroom, they slept on our living-room futon. I think there's probably still some bitterness there on their part. One morning I walked out and saw Brady sprawled out on the floor, a miniature fan - really miniature, like three inches high - pathetically blowing about three inches from his face. It was a sad sight. He's a teenager, I figured. He's in New York, on a once-in-a-lifetime trip. He shouldn't be complaining. Actually I felt terrible but there was nothing I could do so I retreated back to the safety of the bedroom.

A few years later we put one in the living room. We fought and perspired. We wept and swore - at the machine, and each other. Finally we stuffed it into the window, convinced it'd eventually plummet six floors down to a vacant lot, killing our chances at a cool summer, if not an actual person. Louise plugged it in. She hit power.

Nothing.

If this had been a badly written sitcom, the credits would have rolled down the screen while I held the power cord, baffled. The crowd would cheer while someone said, "SHAWN AND LOUISE IS FILMED IN FRONT OF A LIVE STUDIO AUDIENCE." We tried a different socket and received the same result. Uninstalling it proved as difficult as installing. But soon enough I hailed a cab and hauled it back 40 blocks south to the electronics store that sold it. Ninety minutes later I found Louise in a puddle of a sweat - or were those tears? By that point, with our spirits broken, we had no time for anger or swearing or annoyance. We installed the new machine, hit the power button and relaxed, knowing we wouldn't have to do that for another two, three...four years.

Today was the day. Temperatures will reach into the upper 90s in NYC this week. For a week or so, Louise has left the bedroom in the middle of the night, surrendering to the heat, so she can sleep in the cool living room. So we gave it a go today. I did the heavy lifting, Louise did the heavy work, handling the drill, screws, fans, sides and swearing. I hovered on our fire escape at one point, six floors up, again imagining what would happen if something - an air conditioner or, say, a 35-year-old man who weighs about 215 pounds - fell six stories to the cement below.

Our security gate complicated the efforts, caging Louse in at one point, pinning her against the window while I went to the bathroom to find a Band-Aid and some NeoSporin for a cut, which came courtesy of some stray metal at the back of the air conditioner. While Louise helpfully told me I would likely die of tetanus, I climbed back onto the fire escape as she put the final screws in. We slammed the window shut and plugged it in. We hit power. And it came on without a problem.

Louise is relaxing in the bedroom now. I'd join her. But first I'm going to let her cool off.

The blog lives, even if the Lakers don't

2011-05-31T19:22:00.023-04:00

The Lakers' humiliating defeat to Dallas sent Phil Jackson into retirement, but not this blog. The pain, anger, bewilderment, confusion, sadness, apathy and rage only lasted a day or two. When a team gets swept and loses the final game by a margin usually seen in junior high basketball games where there's no rules against pressing or using overgrown players with wispy mustaches, there's not much to be said and even less to regret. The Lakers had their run and it ended, but they still have the pieces to return to the Finals next season. I'm ready to look forward. And when I need to look back, I have dozens of tapes and DVDs of past triumphs to help with therapy.

In the past month I finished a book proposal that will hopefully find a home and that took up most of my writing time. To catch up, and in honor of my friend John, I present bullet points:

* We just returned from a trip to Minnesota. Louise made it back alive, but not unharmed. A typical Minnesota trip, in other words. On previous trips to my homeland, Louise has suffered the pain of frostbite, the discomfort of an insect sting and the humiliation of bird shit on her face. She remains convinced the state is out to get her, that her African blood is somehow unwelcome. I always told her that's ludicrous.

Now I'm not so sure.

One day we drove to Winona to visit my aunt and uncle. For years I've told her we should visit Winona, the beautiful city on the Mississippi. A few hours into our stay, we went to an area where you look down on the city and gaze at the river. Impressed, Louise suggested we walk down a hill that went through some woods. My mom would pick us up in the van at the bottom. Louise doesn't hike. She doesn't camp. She's not a lover of the outdoors and the feeling is mutual. It seemed like a strange request. The path had steps but these were still the woods and this was still Louise, sporting her red flip-flops, as if she were headed for a day at the beach in Cape Town.

Disaster struck perhaps a quarter-way down the hill. My nephew Brock led us while Louise and my aunt followed me. I saw Louise flying past before I heard anything. In fact, I don't know if anyone made a sound. I looked to my right and saw ass, hair and lower back, as Louise slid past me headfirst down the side of the hill, headed straight for a tree. She slid a good 10 feet, if not more. It looked like she was enjoying a romp on a snow-filled hill at Lake Elysian, minus the sled. If she'd squealed a cartoonish, "Wheeeeeee!" as she slid past, it wouldn't have been entirely out of place.

A tiny stump stopped her when her shoulder jammed into the protrusion. We scrambled toward her carcass. She looked up with a shocked look but a clean face. No bruises, no gaping wounds. But large, ugly scrapes scarred her arms and legs. The worst injury, however, wasn't visible. She fell when she twisted her ankle on the side of the step and toppled over like a doomed, aging prizefighter in the ring against a young champion. She limped back up the hill but could barely put any pressure on her right foot.

A day later, I drove her to the urgent care clinic in Waseca, where the doctor diagnosed her with torn ligaments in her foot. She wore a walking cast out of the clinic. Six weeks to fully heal. Today she's still hobbling around, looking a bit like Willis Reed in Game 7. But we did learn an important lesson. If Louise is going to get hurt - and since we will return to Janesville, this is more when than if - having it happen while we visit my parents isn't the worst thing. She saw a doctor within five minutes at the clinic and was out after a half-hour. Back in New York, when she needed stitches for a cut on her foot, she waited five hours. Minnesota will hurt her. But it will also take care of her.

* A jarring moment in Janesville: Dairy Queen changed the sizes of its malt cups. Surely some type of market research drove this decision but it sent me into a brief tailspin. The medium cup now looked like a small. It came in a clear container with a top and possessed the same look of the new McDonald's shake, complete with whip cream and a cherry - if you desired, which I don't. I've been eating Dairy Queen malts for 25 years and the look of the cup never changed. We visited the DQ three times in Janesville and I'm still not used to the new equipment. It seems too classy, too corporate. Fortunately the product tasted the same. Zagat rated the Dairy Queen milkshakes the best in the country, which corresponds with the equally prestigious Fury rating. Dairy Queen's product is still king, even if its cups aren't.

* I started reading the monstrous new book Those Guys Have All the Fun, the oral history of ESPN that clocks in at 763 pages and about that many pounds. The book received tremendous publicity before its release, as various sites and magazines ran excerpts detailing feuds between rivals and romps between friends. I just started the section on 1992-94, when Keith Olbermann arrives on the scene and starts pissing off everyone at the network.

One of the early sections details a key point in ESPN's "worldwide dominance." And looking back, it's an event that really should have shown that ESPN can turn anything into a big-time event. Forget poker, Australian Rules Football and the ridiculous Who's Next - in 1987, ESPN convinced the country that the America's Cup was the biggest event in the land. A yacht race. But I remember watching part of the event as a land-locked kid and I remember the thrill when the Americans recaptured the Cup, which they'd lost in 1983 to the hated - I guess - Australians. That victory by the Aussies snapped a winning streak that started in 1857. So America's pride was on the line in 1987. I've never watched a yacht race since and I don't know the results of any of the America's Cup events since 1987. But oh how I wanted us to crush the Australians. The only thing that would have made it better is if the Soviets could have been involved.

Here's how analyst Gary Jobson described the monumental victory:

A lot of curves cross in favor of ESPN on that magic event. By 1987, the country had been dealing with another recession and was just not feeling great at that moment. We had lost the America's Cup in 1983, a shocking loss to many. At the time, the movie Crocodile Dundee had just come out, and the Cup was happening in summer in Australia, which is winter in the U.S. You could watch the races live and get onboard the boats, which had never happened before. It was windy and exciting every day. So the combination of patriotic fervor and strong winds matched up perfectly with an outcome very much in doubt.

Apparently all America needed during the last recession was a yacht race, instead of a stimulus. You're out of a job? Forget your problems, watch some rich guys float around the ocean. Crocodile Dundee came out? It's unclear if Jobson meant the movie made Americans excited about Australia or gave us another reason to hate the country. Were we supposed to be so upset by this funny-talking foreigner who had bigger knives than our muggers that we'd want to dominate in the water? Or were we so excited by the Croc that we'd tune in to the America's Cup just to see, perhaps, Paul Hogan providing analysis or pulling a shift on one of the boats? Weird moment in time; Paul Hogan ruled the metroplex, yachting ruled TV. But one thing remained the same - the USA kicked some ass. Too bad it didn't come at the expense of the Commies.

* Went to a Twins game at Target Field. Great experience. First home game since Harmon Killebrew's death. Jim Thome blasted a pair of homers. Twins took a 7-4 lead into the eighth. And then, predictably, inevitably, everything fell apart and the Twins lost in extra innings. The most amazing sight of the night came in the bottom of the ninth, when the Twins had the possible winning run in scoring position and the crowd rose as one. Everyone but my mom, who sat in her chair, asleep, as excited as an 8-year-old in church. We've long joked that she could sleep through anything but this provided the final proof of that theory. She obviously didn't miss anything, as the Twins failed to get the big hit. We woke her up in time to see the Twins lose.

* Mike Brown. Huh. Like many Lakers rubes, I would have preferred Rick Adelman, but Brown could prove to be a great hire. In a way, the somewhat unexpected hiring is in line with the majority of coaches Jerry Buss has brought aboard since 1980, even if this decision was more of a Jim Buss production. Early in the 1981-82 season, as the team struggled and Magic Johnson complained about Paul Westhead, Buss promoted a little-known assistant named Pat Riley. Originally, the plan called for Jerry West to serve as a co-coach, as an offensive coach. That, thankfully, didn't last, and the Lakers went on to win four titles under Riley while West became a legendary general manager.

When Riley left in 1990 following an embarrassing playoff defeat, the Lakers hired first-time coach Mike Dunleavy, a guy with no experience who had to handle a veteran team with legendary players who were a bit past their prime. After a shaky start, Dunleavy led the Lakers to the 1991 Finals, where they would have won if James Worthy had been healthy. So I tell myself. In reality they lost in five to the Bulls. A few months later, Magic Johnson called a press conference that changed basketball history forever and after the 1992 season Dunleavy left for Milwaukee. Instead of going after a big name, Buss hired longtime assistant Randy Pfund, a serviceable coach caught in an impossible situation.

Del Harris came to the Lakers for the 1995 season, another hire that raised eyebrows when it didn't cause yawns. When Phil Jackson joined the team for the 2000 campaign, it was really the first time the Lakers went after the biggest name available. The hire made perfect sense at the time, unlike many of Buss's hires. But like many who came before him, Jackson proved Buss knew what he was doing. The Rudy Tomjanovich hiring, of course, showed Buss is anything but infallible.

Will Brown be like Rudy T. or Riley? Like Dunleavy or Pfund? No matter who followed Jackson, their resume would look laughable. With John Wooden and Red Auerbach not up for leading an NBA team, it'd be impossible to find anyone who could come close to matching Jackson's achievements. Adelman, Van Gundy, Shaw - they all would have faced questions. Brown led the Cavs to 66 victories one season, 61 the next. Yes, he had LeBron. But the Heat had LeBron, Wade, Bosh and Juwan Howard this year but only had 58 victories. Brown made the pieces work, just not when it mattered most. The Lakers aren't going to plummet to .500 next season. They're old but the Mavs are even older. They suffered a devastating defeat but the Mavs suffered those every year except this one. With perhaps a few tweaks, they should again contend for the title.

Still, it won't be the same without Phil. The Lakers will see more in-game timeouts and fewer post-game quips. There might be better defense but worse offense. They'll have a coach who stands throughout the game, but they'll no longer have the coolest coach in the league perched on his big chair. It won't be the same, even if the winning returns.

* The playoffs continued without the Lakers, violating some type of league bylaw. I'm picking the Mavs. The Heat have looked great, but so have the Mavs. And during the season, when Dirk played, the Mavs were pretty much the best team in the league. Early in the year they won 17 of 18 games. Then, when Dirk returned from injury, they won 18 of 19, with the lone loss coming at the buzzer in Denver. I see Dirk pulling a Rick Barry, circa 1975, and carrying his team past a more talented squad. Mavs in 5, which will likely be as accurate as my last prediction - Lakers in 5.

When dynasties die

2011-05-07T15:19:00.007-04:00

A part of me doesn't really believe anything I'm about to type after this paragraph. A part of me remains convinced the Lakers will steal a game against Dallas on Sunday afternoon, then cruise to a victory at the Staples Center two nights later. Now it's Game 6 and Dallas feels all the pressure. Lose this game at home and they're on the verge of becoming the first team in NBA history to blow a 3-0 lead. No one's done that, not even the tortured Lakers teams from the 1960s, which lost in every conceivable manner except that one. But the Lakers pull out a close Game 6. The teams return to LA for Game 7 and is anyone outside of Dallas or Germany expecting the Mavericks to pull that one out? The Lakers roll and ride the type of momentum no one in league history has had into the Western Conference Finals. Eight games later - after sweeping Oklahoma City and Chicago - the Lakers are NBA champs. Again.

But maybe that doesn't happen.

Dynasties don't end well. Even when it ends with a team going out on top - like Jordan's 1998 Bulls did - the following seasons are disastrous and produce the type of basketball that is usually only produced by guys running around in Timberwolves jerseys. Dynasties end with young legs running past old ones, unless they end with the old legs breaking down. In 1989 the Lakers went for three in a row and rolled to an 11-0 record in the playoffs until Byron Scott's hamstring snapped before the Finals, followed by Magic's in Game 2. And that was it for the Magic-Kareem-Worthy-Cooper gang.

No one knew until November of 1991 that the Magic era had ended in June of that year, but when the Bulls methodically ushered the Lakers out in five games, it followed the template that's been repeated time and time again - the younger, fresher, hungrier team overwhelming the aging warriors. Same thing happened with the Celtics in 1988 against the Pistons. And those Pistons suffered a humiliating exit in 1991, when they, like the Lakers this year, were seeking a third straight title and fourth straight Finals appearance. Instead Jordan and the Bulls swept them, forcing Detroit's players to perp walk off the court in the closing seconds, a moment that might have been the most humiliating moment in Isiah Thomas's career, if not for his time spent in the executive offices in the CBA and at Madison Square Garden. In 1996, the two-time defending champion Rockets finally fell, losing to Seattle in the conference semis. They got swept, actually. Sound familiar?

There's something...beautiful about watching a dynasty die. It's the circle of the sporting life. No one's a champion forever. When you see a champion lose, when you see how easy it is for a season to end, it helps you appreciate just how lucky you have to be to win in the first place. You appreciate just how good a team has to be in the first place. The eventual struggles help put the past triumphs in perspective.

From a Lakers point of view, this series feels a bit like 1990. A year after Kareem finally hung up the goggles, the Lakers went 63-19, the best record in the league. In the semifinals they met Phoenix, a franchise that had served as a purple punching bag for the Lakers for much of the 1980s. But after winning the first game in LA, the Suns returned to Phoenix and swamped the Lakers in Games 3 and 4, before finishing it off in 5. Pat Riley won the Coach of the Year that year but was finished after the playoff exit. It was the end of an era, just like it will be the end of Phil Jackson's era if - when - the Mavericks dust off the Lakers in this series.

There's no such thing as a tortured Lakers fan. The only time Lakers fans could ever claim that was in the 1960s and boy could they claim it back then. But 10 titles in 30 years - and a total of 16 trips to the Finals - disqualify any current Lakers fan from crying woe. No one wants to hear it. On Lakers messageboards, when people aren't clamoring for the hiring of Larry Brown (no, really), they're trying to put this expected loss in historical perspective. How disappointing is it? To me, it would rank pretty far down the list. It doesn't compare at all to the defeats in the 1960s , when the Lakers were still seeking that elusive first title in LA. It doesn't compare to 1970. It doesn't come close to 1984, when Magic fell apart, as did the Lakers in seven against Boston. It doesn't come close to 2004, when the end of the season felt apocalyptic, as Phil left and no one knew if either Shaq or Kobe would return. If this is it for the Lakers, it ends a superb three-and-a-half year run. It was a run that produced a pair of titles, including a delightful Game 7 comeback against the hated Celtics. Have the Lakers underachieved? Yeah, a bit. Gasol looks lost, Kobe looks tired and Fisher appears fossilized. But Dallas deserves more credit than the Lakers deserve blame. Dirk's playing as well as ever, they have a great coach and tremendous depth. They deserve to be up 3-0.

But...is there a chance at a comeback? Sure. No team has come back from a 3-0 deficit but teams have come back from being down 3-1. So the Lakers have to win Sunday and then it goes from there. If any team is going to finally climb out of a 3-0 hole to win, wouldn't you think it'd be a team with the resume of the Lakers? Most teams that fall behind 3-0 are clearly inferior. That's certainly not the case for the Lakers in this series, at least for the first 42 minutes of the games. And for any team to pull it off I think they need Game 7 at home, which the Lakers would have. In 2003, the Mavericks were up 3-0 on the Blazers before losing three in a row. Game 7 was at Dallas, and in that game, the Blazers actually led by two points with four minutes to go, before the Mavericks pulled away. So no team has come back from 3-0 down but they have come back to tie it and lead by two with four minutes to go in Game 7.

Is it likely? Nah. This is probably the end, the death of a dynasty. And in its own way, it will be beautiful. But...

No one thinks the Lakers can win four in a row. But then, how many people thought the Mavericks would win three in a row?

The boys of spring are cold out there

2011-04-26T13:16:00.001-04:00

The temperature will reach a high of about 45 degrees on Tuesday in Janesville, with a low of 35. It will rain and it will be windy. Wednesday's an even better day for the tourism bureau - high of 44, chance of snow.

And somewhere in Minnesota on those days, at around 4 in the afternoon, at about the time the temperature heads toward what will eventually be its low mark of the day, a pair of high school baseball teams will meet on a near-frozen diamond in front of a handful of bitter parents and fellow students, all of whom will wonder what in the hell they're doing sitting there watching a baseball game in the middle of, well, winter.

I loved playing high school baseball. I especially loved it when we had blue skies and 75-degree weather, which means I especially loved it about twice a season. Spring high school sports operate in an odd environment in Minnesota. For the most part, schools, coaches, students and parents do not seem to take them as seriously as they do fall and winter sports. The intensity falls, along with the stakes. Our baseball season always seemed to last about as long as the first two rounds of the NBA playoffs. Start the games in April, finish them by mid-May. By the time you get settled in, the season's over. When it's your senior year, your high school athletic career is over and you've barely even noticed.

In cold weather states baseball actually begins in the school gym, the exact date determined by when the basketball teams' seasons end. When people complain about indoor baseball it's usually when talking about MLB and domes. Before it came down, the Metrodome often came up in those discussions. People bemoaned the roof, the turf, the fans in the stands and the (alleged) ones that helped the Twins hit homers or kept foes from hitting them. But that indoor baseball is paradise compared to practicing in a gym. Groundballs off the basketball floor. Hitting inside a giant net. Pop-up drills where fielders run in a straight line as the coach lobs a ball over their head. Then it's time for some more grounders, perhaps a "mini-clinic" on how to come off the bag while turning a double-play. Now we're practicing how to take a lead off of first base. Our coach tries to "hold" us on, an action that's helpful and useful until it becomes ludicrous when he pretends to be a left-handed pitcher, holding his right leg up in an absurd Andy Pettitte impression before fake-firing to an imaginary plate, a motion that would cause anyone watching to say he throws like a girl, and an unathletic one at that.

But the only thing worse than practicing indoors during those early weeks is actually playing outdoors, when the temperature struggled to reach 50 and you could actually discuss wind chill in addition to the opposing pitcher's stuff. Being in the field was the worst, of course. When hitting, we could at least huddle in the dugout together. Standing in the infield you're exposed, helpless, forced to shuffle side to side in an attempt to keep warm, if not feign complete interest in the proceedings. Fortunately our pitchers always possessed decent control, apparently subscribing to the Twins' method of focusing first on throwing strikes (the flaw in that method, as our pitchers often discovered, is that you need a quality defense supporting you). There's no more helpless feeling than watching opposing hitters take four balls and then trot on down to first while their teammate jogs to second. You can plead with your struggling pitcher and disguise it as old-time baseball chatter - "Come on One-Six, throw strikes, big guy, come on now!" - but the parade will continue until the coach mercifully calls in a freezing replacement, who's probably been standing stiff in right field the first three innings. The walks continue.

You gotta throw strikes in cold weather. Make 'em swing, because hitting always seems ten times harder in cold temperatures. The bat feels heavier, your muscles weaker. And if you do make contact the sting sort of makes you wish you'd just had the decency to strike out. There's no sweet spot with an aluminum bat in the cold, only a sore spot. And if you manage to survive the pain and stroke a base hit you now have to run the bases, instead of retreating to the pseudo shelter offered by the aging dugout.

High school games are seven innings but in a Minnesota spring it feels like seventeen. Even better? Double-headers.

Baseball's a great game. Just don't try and tell that to Minnesota high school players today and tomorrow.

The playoffs begin - tell the Lakers

2011-04-18T01:10:00.000-04:00

Some thoughts on the NBA playoffs while I pull a Nixon and magically make 2 hours disappear from the tape of today's Lakers game.

* The Knicks can testify about the importance of the 3-point shot in today's NBA. But it wasn't always such a crucial factor. Check out the leaders from the 1982 playoffs, a season I picked randomly, which had nothing to do with the fact the Lakers won their second title in three seasons with a 4-2 victory over the Sixers. Look at the top long-range shooters that postseason:
1. Brian Winters, Milwaukee - 5
2. Mike Bratz, San Antonio - 5
3. Frank Johnson, Washington - 5
4. Andrew Toney, Philly - 5

Four guys, with five three-pointers. The next season Johnny Moore led the way with 9. Last year? Ray Allen made 56.

The champion Lakers made two 3-pointers the entire playoffs in 1982. They took 12 of them.

* Of the 16 coaches in the playoffs, who was the worst as an NBA player? Eleven of them played in the league, from the sharp-elbowed, joint-smoking Phil Jackson to the defensive-minded Nate McMillan. I originally thought Scott Brooks might get my vote, but the little guard and still-tiny Oklahoma City coach cobbled together a decade-long career in the league, including a few years with a young Timberwolves franchise. But I think the choice is Rick Carlisle, current Dallas coach and former Celtic. Carlisle played five seasons with three teams and averaged 2.2 points per game. He did pick up a ring with the '86 Celtics, as part of The Big Three, along with Bird and McHale.

* Speaking of McHale. Here's the old Hibbingite nearly killing Kurt Rambis in the 1984 Finals. Unfortunately for old Clark Kent, there are thousands of Timberwolves fans who would like to do the same thing to him now. When this play happened in Game 4, a mini-brawl broke out but McHale, ridiculously, was not thrown out of the game. Today he might be personally executed by David Stern at dawn, or at least suspended three games.

* The playoffs are my favorite time of the sports season, ahead of October baseball and March Madness. Just look at this first weekend of games, when six of them went down to the final minute. You had young teams like Memphis beating the veteran Spurs and you had the old guys in Boston holding off a revitalized Knicks team. You had new superstars like Durant and Rose lighting it up while seen-it-all guys like Dirk Nowitzki lifted their teams to victory with a limp and a fadeaway. And we get to watch those types of games for the next two months. But the playoffs also bring out my least-favorite people: conspiracy theorists. The NBA's always rife with conspiracy theories - having a ref involved in point-shaving scandals tends to lend some credence to those ideas. During the postseason, though, everyone sees black helicopters hovering overhead, or at least the evil hand of Stern.

I'd need a dozen sociologists, 10 mathematicians, Ralph Nader and Alex Jones to diagram the conspiracies that are supposedly at play. Who benefits? It depends on who's playing and who's complaining. An overview:

-The league wants LeBron and Wade in the Finals so they'll get the benefit of all foul calls. The league has promoted LeBron and Wade for eight years and this year will be no different. To beat LeBron, you'll have to beat eight guys - the five players and three refs. Conspirators often go silent when it's mentioned that these same fears were dragged out the last two seasons when James played for the Cavs yet somehow didn't make it to the Finals, despite the evil machinations of Stern's minions.

-The league doesn't want a big man dominating the game - it's too boring watching all those jump-hooks and dunks - so the refs will go out of their way to put Dwight Howard in foul trouble, or they'll just go ahead and T him up the first time his mouth opens or his eyes widen. This is the modern-day equivalent of the NCAA outlawing the dunk so Alcindor wouldn't dominate.

-The league wants the Knicks in the Finals. Of course. Conspirators will ignore the fact the Knicks were the victims of a ridiculous offensive foul call on Carmelo Anthony in the closing seconds tonight. Don't you see, they only called that so the conspiracy isn't so obvious.

-The league wants the Lakers in the Finals. Obviously. So Kobe can push off, Gasol can whine, Bynum can travel with every drop step and Artest can manhandle offensive players. There's no way the league will allow a small market team like the Spurs, Thunder or Hornets to win the West. Did the Spurs win four titles since 1999? Yes. But again, if you're following along with the complicated chart, that's just to make things look good. Each time the Spurs won, Stern wept - and plotted anew how to keep San Antonio out of the Finals and off of our TVs in June.

-But even Lakers fans get in on the fun. Incredibly, a fan base that has watched its team in nearly half the Finals in league history believes the league is out to get their favorite squad. Why? Because the NBA is - supposedly - sick of their dominance. Stern wants to promote young stars like Rose and Durant and is tired of Kobe winning titles so he won't get the benefit of any calls. As I type this people are creating threads on Lakers messageboards claiming these very things. In other news, Major League Baseball doesn't want the Yankees and Red Sox making the playoffs.

* Here's Magic hitting an 80-footer against the Nuggets in the 1987 playoffs. My favorite thing about this video is Chick Hearn calculating the length of the shot. He comes up with 80 feet. When they return from break, he's perturbed to find out it's not the official number. Perturbed and a bit incredulous.

* Former Laker stiff Travis Knight holds an NBA playoff record. As you could have guessed, it's not the type of record that will be on his resume when he earns entry into his high school's hall of fame. Knight has the fastest disqualification in NBA playoff history. It took him only six minutes to rack up six fouls in a 1999 game. The record had previously been held by a player who shared many of Knight's qualities - Will Perdue, who needed seven minutes to foul out.

Bizarrely - or not - there's youtube of Knight when the Bulls drafted him. Weird reaction from the crowd; it almost seems like the broadcast pumped in action scenes from some previous draft - perhaps when Jordan himself was drafted in 1984 - for Knight's selection. Why would there be this much noise for the 29th pick in the draft, a center who was a bit "slow afoot."

Rick Pitino provides the commentary on the Knight pick. He doesn't sound too impressed, but he was actually playing possum. In 1997, after Knight enjoyed a workmanlike campaign with the Lakers (he never played for the Bulls), Pitino, now with the Celtics, signed Knight to a seven-year deal worth $22 million. He averaged six points for the Celtics. Two years later he was back in LA, fouling out in six minutes. Somewhere, Jon Koncak smirked.

* Michael Jordan holds nearly every conceivable playoff scoring record. For all of Wilt's dominance with the regular-season scoring marks, it's Jordan's name that appears everywhere in the postseason. He has the most 20-point playoff games with 173 - in 179 games. He scored at least 15 in every playoff contest and holds the records for most 50-point games (8), 40-point games (38) and 30-point games (109). But one record he doesn't have is most consecutive 40-point games. In 1965, Jerry West hit the 40-point mark in a remarkable six straight games - all against the Baltimore Bullets. He averaged 46.3 for the series.

The playoffs continue Monday and the Lakers return to action Wednesday. If they don't win that one? Blame the conspiracy.

School lunch memories

2011-04-13T01:23:00.001-04:00

I have to be careful about how I say this.

Louise is, in many ways, the best cook I've ever known, and certainly the best one I've been married to. But a more accurate statement would be that Louise is one of the two best cooks I've ever known, because she has to share the top spot with my late grandma Bernice. Choosing one to hold the top spot in this mythical ranking would be impossible; I'd have to deal with either a hurt wife or a guilty conscience.

Grandma worked for years as a school cook in Fulda, but my memories - and her ranking - have everything to do with what she conjured up in her tiny kitchen, and nothing to do with the meals she helped create for the town's youth. I'm sure grandma made good food for the kids. But those offerings couldn't possibly compare to the french toast, chocolate chip cookies, and roast beef she expertly crafted at home. I bet even grandma would have admitted she did not do her best work within the school confines.

School lunches have been compared to prison food service but that's unfair - to our nation's penal system.

But now, school lunches are in the news, as a Chicago school banned kids from bringing lunch from home. They'll eat in the school, and they'll like it - or not. But they will eat it, unless they have an allergy that requires a special meal from home, and can't you just imagine a host of children being diagnosed with allergies by the start of the next school year? The principal says it's about nutrition. Kids can't be trusted to make healthy choices so the school makes them. Some people are upset because it robs parents of their ability to parent, although in some cases that seems like it'd be a good thing. Yes, mom can order a kid to eat disgusting broccoli at the dinner table, but a school has no right to do that. So goes the argument. Others say it's simply a money grab from the school trying to get kids to pay for more lunches.

Regardless, there can be no doubt that, ultimately, as is the case whenever a child eats a school lunch, it's the kids who suffer.

We had a small cafeteria in Janesville, nothing like the ones I'd see in classic '80s movies like Just One of the Guys, Better Off Dead or the outdoor facilities in Can't Buy Me Love. In those, hundreds of students wandered around a giant area, gazing out at large windows. They chose from a large variety of options, which looked like something out of an Old Country Buffet ad. They wore roller-skates or baseball uniforms. It wasn't like that in Janesville, or many small schools.

To enter one way at Janesville, students didn't even actually stand in line in the cafeteria. Instead we lined up in a hallway that doubled as our tornado shelter, then turned into a short walkway that took us to the actual food line. The setting in that hall was more like a scene from a DMV, and, depending on if it was the day we ate butter sandwiches and soup, more depressing.

You could also line up inside the cafeteria against a wall, just inches away from some of the tables where the upperclassmen sat. It felt like being up against a wall facing a firing squad, only instead of silver bullets fired from rifles, the weapons of choice were green peas fired by forks.

To me the milk always proved especially disappointing. I'm a longtime milk aficionado but even I could barely stand to drink the school-lunch milk. Those tiny blue cartons that never opened correctly in the front. Instead of peeling back cleanly and correctly, mine often ended up mangled, so any drink of milk also contained the taste of that fluffy white material that would cling to the carton, tainting the already below-average taste. On special occasions we received chocolate milk. All that did was make us aware of how much we were missing every other day of the year.

The cafeteria was divided into a pair of sections. On one side the round tables with the upperclassmen, discussing weekend party plans and the easiest girls in the school. On the other, long tables with tiny round seats that seemingly hovered only a few inches off the ground, where the elementary kids talked about birthday parties and the relative grossness of boys and girls.

We consumed our pizza burgers and mashed potatoes, dreaming of those days when we'd take field trips and everyone had a reason to pack a sack lunch.

In seventh grade I became a part of the system, working a few days a week as a dishwasher, or, more accurately, tray washer, manning my station with the other kids in a job that seemed designed as a work-release program, if not something that should have been done by a chain gang. We labored - as children - in stifling temperatures as the steam enveloped everything. Our fellow students - who enjoyed firing their trays filled with half-eaten food into the wash area - regarded us with more contempt than respect. I don't remember how much I made, although, coupled with my work as a paper boy during that same time period, I probably saved up enough money to buy a dozen packs of baseball cards or a single offering from the traveling Bookmobile.

By the time eighth grade rolled around, my days in the cafeteria were over. I started making the two-block walk home, where I could spend my lunchtime eating and watching afternoon game shows. Mom and dad were at work so I had to piece together my own meals. It wasn't hard, since I wasn't interested in variety. Every day of every school week I'd make the same thing: peanut butter and jelly sandwich, some potato chips, a pickle and a couple of slices of Velveeta cheese. I topped it off with a glass of milk - real milk, from a real glass, not cardboard - and a can of pop. Chicago school administrators would surely frown upon such a diet.

Did it damage me? I grew to 6-3 in high school, have never suffered a broken bone in 35 years and now, as an adult, when those wretched meals from the past should perhaps be sneaking up on me and doing a bit of damage to my skin, locks or internal organs, I remain perfectly healthy. Good heart, good lungs, strong bones, full head of hair. Am I saying the pb&j, chips, cheese and Coke deserve all the credit for my health? No. Not all. But I wouldn't be doing any better if I'd spent all of those days trudging through line like a white collar crook at a minimum-security prison, dreading that day's offering.

Certainly some kids in school could have benefited from forced nutrition. One classmate went to lunch every day at the bowling alley. To the best of my knowledge, he ate nothing but candy for four straight years. He'd return to school with his cheeks bulging and his pockets spilling with all types of assorted sweets, from bubble gum to Skittles. Kid could have used an apple.

Today I'm not sure that, in a post-Columbine world, students at JWP schools are even allowed to leave school grounds at lunch hour. Hopefully they can still bring sack lunches.

I definitely went to school at the right time. And I was lucky that it took me about three and a half minutes to walk from school to our fridge. No one should be forced to eat a school lunch. I don't think I could have handled five more years of them. Not even if the best cook I've ever known - one of them - had been the one serving them. Sorry, grandma.

For those still suffering from Butler-UConn

2011-04-05T09:21:00.000-04:00

A lot of people suffering hangovers today from that NCAA title game last night, either because they drank too much to celebrate its outcome or imbibed too much in order to endure it.

There are great coaches who focus primarily on defense and would be happy with 50-45 games each night. Even they must have been squirming on their couches a bit last night. In low-scoring games there's often a question of whether it's great defense or bad offense. The CLANGING sound you heard from those CBS mics attached to the rims provide overwhelming evidence that this was all about the guys shooting the ball, and not the ones defending. I'd say it set the game of basketball back 60 years but that'd be unfair to the 1951 Kentucky team, which defeated Kansas State 68-58 in the title game.

Thousands of junior high girls basketball coaches watched last night's game and thought, "Man, and I thought our team couldn't shoot."

Partly I blame the setting. Final Fours will never return to regular basketball arenas and they shouldn't. If you can get 75,000 people to attend a basketball game, compared to 15,000, you should take advantage of the opportunity and when's the last time the NCAA failed to take advantage of an economic opportunity? But domes remain nightmare places for shooters, the background different from anything the players see all year. The teams might have had better shooting percentages if they played on an outdoor court on the prairie with 30 mile-an-hour winds swirling around a hoop with no net. It's not an excuse. But going back to the Houston-UCLA game in 1968, basketball just looks odd played in a dome. And it must seem even stranger trying to shoot in one.

So here's a bit of an anecdote for last night's display. Some offensive basketball, slightly different from last night's offensive play.

The birthday boy

2011-03-28T20:20:00.001-04:00

My dad Pat turned 64 today. I don't know that I've ever referred to him as "my old man" and now that he's getting dangerously close to having that phrase qualify as an accurate, dreaded description and not just a term of affection, I won't start now.

Dad taught me how to shoot a basketball, catch a football and field a grounder. He passed down his values, sense of humor and political beliefs. He's the second-biggest fan of my writing and the only reason he's not No. 1 is because my mom makes it impossible for anyone else to gain the top spot. Dad retired three years ago, at least in theory. He no longer drives 10 miles each day to Itron in Waseca. Instead he drives hundreds of miles a week, operating a van for a local bus company, ferrying kids to area schools. He always loved driving and he's loved retirement, but I'm not sure he's the biggest fan of driving during retirement.

He's stubborn, sometimes grouchy and always suffers from a "head full." He's a great dad and a better husband - he married my mom in 1968 and they're still together. I hope I'm as good of a spouse today, and some day I hope to be as good of a dad. He's also an awesome grandpa to my sister's five kids, though only one - my niece Brandi - has him wrapped around her finger.

Dad's 64. Seems hard to believe, since I can remember when he was my age - 35 (the Lakers won the title that year). But here are some thoughts that don't fit on a birthday card.

* Growing up, my dad idolized Eddie Mathews and Elgin Baylor. He loved the Milwaukee Braves and the Minneapolis Lakers. I'm sure he can still recite stats from the 1957 World Series, or at least the Braves' lineup. He cherished an autographed picture of Elgin. Minnesota lost the Lakers in 1960, Wisconsin said goodbye to the Braves five years later. He still sort of pulls for the Braves, the Atlanta version. I guess there are still some memories there of Mathews' left-handed swing, or maybe years of exposure to TBS finally broke him down.

But the Lakers? He stayed a fan through the torturous '60s, when Boston tormented Lakers players and fans, those in California and the ones left behind in Minnesota. Yet by the time I became a fully fledged Lakers fan - at the age of 5 - he had pulled away. And when the Celtics and Lakers renewed their rivalry in the 1980s, he cheered for the Celtics. A stunning reversal, which he never adequately explained. It might have had something to do with Kevin McHale's presence on the Celtics, the local boy-angle and all. Mostly, though, it gave him the chance to engage me in sports debates and arguments, which we've done from the moment I learned to talk, discussions that will continue until the day one of us stops talking forever.

A Lakers fan cheering the Celtics. Still baffling. And if Elgin knew about it? He'd ask for that autographed picture back.

* In 1995 and 1996 I spent the summer months playing on the Itron softball team, a ragtag group of has-beens and never-weres that lost much more than they won and looked bad doing both. But we had a blast.

Dad manned first base and I played shortstop. The first game I played with the crew, we upset one of the better teams in the Waseca league, a game that proved to be the highlight of the team's tenure. We made a nice combination in the field. At the plate, he actually outhit me. That's not as disgraceful as it sounds. Dad played softball for decades, I only started in '95. He always swung a good bat - for average, not power - and even at the age of 49 he routinely drilled shots into the outfield.

We only squabbled occasionally, usually because of the failures of a teammate. One time he complained after I threw it home to catch a runner, only to watch the ball bounce off the glove of our overmatched catcher. "Don't make that throw," he said, with a familiar edge in his voice, the voice I'd heard numerous times growing up, usually when talking about one of my turnovers or a missed free throw. I told him I'd keep making it, unless we were willing to surrender every time a runner rounded third base. But mostly we just had fun, no matter how lopsided the results on the field. I'd like to think that if we played together on a team now, I would be able to outhit him. But probably not. He had game.

* One trait I didn't pick up from dad: Guy's something of a neat freak, especially with his vehicles. You could eat off of the floor mats in his cars, if only he allowed you to have food in them. When he cleans his car inside and out, he looks like a man who's preparing for a first date or a trip around town with the president in the backseat. I always felt a little bad when he climbed into my car. Pick up the soda cans. Throw away the McDonald's bags. Hunt for a stray McNugget rotting under a seat. Vacuum - at least the front. His looks passed harsher judgment than his words.

* At a certain age, dad stopped playing me in one-on-one basketball. That age being whenever victory became impossible for him. I grew, he didn't, my jumper improved, his didn't, I gained a bit of quickness, he lost a bit more, and that was it. Yet long after those battles ended, he remained infuriatingly difficult to beat in H-O-R-S-E and free-throw competitions. He proved especially tough on his old homecourt, the farm he grew up on in southwestern Minnesota. Improbably, he'd hit hook shots and bank shots, straight-on bombs and sideline jumpers. The old basket attached to an older barn acted like a magnet for his shots, easing them through the battered net. My grandpa often watched these games, standing in his overalls off to the side, silently taking in the action. I think he was probably pulling for his grandkid, but I bet when I stalked off swearing and dad celebrated with a little cheer, he probably felt happy for his son. And now, when dad watches me battle my nephews, he's probably pulling for them, but I bet he's a little happy when his kid prevails.

* My mother-in-law Patricia only met my parents the weekend of our wedding. Being separated by an ocean cuts down on the family get-togethers. But during that lone meeting, she described my dad as a "quiet thunderstorm." You don't see him coming until it's too late. She said this after dad had consumed a few glasses of wine at our wedding reception. I'll say no more.

* Dad loves Dancing With the Stars. It's his new Milwaukee Braves. It's strange. I don't understand it, I barely accept it. Big fan. Strapped-into-his-seat-don't-dare-call-during-the-show type of fan. Gets upset about results. For all I know yells at the judges the same way he yells at basketball refs. And I thought his Celtics fandom was baffling.

* After I graduated from Saint John's in 1997, dad helped me land an interview to be a technical writer at Itron. The interview didn't go real well. I could write, but not technically.

"But I'm eager to learn."

I had answers, but not the ones they needed to hear.

"The best part of Microsoft Word? Well, Spellcheck is really handy."

I had the requisite desperation but probably didn't hide it well enough.

"I can start immediately! Today, in fact!"

I didn't get the job, which would have paid something like $38,000, a ransom for a recent college grad who majored in the vague arts of communication. Dad helped me get a foot in the door, but the people doing the hiring quickly - although politely - closed it. Regardless, I appreciated the opportunity. A few months later I landed a newspaper job and found a gig suited to my skills, if not my economic desires. I'm not sure how it would have worked if we shared a work building. If he complained about my throws to home plate on the softball field, what would he have said if he didn't like my description of the proper way to build an ERT? And would my response have been a fireable offense?

* Unless something's replaced it recently, I think Cool Hand Luke remains his favorite movie - and Luke himself his favorite character. That's cool. Better than listing Dancing With the Stars as your favorite show.

* For years we had a running joke in the family about dad's desire to write a letter to the editor. Whenever something upset him - whether on a national, state, local, neighborhood or household level - he threatened to write a letter to the editor. Which editor? Who knows? A paper's, presumably. We compared him to an odd man in our town named Fred who penned a letter-a-week to the little Janesville paper, thousand-word missives that touched on the Book of Genesis, wars, Jesus, death, crops, weather, Democrats, Republicans, vikings and Vikings, the Twins and kids these days.

But one day dad actually followed through. He wrote a letter to the editor and, more importantly, the paper published it. Like me, he learned the thrill of seeing your byline. He's since made other appearances, in newspapers like the Mankato Free Press and Minneapolis Star-Tribune. They're usually brief, simple shots that sting. I think he secretly hopes they'll bring out a response from someone on the other side of the issue. When he retired I worried about him spending his days writing manifestos to nonexistent editors at imaginary newspapers, but he's maintained a normal pace. And now, when he threatens to write a letter to the editor, we take him seriously.

* A few years ago I navigated my mom's junk room in the basement - I'm calling it mom's because dad sort of disavows it, even though a lot of the stuff in it is, in fact, his - and came across a box of love letters from way back when. Back to when my dad was out of high school and my mom still in it. He romanced and courted her, usually writing once a day.
Historians cherish long-lost letters and so do mourning children. But it
can definitely be a bit awkward reading letters from people who are still alive and well and sitting upstairs watching TV. Yet I didn't really feel weird. I won't go into the details - they weren't dirty, anyway; this was small-town America in the '60s, the Catholic Church probably censored the letters - other than to say dad didn't just win over mom with his goofy-yet-endearing looks. He had a way with words. Did he think some kid would rummage through the letters 40 years later? Probably not. But I think he believed he'd still be with that same girl four decades later.

* I've attended thousands of sporting events with dad. Little League baseball, town team baseball, T-ball, college, semi-pro, Major League Baseball, 7th grade basketball, 8th grade basketball...and onward, college basketball, pro basketball, junior college basketball, women's hoops and elementary kids basketball. All levels of football. We've consumed more bad popcorn than a hundred movie critics. He brought me along when I was a little kid and helped me learn how to count while looking at basketball scoreboards. When I was in school, he attended nearly every game I ever played, from first grade through college. Today he'll drive two hours to watch a grandkid play an hour-long game, then drive two more hours back home. In snow and ice.

If I was back in Minnesota today, I couldn't think of a better way to spend dad's birthday than attending a basketball game with him. We'd stop for a little dinner beforehand, get to the game, occupy our normal seats - either in the top row or near the court, depending on the arena - and then watch and talk hoops for two or three hours. On the drive back home we'd dissect the game and parts of the countless other ones we've seen over the years.

We'd get home, mom would have cooked up a little snack and we'd watch more sports on TV. At some point I'd wish him a happy birthday. He'd grumble about getting old, complain about his sore back.

But I'm 1,500 miles away, so I can only do one of those things.

Happy birthday, old m...Happy birthday, dad.

A tribute to The Captain

2011-03-23T11:01:00.000-04:00

My dad turns 64 in about a week - even if he denies this - and that means in a few weeks Kareem Abdul-Jabbar will hit the same age. It's how I remember Kareem's birthday, because he's a few weeks younger than my dad. Or maybe it's how I remember my dad's birthday, because he's a few weeks older than the big fella.

You don't see a lot of Kareem these days, at least if you're looking on TV broadcasts or NBA sidelines. He never did land a head coaching job in the league and his calm, measured way of speaking probably wouldn't earn him an audition for studio jobs, where volume often trumps all else. But he's been popping up recently, promoting his documentary On the Shoulders of Giants. More Kareem's always a good thing.

Twenty-two years after his final NBA game, Kareem remains one of the most remarkable athletes in sports history. Like many Lakers fans who came of age during the Showtime Era, I worshipped Magic Johnson while also realizing Kareem was just as important - more important in some ways - to the team's success. He was unstoppable, but also seemingly unknowable, no matter how many times fans quoted his lines from Airplane. He didn't care much for the media, meaning the media didn't have much reason to care for him. He possessed the most unstoppable shot in the game's history, developed as a kid and perfected after college basketball's lords tired of his dominance and banned the dunk. He remained the Lakers' go-to player at the age of 40, even while playing with two fellow Hall of Famers. He owns the career scoring mark, but even that impossible-to-comprehend figure didn't protect him from criticism, as many attributed it simply to good genes. For certain stretches, he was the best player in his sport in three separate decades. He was The Captain. Here then, a few thoughts on Kareem, or, as Dick Stockton called him on Return to Glory, the Begoggled Wonder:

* Kareem grew up in Inwood, about 15 blocks from where I now live. But he went to high school at famed Power Memorial, which was at 61st Street but closed in 1984. Kareem - then Lew Alcindor - led Power to 71 consecutive victories. He graduated in 1965. Jack Donohue coached Kareem's team and left Power for the head job at Holy Cross in 1965. Probably a coincidence.

There's a great video on YouTube that has footage of DeMatha snapping Power's long winning streak. The first few minutes are filled with people in glasses jumping up and down, as the cameraman was apparently under directions to not film the actual game, no matter what was happening on the court. I think you'll figure out which player was Kareem.

Here's Big Lew as a high school sophomore with the other top prep players in the country. They appeared on Ed Sullivan's show in 1963, probably right before a family of jugglers.

Ed says Kareem's being compared to Wilt Chamberlain. A 15-year-old being compared to the most dominant player the game had ever seen. Just a little pressure. Yet 21 years later, that kid drilled a skyhook in Utah and passed Wilt on the all-time scoring list.

* A star forward named Edgar Lacey joined Kareem on that All-Sullivan squad. Kareem later played with him on the UCLA dynasty. And in 1969, Kareem, now an NBA rookie, wrote a remarkable story for Sports Illustrated, where he talked about his Olympic boycott, his debate about which pro league to join and the final UCLA title of his career. But he also criticized the one saint of college basketball, his own legendary coach, John Wooden.

Kareem criticized Wooden for his treatment of Lacey. When Houston defeated UCLA in the Game of the Century in 1968, Elvin Hayes dominated Lacey in the first half of the game, before Wooden benched Lacey in the second half. Kareem wrote that Wooden had a "blind spot" when it came to players who didn't completely agree with Wooden's view of the world. If you weren't morally in tune with Wooden, he might not play you or he'd make your life difficult. Lacey, Kareem believed, suffered unnecessarily because of it. After the Houston game, Lacey left the team. Kareem wrote:

"Lace was very much his own man. He did his own thing, and he did not alter his personality to suit whatever coach he was playing for. He would never become anybody's 'boy,' in the sense that Shack became Coach Wooden's boy.' So he found himself fighting for a starting position, while Shack got his automatically. And so help me, if I'm any judge of ballplayers at all, both Lace and Mike were better than Lynn Shackelford, despite the fact that Shack was one of the fine college players."

Later in the piece, Kareem wrote that he believed Wooden had, finally, changed and was not so unbending. And there's no doubt Kareem respected and admired his old coach. But he also always had the guts to criticize - he repeated those thoughts about Lacey years later in his autobiography. Imagine a Duke player writing a piece like that about Coach K today, seven months after winning a third national title. And in the same piece he discusses his conversion to Islam and his boycott of the sacred Olympics. Whose head explodes first? Coach K's, Dick Vitale's or Glenn Beck's?

* Kareem won 71 straight games at Power and 47 straight at UCLA. And in the pros, he led the Bucks to a then-record 20 consecutive victories. He also led Milwaukee over the Lakers during the 1972 season, snapping LA's record 33-game winning streak.

* His career high for points in a game? 55, against the Celtics in 1971. Kareem scored 50 or more points 15 times with Milwaukee, but never with the Lakers. His career high with LA came in 1975, when he scored 48 against Portland.

* Kareem appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated 22 times. The first one's below. Yes, that's him. No, not in the cheerleader's outfit. That's his leg and hand. SI used to run a lot of strange covers. It actually opened up to reveal all of Kareem. Still.

* You can't talk about Kareem without talking about the skyook. You can't even think about Kareem without thinking about the shot. It's the first image that comes to people's heads when hearing his name, with the second probably being his goggles.

He could shoot it with both hands and used it effectively while swinging to the baseline or gliding to the middle of the lane. It enabled him to be one of the few big men who was regularly called on in clutch situations. Especially today, but even throughout the game's history, guards usually dominate the ball in the closing minutes and final seconds. But Kareem's teams could throw it down to him, because unlike most post players, it didn't matter if opponents swarmed him. The skyhook was as effective over two guys as one. And he didn't need to be three or four feet from the hoop to score. The hook was good from 12 to 15 feet, more if The Captain felt especially frisky. Even in his later years with the Lakers, when he really only had the skyhook in his arsenal (along with an occasional drop-step move), the Lakers still went to him in the clutch. In Game 4 of the 1987 Finals, Kareem took the shot with the Lakers down 2 after Larry Bird's 3-pointer gave the Celtics the lead. He drew the foul but made only 1 of 2 free throws. Boston couldn't grab the rebound, however, and Magic hit a famous hook of his own. A year later, in Game 6 of the 1988 Finals, with the repeat in jeopardy, the Lakers again went to the old man. This time he drew a foul - a questionable one at that - on Bill Laimbeer. His two free throws gave the Lakers the victory and a game later they had back-to-back titles.

J.A. Adande wrote a good story on the hook. And here's a video on it.

In the video, several people lament the fact no one shoots a skyhook regularly today. My question: Where were all the skyhook experts in the 1980s? Or even in the 1970s. It's not like anyone challenged Kareem's dominance of the skies back then. Magic probably owned the second-best hook of the '80s, even though his was more of a rolling hook. It's always been a difficult shot to learn and nearly impossible to master. Really only one guy ever did. That shouldn't be used as an indictment against today's players. It's okay to wonder why players today haven't implemented it. But you could ask the same question of pretty much every player throughout the game's history.

Coincidentally, my dad's best go-to shot in H-O-R-S-E was always a hook. So maybe you had to have been born in 1947 to possess the skills for it.

* The 1985 Finals remain Kareem's greatest achievement. At 38, he averaged 25 points, nine boards, five assists and 1.5 blocks, as the Lakers defeated the Celtics for the first time and clinched it at the Boston Garden. And all of that came after the Memorial Day Massacre.

That series also produced my favorite Kareem story, which happens to be my all-time favorite story in Lakers lore.

The Celtics embarrassed the Lakers 148-114 in the first game. Pat Riley crushed the team at the next film session, especially Kareem. He kept rewinding the tape to show Kareem's mistakes, to show Robert Parish beating him up and down the court. Kareem usually sat in back at film sessions but for that one he planted himself right in front and took every Riley barb.

Before Game 2, one of the most important games in the Showtime era, Kareem got on the bus and asked Riley if his dad could ride to Boston Garden with him.

In his book Madmen's Ball, longtime LA Times writer Mark Heisler wrote:
"Riley had long rigidly enforced a rule that kept everyone but the traveling party off the bus. Now, he saw Kareem, who'd had his issues with his father, asking to keep his dad next to him and was moved to make an exception. In Riley's pregame speech, he recalled [his own dad] Lee's order to make that stand and told his players to remember what their dads had told them. As trainer Gary Vitti would note, 'We were into, like, this father thing.' It was May 30, 1985, the night the Lakers' world changed."

That image of Kareem riding to the game in silence with his dad - Big Al - next to him has always been one of the defining moments for the 1980s Lakers.

In Game 2, Kareem had 30 points, 17 boards and 8 assists. The rest was history. And so were the Celtics.

Kareem's highlights are never as jaw-dropping as Jordan's, Bird's, Magic's or Kobe's. They consist of long strides and a skyhook. And then more skyhooks. But if you threw every NBA player in history into one draft, why wouldn't you pick Kareem? He dominated the game in his youth, and he dominated it near the end of his career. He owned the one shot that could never be stopped and his will to win was as great as Jordan's or Magic's. He performed with mind-numbing consistency in the never-ending regular seasons and was even better in the clutch.

He was The Captain. And he might have been the best the game's ever seen.

Yeah, but could Salk sell a used car?

2011-03-17T22:44:00.001-04:00

Lakers message boards aren't just filled with people demanding Kobe Bryant's retirement and Phil Jackson's firing. There are rational conversations about the real world as well.

For instance, someone posted a bizarre six-year-old poll that is as embarrassing to read today as it was then. In 2005, in a poll organized by interns at the Discovery Channel and AOL, nearly 3 million Americans who skipped a lot of history classes voted on the Top 10 Greatest Americans of All-Time. The results?

10. Franklin Roosevelt
9. Oprah Winfrey
8. Elvis Presley
7. Bill Clinton
6. George W. Bush
5. Ben Franklin
4. George Washington
3. Martin Luther King
2. Abraham Lincoln
1. Ronald Reagan

Now that's a hell of a list. The vote came a year after Ronald Reagan's death, so perhaps there was some nostalgia for the Gipper. In other words, if this poll had been taken in 1978, there's a decent chance three million people would have said Elvis was the greatest American of all time.

Thomas Jefferson, John Adams? Who? Hemingway, Twain, Eisenhower, Susan B. Anthony? Important people all. But did they ever give cars away to a studio audience?

I thought of another omission: Jonas Salk. And this led me to read up a bit more on the famous scientist. And I started wondering about other made-up awards, such as Time's Person of the Year. A while back I wrote about Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year, an honor that has had some dubious winners over the decades. Perhaps most notable? Jerry Lucas winning it in 1961 over Roger Maris. But SI had nothing on Time.

In 1955, Jonas Salk introduced his polio vaccine to the world. It's one of the greatest scientific accomplishments ever. Polio was a modern-day plague, nearly as feared, according to a PBS documentary, as the atom bomb. Only, with polio, school children couldn't survive it by hiding underneath tiny wooden desks. Salk's vaccine saved millions. The guy had a pretty good year.

Time's Person of the Year in 1955? Harlow Curtice. Old Harlow was the head of GM. In 1955, GM became the first corporation to earn a billion bucks in a year. Here's Time's story on Curtice. The money line:

"Harlow Curtice is the Man of 1955 because, in a job that required it, he has assumed the responsibility of leadership for American business. In his words, 'General Motors must always lead.'"

Curtice certainly had a good year, a memorable 12 months. Showed outstanding leadership. Helped GM dominate.

Didn't come up with the polio vaccine.

And it's not like Time had a bias back then against scientists. Five years later, the magazine named "American scientists" as the Person (sic) of the Year. The magazine picked 15 scientists, but Salk couldn't even make that cut. They came from all fields, including Edward Teller, who invented the hydrogen bomb, which might not have prevented tens of thousands of polio cases, but did scare the Soviets. It makes me wonder what Salk did to Time magazine. Cancel his subscription in 1954? Insult Henry Luce?

Every so often the magazine makes choices seemingly designed to make people talk. In 2006, it picked "You," which represented individual content creators on the Internet. So if you've ever written an email or left a racist comment on a newspaper website, put that honor on your resume. Earth - the Endangered Earth, to be exact - won in 1988, though it's unclear who picked up the award on the planet's behalf. Baby boomers were honored as a group in 1966 and they haven't stopped talking about it since.

The Award goes to the person who "for better or for worse...has done the most to influence the events of the year," which is why people like Stalin and Hitler have won it (Stalin actually won it twice, which surely made Hitler jealous). In recent years the magazine has shied away from controversial figures - in 2001, Rudy Giuliani won it over Osama bin Laden, who, most would agree, influenced events that year a bit more than New York's mayor.

An odd award. Still, not as strange as a poll that had Elvis being named the 8th-greatest American and Ronnie earning the top spot.

One other little-known fact about that 2005 poll. Number 11 on the list of the Greatest Americans of All Time?

Harlow Curtice.

Thoughts on the tourney, from Guy Lewis' towel to Big Lew

2011-03-13T22:02:00.000-04:00

Following in the small footsteps of last year's NCAA tournament preview, here are some more notes on the upcoming festivities.

* I've written before about the old ESPN Final Four shows that the network started in the 1980s. Hosted by a young Bob Ley, they all followed the same format: first semifinal, commercial, second semifinal, commercial, final. In between, lots of shots of cheerleaders and coaches, classic '80s instrumentals and what often seemed like fake crowd noise, as if ESPN had some guy in a studio going, "Haaaaaaaa," and then spliced it in to, say, highlights from the 1987 final between Indiana and Syracuse. ESPN always had marathons of these shows around tourney time.

Here's the 1983 program, broken down into three parts. This was one of the classic Final Fours, with one of the more memorable semifinal games - the dunkathon between Louisville and Houston - and the most memorable buzzer-beater in tourney history: Lorenzo Charles's putback dunk.

This YouTube user has many of the Final Four films.

Back to 1983. On the first video, go to just past the 7:05 mark. It's one of the oddest moments in Final Four history, when Houston coach Guy Lewis threw his famous checkered towel at Louisville's Scooter McCray as he dribbled past the Cougars' sideline. Technical. Woody Hayes with a linen.

North Carolina State's run to the title is primarily remembered because of the amazing ending. But their entire final month was filled with improbable victories. This old ESPN story recaps the run. Among the tidbits:
- In seven of their last nine victories, the Wolfpack trailed in the final minute. Against Pepperdine in the tourney, N.C. state rallied from a six-point deficit in the final 25 seconds.

The entire Pepperdine game is online, but here's the relevant portion. It starts with the Wolfpack down two with 20 seconds to go in overtime. No three-point line remember.

* At some point in this tournament, a player expected to go high in the NBA draft will struggle and someone will use this as evidence that the guy isn't made for the big time. Too slow, too short, too ugly, too something. It shows they don't have the ability to shine when it matters most. And it may all be true. But I'm leery of those types of proclamations. Why? Because of Michael Jordan's final game. It came in the 1984 Sweet Sixteen, against Indiana, when the heavily favored Tar Heels fell to the Hoosiers and Indiana's Dan Dakich contained Jordan, holding him to 13 points on six-of-14 shooting. Did Portland perhaps use that game as evidence that maybe they should take Sam Bowie? Surely no; they used other, even stranger criteria to take the big fella from Kentucky - "Sure, he's suffered broken legs a few times, but now he's got them out of the way!" But still, if the Internet was around back then, someone would have said that performance proved Jordan didn't quite have what it took to dominate at the next level. He didn't know how to seize the moment, didn't know how to handle an inferior foe. Some top player will underachieve the next three weeks. We might never hear from them again. But they also might become an NBA All-Star.

* How about that 1984 North Carolina team? Michael Jordan, Sam Perkins, Brad Daugherty, Kenny Smith in the starting lineup. The Tar Heels went 28-3, with a one-point loss against Arkansas, a two-point defeat against Duke and the four-point loss to Indiana. If any team was built to be the only one since Indiana in 1976 to go undefeated, it was that team. And even if they didn't go unbeaten, they had to have been an overwhelming favorite for the title. But Indiana did have Dan Dakich. And Uwe Blab.

* John Wooden's numbers remain incomprehensible. Yet it's still jarring seeing UCLA's year-by-year records during their annual stampede through the NCAAs. When the Bruins won seven straight titles, a run that went from Alcindor to Walton, they racked up an overall record of 200-5.

* Only three teams with 10 or more losses have won the title. And those all came within a six-year span: North Carolina State went 26-10 in 1983, Villanova 25-10 two years later, and Kansas finished 27-11 in 1988. In fact, Arizona in 1997 and Indiana in 1981 are the only teams to ever lose nine games and still win the title. As much as the NCAA tourney is about upsets, in the end, the teams that win are the teams that have been dominating all season.

* Trivia question: When was the last time the Final Four was not held in a dome? East Rutherford, New Jersey, in 1996.

* I like this old SI cover, commemorating UCLA's victory in the 1968 tournament. Houston had defeated the Bruins earlier that year in the Game of the Century, a game where Kareem - Lew Alcindor - played with an injured eye. Lew was healthy for the rematch and UCLA drilled Houston 101-69 in the semis.

* ESPN just broadcast a two-hour show called Bracketology. Of all of ESPN's occasional crimes against sports, journalism and sports entertainment, the popularization of that word ranks somewhere between The Decision and the old shouting matches between Sean Salisbury and John Clayton. There are bracketologists, but rarely have I seen anyone called a bracketiatrist, who has more schooling and can prescribe downers to Digger Phelps.

And now here's the first time CBS played "One Shining Moment." The song might have outlived its usefulness. But who would have ever thought that a song that began with a video highlight of Dwayne Schintzius would become the anthem for an entire sport?

Offensive art

2011-03-05T20:16:00.000-05:00

The above commercial is one of the classic ads from the 1980s, perhaps up there with "Where's the Beef?" and Apple's 1984 Big Brother ad. "Do you like to draw, or paint. Or maybe just sketch or doodle?"

If you did, you might have had what it took to be in the Art Instruction Schools. The Art Instruction Schools sent out a free test for students to see if they qualified. By the looks of it painters, sketchers and doodlers had to draw things like a house, a dog and a pirate. As a kid I sort of wish I had called the toll free number to get my free test.

It would have been interesting to see if I would have been the first person to ever score a zero on their exam.

Thousands of students have walked through the halls of Janesville High School and Janesville-Waldorf-Pemberton. There's a decent chance I'm the worst art student in the school's history, someone whose projects might still be mocked by the poor teachers who were forced to grade them. My incompetence is one reason I so admire anyone with any semblance of art skill, whether it's the troubled geniuses whose works hang in the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the drawings of my cousin Matt or nephew Brock. My friend John always made funky little projects - they combined things like toilet paper and Coke cans - that I thought were art, though a good friend of ours occasionally disagreed. Louise paints really cool abstract work that hangs in our apartment and always catches the eye of visitors. These people have the imagination and skill to pull these things off. I couldn't think of the projects, and even if someone thought of them for me, I never would have been able to execute them.

How could my hands, which effortlessly picked up ground balls on a baseball diamond or masterfully handled a ping-pong paddle or easily dribbled a basketball behind my back, fail me so miserably when asked to draw nothing more complicated than a human face?

I knew from a young age I had no skills with a paint brush or charcoal pencils. As I made my way through school I regressed instead of progressed. Someone, perhaps the state, should have stepped in early in my school days when I struggled to cut out a snowflake. Things only got worse.

My parents' basement holds all the key evidence; the projects, or, "projects," rot away down there, tucked away in boxes, like long-forgotten murder trial files collecting dust in a county courthouse basement. Only a mother could love these works, but if mine ever said she did, it would have been one of the few lies she's ever told in her life. But if she lied, she lied out of love, because only the cruelest of parents would have ever delivered an honest assessment of the work.

A few years ago during a trip home, I stumbled upon a bowl that had my sister Lisa's name on it. Maybe that meant she made it. It didn't look good. That probably meant I made it. I asked mom and she said I crafted it and gave it to Lisa as a gift, which sounds cute but when you look at the damn thing for more than three seconds begins to seem cruel. On the bowl, I scratched a series of letters that appeared to form the name Lisa Fury. The confusion over the bowl's creation is probably why it resides in the bowels of my parents' basement and not on a mantle in my sister's home. At least, that's probably the publicly stated reason. Shame is probably more likely.

One of the sculptures, which I think came in 7th grade, was, in theory, a turtle. It's nothing more than a green blog with black spots. And maybe a head. When the teacher saw this she must have experienced rage at my inability to execute her lessons, pity over my incompetence, or heatrbreak at her choice of profession.

In ninth grade, I drew a large picture of Nolan Ryan in action. For years I had it hanging in my bedroom, though I don't know why. To punish myself? In the picture, the Express appears to weigh 485 pounds and it's all in his gut. He spills out of his Rangers uniform. He possessed tiny arms in the drawing that didn't fit his body, the type of appendages you might have seen on a Tyrannosaurus Rex, but not on a Hall of Fame pitcher. I do have him throwing right-handed, so I got that part right. It's the little details.

It'd be unfair to say I underachieved in art class. I simply didn't have the physical ability to do it, just as surely some people don't have the physical ability to hit a baseball.

I blame my genes. My parents gave me a lot of great things - art skills were not among them. My occasionally indecipherable handwriting looks just like my dad's; I'm assuming his clay sculptures from school probably looked like mine too.

I struggled with the fine arts. The industrial ones were even worse. At Janesville, we had to take Industrial Arts in seventh and eighth grade, two quarters each year, alternating with home economics. The teacher once told my parents that he feared allowing me near the bandsaw. An unnecessarily cruel statement, albeit accurate. While other students in class constructed bookshelves that belonged in the libraries of presidents, I plodded along, attempting to make a little key holder. My final quarter I built a functioning bird feeder - which, like all of my projects never appeared in public but was instead stashed in a closet - but I think the only reason the teacher ever passed me was because I was good at hoops and he was the former girls basketball coach.

The arts remain a mystery to me. I admire anyone who can paint or draw, sculpt or sing. I admire them because I know how difficult it is to do any of those things well. And if I ever doubt how tough it is, all I have to do is visit my parents, head down into the basement, pull out an old box, and wince.

Speechless?

2011-03-01T01:10:00.002-05:00

A few days ago Louise said something I'd never heard from her before.

"Honey, I was speechless."

It happened while she took part in a rather strange business call with a man who wanted to talk with her about agenting. During the conversation, the man's arguments, complaints, proclamations and threats left her, as she said, "speechless."

Louise speechless. It hasn't happened often. In third grade, an exasperated teacher in South Africa chastised little Louise for speaking too much and called her a chatterbox, seconds before sending her out of the classroom and into the hall as punishment. Twenty years later, now in America, a professor called Louise a chatterbox, though he did not eject her from the classroom for her talkative ways and actually appreciated her contributions.

Louise can talk, and thank God, because if both of us were quiet, our marriage would consist of silent nights broken up only by occasional cursing during Lakers' games. At the same time, it's good she's married to me - she's guaranteed a receptive audience. And I'm lucky because Louise's speaking skills are surpassed only by her listening skills. Great speaker, great listener, great mixture.

She combines superb speaking abilities with a missionary zeal when it comes to getting a good deal, creating one of the most powerful consumer rights advocates in the free world, a job she actually dreamed about holding when growing up in South Africa (strange child). She's Ralph Nader with a sexier accent and better hair. Her beloved late grandpa - who taught Louise everything he knew, from working the system to picking locks - used to tell her not to be intimidated by anyone, because hardly anyone out there knows what's going on in the world. She's fearless, confident and quick on her feet. She's a master of improv but also always well-prepared - a potent combination. She can charm or prod doctors, dentists, telephone companies, celebrities, politicians, banking millionaires and music billionaires.

When our cell phone bill was 200 dollars higher than we expected, Louise spoke with an unfortunate nameless, faceless soul who eventually erased all of the extra charges, but not before telling her, "Ma'am, I'm going to take care of all of this, but you have me a little flustered and I just want to settle down for a few minutes."

When I lived in Fargo, Louise often traveled on Greyhound to see me, trekking across the country while calling every four or five hours to remind me of the sacrifice she was making out of love. On one never-ending trip across this great country, the bus driver kept the big rig on the road even after a young man suffered a seizure in the walkway. Louise demanded that the bus driver stop the bus so someone could call for medical attention. When the driver hesitated - there are schedules to keep and slogans to live up to, after all - Louise said she worked as a producer for a TV show that helps those who have been wronged by nefarious individuals or greedy companies.The driver stopped the bus. A passenger called 911. An ambulance arrived.

Her greatest speaking accomplishment happened two years ago, before her return flight from Cape Town. Delta canceled the scheduled flight and representatives from the airline told Louise and the other passengers to return the next day. There was a chance they'd be able to catch the next flight out. And there was a chance they wouldn't. Louise rallied the other passengers, priming them for a fight. The airline didn't have any right to treat them like this! Like, like, like cattle, to be herded in and out of hotels and terminals. With Louise leading the charge, the airline agreed to pay for hotel rooms and meals for everyone who had been bumped. They all agreed to meet at the terminal the next day to demand that everyone left behind would be guaranteed a seat on the next flight out of the country.

But Louise arrived earlier than everyone else. A lone representative from Delta stood at the gate. Again Louise used a lot of charm and a bit of bullying. She laughed with the employee behind the counter and praised the woman for her hard, thankless work. Louise bonded with the woman, but also didn't let her forget the horrors Delta had put her and the other passengers through 24 hours earlier.

The woman upgraded Louise to first class, for no additional cost. The 20-hour torture flight turned into a day of luxury. The other passengers wandered to the gate after Louise and stood dumbfounded as she boarded first. By the time attendants ushered the other passengers toward the back of the plane, Louise had already downed a glass of champagne and was reclined in her spacious seat, covered in a blanket.

In the classic movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles, John Candy's character spends much of the movie making ends meet by selling shower curtain rings. Along the way, he picks up a little extra cash and a ride. But eventually Steve Martin's character realizes the shower curtain ring gig can only go so far. When asking about a rental car, he asks Candy, "How could you rent the thing anyway without a credit card? You couldn't. How could you do it?"

"I gave this gal behind the counter a set of shower curtain rings."

"You can't rent a car with shower curtain rings," Martin replies, and he was right, Candy's character couldn't, and didn't.

But Louise could. Because she can talk her way into anything or out of any situation.

So Louise speechless? It might have been the first time in 33 years Louise found herself in such a state. It will likely be 33 more before it happens again.

Perhaps Phil Spector produced the halftime show

2011-02-21T23:54:00.000-05:00

Halftime shows and national anthems have made the news the past month and the only time that usually happens is when someone grabs a crotch or flashes a nipple. First Christina Aguilera performed a tribute to the late Leslie Nielsen while belting out some - but not all - of the words to "The Star-Spangled Banner" before the Super Bowl. A few hours later the Black Eyed Peas performed at halftime, and a few seconds after they left the field people began asking questions like, "Can their career recover from this?"

Really, why does anyone agree to ever sing the national anthem anymore? At this point, no one wants to hear anyone's interpretation of the song and every time someone mangles it, people engage in a fresh round of speculation about whether it's time to stop singing the song before sporting events or finally change the anthem to "America the Beautiful." That's if the singer's lucky. If the populace is in a particularly foul mood, the singer will stand accused of being a commie hellbent on destroying the good ol' United States of America. What's the upside for the artist? A note of appreciation from one of Francis Scott Key's heirs?

When I attend a sporting event these days, I'm always a little grateful when someone simply pushes a button before the game and a pre-recorded version of the song - perhaps made by some high school band in 1982 - blares over the speakers. No kids, no grannies, no choirs and no American Idol finalists. Just a canned version that's over in a few minutes.

And halftime shows? Has anyone actually ever enjoyed watching one of those performances? If it's a band that made its name when LBJ sat in the White House, their fans whine about how the group sold out while others wish they'd simply die out. And younger acts inevitably make people yearn for the old folks, you know, the people who made music back when it was real music. Before they sold out.

Of course, during major sporting events we only get to the national anthem after a pregame show that spans hours, if not days, and includes interviews with everyone from presidents to peasants, anything to fill the time until the big game. Remember the commercials about the guys who have attended every Super Bowl? How about a commercial for the guys who have watched every hour of every Super Bowl pregame show? Throw a parade for them. Identify them. We need to know their names, so they can be immortalized by Visa, enshrined in Canton or institutionalized elsewhere.

But for awkward pregame festivities and halftime entertainment, it would be difficult for anything to again match Super Bowl XXVII, from January 1993, when the Cowboys crushed the Bills. The anthem that year? No major problems. Garth Brooks sang it, while Marlee Matlin signed it.

No, the pregame weirdness that year came courtesy of NBC and the NFL, though at the time nothing seemed out of the ordinary. During the 32-hour pregame show, NBC decided to shed some light on the hot new video game, Madden NFL, by pitting a pair of legends against each other: Mike Ditka and O.J. Simpson.

The Juice wasn't finished. Before the game he walked out for the coin toss. He arrived to cheers and left with them. And after the Cowboys rolled through the Bills in the second quarter, the spectacular halftime show began:

Michael Jackson, surrounded by thousands of screaming children.

At the time the halftime show proved a big hit. Viewership reportedly increased during the halftime show compared to the game. Obviously no one could have predicted that within a year Michael Jackson would stand accused of molesting a child and Simpson would be charged with brutally murdering two people. O.J.'s video game and Jackson's performance only look creepy when looking back, because we now know what was ahead.

Except...no. Even if no one foresaw a crime of the century in O.J.'s future, someone - a producer, a family member, Paul Tagliabue, Bob Costas, Dick Ebersol, John Madden, Al Davis - should have prevented Ditka and Simpson from clashing in the "Computer Bowl." NBC billed it as a matchup of "wit, strategy and luck," but only one of those was present. The ending was actually remarkable, as O.J. pulled off an improbable victory that left an entire nation sitting in front of their televisions in stunned silence, unable to comprehend the injustice they'd just witnessed. It wouldn't be the last time he did that in his life.

Simpson, who most likely had never played a video game until someone bullied him into that basement, rallied from a 13-0 deficit in the final three minutes. The Juice - whose arthritis did not appear to be bothering him during a brief celebration dance - takes the lead in the closing seconds and holds on when Ditka's hapless kicker botches the potential game-winning field goal.

Despite this exhibition, Madden still managed to become one of the most successful video games in history.

The Juice on the pregame and the King of Pop at halftime. Imagine another Super Bowl prominently featuring two people who, within a year and a half, are involved in two of the most sensational criminal cases of the century. Seems impossible. Yet, in a world where someone approved "Computer Bowl '93," anything's possible.

All-Star Weekend: Where defense goes to die

2011-02-17T23:02:00.007-05:00

Trivia question that no one other than an IBM-designed supercomputer should know: When's the last time a team in the NBA All-Star Game failed to score 100 points?

Answer (I know, putting the answer one line below the question sort of takes the drama out of it): 1966, when the East beat the West 137-94, behind the MVP efforts of Cincinnati's Adrian Smith. Before that, you have to go back to 1957.

All-Star weekend is no place for defensive purists, the people who revel in shutdown man-to-man defense and befuddling zones. But the actual game remains my favorite of the all-star contests. Baseball has history and the poets on its side, but also gives us second-stringers deciding homefield advantage in the World Series, as by the time the game ends four hours after the first pitch and two hours after Tim McCarver stopped making sense, the main stars are long gone. In the closing minutes of a close game in the NBA All-Star Game it's the best in the West against the best in the East. It's the players everyone wants to see and the ones voted in and in the final minutes the exhibition often turns into something resembling a real game. Give me that over MLB's pageantry.

Well, usually the stars shine. Back to that 1966 defensive showdown. Adrian Smith, MVP? The East's starting lineup that year? Chamberlain, Havlicek, Jerry Lucas, Sam Jones, Oscar Robertson. They brought guys like Willis Reed and Hal Greer off the bench. And an aging center named Russell. Yet Adrian Smith - who scored a game-high 24 points off the bench - took home the MVP. It seems like something that would be the result of a bet between, say, Wilt and Russell. Is it possible for us to turn the most obscure player on the roster into the MVP?

The West somehow only managed to hit 29 percent from the field. Smith likely remains the unlikeliest MVP in the game's long history. For the most part, players whose post-basketball careers include trips to Springfield for induction into the Hall of Fame win the All-Star Game MVP. Even the exceptions - guys like Ralph Sampson and Tom Chambers - weren't anywhere near as shocking as Smith's triumph.

Defense really is just a rumor, though. Forget a team not reaching 100 points. The last time a team failed to score at least 110 points was 1975, when the East won 108-102. Most years the winning team hits 130 or 140 and the losers aren't far behind. And somewhere, as he breaks down film of a 77-72 Knicks victory over the Heat in 1998, Jeff Van Gundy vomits.

All-Star games are about scoring. They're certainly about dunking. But best of all they're about passing. Here are some of the best. No. 1 is, of course, by Magic.

A lot of people don't enjoy the All-Star Game because it is unlike anything we see during the NBA season, but even the purists can appreciate passing like that. And don't worry, soon enough scores of 90-82 and 79-75 will litter our TV screens once again.

In the meantime, enjoy just a little offense.

"He was a great neighbor. So nice and quiet. And bespectacled."

2011-02-13T21:45:00.001-05:00

"I don't think of someone with glasses as being a psycho killer," said one potential juror in an upcoming murder trial. "I'd wear them too if I was in their shoes."

Weird story in the Daily News today. It's sort of a trend story, the type that is pretty much impossible to prove but still sounds fascinating. In this case, "Accused felons hoping to beat the rap are increasingly using the 'nerd defense' - wearing glasses at trial to come off as less menacing to the jury."

Is this really something that's increasing? Or have defendants always looked for advantages such as this? Even though my courtroom experience is limited to being called for jury duty and everything I know about trials I learned from Law & Order, I feel like it's pretty common knowledge that lawyers always tell their clients to dress nicely for court. It's at least a common thing on TV. Look presentable. Don't swear at the jury or threaten to kill them. Put on a nice suit. Perhaps wear a piece to cover up the swastika tattoo the defendant so lovingly displayed on the top of his bald head for 10 years. I would think attorneys would have long ago instructed defendants to ditch contacts for specs. But apparently this is a tactic that's increasing in popularity.

Still, what is it about glasses that makes someone appear more innocent? And how did OJ get off even though he never donned a pair for his 1995 trial? According to the story, a 2008 study "found specs led to more acquittals. 'We found that eyeglasses tended to make the defendant look more intelligent and less physically threatening to jurors," said Michael Brown, the SUNY Oneonta psychology professor who conducted the study. 'It's the whole idea of presenting yourself as intelligent and a little emasculated.'"

Yes, maybe it makes them look more intelligent. Which makes me think they're cunning, brilliant, capable of murder and cover-up.

The one time I was called for jury duty, I didn't actually serve on a trial. I did go to a potential case - a heroin deal - but never even went into the jury box for questioning by the attorneys. I do remember that the defendant was glassesless. I don't remember thinking that fact made it more likely he was guilty.

And if I was on a jury for the trial of a notorious defendant, I might actually have an opposite reaction if he or she wore glasses. In many famous cases, glasses add to the creepiness factor of a defendant, especially if they spectacles are slightly tinted.

This past Christmas morning, we opened presents at my parents' house shortly after I woke up. I wandered downstairs and put on my first present, a bathrobe from Louise. That's what I wore the rest of the morning. Blue robe, messy hair, unshaven. And my glasses, which I rarely wear. A few weeks later my mom sent me the photos from that day. I'd say she caught me at a bad angle, but there weren't any good ones that day. My first thought, and one Louise agreed with? I looked like Mark David Chapman. And it was the glasses that completed the horrific look.

Glasses help murderers in the eyes of the jury? Again, weird story.

Maybe it's just my own bias against glasses. After first refusing to admit I needed them, and then only wearing them in certain classes, I eventually realized I'd inherited terrible vision from my parents and needed corrective wear full-time. But I went with contacts 20 years ago and have stayed loyal ever since.

But what happens if I ever find myself in front of a jury, defending myself against trumped-up charges brought by a publicity-hungry DA with eyes on a Senate seat? Well, I've never worn a suit in my life, but I will for the trial. I'm never clean-shaven, but I will be for the trial. And when I consult with my low-rent defense attorney and gaze at the documents on the table and stare at the jury and glare at lying witnesses, everyone in the courtroom will see that I'll be looking at them through four eyes, instead of two.

The best buzzer beaters, the worst collapses

2011-02-10T22:51:00.001-05:00

Last night, Rutgers somehow defeated Villanova in Big East action, despite trailing by five points with 11 seconds remaining. Rutgers drained a 3 with seven seconds to play, and after Villanova made just one of two free throws for a three-point lead, Rutgers hit a 3 with .8 seconds left. Standard comeback stuff.

Except on the Rutgers 3, Villanova fouled the shooter, who hit the free throw for a four-point play and one incredible 77-76 victory.

These types of games are stunning because they appear out of nowhere and the losing coach goes from happiness to contemplating retirement while the players wonder if some of their teammates are actively throwing games. A standard buzzer-beater is exciting enough, but it usually comes at the end of a game that's been close throughout, a game where neither team grabs more than a 3-point lead in the final minute. Collapses are even more fun to watch, unless it's your team on the losing end.

Some of the more memorable comebacks.

This is one of the more memorable offensive explosions in NBA history. Tracy McGrady scores 13 points in 33 seconds against the Spurs. Houston trailed 76-68 with 35 seconds left when McGrady drilled a 3. For the Spurs, it went downhill from there. The opponent made the comeback even more improbable. McGrady, who had 20 points in the first 47 minutes, did it against the best defensive team of the past decade, a four-time NBA champion. Bruce Bowen, one of the best individual defenders of the past 15 years, guarded him, but proved helpless against McGrady.

This next game is probably still painful for my uncle and cousin. My uncle was a longtime professor at Winona State in Minnesota and remains a hell of a basketball player, even at 70. Winona State dominated Division II for three years, winning two titles. But the year they didn't win is the most memorable. In 2007, the defending national champs, who were riding a 57-game winning streak, led Barton 74-67 with 45 seconds remaining. From there...

Until I started searching YouTube for crazy endings, I had never seen a clip of the following game. It might be the craziest of all. It's from 1999, USC at Oregon. With 2.8 seconds, USC had the ball but trailed by five points. They hit a three from the corner. Oregon then, inexplicably, attempts a long pass, which is intercepted by a Trojan, who knocks in a halfcourt shot at the buzzer. It seems like the clock operator might be partly to blame, even though the game was in Oregon. How does the guy catch the ball and get a shot off in .8 seconds? Look out for future Celtic great Brian Scalabrine.

In the 2001 Final Four, which was held in the Metrodome, long before the stadium became a metaphor for the Vikings' 2010 season, Duke trailed Maryland 39-17 in the first half, before rallying for a 95-84 victory. Two nights later the Blue Devils won the national championship.

But Maryland was used to blowing big leads against Duke. In January of that year, the Terrapins squandered a 10-point lead in just a minute, on their home court, before losing in overtime. Duke guard Jason Williams led the charge, helped along by some horrific Maryland ballhandling and passing.

These comebacks in the final 30 seconds should be more common in the pros, where teams take the ball out at halfcourt after timeouts. But maybe the college game lends itself to more improbable finishes, as inexperienced players crumble in the final minutes with bad free throw shooting and worse ballhandling.

But the pros aren't immune, as the Spurs proved against McGrady and as bad teams prove several times a season. Earlier this year, Sacramento coughed up a four-point lead in the final 8 seconds. More accurately, the Kings lost a four-point lead in the final four seconds as the Warriors managed to pull off a feat that probably hasn't happened more than five times in basketball history. Trailing by 4, Golden State's Reggie Williams made the first first free throw and missed the second on purpose. When Sacramento fumbled the rebound out of bounds, the Warriors threw in from under their own basket to former Laker Vlad Radmanovic, who hit a tying three at the buzzer. Golden State prevailed in overtime. It's tough enough missing a free throw on purpose in hopes of getting a tip to tie. Missing one and draining a game-tying 3-pointer? Seems completely implausible. But not against a bad team.

As far as I know, no film exists of one of the best comebacks ever, which, as always happens in those games, doubled as one of the great collapses of all time. My college coach Mike Augustine now coaches high school ball in Colorado. A few years ago his team held an 8-point lead with 14 seconds remaining. The opposition hit a three and got fouled. Augie's player complained about the call and the ref slapped him with a T. Three free throws later, Augie's team now only led by two and the opponent had the ball out of bounds. Inevitably - because any team that sees an 8-point lead cut to 2 in a second is seemingly destined to lose - the other team drained a 3-pointer at the buzzer, their ninth point in 14 seconds, giving them the victory and leaving Augie wondering about his chosen profession.

Epic collapses happen to high school teams and NBA champions, to bad teams and good. And it even happens in the movies. Remember South Bend Central going scoreless in the closing minutes of the Indiana state title game against Hickory and losing a six-point lead? As the Spurs, Kings, Terrapins and Augie know, when you don't put a team away, you leave an opening for guys like McGrady and Williams. And for Jimmy Chitwood.

Fletch might finally live

2011-02-06T15:26:00.000-05:00

I visit this page a lot. It's the IMDB quotes page for one of my favorite movies, a cinematic classic, a legendary effort by one of the top stars of the '80s.

Fletch. I also own the DVD, so if I get sick of reading the quotes and need to actually hear them, I pop it in and watch Chevy Chase in action

It's all ball bearings nowadays; 6-5 with an afro 6-9; Babar, two b's or one?, etc., etc.

And now, after 26 years, Fletch could be returning to theaters. Warner Bros. has made a deal to start the franchise again. But deals such as this have been in the news many times the last three decades. Scripts are written, stars mentioned, and then the movie dies, in the same way the franchise expired after the unfortunate sequel, Fletch Lives. According to an Entertainment Weekly story, there's even a curse of Fletch.

Like many fans of the original, I'm a bit leery of a remake. No one can replace Chase in the iconic role. He is Fletch, the same way he is Clark W. Griswold. The movies were based on the novels by Gregory McDonald, a former newspaper reporter in Boston who quit his job to write his books about an investigative journalist who inevitably stumbles into a mystery. McDonald, who died in 2008, wrote 11 books in the series, providing Hollywood with plenty of material. The books are worth a read on their own.

But like so many, when I think of Fletch, it's impossible not to picture Chase. Fletch was a childhood hero. The movie helped convince me that I should follow my dreams of being a newspaper reporter and a member of the Lakers. One of them eventually came true, though I wish it had been the other.

Fletch made the life of a newspaper reporter look exotic, thrilling. Forget Woodward and Bernstein in All the President's Men. Yes, they helped take down a president, but did they have a basketball hoop in their apartment? Fletch went undercover, lived on the beach, had tickets to Lakers games and charged steak sandwiches to the Underhills' account.

In fact, Fletch is one of the greatest movie reporters in film history. Some other memorable scribblers:

* Sam Waterston as Sydney Schanberg in The Killing Fields. An extraordinarily powerful movie about a pair of real people. Schanberg worked for The New York Times when Cambodia fell to the Khmer Rouge. Schanberg won a Pulitzer for his work. Haing S Ngor portrayed Dith Pran. Ngor, who, like Pran, survived the Khmer Rouge's horrific regime, won an Oscar for the movie, but was murdered in 1996 during a robbery attempt. Pran died in 2008. Although the movie features the work of a newspaper reporter, it's really about the spirit of Pran, Ngor and the Cambodian people who lived through the horrors of the 1970s.

* Clark Kent. It's part of the disguise, but Kent comes off as a reporter who wouldn't be qualified to be the lead reporter at a weekly shopper, much less at a major metro paper. He's passive, shy and has never really shown any ability to turn a good phrase. Did he work at smaller papers before moving up? And if so, what kind of criminal masterminds did he stop in towns that supported newspapers whose circulation was likely below 50,000 and possibly even below 10,000? Or was he a journalistic superstar who went right from college to the Daily Planet? Hard to picture the mild-mannered Kent being such a superstar. And did he ever win any journalism awards, or did Lois Lane hog them all?

* Sally Field played dogged reporter Megan Carter in Absence of Malice, co-starring Paul Newman, who gets wronged by the local newspaper. Reporters and papers don't come off well in this movie. But the opening scene is like newspaper porn for old-school, ink-stained wretches.

* The Paper focuses on Michael Keaton's character, a daily tabloid editor in New York. But reporters do play a big role, especially Randy Quaid's seen-it-all, drunk, disheveled columnist Michael McDougal. Over Christmas, this was on sale - as a VHS - for a buck at the Janesville convenience store. Well worth it. Would have paid 10 bucks. A few scenes are a bit over the top and Quaid's character is occasionally too much of a caricature. Still, good flick for newspaper folk. The saddest thing about the scene below is that, in real life, Quaid has become a paranoid man who's convinced everyone is out to get him.

* Russell Crowe as Cal McAffrey in State of Play. When the movie came out in 2009, many newspaper people adored it, particularly Crowe's portrayal of a street-smart reporter. People who don't like newspapers - the ones who love to describe papers as dying or break out the "dinosaur" cliche, usually in the comments section of the newspaper's website - laughed at the old newspaper fools clinging to the idea that papers can occasionally make a difference. I really liked it. And I loved Crowe's character.

Still, Fletch's apartment hoop makes him cooler.

Every pro sports transaction ever made - in one place

2011-02-02T19:11:00.000-05:00

Think the Lakers can land Carmelo by trading Artest?
It's time to trade Pau Gasol! So sick of watching how weak he is out there!
Could Mitch somehow get Kwame back as a good backup center?
Fisher, Bynum, Gasol, Odom, Artest must go!

Some of the things you'd read on Lakers message boards these days. Like fans of every team in every sport, Lakers fans love conjuring up possible trades when their favorite squad struggles. Rage fuels many of the trade ideas, along with that unique overconfidence that oozes off of guys who have won their fantasy football league three years running. Hey, they figure, if I can outwit six of my old frat buddies, my idiot brother-in-law and Joe from accounting, why can't I come up with a trade idea that will spark the Lakers to a three-peat while also adhering to concerns about the collective bargaining agreement and team chemistry?

While looking up some old trade info, I stumbled upon the type of site that could hold a sports fan prisoner for days.

Prosportstransactions.com

It's a no-frills site, at least as far as design. But the content is incredible. Since the 2004, the site has attempted to index every transaction that's ever taken place in pro sports. Basketball and hockey are the most complete, the site says. Football and baseball aren't quite as complete, simply because there are so many more players - and in the case of baseball, years - involved. It's an ambitious, if not insane, endeavor. But completely fascinating.

Take the basketball entries. You can search every coach and executive by name, to see all the deals every GM's been involved with. You can search the all-time injured list, or every DNP due to personal reasons. You can search by team and by year. Or you can search all of them, all 1,518 pages worth of transactions. Some tidbits:

The first transaction recorded on the site? The Knicks hired Mike Saunders as the assistant to player care, in 1899 (who was the director of player care?). The same day the Knicks hired Saunders, they drafted Gene Berce. Or did they? Gene Berce, at least the one who played for the Knicks, was born in 1926. Drafted 27 years before he was born. And Celtics fans think Red Auerbach did a great job of looking ahead when he drafted Bird a year before he entered the draft. Not sure what's going on with Jumpin' Gene.

Red makes an appearance of his own on the first page. The BAA's Capitols inked Auerbach to a one-year deal for $5,000 in 1946.

On July 27, 1947, the Pittsburgh Ironmen - who went 15-45 in their only year in the BAA - folded. Press Maravich - Pistol's old man - was one of the players "relinquished" by the Ironmen. In his one year of pro ball, Press shot 27 percent from the field. He hit 51 percent of his free throws and had a McHale-like six assists in 51 games. Press turned Pete - who was born a month before the Ironmen went under - into a basketball genius but he thankfully didn't give Pete his shooting touch or passing eye.

It's easy to see the beginning of the Celtics dynasty when paging through the transactions. The team signed Red to a two-year deal in April of 1950. A few months later, they acquired Bob Cousy in a dispersal draft, for $8,500. However, the site doesn't list the first time Red fired up a victory cigar, or the first time an opposing player or coach dreamed of shoving it down his throat or up somewhere else.

To the Timberwolves...

The team hired Bob Stein as president on June 15, 1987, and Bill Musselman as its first coach a year later. In the expansion draft, the Wolves picked up David Rivers, Brad Lohaus, Eric White, Gunther Behnke, Mark Davis, Maurice Martin, Rick Mahorn, Scott Roth, Tyrone Corbin and a handful of others. They drafted Pooh Richardson and, regrettably, Gary Leonard. The transactions don't get any better from there.

Back to the Lakers. In 1976, the Lakers received compensation when the Jazz signed an aging Gail Goodrich. LA received a first-round pick in 1977, a first-round pick in 1979 and a second-round pick in 1980, which they used on Sam Worthen. In 1977, the Lakers picked Kenny Car. In 1979 they drafted Magic Johnson with the pick, which happened to be the first one in the draft. Goodrich averaged 12, 16 and 12 points per game in his three years with the Jazz and was out of the league by the time Magic filled in for Kareem in Game 6 of the 1980 NBA Finals. This is the type of trade current Lakers fan dream of when they suggest dealing Joe Smith for Dwight Howard.

In another move that turned out well a few years later, in 1980 the Lakers acquired Butch Lee and a first-round pick in 1982 from the Cavaliers, in exchange for Don Ford and the first-round pick in '80. The Lakers ended up with the No. 1 pick in 1982 and took James Worthy. The Cavaliers, meanwhile, went 23-59 in 1984, became respectable in 1985 under George Karl, excelled in the late '80s with Mark Price and Brad Daugherty, got crushed by Jordan's Shot in 1989, staggered through much of the 1990s, went to the Finals in 2007, lost LeBron in 2010 and are on their way to breaking their own record for most consecutive defeats by an NBA team. So the trade didn't work out well for Cleveland, although Don Ford did average 3 points per game in 1981.

Cleveland suffered through a lot of strange years under strange owner Ted Stepien. But 1982 had to be one of the oddest. The team went 15-67 - which gave the Lakers the top pick - and went through four coaches. Bill Musselman went 2-21, Chuck Daly went 9-32, Bob Kloppenburg went 0-3 and Don Delaney finished 4-11. Kloppenburg got another chance to coach 10 years later, when he took over the Sonics in 1992. He went 2-2.

For fans of the American - and Stern - legal system, you can also search legal and criminal incidents. The first one noted on the site, though surely not the first time a pro basketball player ran afoul of the law, is from 1970, when Rich Johnson of the Celtics was arraigned in court on a charge of passing counterfeit $10 bills.

In 1971, Al Bianchi, Charlie Scott and Jim Eakins of the ABA's Virginia Squires were all found guilty of assault and battery and fined for their roles in a fight on December 23.

September 1988 was a bad time for a pair of Nets. Dwayne Washington was arrested for cocaine possession on September 26, while a day later, Duane Washington - different player - was arrested for possession after being found with several vials of coke.

And I never remember seeing this on the Come Fly With Me videos, but in 1989 Michael Jordan was cited for driving 90 miles per hour and not having a driver's license.

Yes, the site has everything. You can see the rise of the Celtics and Lakers and the demise of the Timberwolves and Cavaliers. You can look at the genius of Auerbach and the folly of Stepien. You can see Kareem being cited for pot possession. But I'd still like an explanation for Gene Berce.

Duck, duck...goose?

2011-01-31T22:52:00.003-05:00

I never knew how different Minnesotans were compared to everyone else until I moved 1,500 miles away. By different I don't mean worse, weirder or inferior, but I also don't mean better. Just...different. Specifically with words. Everyone knows about the great pop-soda debate that rages coast to coast while no one out here could identify a hot dish.

Last night, another example.

Louise told a story. At one point she talked about the children's game "Duck, duck, goose." I chuckled. My poor foreign wife, all confused again over a classic American game. Duck, duck, goose?

"You mean duck, duck, gray duck, right?" I asked. She insisted it was goose. My mockery soon turned to pity. I wondered if she also chanted "Blue rover, blue rover, send Kyle right over," with her Cape Town schoolmates.

"Honey," I explained, "we played it all the time in school. Teachers taught us. It's definitely duck, duck, gray duck." But while I pitied and mocked her, she did the same to me.

"Shame," she finally said, with a tone of voice she'd use if I told her I still believed in Santa. "You really believe you're right."

To the Internet. Wikipedia, first paragraph of the, hmmm, duck, duck, goose entry:

Duck, Duck, Goose is a traditional children's game often first learned in pre-school or kindergarten. The object of this game is to walk in a circle, tapping each child's head until you finally choose one to be the new picker. It is called different things around the world. In Minnesota, it is called 'Duck, Duck, Gray Duck.'

So there. I was right. But wait. Only in Minnesota do children play gray duck? A fact that's apparently so odd it has to be called out in a Wikipedia entry? So we were both right, but I suppose, since Louise has the rest of the world behind her as supporting witnesses, she might have been more right. In fact, it gets worse for my side of the argument. Wikipedia's anonymous writers and editors report, "In parts of the US state of Minnesota the game is called Duck Duck Gray Duck, with "gray duck" replacing "goose" as the designation for the next picker." Now it's not even every town in the Land of 10,000 Lakes? How small is this part of Minnesota? Did just southern Minnesotans play gray duck? Just Janesville kids?

Duck, duck, goose. Never heard of it. Really, that's what everyone else plays? Which Minnesotan changed it, and why? Is it the same person who insisted on calling casseroles hot dishes?

Incidentally, Duck, Duck, Goose (gray duck) has a 1,600-word entry on Wikipedia, which is excessive by about 1,356 words.

The Fury household has been home to several of these types of debates. A few months ago, Louise refused to believe me when I told her you used your mouth to frown. She said it had to do with the brow. No, you furrow a brow, I said, you frown with your mouth. Turn that frown upside down, etc., a line an eternal optimist like Louise should be familiar with. Again we hit the Internet. And again...we were both right, and both wrong:

The appearance of a frown varies from culture to culture. Although most technical definitions define it as a wrinkling of the brow, in North America it is primarily thought of as an expression of the mouth.

Again, though, Louise was more right. It's humbling, being a writer and copy editor who's often stumped and topped by his wife's knowledge of the language.

We've had other disagreements over definitions and more serious difficulties over interpretations. A year before our wedding, we drove from New York to Fargo, where Louise would spend several weeks living like a Midwestern housewife. We'd be around each other all the time, except when I was working. Somewhere in Ohio, Louise started worrying about our upcoming attempt to play couple. She wondered if I'd get sick of her being around so much.

I took the next exit off the interstate and pulled my Cavalier into a rest stop. Turned the car off. Took her hands into mine. Looked into her eyes. Looked into her soul. Took a deep breath. Smiled.

"Honey, I can't spend too much time with you."

"Oh," she replied.

Turned the ignition on. Pulled back on the interstate, satisfied that my statement qualified as the most romantic event since Richard Gere hauled his gal out of the factory at the end of Officer and a Gentleman. If I didn't have my hands on the steering wheel in a classic 10-2 fashion, I might have given myself a pat on the back. After 15 minutes of silence, I couldn't understand why Louise still seemed depressed, mopey. When I asked, she said, "You can't spend too much time with me? That's supposed to make me feel better? That you can't spend too much time with me?"

Wait, wait, huh? I went over the sentence in my head. I can't spend too much time with you. Ah, I see the misinterpretation. It sounds like I'm saying spending much time with her would be a drag, that I can't picture being stuck with her for too long. But what did I mean? That no matter how much time I spent with her - even if it was 24 hours a day for six weeks - it wouldn't be enough. Not close to enough time. There, doesn't that sound better? She finally understood, and believed me. A few minutes later, Delilah came on the radio with her soothing voice and a relaxing song and all was fine.

Then a few years ago, it was Louise's turn. As I lamented something about a writing project - probably wondering when I'd write another book and why hadn't it happened yet - she said, lovingly, "How much potential do you think you have?"

Well, I thought quite a bit, until you put me in my place with that statement and convinced me that I was delusional, a fool. How much potential do I think I have? Not much, I guess. Thanks, honey. That's what I heard. But she meant that I'd already accomplished a lot, that I was already ahead in whatever imaginary career game I was playing in my head. I'd written a book, done some other things. In other words what was I upset about, what was I supposed to have done at that point? Surpassed Frank Deford?

Again, interpretations.

I'm sure more incidents like that will come up, although even with those two examples, I think her shot hurt more than mine. We'll eventually talk our way through these confusing debates, explaining what we really meant.

But some disagreements will remain forever unresolved, destined for debate. But I know I'm right. You frown with your mouth. And when a group of small kids sit around a circle tapping each other on the head before chasing each other, they're playing Duck, Duck, Gray Duck.

Right?

The time Duke led UNC 7-0 at halftime

2011-01-29T20:48:00.000-05:00

When played correctly - the "right way," as Larry Brown loved to say at all 37 coaching stops in his career - basketball is fast-paced, often beautiful to watch. But basketball's also unique, in that one team can slow the game down to accentuate its strengths, or hide its weaknesses. No matter how long a pitcher takes between pitches - an average of 49 seconds it seems during an average Yankees-Red Sox game - he eventually has to confront the hitter. Football teams can milk the clock with a running game, but it's not the same. Stalls are unique to hoops. In the pros and college it's now impossible for teams to execute them. But in high schools, where most states don't utilize a shot clock, it's still possible for one team to take the air out of a ball and turn a hoops game into two hours of torture.

Last week in Texas, a highly ranked team won 38-31...in three overtimes. Flower Mound survived to defeat Plano West, which usually held the ball for more than a minute and maintained possession for the final 2:30 of regulation. It's the kind of game that, if you saw it, say, every 10 years, might be entertaining. Watch that type of effort on a consistent basis and you might be calling for congressional hearings to shut down the sport.

But nothing compares to the slowdown efforts perfected by North Carolina legend Dean Smith, whose four corners offense gave the Tar Heels numerous victories but earned them few fans. Smith's teams usually possessed superior talent, and those superior players killed the clock as helpless foes chased the ball and point guards like Phil Ford. The four corners usually appeared at the end of games. But not always.

At the end of the 1979 season, the Tar Heels hit the road to face rival Duke, in a game that set the game of basketball back to about five minutes after Naismith put up the first peach basket. North Carolina had defeated Duke 74-68 earlier in the season. Yet in the rematch in Durham, Smith's troops held the ball. And held the ball. Then held it some more. Duke scored after gaining the tip, surging to a 2-0 lead. The Tar Heels held the ball for the next 11 minutes. The reason? Smith wanted Duke to come out of its 2-3 zone. The Dukies finally deflected a pass but after inbounding the ball, North Carolina held it for two more minutes, before turning it over. Mike Gminski hit a free throw to make it 2-0 with 5:43 remaining.

The Blue Devils added a pair of field goals before the buzzer and went into halftime leading 7-0. North Carolina took two shots in the first half, including a half-courter at the buzzer. Neither hit the rim. The first, by Rich Yonakor, led to the Duke crowd chanting "airball." Basketball historians who specialize in such trivial matters, believe that's the first time a crowd chanted "airball." Considering the Tar Heels entered the game ranked fourth in the nation, it should have also turned into the first game where a crowd chanted "overrated."

In the second half Carolina played a real game, but still lost, 47-40.

It's a game that will never be forgotten, even if it should have been. And now, thanks to YouTube, the game - two minutes of it, anyway - can be seen forever.

Behold, basketball at its...well, it's basketball. Sort of.

There's no sound on the clip, which adds an eerie element to one of the oddest games ever. Some nice bounce passes by the Tar Heels, good hustle by the Blue Devils. Following this game, you'd think the NCAA would have implemented a shot clock in time for the following week's games, but the 45-second clock actually didn't appear until the 1986 season. In 1982, Sports Illustrated wrote a story pleading for a shot clock, citing games such as "Missouri beating Kansas 41-35 and 42-41; Virginia beating North Carolina State 39-36 and 45-40; Notre Dame making 213 passes before shooting in one possession against Kentucky; and North Carolina making 15 foul shots and no field goals in the last 12 minutes of its game at Clemson."

Two hundred and thirteen passes? And Hickory's players thought Norman Dale was too conservative.

Low-scoring games still exist, of course. But blame ineptitude for those games, not obscene coaching. Stalls live on in Texas and in high schools across the land, but they're thankfully extinct everywhere else. Dean Smith won 879 games. But it's one of his losses that remains one of the most memorable games of his career. Or at least, the most infamous.

Putting things in perspective

2011-01-25T17:10:00.000-05:00

Last Thursday, a high school basketball player in Minnesota named Zach Gabbard collapsed on the court during a game. Spectators, including a nurse and a doctor, rushed to help Gabbard, a junior at Perham High School. They used a defibrillator but he still didn't have a pulse when paramedics arrived at the Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton gym. Paramedics rushed him to a hospital in Fargo, where he underwent heart surgery. A few days later he was transferred to the University of Minnesota, where he remains in critical condition.

Online, tens of thousands of people - nearly 60,000, in fact - have visited a Caring Bridge website dedicated to Gabbard. More than a thousand have left messages of support for Gabbard and his family. The messages come from those who have known Gabbard all his life and those who have never met him. They express condolences, wish him well and pray for his recovery.

It's a heartbreaking story, crushing, devastating to his family and friends, but also to the entire state and, really, athletes everywhere. Gabbard is being treated at one of the best medical facilities in the country, but there's no guarantee the story has a happy ending.

And inevitably, someone will say events like that put sports in perspective. It's the same line you always hear after a tragedy, whether it was the shooting in Tucson, a car accident that kills several teenagers, someone being hit with a cancer diagnosis or even September 11. Perspective. Yes, tragedy puts sports in perspective.

I hate that line. Whoever says it or writes it is obviously sincere and well-meaning. It's a way to say health and life and family and friends are the most important things in our lives, not the result of a basketball game. All true.

But we only seem to hear it after a death, or a near-death. And by saying it then, the line begins to sound less like a declaration of correct priorities, and more like gratitude for a tragedy.

Without this event, we wouldn't be able to put sports into perspective. It makes the victims of the tragedy - whether they were in the Trade Towers, a Tucson parking lot or a high school basketball game - sound like they almost needed to be sacrificed so that we could finally put sports into their proper context. Without these tragedies, the thinking seems to go, we would lose sight of the fact they're just games. So, while we're sorry for your loss and for the heartbreak and for the fact your life will never be the same, your loved one's death served a greater good: it put sports in perspective for the rest of us.

Do people really mean that when they say it? Almost certainly not. But that's how it ultimately sounds.

Another question: Wouldn't one tragedy be enough to gain perspective? Instead, a person who says that line after one event, will probably say the same thing years later after another horrific event. So the first death put things in perspective, but then you forgot and needed another tragedy to be reminded? And in 10 years will need another?

Maybe for some people an event like Gabbard's collapse really does alter their outlook. Maybe a college kid who was thinking of becoming a coach changes their major to nursing. But most often it simply sounds hollow, a space-filler.

Sports are important. They do matter. Just like art, music, acting, dancing, laughing, writing and teaching. Sports still matter for the kids at Perham because they can bring people together. When the basketball team returns to the floor, Gabbard will be with them in so many ways, even though he's not there in the most important way. The next game Perham plays will be the most emotional of the season, the toughest of the players' lives. The game will unite the team and the town, the players and the parents. It will remind them why sports do matter, why they do invest so much in them - physically, emotionally and financially.

Yet at the end of the game and the end of the night, Gabbard will remain in a hospital room at the University of Minnesota, his future uncertain.

Is there anyone who really needed that outcome to keep things in perspective?

You shouldn't need to read about a high school kid collapsing to realize how lucky you are to be in good health. You shouldn't need an untimely death to appreciate life. And even when sports are your life, you shouldn't need tragedy to put them in perspective.

Books & Buckets

2011-01-22T20:45:00.002-05:00

This afternoon, my uncle's Minnesota West women's basketball team lost a heartbreaking 68-66 game against perennial power Anoka-Ramsey, which is the No. 1 team in the nation in the NJCAA's Division III rankings. Minnesota West came into the game ranked ninth. At one point the Lady Jays led by 20, before the Golden Rams - who have been beating teams by 20, 30, 40, 60 points during the year - put on a furious rally and survived a last-second 3-point attempt.

During the game, my cousin kept me up to date on the game with text messages. So I followed from afar as she reported on the happenings, which she only knew about because someone was texting the scores to her from the gym. Up five early. Up 12 late in the first half. Only ahead by five now, but a key player fouled out. Up four, then tied. Then the next text didn't arrive for a few minutes. I could have almost predicted the result: Anoka-Ramsey wins. The last time my cousin texted me results of the Lady Jays' games was 11 months ago at the state tournament. That night, just like today, Minnesota West lost a close one, that time in the semifinals. The lesson? A superstitious person might think it's bad luck having my cousin text me updates.

Minnesota West will face Anoka-Ramsey later in the regular season. And, if both teams take care of business, they could again square off in the state tournament and again in the region. From there? Minnesota teams have won 11 of the last 19 national championships. If the Lady Jays and Anoka do meet in the state tournament, they'll fight to see who's the best team in Minnesota. And one of them could then very well be the best in the nation.

***
I wandered down to our local library today and came back with four books. One is "The Complete Poetical Works of Keats." The library doesn't stamp the books anymore when they're checked out, so perhaps the book has left the premises in the past 30 years. But in the front, where the kindly, bespectacled librarians used to stamp it, is one lonely entry: Nov 9 1981. Wonder who took it? And did they return it on time or pay a fine? The book possesses that Old Book Smell, which is neck-in-neck with New Car Smell for best scents. How old is this book? It came out in 1899. This one isn't a newer version; the only listed copyright is the 1899 one and the Editor's Note was also written that year, 78 years after Keats' death. Keats only lived 25 years, but his works have lived on forever. And, in Inwood, so too do his collected works, even if very few people know it.

**
Bemused, bordering on morbid, curiosity sparked my interest in another book. "Apocalypse Next: The End of Civilization as we know it?" Well, at least it included a question mark. William R. Goetz wrote the book and it first came out in 1981. Thankfully this has nothing to do with the Mayan 2012 End of the World nonsense that will become unbearable next year, although, hopefully, people will stop believing in it once the calendar hits January 1, 2013. Goetz deals with the Bible, a favorite source of inspiration, guidance, spirituality and mass death.

Fanatical believers in the apocalypse fascinate me, provided they don't go out of their way to bring about an event they can't wait to arrive. A guy named Harold Camping has been in the news lately because he believes the world is ending on May 21 of this year. In other words, if you've been putting off that trip around the world or buying that big-screen television, go ahead and charge it all to the credit card. No one's going to be around in five months to harass you on the phone for payment. Camping's actually traveling with an "End Times Caravan," spreading the good word about the bad times ahead. He's done this before, previously predicting that the world would end in 1994. When it comes to predictions and guarantees, Camping's record is only slightly better than Patrick Ewing's. Yet many believe him. And when the sun rises on May 22 - well, likely rises - he'll readjust his readings of the Bible and come up with another new date. And when that time comes, he'll find plenty of people willing to hop on another caravan, perhaps one called End Times Caravan: This Time It's For Real.

Goetz relies on the Bible too. In the version I have, the 10th printing of the book, Goetz doesn't offer any exact dates, only readings of Scripture. Goetz writes about a rising Babylon, red, white and black horses and all the other standards of Revelations and the Rapture. He does give some predictions:
An invasion of Israel by "the Russian confederacy." Then the leader of the revived Roman Empire - toga! toga! toga! - "collaborates with the global false church in the initial stages of the Antichrist's rule." Things get worse from there.

Stories about Camping and other Rapture revelers often report that scholars say end times prophecies thrive during times of war and economic struggle. In other words, they thrive at all times. The world today, with high-profile wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and low-profile ones in other places, coupled with the economic debacle of the past few years, convinces people that our times are the worst ever, so of course Jesus - or whoever - will come down and put an end to things. But there have always been wars and economic trouble, the severity of which depended on where you lived. The 1400s were a time of peace? The 1700s? The 1910s? The '40s? Wars and economic troubles aren't any excuse to believe in the Rapture. If you want to believe it, offer more proof than the type of headlines that could have been written at any point in human history.

The world might end in 10 years or in a million. Or maybe not for a few billion when the sun finally burns out. And if it does end when humans are still around, the only good thing is the zealots will only have a few seconds when they can say, "Told you so."

How spam boosts a writer's confidence

2011-01-15T23:14:00.000-05:00

Last week I emailed a book proposal I've been working on to Louise, hoping to get her thoughts on the content and the format. Louise has always been my most trusted editor, even if she's reading about sports, a subject that's so foreign to her, the only thing she really knows is that the word itself is spelled with six letters. But she knows writing. She knows what works, and, more importantly, what doesn't.

But she can be a brutal editor. Straight-forward, occasionally tactless, always honest - even when I simply want her to lie to me.

And even from Cape Town, her edits and thoughts have the ability to eviscerate my confidence. She offered a few suggestions and she delivered them in a cheery voice with a great accent. Still they cut. Like always when she offers critiques, I felt like crawling into a ball on the couch while cursing everything about writing. Why do I do this? Why did my old English teacher ever encourage me? Why does my mom always say she loves my writing? Can I still go to law school, and, if so, would Louise be this harsh when reading my closing arguments? Eventually I calm down and regain my poise, if not my confidence. I consider Louise's suggestions and realize they're perfect edits and that she's only helping me. She's not trying to break me down. In fact, this is why I go to her for advice, because she is so spot on with her thoughts and words.

But a guy could use a confidence boost. So I turn to the spam comments on my blog. This isn't the traditional spam, the ones everyone's so familiar with. There are no pleas from Nigerian princes or housewives for money and no products offering up unique - and cheap - ways to enlarge male genitalia. No, these messages are more subtle, kinder. They soothe and encourage. They flatter and praise. And they can make anyone believe they've written something worthwhile.

The comments appear on my blog and occasionally break through the spam detector and get published. But most get caught. Maybe I should let them all slide through.

"I am really glad I came across this blog. Added shawnfury.blogspot.com to my bookmark!"

So kind, especially the exclamation point.

After a blog post about New York, some anonymous computer or bored Russian said, "What a nice post. I really enjoy reading these types of articles. I can't wait to see what others have to say."

Sure, perhaps Louise thinks one of my chapter ideas needs to be fleshed out a bit, but why should that make me question my projects when someone writes - in response to a blog about newspaper comments - "Fine article! Could you follow up on this great matter!" I could, and did, and why wouldn't I when a spammer is so eager to see more of my work?

In a post centered on high school basketball records, a spammer said, simply yet eloquently, "Beautiful post, great ))" I don't know if the double parenthesis were supposed to be smiley faces or what, but the sentiment is still appreciated.

Occasionally the comments do have concerns, they're not always encouraging. But they're still not as harsh as Louise's edits:
"Hey, great post. Though I'm not sure I agree with you 100% Keep em coming. Are you interested in having anyone guest post opposing views?"

No.

Another added, "Nice post, kind of drawn out though. Really good subject matter though." Kind of drawn out? I realize I sometimes write long, but do the robots have to point it out? Or, if written in the form of spam, do the robots have to point it out, though.

Even those from other countries appreciate my posts. "British isn't my main language yet I could comprehend this when using the google translator. Terrific publish, have them coming. Say thanks!"

A spam that demands good manners. So, thanks. British isn't my first language, either, and, really, that comment is more a compliment for the engineers at Google. Still, it's a nice thought, something any writer would enjoy.

In the end, of course, Louise's critiques are much more valuable than the ones offered up by some computer located thousands of miles away. And she's actually mostly encouraging. She's my most enthusiastic fan, in addition to being a brilliant editor.

The spams are a mirage, offering up praise without, I'm guessing, really reading all of the material. Does the spam really agree with me about the absurdity of the comments on newspaper websites? Was it really a brilliant post? I wonder.

Besides, I sort of suspect those comments aren't really spam at all. I think mom left them.

Still arguing over calls from the 1980s

2011-01-11T17:10:00.001-05:00

The worst call in the history of basketball. Eight words, one sentence. But a phrase that conveys so much. Use it while watching in a gym or in a recliner at home. Yell it at refs or mutter to friends.

My old college coach always used that line, sometimes after calls that really were horrendous, sometimes when he simply wanted to utilize some hyperbole. Over the years I've said it dozens of times, usually jokingly, but not always.

But now I think I have found the worst call in the history of basketball. Or, you know, at least one of them.

And for it, we go back to the 1987 NBA Finals. It's Game 6, the game when the Lakers ran past the Celtics in the second half and clinched their fourth title of the decade, capping one of the most dominant seasons in franchise history.

There are actually three horrific calls in this clip:

First, a charge call when Magic bumps a flopping Jerry Sichting.

Then, the next time down the court, the other guy who saved the NBA gets called for a terrible charge as well, when Bird bumps into Mychal Thompson on a drive. As Chick Hearn said, it was a "cosmetic call," a makeup for the atrocity against Magic. The Bird call is terrible. But not the worst call in the history of basketball. For that, go to the end of the video. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who already has four fouls, knocks into Bird. The Lakers get called for a foul, although it probably could have been called on Bird.

Okay. Bad. But what makes it the worst call in the history of basketball? The ref gives the foul to James Worthy. Watch it again. The play happens right in front of the ref, but as he walks toward the scorer's table, he signals that it's on Worthy, who was several feet away from the play! Amazing. It seems possible the ref realized it was going to be Kareem's fifth foul and gave it to Worthy, who looks perplexed. Bizarre, no matter what the rationalization.

And now a few words about a play that was not the worst call in the history of basketball. Earlier today I again discussed with someone the final seconds of Game 7 of the 1988 Finals. The Lakers edged the Pistons by three points, earning a repeat title. The controversy happens in the final two seconds and for 22 years, Pistons fans - and other people who perhaps don't always support the purple and gold - have contended that the Lakers got away with one.

To the video. The controversy comes just past the 1:40 mark:

Bill Laimbeer drains a 3 to cut the Lakers' lead to 1. Magic takes the inbound pass, and finds AC Green for a layup that puts the Lakers up 3 with two seconds left (Green probably should have just dribbled out the clock). It did not, despite Dick Stockton's words, win the game for the Lakers. Pistons could still tie it. But as the fans and photographers swarm the court - and as the Lakers bench begins to run off it! - Laimbeer throws a pass downcourt to Isiah Thomas. Thomas falls, the buzzer sounds and the Lakers, finally, do win it.

Pistons fans always complain about two things: The fans came onto the court before the game ended, and that Magic fouled Isiah on the last play.

One complaint is legitimate, the other isn't. It is a bizarre ending. There were still two seconds left, the Pistons - who were out of timeouts - could still tie it. Yet there are fans on the court. A dweebish ballboy jumps up and down - on the court. The Lakers players are on the court. Pat Riley, who perhaps should have been worrying about the defense still, is on the court, headed to the locker room. Laimbeer actually has to throw the full-court pass while a photographer snaps pictures a few feet in front of him - on the court. Obviously the refs should have cleared the court. Would the Pistons have tied it up? Highly unlikely. But they should have had a court setting that didn't resemble Walmart at the opening of Black Friday.

As for the alleged foul on Magic? That's where Pistons fans should shelve the whining. It's impossible to tell from the camera angle if Magic hit Isiah. It looks just as likely that Isiah, who played on a badly sprained ankle and hobbled around all game, fell as Magic stepped near him. I've seen that game dozens of times but have never seen any other angle on the play. Maybe a different camera tells a different story.

But even if Magic had fouled him, it wouldn't have been a shooting foul. And if the refs had somehow made the worst call in the history of basketball and called it a shooting foul, Isiah still couldn't have tied the game at the line. Why? Because in 1988 the NBA still only gave a player two free throws if he was fouled on a 3-pointer. The three free throws rule didn't come into play until the 1995 season. So Isiah would have had to make the first, miss the second and hope that Buddha Edwards or Laimbeer or Salley or Rodman or Chuck Nevitt or someone, anyone, could have tipped in the ball for the tie. Possible? I suppose. But hardly likely. And hardly reason to still complain 22 - make that 23 - years later.

And there's more. But not much, I promise.

Watch Laimbeer's pass again. As he throws it, he steps over the line, an obvious violation. The refs should have cleared the court, yes. But they let it play out. And because they did, they should have whistled Laimbeer for the violation. Was the pass made more difficult by the fact he fired it over the head of a photog? Well, sure, although, to be honest, the photographer was short. But still, Laimbeer's right leg goes over the baseline. The game should have ended with the Lakers throwing the ball in under their own hoop.

Poor crowd control by the stripes? Of course.

The worst call in the history of basketball? Nah.

The Science of Sports - in 1962

2011-01-09T23:46:00.001-05:00

Louise is still half a world away so doesn't know this yet, but during my trip to Minnesota I again raided my parents' basement and dug through some of my old boxes of books that are still taking up space. I brought seven or eight, maybe nine or ten, back with me, as I slowly reacquaint myself with the volumes I'll again be in possession of whenever my folks finally make good on their threat to downsize to a smaller home.

The books I brought back? Couple of David Halberstam classics - The Best and the Brightest, and The Powers that Be - along with a few Stephen King books.

But another one that made the cut came out long before I started collecting books. My dad or, more likely, one of my uncles must have bought it and it stayed out on the farm for decades, before I took a couple of boxes of my grandpa's collection. It's called Here's Why: Science in Sports. A man named George Barr wrote it and it was published in 1962. Barr, according to the inside of the book, served as a "consultant in elementary science Board of Education, New York City."

The book cost 45 cents.

And what did it promise you for a quarter and two dimes? The answers to these questions:
Ever wonder why most fast-ball pitchers are tall?
A football lineman crouches?
Basketball shoes are like "4-wheel brakes?"

The book deals primarily with the big sports: Baseball, football and basketball, along with a section on "the athlete's body." Other sports, including the broad jump, are lumped together in a single chapter, relegated to the back of the book, though they too receive the complete scientific treatment.

Barr provides the words but the book's illustrations are just as valuable for young athletes and budding scientists, and those were provided by Mildred Waltrip. The baseball section begins with pitching.

"The pitcher is one of the most important players on the baseball team. Upon him usually depends the success or loss of a game. Because of the sensitive nature of his work, all his teammates pamper him. They try in every way to save his strength and his nervous system."

And just think, Barr wrote those words four decades before starting pitchers were pampered to such a degree that they're now universally applauded anytime they go past six innings. I'm guessing solid fielding and eight runs per game would save a pitcher's nerves. Barr does note that "on average, 100 to 150 pitches are made by one pitcher during a game." A hundred and fifty. Yes, the game's changed.

Wanna know the diameter of a pitching mound? Barr offers up an experiment anyone can do at home, provided they own a No. 2 pencil and lack friends:

"Hold a pencil or a stick vertically at arm's length. Sight past this object toward the pitcher when he is in the center of the mound. Compare the height of the pitcher and the diameter of the mound by making reference marks on the pencil. Suppose you find that the mound diameter is about three times the height of the pitcher. Assuming that the pitcher is about 6 feet tall, the diameter of the mound would be 18 feet. Try this next time you see a professional game on TV or at a stadium. You will find that not all ball parks have similar pitchers' mounds."

Only three more months and you can try it yourself.

When Barr wrote his book, baseball obviously ruled America. The NFL was still years away from becoming the most popular sport in the country and basketball, for the most part, was still being played completely on the ground and wasn't even close in popularity.

Like a modern scientist, Barr confronts player safety in football. Again, an experiment, this time when explaining how helmets absorb punishment:
"Strike your skull with the eraser part of a pencil. Use enough force to make it annoying. Now place a stiff piece of cardboard, or a thin hard-covered book against your head. Strike the book with the pencil held in the same way as before. Use the same part of the head and, of course, the same force. You will find that your head does not feel the annoying shock in one spot. You will also find that the pressure is decreased."

Barr must have been one of the leading pencil scientists in the country. No matter the sport, give the man a pencil - and an eraser - and he could break it down like John Madden with a telestrator. I'm picturing my dad reading this book when he was 15 years old, standing in his bedroom, hitting himself in the head with a pencil, then again, only this time with a stray piece of cardboard acting as protection. Hey, during bad winters they were occasionally stuck out on the farm for days at a time. No cable, few provisions, no Internet, you did science experiments during your free time to keep from going mad.

A football, Barr wrote, can be called "a prolate spheroid," which sounds more like a dinosaur than a ball. It also sounds like a phrase a husky former lineman who recently finished a crossword puzzle would use in the announcers' booth today, something like, "I tell ya, Joe. When the prolate spheroid hit Owens in the abs, it took the wind out of him and he landed on his gluteus maximus."

On to hoops. "Basketball is one of the fastest foot games on earth. Only players who are in topnotch condition can play the strenuous game."

Barr obviously didn't anticipate my Wednesday night basketball league.

"Many players use two hands for set shots. In recent years, more and more of these shots are being made with only one hand. Some coaches feel that with one hand there are fewer muscles used which can upset one's aim." My friend Mike, a master of the two-handed set shot, or at least a practitioner, should have played thirty years before he did.

It's possible that Barr was a guy on the short side. Or he lost a lot of girlfriends to taller guys who also blocked his two-handed set shots. When talking about the competitive nature of the sport, he wrote, "Many people say that to make the game competitive, there should be an attempt made to match teams of approximate heights." Did many people say that, or just Mr. Barr after being victimized by a giant going over his back for offensive boards? "The elimination of the frequent center jumped helped matters somewhat. But in the main, little has been done about the problem of unmatched teams."

And little's been done since.

The book is actually extraordinarily informative, even if many of the passages today sound as awkward as lessons from old books on etiquette. Barr explained how a basketball bounces and a baseball curves. He dissected spirals and punts. Any young athlete - with a somewhat nerdy side that's interested in science - would enjoy the book today, nearly 50 years after it was published.

Just make sure the kid's got access to plenty of pencils.

The exploding sex toy: Only in Waseca County? Only in Waseca County

2011-01-06T22:43:00.001-05:00

A few weeks ago Janesville made the news when an elderly woman conned a young man into acting as a getaway driver during a bank robbery. This time, it's not Janesville but neighboring Waseca that's making headlines among true-crime fans. A disturbed 37-year-old named Terry Lester was arrested for attempting to turn a sex toy into an explosive device. There's really not much more to add to a sentence like that, is there? Apparently upset with several women he used to date, the innovative - if dangerous - Lester, "made some modifications to a sex toy. He put gun powder, BB shot and buck shot from shotgun shells into one with black and red wires that connected to a trigger with a battery port," according to the Waseca County News story.

Has this been attempted before? Probably. Everything's been tried before. Still, this sounds like the type of plan dreamed up during a long night at the bar, perhaps while in the company of an old friend from work who was also recently dumped by his girlfriend. The two start talking, badmouthing their exes and dreaming up schemes. As the Hamm's flows, the revenge fantasy grows.

"She said she didn't need me no more. Said she didn't need me at all, not my paycheck, not in bed, nothin'."

"You know what you should do? She don't need you in bed? Bet she uses one of them devices, right? I know my old lady loved them damn things. What you do is, rig that thing up with some buck shot, a little gun powder, and there you go." (insert man's friend making the type of grunting sounds popularized by Tim Allen on Home Improvement).

This could have national implications. Two weeks ago, as I prepared to fly back home to Minnesota, I watched a TV report detailing the TSA's concern about terrorists putting explosives in thermoses. Thermoses. How long before we read the following story, from CNN or ABC or CBS or anyone else eager to frighten - and arouse? - fliers:

"U.S. authorities are warning air travelers to expect greater scrutiny of vibrators and other sex toys at security checkpoints after intelligence suggested they could be used to hide explosive devices.

A notice on the TSA's website - which is not accessible to anyone whose office blocks pornographic sites - warned about the possibilities that explosives might be hidden inside the sex toys and said the warning was "based on intelligence," originally acquired during an investigation into an unintelligent small-town Minnesota man named Terry Lester.

While there is no intelligence indicating the notoriously prudish Al-qaeda plans an imminent attack using the devices, authorities are worried about an increase in terrorist "chatter," which has been accompanied by giggling and bad puns.

A top military official told The Associated Press that the new warnings were examples of officials trying to anticipate terrorist attacks by imagining the most ridiculous scenarios, thus providing terrorists with an idea they never would have thought of on their own. Those carrying the toys can expect additional screening, particularly in the Bible Belt."

I have writer's block

2010-12-29T15:07:00.004-05:00

Not really. But like its owner, the blog is on vacation until 2011, when it will return with more tales about New York, Janesville, book publishing, newspapers and Lakers games from 26 years ago that no one cares about. Happy New Year to all. Even Celtics fans.

The continuing adventures of InDesign's spellcheck

2010-12-23T22:39:00.001-05:00

A few weeks ago at work, we had an updated version of InDesign installed on our computers. I briefly worried that the most fascinating aspect of our InDesign - the crazed, angry, prophetic, cruel, sympathetic, sophomoric, harsh, unforgiving, all-knowing spellcheck - would have been altered in the new version. Would it still offer up Satan as a correction for Ashton? Would psychobiology still be a suggested change for Scooby-Doo? Or would InDesign go legit and normalize, blending in with all the other boring spellchecks in the world?

No worries. Some more examples of InDesign spellcheck's peculiar outlook on the world:

Salma (as in Hayek): Slimy, salami
Katy (as in Perry): Kooky, kitty
Volkswagen: Folksinger - Surely many unkempt hippie folksingers drove Volkswagens back in the day. But how does InDesign know this?

Lorenzo (as in Lamas): Low-rent, reruns - A bit harsh. Then again, if I turned on Lifetime at 3 in the morning some time and discovered an old episode of Falcon Crest, those would probably be two of the first words out of my mouth.

Mischa: Mescal, miscue
Ziering: Swearing, syringe
Cibrian: Aspiring, Siberian
Danielle: Dunghill, dingle
Beyonce: Bouncy, bones - When the singing superstar invariably becomes scary-skinny at some point in her career, those two words will appear in a review of her concerts.

Lautner: Latent, Latino - I think this was one of the primary concerns of the controversial Arizona immigration law from a few months ago. Undocumented workers, anchor babies, illegal aliens, latent Latinos.

Disick: Disco, dashiki.
Fallon: Fallen, felon - Only if the late-night gig really goes bad.

Speaking of the late-night television wars, InDesign suggests horny, auburn, uterine, ovarian, and ob-gyn for O'Brien. InDesign is not shy when it comes to mattes of the human anatomy.

Baskett: Back-seat, basked, bisect - Not sure why InDesign hyphenates backseat, but it is the perfect way to describe Hank Baskett's spot in his marriage to former Playboy playmate and current disgruntled Minnesota resident Kendra Wilkinson.

InDesign expert David Blatner noted that he couldn't get his settings to duplicate our results. I'm a bit disappointed in that, since everyone should get to enjoy InDesign spellcheck's perversions and sly sense of humor. But I also like that we possess an apparently unique spellcheck, one that has seemingly gone rogue and no longer cares what writers and editors think. It will continue offering nonsensical suggestions for common words and proper nouns. Yes, our computers got an upgrade but InDesign spellcheck stayed the same.

Thank God.

Music that makes you want to tackle someone

2010-12-19T23:57:00.000-05:00

As a kid thinking about a career as an adult, I figured I'd either start at quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys - this was when Danny White proved inferior when following in Roger Staubach's footsteps - or play shooting guard for the Lakers. If either of those goals failed, I planned on a career at NFL Films. When we first got ESPN, it seemed half of the network's programming consisted of shows courtesy of NFL Films, whether it was Steve Sabol relaxing in a chair and introducing a Super Bowl film about the battle between the Niners and Dolphins, or a Follies program that was complete with the voice of Elmer Fudd (the NFL took itself a lot less seriously back then).

Every so often you saw into the NFL Films building, where row after row of canisters filled the rooms. Imagine watching NFL highlights all day long. That's the existence I dreamed about.

The music of NFL Films was a major reason the shows appealed to me and millions of other football fans. Composer Sam Spence put together many of the famous NFL Films songs and the sounds became synonymous with the images, from the Steel Curtain's dominance to Lombardi's fury. Even today, hearing an old-school NF Films song - you usually only hear them today when they're used ironically in commercials that are selling fashionable pants or comfortable shoes - makes me want to run out on the street with a Nerf football and play two-on-two passing games against friends.

A YouTube poster who probably also grew up dreaming about serving as Steve Sabol's assistant compiled dozens of famous NFL Films song. They're all here. Some classics, starting with "The Classic Battle." I picture the Cowboys digging in at the goal-line in Lambeau, moments before Bart Starr's game-winning sneak.

For lovers of the trombone and video of John Riggins gaining 5 yards a pop behind the Redkins' hogs, here's "Roundup."

"Salute to Courage." Perhaps you think it'd be a song composed for a feature on World War II veterans, or the embassy hostages in Iran. Instead it's something to use while watching shots of Terry Bradshaw throw bombs to Lynn Swann.

"The Final Quest." Break this one out before showing the Super Bowl teams slowly running out for pregame introductions, perhaps the Cowboys before the 1993 Super Bowl or the Giants before their destruction of the Broncos in 1987. If used by NFL Films, it has to be used while showing the winning team. Because music this inspirational is not built for losers. Sorry, Bills.

"West Side Rumble." With a name like that and a song like this, it had to be used during a film about rivals, a game between two teams that hated each other. Maybe during the Steelers-Raiders game that ended with Franco's Immaculate Reception. Or a good Redskins-Cowboys game during the George Allen era in Washington.

The names are as entertaining as the song. Here's "The Pony Soldiers," and it sounds like something that Eastwood would have used in one of his Westerns. I think this would best be used with a Joe Montana film, perhaps during the drive that ended with The Catch. I picture him dissecting a defense as the music begins, before it ends with a flourish and a fist pump.

The Raiders were so tough, and notorious, in the '60s and '70s that NFL Films gave them their own song, "Autumn Wind." Spence wrote the song, while Sabol himself wrote a poem about the franchise. Vikings fans can listen to this while picturing Old Man Willie racing down the sidelines with an interception return in the Super Bowl.

"Up She Rises." Another one where I don't know whether to avenge the sinking of the Maine or sit back and watch Bob Griese lead the Dolphins to an unbeaten season. All of these are famous NFL Films songs, but the part in this one that kicks in at around 40 seconds is among the most well-known sections.

I no longer think I'll grow up to quarterback the Cowboys and I don't think I'll make it as shooting guard for the Lakers. I also don't want to work for NFL Films, as I'm sure the technology would only confuse me, and I'm much more comfortable with words than pictures. Still, I could listen to their songs all day.The only thing missing from these? A little John Facenda:

The worst - and, possibly, most depressing - bank robbery in history

2010-12-16T19:46:00.001-05:00

Janesville makes the news!

This is one of those stories that I might usually say can only happen in a small town. But that's not exactly true. Desperation is a universal thing.

On Wednesday, my dad came upon the most excitement in Janesville since the Hay Daze parade in June. Sirens everywhere. Cops all around. TV crews on hand. It turned out to be the end of a bank robbery in nearby Elysian. The perps supposedly robbed the bank in Elysian and made the short drive to Janesville, where authorities quickly apprehended them. What made it strange initially was the pairing: an "older woman" and a young guy. What was their relationship? Harold and Maude? Grandma and grandson? Who was the leader, who was the lackey?

KEYC offered video but not many explanations. An expert in news ethics might take issue with Channel 12's initial report: A bank might have been robbed, though no one's really saying, two people were arrested shortly after, though who knows if they're suspects in the bank robbery. Something happened. That we do know.

Well, it turned out the young guy was innocent, an unwitting, befuddled pawn in an elderly woman's desperate attempt to pay her rent. The woman, 70-year-old Sandra Bathke, is a tenant in the building owned by the young man's mom. Bathke told the man, Luke Weimert, that she could get the money for her late rent - she had received an eviction notice - if he could just drive her to the bank. Who passes up a chance to be nice to an elderly person in the middle of a brutal winter? So Weimert drove her to the Elysian bank in a Jaguar and waited in the car. Bathke allegedly went inside, told a teller she had a gun - she didn't, but did have a hammer, authorities said - walked back to the car and rode off with Weimert. They made small talk on the drive. The ice- and snow-filled roads are bad outside of Janesville so they took it slow, perhaps the first evidence that Weimert didn't know what he'd been dragged into. A getaway driver usually possesses a heavier foot.

When they arrived back in Janesville, authorities swarmed the car, much to Weimert's shock. Bathke's comment when the police appeared?

"Oh, no."

Such a grandmotherly thing to say. Police determined that the 26-year-old Weimert didn't know anything about the robbery. He was just doing a good deed, it being the holiday season and all. Bathke will face charges. Weimert's mom says she wishes she could sell the building. Bad tenants who make too much noise or don't pay the rent on time are one thing. Tenants who snare your son in a felony that catches the attention of the FBI are another.

It's a pretty sad tale. Bathke didn't have any previous bank robberies on her resume. She was a woman with no money, and, she apparently thought, nothing to lose. It wasn't a well-thought out plan. No weapon, no disguise. The thought probably came to her in an instant. All she needed was a driver. Who hasn't thought at some point, huh, I wonder if I could rob a bank, like the guys in Heat? Bathke followed through. Picture your grandma in dire financial straits. You'd want to help in some way, whether giving her the money or taking her to the bank where she can retrieve some cash. Maybe you'll get some homemade chocolate-chip cookies and hot cocoa as a reward. That's all poor Weimert did, yet he still ended up in handcuffs on TV. It didn't end well for anyone, though Weimert will have plenty of stories to tell his own grandkids someday.

Only in Janesville. Or any other place where a desperate person performs a desperate act.

The evil sports teams that ruled '80s teen movies

2010-12-14T22:53:00.000-05:00

This past weekend I rented Better Off Dead, one of my Top 10 favorite movies and a classic teen film from the 1980s.

"I want my two dollars!"
"Two brothers. One speaks no English, the other learned English from watching The Wide World of Sports. So you tell me, which is better: speaking no English at all, or speaking Howard Cosell?"

"I know it's bacon. What have you done to it?"
"You said you didn't like all the grease from fried bacon, so I boiled it."

And on and on and on. The movie didn't find much success at the box office when it came out in 1985, but it developed a cult following shortly after. I can remember watching it on cable in the late '80s and then spending an entire summer quoting the lines with my friend Brandon. The movie is beloved by pretty much everyone, except, it seems, the star, John Cusack. According to director Steve Holland, Cusack hated the movie when it came out and accused Holland of ruining his career. Far from it.

But there is one scene that bothers me. It's set in the school cafeteria, as Lane deals with a heartbreaking breakup from his girlfriend, Beth, who dumped him for the evil ski captain, the perfectly named Roy Stalin. To get over Beth, Lane attempts to pick up another hot girl from school. He fails miserably and in the process, gets beaten up by the basketball team. What bothers me? The basketball players are wearing their uniforms in the cafeteria, during school hours!

Here's the clip with the basketball team. The cagers make their cafeteria appearance about halfway through the clip. They actually carry basketballs with them to lunch, which I don't think even Pistol Pete did when he was a kid. The ogres don't speak, instead choosing to communicate through a series of grunts and groans that are apparently understood by all. If the guys can't talk to each other at the lunch table, how are they going to call out screens on the court? I bet they were weak on the defensive end.

The object of Lane's affections, Chris, dates "the whole basketball team." Not just one guy, but the whole team. And who knows if dates should also be in air quotes when referring to her relationship with the starting five.

I played high school basketball. Not once did I run around school in our blue or gray uniform and I certainly didn't sit down for a lunch while wearing high tops and shorts.

There are also several people skating around the cafeteria, including Chris the cheerleader. Anyone ever roller-skate through a school cafeteria while carrying a tray filled with pizza burgers and butter sandwiches. Has anyone ever seen this? I certainly didn't. Then again, I did go home for lunch each day starting in the sixth grade, so there's a chance I missed the skating-and-basketball-jersey-wearing underworld at Janesville-Waldorf-Pemberton.

Like the no-name team in Better Off Dead, we wore the short shorts, although most of us had the smarts to sport bicycle pants underneath the uniform. The school didn't keep the short shorts much longer. The standard longer bottoms came to JWP in 1996 and the team made the first state tournament appearance in school history that season. Coincidence?

Better off Dead wasn't the only teen classic from the '80s that portrayed high school athletes as evil warriors hell-bent on destroying any nerd in sight. In Can't Buy Me Love, it's the baseball team. And, once again, we see the team at its most evil during lunch. Not only are they dressed and ready for a game of pepper, but someone on the team actually brought a bat with them, which Ronald uses in a fit of range when he defends his buddy against the star pitcher. So the school district was not only okay with the baseball team ruining the jerseys by wearing them for eight hours, but also had no issue with students carrying wooden weapons around class all day.

Again, I played baseball. Not once did I run around the school in spikes and stirrups. What possible reason would the baseball team - or basketball team in Better off Dead - have for wearing their unis during school hours? Did the school not have adequate locker rooms? Were the players shy and dressed at home? What did the student-athletes do during phy ed class, change into phy ed clothes and then back into the baseball or basketball uniform? Did the baseball coach also wear his uni during the day? Did he teach math while adjusting himself and giving signs? Did the baseball guys wear cups? And why the baseball and basketball teams? Sure, there are some jerks who play those sports and some bullies, but are there that many tough guys who intimidate other students? To fulfill the stereotype, shouldn't it have been the football team or wrestling team running roughshod through the cafeterias? They could have sacked a geek or slammed a dweeb, all while wearing shoulder pads or singlets.

Which uniform is more impractical? Which ones look more ridiculous? I think it's the basketball outfit for both. Walking around with the basketball shorts, there's a chance that someone could come along and depants a player, although if the team rules the school with an iron fist - like it does in Better off Dead - certainly no one would dare take that chance. Even today, when players would actually be wearing shorts that completely cover their genitals, they'd have to be self-conscious while wandering around the halls in their basketball uniform.

At most schools, players or their girlfriends will often wear their football jerseys around school, usually on gameday. But they don't have football pants on and, unless it's for some type of dangerous medical condition, no one's sitting in science class while wearing a helmet and facemask.

No one is scared of basketball players. And they're even less intimidated by baseball players. Then again, the main bad guy in Better off Dead is a skiing star so, compared to him, maybe the basketball players are tough guys.

In fact, guys dressed up in baseball uniforms are always weaklings, even when they're gang members. In The Warriors, the main gang gets chased by a group of thugs called the Baseball Furies. Awesome name (wonder if they have a T-shirt?). Better uniforms.

But what happens? The Furies get their asses kicked, disgracing the family name. The lesson? Baseball teams - whether wearing face paint and running through New York City or when when crammed into ill-fitting uniforms while seated at lunch tables - don't exactly instill fear when cast as the villain. But at least they're not wearing short-shorts.

Minnesota in December - Lovely

2010-12-12T15:43:00.001-05:00

It's always exciting when Minnesota makes the national news for a snowstorm. This weekend's blizzard caught the attention of the major networks even before the Metrodome collapsed, which worked out perfectly for all involved, since it not only gave new stadium proponents an argument, but also created the best metaphor for a franchise's season in the history of the NFL.

New York City really hasn't seen any snow at all yet, aside from a flurry, but it will certainly arrive soon enough, most likely the day I'm flying back to Minnesota in a few weeks. I certainly don't miss Minnesota winters. It's not just the snow and it's not just the cold - it's when the snow and the cold combine forces to create misery and hermits. As an indoorsman who never went ice fishing, skiing or snowmobile riding - winter is basketball season, for watching, if not playing outdoors - I never enjoyed the activities that keep many Minnesotans sane from November through April.

In New York, snowstorms don't affect me because I never drive in them. That was always the worst part of storms in Minnesota, knowing that life and the games do go on (unless there's a roof collapse). In a regular storm you still have to drive. And, occasionally, even when no travel is recommended, you find yourself on the road, squinting and gripping, cursing and praying.

A few memorable storm moments:
* When I worked in Worthington, my friend John learned of a prime position outside of town for sledding. We planned a late-night excursion, fueled primarily by a love of sledding, but perhaps by some liquids. John drove us in his red jeep. The sledding was fine. Unfortunately, John's jeep didn't make the trip back to Worthington, at least not with him behind the wheel.

Somehow, after parking on the side of the road, he moved the wrong direction and got stuck, then compounded the problem by attempting to power out of the snow, causing even more damage to the beloved red vehicle. We were now stranded on a cold winter night. Fortunately, we had thought ahead and brought a cell phone from the newspaper office and called a co-worker t0 retrieve us. I'm not sure what we would have done without the phone. Cannibalism? By hour three that might have been the best option and then it would have been one-on-one combat, winner take all. John's a great cook. If he would have prevailed, he probably could have prepared a delightful meal out of my frozen limbs. But I was more athletic, so might have had an edge in the actual fight. Thankfully it didn't come to that, although the winner might have had a hell of a book deal out of the situation.

* My friend Mike didn't have a car at St. John's, which was fine. He didn't really need one. But one night in 1996, he visited his girlfriend on the St. Ben's campus, a few miles from Collegeville. A bad snowstorm hit the area that night. Also that evening, my roommate hosted a small party in our tiny dorm room.

Late in the night, Mike called and asked me to fetch him. The school had shut down the buses between campuses. His girlfriend served as an RA and was not allowed to have boys stay overnight. Mike now had to flee, in the same conditions Miss Beadle sent the children home in during the tragic Little House episode. He called me, asking - again - for my chauffeur services. Anxious to leave the dreadful party, I climbed into my faithful Beretta and made the short drive to St. Ben's. The snow-covered roads proved challenging, yet my dedication to friends knew no limits. I collected Mike and we slowly headed out of town. As I told Mike about the festivities in my dorm, I approached a stop sign. Unfortunately, despite my best intentions, I didn't stop. I blame Chevy's engineers. The Beretta slowly - slowly meaning about 2 miles per hour - slid past the stop sign and into the intersection. We hit another car in a collision that proved more pathetic than dangerous.

After the collision, I told Mike I had a beer or two back in the dorm room. Thinking quickly - almost as if he'd done this before, or at least seen it on an episode of Law & Order - Mike volunteered to say that he was driving. What a guy! What a friend! But I couldn't let a friend take the fall, even if it was his fault that he didn't have a car and even if it was his fault that he missed the last bus. I didn't think the beer would be an issue for whatever law enforcement member happened upon the sad little scene. The driver of the other car had a bad night. As a tow truck approached, he told us that the same truck had just pulled them out of a ditch. Which made me think: Okay, I'm at fault, I slid through the sign. But this guy just went into the ditch and now couldn't avoid a car going two miles an hour. Where are his winter driving skills?

Making the evening even stranger, his girlfriend - a passenger in the car - emerged, looked at Mike and told him she danced with him at a "barn dance" freshman year. She seemed like a lovely gal, but Mike gave the impression that she wasn't the type of girl you'd want to remember dancing with. They chatted, I spoke with the boyfriend, the police came, took their report, didn't even care about the condition of either driver and we went back to campus, where I spent the night listening to my roommate vomit while I contemplated how to tell my parents about the accident. God damn snowstorm. The story has a happy ending. The accident didn't cause my insurance to go up. And, perhaps of a bit more significance, Mike married that girl - Jodi, the one he visited that night at St. Ben's, not the girl in the other car - and they now have four kids. Mike also has his own car.

* Freshman year at Worthington Community College. The men's basketball team hosts powerful Minneapolis Community College in a key January game. A blizzard shuts everything down, the town and the interstate. Minneapolis ends up stranded in town for days. But the game goes on. We played in front of, perhaps, 10 fans. We won the game on a miracle shot at the buzzer, as our blonde, gangly 6-9 center hit a 15-foot jumper on the baseline while falling out of bounds. This is one of three sporting events of mine that my parents missed between 1982 and 1995. Still haven't forgiven them.

* A year later, I worked part-time at the Worthington Daily Globe. During the high school basketball playoffs, I traveled to Windom, about 30 minutes away, to cover a game. I drove over with my college coach, Mike Augustine. Terrible storm again. The games probably should have been canceled. On the way home, we stopped at a Hardee's for some drive-through ham 'n' cheese sandwiches. Again in my trusty Beretta, I pulled out onto Highway 60, which was four lanes for a few miles outside of Windom. I couldn't see anything but snow, while Augie consumed his meal next to me, completely oblivious to the road conditions. I wasn't completely sure I was on the right side of the road. Christ, could I have been going the wrong way on the four-lane? Thankfully, they put up big signs - like this one - that say WRONG WAY! I saw it and, after making sure there were no other cars coming - there weren't, since there were very few people dumb enough to be on the road that night - I turned around and had us in the correct lane.

* Three years ago we visited my parents in winter. February, I believe. One weekend, I decided to ride along with my dad from Janesville to Marshall, to watch my nephew's basketball game. Bad storms that day. Of course. Louise begged us not to go. She thought like a normal, rational person: There's a snowstorm, why would you drive two hours to watch a basketball game? We thought like Minnesotans: Why would we let a few flakes and a bit of wind keep us from watching a basketball game? Only a South African raised in the sun would consider these conditions dangerous. We headed out and discovered that the roads were worse than anticipated. Phone calls to my sister in Marshall proved unhelpful. Weather's great, she'd say. Roads are fine. Meanwhile, we couldn't see the road or any cars in front of us. Yet we plowed forward, thinking, maybe, just maybe, the South African knew what she was talking about. Eventually, after driving for a few hours at about 30 miles per hour, in conditions not fit for humans or vehicles, we turned around. This was a bad one. With my dad driving, I had to roll down the window to look out so I could tell him how close we were to the ditch. But we made it. We pulled into the garage and walked back into the house. My mom sat at the dining room table, happy to see us. Louise? She had taken to bed, convinced she was now a widow. She was overjoyed to see us, yet unhappy that we ignored her advice. But again, what's a South African know about driving in the snow?

* At the end of 1993, my cousin Matt had tickets to a Timberwolves game. I had to come from Worthington and would meet him and a couple of other friends in Janesville. From there, we'd drive to the Cities, first stopping Burnsville to pick up a girl Matt had been courting for months. The plan went into disarray when I went into the ditch with the Beretta just outside of Mountain Lake, more than an hour from Janesville. No cell phone then, of course. I managed to make a call from the office of the tow truck folks. My car was fine but I arrived in Janesville about two hours later than scheduled, putting a dent in Matt's love life and our plans to watch the whole Timberwolves game. Matt cursed me out the entire ride up to Minneapolis. I cursed him out as we drove aimlessly around Burnsville, searching for the house where the girl of his dreams lived.

"How can you not have directions to her house?"
"How could you go into the ditch?"
"Even if I hadn't gone in the ditch, we'd still be driving around looking for her house."

We finally found it and her. Impressing her even more, we made her drive into Minneapolis, since none of us had much experience driving in the big city. Certainly a low point for our collected masculinity. She proved a good sport and drove us to the Target Center, where we arrived late in the second quarter of the Timberwolves-Rockets game. I'd like to say this story had a happy ending, too. But the Timberwolves lost the game. And, eventually, though I'm sure it had nothing to do with our late arrival or our demand that she taxi us around the Twin Cities, the girl told Matt it might be better if they would just be friends.

He probably still blames my driving. I blame the snow.

The aging athlete

2010-12-11T00:15:00.005-05:00

Larry Bird turned 54 on Tuesday. Magic Johnson is 51. Michael Jordan? Forty-seven. Like Bird, Joe Montana is 54. Kent Hrbek turned 50 last May. I always remember Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's age because it's the same as my dad: 63.

It doesn't bother me that the sports heroes and villains of my youth are growing older and simply getting old. They're allowed to age, gracefully or otherwise. They can lose their hair, gain a gut, become a recluse or shill nonstop on late-night infomercials. Seeing them pass through middle-age and eventually into Social Security doesn't make me feel old.

No, I only feel old when I compare my current age to where those sports stars were at a similar spot in life. In other words, Larry at 54 doesn't make me contemplate my own gray hairs or leave me yearning for youth. But when I remember that Larry Bird at 35 was in the final season of his career and was plodding along upcourt with bad legs and a worse back, averaging 20 points a game, well, that's when I feel slightly over the hill. By the time Magic was 35, he'd been retired for three years, had made one comeback - which failed - and served a disastrous stint as head coach, yet he was still a year away from a second on-court comeback.

At 35 Michael Jordan was on his last legs in the final days of the Chicago dynasty, willing the Bulls past Indiana in the Eastern Conference semifinals and then draining the famous shot in Game 6 of the Finals. He'd lost his leaping ability but remained the best player in the game, despite losing some of the athleticism that allowed him to dominate earlier in his career. He developed an old man's game by that time.

Kent Hrbek retired at 34. Troy Aikman was also done at 34. By the time both guys reached 35, one was permanently lodged in an ice fishing house and the other in a broadcasting booth.

When I was a kid, 35 in sports was old. And since sports was my life, 35 was old in real life, too. Thirty-five meant your best days were behind you. It meant you'd lost a step, maybe even two. Or maybe you'd completely lost it and had the common sense to retire. Or maybe you didn't have that sense and your team released you, sending you away with a two-paragraph press release that thanked you for your time and effort with the club.

Now I'm 35. And although I'm not a pro athlete, I still follow them and mark the passage of time through their seasons. And I still play some basketball, trying the best I can to maintain a decent 3-point shot from outside and a turnaround jumper inside. At times on Wednesday nights, as I run up a short court with guys who are, for the most part, older than me, I think, "Yeah, I'm still young. I still have it. I could average 35 a game if I played high school ball now. Thirty if the coach wanted to take it easy on the opposition." But the reality is I've lost a step, probably two, maybe even three. I never had a lot of quickness but when I drive to the basket now, it seems to take an eternity and I can feel myself getting impatient even as I slowly make my way to the hoop. Hurry up! Come on, get those legs moving. I never had great endurance, but now it only takes about five minutes for me to feel the type of lung-burning that normally only happens to people if they're being accompanied by a sherpa.

The day after games, I often develop a cough that makes a pack-a-day smoker say, "Buddy, you gotta cut back on the cigs." Blisters that are about five inches long form on the bottom of both feet, my shins ache and my head throbs. And even though I've never even had a sprained ankle in all my days playing basketball, I now find myself occasionally wondering, "Is this the night when the Achilles' snaps?" Because, you know, that's what happens to 35-year-old men.

Yes, as a kid, 35 seemed old for an athlete, any athlete. Why? Because it is.

No, I don't have any problem with sports legends aging. Just wish I could still play like a 25-year-old.

The problem with marrying a foreign gal

2010-12-08T19:04:00.000-05:00

At 10:40 this morning, Louise's flight took off for South Africa. Check-in went smoothly. So did the security line. And the pat-down was, as always, thorough. For Louise, too. Onboard she'll eat surprisingly decent food while crammed into a small seat at the rear of the aircraft. With any luck, this flight won't include a vomit-spewing neighbor, like her last trip across the ocean. And if it does, perhaps the flight crew will at least clean it before the smell overwhelms every man, woman and child within 25 feet.

I can track the flight online and watch a crudely rendered plane as it goes over a blue screen for hours and hours and hours. She'll arrive tomorrow, after nearly 24 hours of travel. She'll remain there for several weeks, basking in the African sun while I eat frozen pizzas and bowls of beef stew she made before her departure, meals she prepared with the discipline of a survivalist stocking up on canned goods in the underground shelter.

Getting married to a foreigner has had its benefits. For instance, Louise always brings back exotic spices that liven up every meal, especially dishes involving potatoes. Then there's the accent. And thanks to her I've enjoyed some world travels, twice venturing to Cape Town, one of the most beautiful cities in the word in one of the most fascinating countries in the world. Without her, I'd still consider a 1999 trip to Tijuana to be the highlight of my international travel experience. Being around her opens my eyes to other cultures and lands. I get to see America through someone else's eyes, someone who came to this country with no money but a lot of courage. I get to teach her about American history, the good and the bad, while she teaches me about South African history - the bad and the good. Marrying a foreigner: I recommend it to everyone, and not just those involved in green card scams.

But there's a downside. I'm forever grateful that Louise is now my family. But I'll always regret that our two families - the Fury clan of Minnesota and the Farias of Cape Town - are strangers to each other. My folks met Louise's mom at our wedding but none of the other family members on either side have ever mingled. Her brothers have never met my sister, her father-in-law has never met my dad. Louise gets to see my family once or twice a year, but I only get to see hers once every two years. If either of us disliked our in-laws, this might not be a bad thing. Unfortunately - er, fortunately - we do like our in-laws. We love them. If I had a brother, I couldn't imagine having any more fun with him than I do with Louise's brothers, Anthony and Daniel. In many ways they're complete opposites, but when it came to welcoming me into their family, they were exactly alike. They taught me about cricket, and rugby and showed me that I'm incapable of keeping up with them on the golf course or in a pub. Yet it's been a year since I visited them and will be another 15 months before I see them again. My liver is grateful, but I'm not.

My nephews and niece love when Louise visits with her magical nanny bag and she loves visiting Minnesota, even though she doesn't really function too well if the temperature there isn't between 66 and 68 degrees. She can sit for hours at the dining room table, talking with my mom about anything and everything. Yet it's been seven months since she was in Minnesota and might be six more before she returns.

We're our own family now. Shawn and Louise. But it's still tough knowing our respective families only know each other through old pictures and new anecdotes. Marrying a foreigner means that, for several weeks each year, I have to return to the life of a bachelor while the person I cherish more than any other in the world spends time with the family that misses her more than words can describe. Marrying a foreigner means spending the holidays apart, as she celebrates Christmas half a world away and welcomes the new year six hours earlier. I'm happy she gets to spend this time with her mom, stepdad, siblings, nieces, grandma and aunts and uncles. And I'm happy that I'll get to spend Christmas with my parents, sister, niece, nephews and aunts and uncles. But it's always difficult when being with our families means being apart from each other.

Marrying a foreigner has its benefits. It's just a bit more difficult to appreciate them when she's in her native land and I'm in mine.

Browsing the bookstore

2010-12-05T01:29:00.000-05:00

Fought the crowds today and wandered through our favorite Barnes & Noble in the city, the one on the Upper West Side that's shutting down in just a few weeks, to be replaced by a clothing store. Because there's a distinct lack of quality clothing stores in New York City.

Some observations.

* One book in particular caught my eye in the new releases section. Fury: A Memoir, by Koren Zailckas. The book, from the author of Smashed, has earned rave reviews. But apparently no one is concerned that the book ruins any chance I'd ever have of using my name in a future memoir. Salman Rushdie used Fury for the name of a novel and Faulkner had it as part of one of his most famous works. Those classic works are different, those are fiction. This is a memoir. I think the word Fury should have been saved for someone with that name who was penning their autobiography, or, at the least, it should have been reserved for someone writing a biography of a person named Fury. Now what can I name my memoir that could possibly sound as cool as Fury? Zailckas: A Memoir by Shawn Fury doesn't quite have the same ring.

* It's not a new book but is one I hadn't seen before. Washed Up: The Curious Journeys of Flotsam and Jetsam. Another entry in the seemingly never-ending list of books that are a detailed history of something you'd never think needed a detailed history. Like books on salt, cod, toilets and menstrual cycles, this one looks fairly fascinating, as author Skye Moody attempts to figure out where everything that washes up on shores comes from. We're only a few years away from the story of Floss, and how it changed the world.

* The Best American writing books are always popular gifts. Each year I buy the sports one and usually pick up the crime, science and essay titles as well, along with the non-required reading entry. They're great anthologies and for writers, something to strive for. The sports one this year was, as usual, superb. Buy the book for all the stories, but I'll give a link to one of the best. It's Mike Sager's profile of Todd Marinovich, which ran in Esquire in April 2009. For the longest time Marinovich was the poster boy for everything that could go wrong for a kid under the direction of a sports-crazed parent. I can remember watching a special on Marinovich when he was maybe a junior in high school. Even then the stories of his father, Marv, were legendary. Todd was raised from birth to be a quarterback and, in many ways, his dad's plan worked. Todd played at USC and in the NFL. Of course, it ultimately didn't work out, unless Marv's plan also involved turning his son into an often-jailed addict who squandered his physical talents because of the emotional problems caused, in large part, by his upbringing. Sager's story catches up with both Marinovich men. The only problem is, instead of seeing it as a warning about what not to do, many parents might read the story and regard it as a how-to guide. "Sure, the kid did some heroin, but he got a Division I scholarship!"

* Speaking of dads who might not have done the best job of preparing their prodigies for life in the real world, I saw this book: His Father's Son. Earl and Tiger Woods. It's by Tom Callahan, who knew the late Earl Woods very well. He details Tiger's upbringing and also writes about Earl's, um, issues with women. The issue being he liked them a lot, especially ones who weren't his wife. This, as you may have read, also became an issue in Tiger's life.

* Today Michael Lewis is probably best known for his books Moneyball and The Blind Side. But before he became one of the top nonfiction writers in the country, he worked for Salomon Brothers. He had a brief career there but it led to his first book, Liar's Poker, which I finally bought today. Lewis made a lot of money with Salomon and he's made a lot of money as a writer, thanks to his best-selling books and magazine work. How valued were Lewis's contributions? When the short-lived Portfolio magazine started, a rumor circulated that Lewis made $12 a word for his 4,000-word-plus features. This in a business where a dollar a word is considered to be a pretty good deal. Many people dismissed the rumor and Lewis eventually left for Vanity Fair, where's probably pulling in less than $12 a word but quite a bit more than a buck a word.

Still, I'm sure he'll be grateful for the $2 I added to his next royalty statement.

The time I almost played on the same court as Magic

2010-12-03T23:48:00.000-05:00

For the next issue of the Saint John's alumni magazine - which is undoubtedly the best alumni magazine for any school called Saint John's, no matter what the New York City propagandists would have you believe - I have a story on some Johnnie grads who work in pro sports. One of the people profiled is Bryant Pfeiffer, who is the VP of Club Services for Major League Soccer and a 1994 SJU grad.

When Pfeiffer was still in school, he helped organize the first Johnnie-Tommie 3-on-3 basketball tournament, an event that continues to this day. Saint John's and the school's hated, despised, loathed, pitied rival, St. Thomas, each hold a 3-on-3 basketball tournament in the spring. The winning team from the Johnnies' tournament later faces off against the victor from the Tommies' tournament on the Target Center floor, following a Timberwolves games. It's a very cool event, as regular folks get to play on the same court where, just moments earlier, the Timberwolves squandered a late lead.

In 1996, I played in the tourney with teammates from my championship-winning intramural squad. We had a solid lineup, which included a guard who could hit with ease from 25 feet, a tenacious point guard, a small forward who was a star high jumper in high school and possessed a wicked baseline jumper, and a dominating center who moonlighted as an All-American defensive end on the Saint John's football team. We made it all the way to the finals. Along the way we defeated some Johnnie grads - the tournament wasn't limited to current students - and some other quality teams. One victory from Target Center. Our run ended there. We lost in the finals and if I remember correctly, I think I blamed some shoddy reffing for the defeat.

Still, we had tickets to the Timberwolves game a few weeks later and they happened to be playing the Lakers. I've mentioned this game before, as it was one of only two times I saw Magic Johnson play live - the other was during an exhibition game in 1984 - and it was one of his last good games. Magic had 11 assists in the game. He'd only play one more game where he had more - a playoff game against Houston, in a game the Lakers lost, in a series that ended his career, this time for good. Two days after this Lakers victory over the Wolves, Magic bumped a ref, perhaps the most startling move of his career that didn't involve his talk show. So I saw him dish out 11 assists. All of those assists he piled up in his career and I was able to see the one of the final games where he showed why he was the best point guard ever.

After the game, all of the people from Saint John's and St. Thomas sat courtside as the Johnnie champion faced the Tommie champion in a 3-on-3 showdown. I don't remember who won that contest, and my bitterness over our loss in the finals kept me from fully supporting the SJU representative. That doesn't mean I cheered for the Tommies' squad. No, I probably just sat there passively, like a celebrity at the front row of a Lakers game attending his first basketball game. I was surely the biggest Magic fan there that night (if someone else was there who can say they cried the night the Lakers lost the 1983 title, my apologies for my hyperbole). It should have been me out on the court, taking up space on the same court where, moments earlier, Magic put on a show. I would have thrown some no-look passes, taken some set-shots and added a junior, junior hook. Alas.

Finally someone put some video from that game on YouTube. The Wolves-Lakers game, not the 3-on-3 one.

This was quite a Timberwolves squad. Garnett was a rookie, all arms and legs but already playing with the intensity he trademarked before losing his sanity when he joined the Celtics and became a caricature. Gugliotta, JR Rider and Spud Webb joined The Kid.

The best Magic passes come at 3:40, 4:05, 8:20, and 11:05 (even though Eddie Jones blows the layup). Still, this certainly wasn't the same Magic I grew up watching. His weight was up, his quickness down. Yet he still controlled the game, though this time from the post instead of on the break.

That's the only year I played in the Johnnie-Tommie tournament. Maybe we can get our old squad back together someday. I'm fairly certain we could handle many of the teams we'd face. None of us really had any quickness to lose, so age shouldn't affect that. Our big guy can control the middle, our leaper probably can't even touch the net now but should still be able to hit a baseline shot and I can keep casting away on 3s while playing token defense. Still, it wouldn't be the same. In 1996, I would have played on the same court as Magic. In 2010? I'd share a court with Darko.

Don McLean invades my dreams

2010-11-28T20:20:00.004-05:00

This weekend, New York's Q104.3 marked its 10th anniversary by breaking out its list of the top 1,043 classic rock songs of all time, a staple of all classic rock stations - with the actual number depending on the station's frequency. No big surprises with the Top 5:
5. "Let it Be"
4. "Layla"
3. "Born to Run"
2. "Hey Jude"
1. "Stairway to Heaven"

Fairly standard, though other stations toss in "Satisfaction" somewhere.

I only tuned in at about No. 20, so I'm not sure which songs came in at the bottom of the list. Was "Red Rubber Ball" No. 1,043 with a bullet?" Did "Revolution 9" snare the 1,033rd slot?

The songs came on as I settled in for a Sunday nap. I need silence at night to fall asleep, but for a nap it doesn't matter what's playing in the background, whether it's Seinfeld reruns or never-ending classic rock countdowns. Just as long as it's not car alarms or jackhammers out on Broadway. But there are side effects to having the TV or radio playing: the lyrics or characters enter my dreams.

Today I fell asleep just as "American Pie" started, and because it wasn't the shorter version, I had drifted off by the time the children screamed and the poets dreamed. Yet the song infected my sleeping thoughts. At one point I dreamed that I was falling out of a hot air balloon piloted by Ritchie Valens. Psychological meaning? Because I have lucid dreams, I told myself to wake up before I hit the ground, but that also meant I didn't get the chance to ask Ritchie why he was up in the air in a balloon, if, as everyone who's seen La Bamba knows, he was afraid of flying? And did he win another coin flip? Was the Big Bopper aboard?

This almost always happens if there's background entertainment when I fall asleep. A phone rings on the TV and it rings in my head. Dan Dierdorf offers nonsensical commentary on TV and he's doing the same thing in my dream, only instead of wondering about Eli Manning's ability to handle the blitz he's saying things like, "Boy, you wanna talk about some type of shot. Take a look at this shot by Shawn Fury with the shot clock winding down."

Also today, Billy Joel sang "Piano Man" - number... something on the list - and in my dream I was in a dark bar watching a sad middle-aged man at the piano. I have to believe this is fairly common, correct?

Still, always a bit strange.

The last time I wrote about dreams, I mentioned how I wished I could pull off the lucid dream more often during good dreams. Perhaps because I wrote that and it crept into my subconscious - or maybe because I saw Inception twice - I've been able to occasionally pull that off, but it remains frustrating. In the past few months there have been times when I've told myself in the dream, "This is a dream, and it's going well. Don't wake up." This gives me a few more seconds, but because I'm now thinking about this in the dream, it still leads to me inevitably waking up.

Fortunately, I've pulled off a new trick. Even if I wake up, if I can go back to sleep within, say, 30 seconds, I'll sometimes be able to pick up the dream where it left off.

As I get older I feel like I'm gaining more control of my dreams, though maybe that's impossible and I'm simply, well, imagining things. I still have nightmares nearly every night, but they're not as scary when you can tell yourself the monsters aren't real, even before you wake up with a pounding heart.

Most nights I don't know what causes the nightmares. Today, I blame Don McLean for tossing me out of that hot-air balloon. Him and his worries about widowed brides. So the key to avoiding nightmares during naps? Don't have any songs about death playing in the background. No "Tell Laura I Love Her," no "Leader of the Pack," no "Dead Man's Curve."

Basically, avoid any song from the 1950s and '60s that focused on teenagers and their tendency to love too much and drive too fast. They're still classic songs, but all they'll give you is restless nights.

Defending Larry Bird

2010-11-26T23:05:00.000-05:00

Sports message boards are usually not the best place to engage in rational debates. They're like political message boards, except the posters are even more passionate, though thankfully less obsessed with immigration. Old folks go on there and often believe there haven't been any good basketball players since 1972 while young people don't believe anyone who was born before 1980 could compete in today's game. Still, there are some interesting arguments and what fun would sports be if you couldn't debate about the best players in history?

So a few days ago, on a Lakers board, a debate broke out over Larry Bird's place in history. It's too much to expect completely unbiased opinions on a Lakers board. When people talk about the five best players in history, many people will write that it's Magic and Kareem, Kobe, West and Wilt. With Elgin Baylor as the sixth-best of all-time and maybe Jamaal Wilkes as the 10th best. Still, many people supported Bird and said he was a top 5 player. Others said top 10, at least. But others ridiculed his accomplishments and his game, with some even saying Scottie Pippen might have been better. Somewhere, an overweight Irishman sporting a ketchup-and-beer-stained No. 33 Celtics throwback jersey wept. It's absurd.

But obviously it's impossible to say for certain where any player ranks. There are no right or wrong answers, although if you say Pippen over Bird, you should lose the right to debate. I understand where the sentiment comes from. Growing up, Bird was a boogeyman in my house, like Reagan but with worse hair and a better jumper. Magic and Bird might have become friendlier when they filmed their famous Converse commercial, but nothing softened my feelings about the Hick from French Lick. Mostly it was about fear, with a dose of appreciation. Fear at how he could dismantle a team with his shooting or his passing. Fear about watching Bird operate with the Celtics tied or trailing by 1 in the closing seconds. But I always appreciated just how dominant he was on the court, even as I argued that Magic was better.

Now, 18 years after Bird's retirement, 24 years after his last MVP, it's simply about appreciation.

Some links and tidbits on a guy who was better than Scottie Pippen:
* This guy put together a list of Bird's 10-best games. Seems like a thorough list, though I'm sure other Bird groupies might have different games in different slots. I wasn't very familiar with No. 10. Against the Jazz in 1985, Bird had 30 points, 12 boards, 10 assists and nine steals -- through three quarters. He didn't play the fourth quarter of the blowout and didn't want to go in to get the steal that would have completed the quadruple-double.

* Sports Illustrated wrote several classic pieces on Bird. Here's a Frank Deford story from 1988. Jack McCallum wrote a great one in 1986. The stories speculate about whether Bird was the best player in NBA history. Yes, before Jordan claimed the mythical crown, Bird wore it for a few short years. By the end of his career, though, many people - including Bird superfan Bill Simmons - had put even Magic ahead of Bird on all-time lists, owing mostly to the fact injuries tormented the legend in his final years. Still...better than Pippen.

* Here's a seven-minute video of great Bird passes. The title calls him the greatest passer in the history of the game, which isn't true (ahem, Magic) but he was spectacular.

* People occasionally use Bird's teammates against him, saying that he excelled partly because he played with Kevin McHale and Robert Parish on the frontcourt, and had another Hall of Famer, Dennis Johnson, in the backcourt for much of his career. Occasionally, in the past, perhaps after a night of drinking or maybe after an evening spent with a Boston native, I might have made those same points. But...in 1979 the Celtics won 29 games. The next year, Bird's rookie season, the Celtics won 61 games. The roster was basically unchanged, with the exception of Bird. McHale and Parish didn't arrive for another season. Yet Bird improved the Celtics by an astounding 32 games. Bird made everyone around him better, not just Hall of Famers.

* A few of Larry's more memorable game-winning shots:

* Thanks to his efforts in the 3-point contest, not to mention all the ones he made in real games, Bird is regarded as one of the all-time greats from behind the line. Yet the early part of his career shows how the game changed as the '80s progressed and how different it is today. Bird made 58 his rookie season, but after that made 20, 11, 22, 18 and 56 each season. But he then drilled 82 in 1986, 90 in 1987 and 98 the following season. In 2006, Ray Allen made 269 3-pointers. When the Celtics won the title in 2008, they had three guys make more than 88. Here's his famous performance in the 1988 3-point contest, when he came on strong at the end, fired the final ball, raised his finger before it went through, then walked away in triumph.

I don't know where Bird ranks all-time. Top 5? Probably. No matter where he falls on anyone's list in this completely subjective argument, he remains one of the most important players in league history and one of the most memorable. Even a Lakers fan should be able to acknowledge that.

And now, as penance, I'll watch Game 4 of the 1987 Finals.

Tales from the Universal Building, Part II

2010-11-23T23:38:00.000-05:00

Part I of the award-winning series:

Someone discovered my blog by searching for Universal Building Fargo apartment.

I don't know who searched for this, whether it's a he or a she, a teen or a retiree. I don't know if they're looking for a place to live or a place to drop out of society. Maybe it's for a child, maybe for themselves. The Universal Building doesn't make the news much. I haven't been to Fargo in five years. I don't know if it's even an apartment building anymore, or even any kind of building at all. When it does make the news, it's for stories like "Biggest recent fires in Fargo," which ran in The Forum last month after a massive apartment fire, which recalled the horrific fire and murder in the UB in 1999.

I moved in about a week before Thanksgiving in 2000. It took several months before I moved out of the bedroom and took up permanent night-time residence on the already-furnished couch. The reason? My neighbor, Pappy. That wasn't his real name, I don't think. Probably a nickname from the second World War or something his fellow cell-block mates called him in the winter of '71. One morning someone pounded on my door for five minutes before I finally opened it. The elderly man standing there with his hat in his hands said he was looking for "Pappy." The blank look on my face didn't give him the answer he needed but as he started to ask again, the door to the apartment next to mine flew open and another elderly gentleman stuck his head out.

"Pappy, you son of a bitch!" the knocker yelled, before walking down and hugging his long-lost...brother? Platoon mate? Partner in crime? Pappy. So that was the man who moved in a week earlier.

I returned to bed but not for long. The thin walls refused to mute their conversation, which the men conducted at a decibel level most people use only when yelling at a speeding car that just ran over their left foot. Until that day, Pappy had lived a lonely life for a week, the type of monastic existence I think you were required to live the moment you signed a lease at the Universal Building. Very few couples lived in the building. Mostly single men, many likely hiding out from federal marshals, others plotting crime sprees that would almost certainly violate the conditions of their parole. A couple lived a few doors down for a brief time. Each afternoon when I left for work I heard the woman - a twentysomething gal - screaming at her no-good boyfriend. He was a jerk, a prick, inconsiderate, selfish and thoughtless. At night I'd return and as I exited the elevator it became clear she had forgiven the man's sins as her screams again filled the hall, though the words were - aside from an enthusiastic and possibly faked Yes! - mostly unintelligible.

But for the most part it was middle-aged men with thousand-yard stares and old guys who spent their money on Wonder Bread and lottery tickets. And Pappy. Over the next few months I greeted Pappy in the hall on several occasions and each encounter shortened my life by six months, thanks to the secondhand smoke that wafted from his jacket. At this stage in Pappy's life, his internal organs very likely resembled the inside of a cigarette. If you had cut him, smoke would have billowed out, followed by some leaking tar. It turned out he had a daughter, who visited about once a month and engaged in fights with her father that usually ended with her slamming the door while calling Pappy the same name his friend used the first time I saw him in the hall.

Pappy's domestic problems didn't run me out of my bedroom, though; his snoring and morning bathroom stops did. Remember the scene with Frank Drebin in the bathroom in The Naked Gun, after the press conference? That wasn't over-the-top; it was based on Pappy's morning ritual. That woke me up, after I'd spend each night struggling for sleep as Pappy's snoring threatened to set off car alarms in Grand Forks. It's a sound I'd never heard before, and one I hope to never hear again. If a doctor heard it they would have sent him to an emergency room and notified next of kin, but not before drawing up a three-page outline for an article in a medical journal.

Eventually I surrendered. I started sleeping on the couch, an uncomfortable piece of furniture that didn't contain my 6-3 frame but was at least in the living room, giving me some breathing room away from Pappy's abnormal breathing. The bedroom became a storage space, a cursed place to throw books and basketballs. One night, at the end of a blind date that the referee should have stopped in the first round, I took the couch while the lucky lady - who was stranded by a blizzard - took the bed. I felt bad, knowing she'd be haunted by internal regrets and Pappy's nightmarish sounds.

Still, she got a free dinner out of the deal and she got to flee the next morning. The next night, I'd still be in the Universal Building. And so would Pappy.

Magic Johnson's final high school game

2010-11-21T23:04:00.000-05:00

Earvin Johnson became Magic when he was still in high school, thanks to a sportswriter who gave him the moniker after watching the young star dominate. As the story goes, he couldn't go by Dr. J because that had been taken, as had The Big E. So it was Magic Johnson, double-entendres be damned.

By his senior year at Everett High School in Lansing, Michigan, Magic was a legend. He led his team to the Class A state championship game against Birmingham Brother Rice.

The footage lives.

Everett won 62-56 in overtime. Two years later, Magic led Michigan State to the NCAA title, and a year after that he won Finals MVP as the Lakers won the NBA title. Three titles at three different levels in four years.

The title game footage is incredible to watch, even if it does look like it took place in 1957 instead of '77. Magic's game was ahead of the times but his hairstyle was with the times. He sported an Afro, which was long gone by the time he scored 42 points in Game 6 of the 1980 Finals.

A couple of things:
* Several times Magic drains a little turnaround jumper on the baseline. I watched hundreds of his games in the 1980s and have watched a hundred more on YouTube. Rarely did he use this turnaround jumper in the NBA. Where'd it go? It was, in fact, an Elvin Hayes-like turnaround jumper, but seems to have disappeared as his game progressed in so many other areas.

* Check out the pass at the 54-second mark. A classic Magic look, the type you'd see to Rambis or AC Green in the ensuing years. Unlike AC Green, though, his high school teammate made the layup.

* Magic did most of his damage in the post. He possessed a sort-of-unsightly jumper, a shot that he didn't really perfect until the middle to late 1980s. Even then, it was more set shot than jump shot.

* The analyst offers nothing. I'm not sure who it is, probably a former Michigan legend who only broadcast games every March and ran a used car dealership the other 11 months of the year. "Boy it looked awful easy," chuckle, chuckle. "That's Earvin Magic Johnson," chuckle. "I think he's got his rhythm, Mike." "That wasn't a bad shot, Mike. Wasn't a bad shot at all," chuckle.

* At the 2:40 mark, another great Magic pass. At times he simply overpowers the opponent, looking something like the mustached 14-year-old who dominates 8th-grade basketball games thanks to size alone, but the skills that made him a pro legend and not just a schoolboy one are also on display.

* This game has an insane ending. Everett leads by 2 in the closing seconds. Rice brings the ball up and the guard launches from just inside the halfcourt line at the buzzer...and banks it in! You can see Magic preparing to celebrate even as the ball falls through the net. It's like the shot Butler had that would have defeated Duke in the NCAA Finals last year, or the shot that Fritz Skinner used to beat Worthington Community College on a cold night in 1994 (still very bitter about that one, since he shot it right in front of me). Fans actually come onto the court. But it only tied it. If there had been a 3-point line, obviously Rice would have won. Then again, if there had been a 3-point line Jerry West's famous shot against the Knicks would have won the game and the Lakers wouldn't have lost in OT. Rice also falls, despite the miracle.

* Magic takes over in overtime. A perfect bounce pass for a layup. Then, at the 3:55 mark, a behind-the-back dribble leads to an open-court reverse layup. Even today, more than 30 years later, it's not the type of move you see many 6-9 point guards make. Actually, there still hasn't ever been another 6-9 point guard.

* According to the person who posted the video on YouTube - a person who should be put up for sainthood - Magic scored 34 points, though you wouldn't know that from the stumbling post-game interview.

In the interview Magic sounds like a kid, which he was. His interviewing skills improved over the years, as did his jumper. But the passing and intangibles that made him one of the greatest winners in basketball history? Those skills were already fully formed.

A meandering, disjointed, unfocused ode to New York

2010-11-20T23:57:00.000-05:00

Every night after work I sit in the rear of a New Jersey Transit bus and cross the George Washington Bridge. Tonight, like it will be for the next several months, it was dark as the bus barreled over the bridge, and the New York City skyline looked something like it does above. There's really not any view like it in the world; the only rivals might be from other New York City bridges. I'm often grouchy or annoyed on the trip home, depending on how long everyone had to wait for the bus to arrive. Still, I try to look out the window most nights to gaze south. Maybe native New Yorkers get used to such views and maybe transplanted New Yorkers are too cool to appreciate the view, but more often than not, I still find myself looking at it with the same wonder I had the first time I drove over it in February 2002. At least these days I know where I'm going.

I've been in New York City six and a half years now, and I still don't fully appreciate where I live. Maybe I never will. But it's not because of laziness or complacency or indifference. It's simply that a person could live here for a hundred years and venture out every day and they still wouldn't have enough time to soak in all of the history that's a part of the city.

So much has happened here. So much still happens. So much will happen. Remembering how I walked around the city my first few weeks here, my head tilted back, looking up, only needing a fanny pack to complete the caricature of the type of tourist longtime New Yorkers love to complain about, it's hard to believe that it's only taken six years for me to get used to the fact this is now my home.

Last Sunday, about 20 blocks south of our apartment, dozens of people dressed up in strange garb to re-enact an event that happened three centuries ago. November 16 was the 234th anniversary of the Battle of Fort Washington, a key fight in the Revolutionary War that saw the Brits rout the Americans. It was a crushing defeat for the Continental Army, but being that the people in this country can now read about Prince William's upcoming nuptials but don't have to worry about one day being ruled by him, you know that it was not a decisive victory for the Brits.

The Battle of Fort Washington isn't among the most well-known battles in American history, but maybe that's because the wrong side - depending on your accent - won. Still, it's a vital piece of history, a crucial battle that was followed by some of George Washington's greatest victories. And it happened three subway stops from our apartment. Cool.

I can walk five minutes and be on the spot where the Dutch bought Manhattan, an event that changed the fortunes of millions, for better and worse. It practically took place in my backyard - a backyard I, of course, share with tens of thousands of people.

Sometimes it takes a movie to remind me that I live in Manhattan and that I always dreamed of living here but never thought it'd happen, especially after my first attempt failed. We'll be sitting in the theater and New York appears on the screen - perhaps as the setting for a horrible romantic comedy, perhaps while being destroyed by an asteroid or tsunami - and I think, hey, we live there. Millions of people across the world are watching the same thing in different theaters and are thinking about New York's size and chaos and regard it as more of a character than a real city where real people live.

The city can be exhausting, especially on weekends when the subways aren't running on a normal schedule and the lines that are running are improbably crammed even more than usual. The city's not just a museum. People live here and struggle here, fighting traffic, rats, garbage, pollution, neighbors, cockroaches, bed bugs, terrorist threats and ridiculous rents. With all of that, it's easy for a person to forget what drew them here: the lights, the opportunities, the culture, the people, the sites, the sounds and, yes, the history, whether it's the Met or a long-ago battle fought before the United States was even really a country.

I do my best to appreciate the history of any place I visit, so I certainly try and appreciate the history of New York. It's easy to get distracted or caught up in the present. But I want to remember the city's past because that's why I originally dreamed of coming here and is part of the reason I stay here. The myths and the legends helped bring me here.

Right now thousands of people of all ages are dreaming of coming to New York, whether for a week or a lifetime. They want to escape their problems or seize an opportunity. They want to climb the skyscrapers or party underground. They're dreaming of New York. They're dreaming about my home. And that I do appreciate.

Worst baseball battery in history

2010-11-16T13:25:00.002-05:00

Richard Pryor and John Candy: comedic geniuses.

Richard Pryor and John Candy: not baseball players.

I just finished watching Brewster's Millions, the 1985 movie starring Pryor and Candy as buddies and baseball players. Pryor plays Montgomery Brewster, an over-the-hill pitcher for the Hackensack Bulls who inherits $30 million but has to spend it all in 30 days to inherit the full inheritance of $300 million. His best friend and battery mate - Candy - doesn't understand why Brewster keeps throwing his money away, not realizing that's part of the deal: Brewster can't tell anyone about his situation, or he loses it all. In the end, he succeeds and inherits the full $300 million.

But back to the baseball.

When the movie came out, Candy was 35 and Pryor 44. Candy's age fits the role of a decent semipro ballplayer who's holding on for a few more years in the backwoods of baseball, but his physique certainly doesn't. If David Wells and Greg Luzinski defied science and physics and produced a child together, the unfortunate result might look like John Candy in this uniform. We never see Candy swing a bat, and I have to believe he kept a roster spot because of his leadership with the Bulls' pitching staff. He taunts opposing hitters, throwing them out of their comfort zone, though it appears unlikely he's capable of throwing out any runners.

Then there's Pryor. In the few glimpses we get of Pryor in action, it appears his fastball tops out at about 76 miles per hour. If he was throwing at a dunk tank, he might not have enough velocity to activate the drop switch. Still, he apparently made it as far as Toledo in Triple-A ball and I can only assume that happened in his early 20s. He earns points for creativity: he strikes out a hitter with an always-entertaining Eephus pitch.

Jerry Orbach, or at least his character, manages the Bulls. He does a serviceable job, ably pulling off the cranky, vulgar, seen-it-all manager. At one point he tells one of his hitters he's not a farmer, "You don't have to swing at shit in the dirt." I bet Earl Weaver said that once. The problem, of course, is that Jerry Orbach is Lenny Briscoe, the beloved Law & Order detective. Brewster's Millions came out nearly a decade before Orbach joined the L&O cast, but he's now been retroactively typecast. It's jarring seeing him in other movies or shows, even if those appeared long before Lenny started patrolling New York's streets. While his manager has some good lines, you expect him to quip about a dead body, or threaten someone in an interrogation room, or worry about his drug-addicted daughter. Brewster doesn't help matters later in the film, when he purchases fancy new uniforms for the Bulls. They're blue and tight and when Orbach appears in his, it looks like he's worn a wetsuit to a ballgame.

Orbach's in-game skills as a manager also appear shaky. When the Bulls play a three-inning exhibition against the Yankees - hey, it could happen - Brewster surrenders four runs before Orbach yanks him from the game, telling him he's "gotta" take him out. A bit late, coach. The Yanks had been hitting him hard before he gave up the runs that effectively finished off the Bulls. You have to have the bullpen ready much earlier, though, to be fair, back in those days managers allowed starters to throw more innings, even if in this case a complete game would only be three innings.

The movie's not a comedy classic but it has its entertaining points. At one point Brewster bets on a field hockey game between Loyola and Notre Dame and wins big - much to his chagrin - when Loyola pulls off the stunning upset in a game that was actually previewed in a New York City newspaper. Odd story selection from the editors. He invests in a company featuring an iceberg and other bizarre businesses. The only thing missing is a contribution to the anti-cat-juggling fund that Steve Martin gave to in The Jerk.

Brewster spends and spends and in wasting $30 million in 30 days, he certainly does his best impression of way too many professional athletes. Later in the movie he runs for mayor and in an "unheard of move," spends his own money on his campaign. Unheard of at the time, perhaps. But maybe Bloomberg got an idea from the movie.

Brewster's Millions also forecast some of the populist rage - faux or otherwise - that influenced the recent election. He runs while proclaiming None of the Above, saying that the other candidates are so terrible, people should vote for None of the Above. Surely many people this year wished they had the choice.

I remember watching Brewster's Millions as a kid and being upset at the end that people didn't realize he pulled it off. Everyone thinks he's something of a loser, except for his lovely accountant. I wanted an epilogue as he walked back into the New York night. Did he sponsor another exhibition game, this time against the '86 Mets? Did he run for mayor again, this time on a campaign of All of the The Above? Did he buy the Hackensack Bulls and fire Orbach, or at least purchase better uniforms? And did he finally quit playing ball or did he stay on, firing that weak fastball and nonexistent curve to his overweight friend and catcher?

Missing the first quarter of Lakers games, and other TV atrocities

2010-11-11T23:53:00.000-05:00

If TNT broadcast every Lakers game against Western Conference opponents, chances are I would never see the team in the first six minutes of a game. I'd never get to see Kobe Bryant's first mid-range jumper or Derek Fisher's first missed layup and I'd certainly never see the gangly, graceful, bearded Pau Gasol jumping center on the opening tip. That's because anytime the Lakers play the late game on a TNT doubleheader, the early game always, inevitably, runs late. This bothered me when I watched Lakers games at Saint John's in 1997 and it bothers me today. Literally, today.

Tonight the Celtics defeated the Heat - again - in the opening game of TNT's Thursday doubleheader. The Lakers, unless they're on an East Coast road trip or playing in the Midwest, almost always play the second game. It's the overexposure of the Lakers. So be it. Yet tonight, like always, the first game went later than 10:30. And then past the 10:45 mark. Finally, at 11:04, the game mercifully ended and Kevin Harlan sent it to the "voice of the NBA" Marv Albert and to the Lakers game in Denver.

The game finally appeared on the screen with 4:56 left in the first quarter. Damn it. Denver led 13-12 at the time. Who cares, right? Forty-one minutes remain. Nothing happens in the NBA until the fourth quarter anyway. The NBA's boring, etc., etc., etc., etc. I care. Laker fans draped in Bob McAdoo throwback jerseys care. Laker bandwagon fans who think Earvin Johnson was a journeyman center who once played for the Timberwolves care. And TNT executives should care, because it's now been like this for decades and still no one has figured out what seems to be a rather simple solution for these situations: schedule the games for 11 EST. TNT does give a grace period. A 10:30 game usually doesn't start until 10:50 or so. But it often doesn't help, as, like tonight, the early game drags on through a series of LeBron James free throws and timeouts. Meanwhile, Ernie Johnson provides helpful updates about the happenings halfway across the country, but will they give us a split screen? No.

At least tonight's early game was sort of close. The worst is when the early game is a blowout, yet it somehow drags out longer than a Yankees-Red Sox game. As the 20-point contest concludes, they show the score of the late game on the bottom: Lakers 8, Thunder 4. Then it cuts to a commercial before finally popping in on the late game. Show us the game that now matters! Well, that's not actually the worst. There's always overtime.

It doesn't take until 10:30 for me to realize I don't have a chance of seeing the opening of the Lakers game. If halftime of the first game isn't over by 9:40, there's no hope. I'll listen to Charles and Kenny crack their jokes and know that TNT will again lie when they say it's a doubleheader. We're not getting a complete doubleheader. We're being robbed. By 10 p.m., when there are still 8 minutes left in the third quarter, I'll start loudly sighing to myself, a pleasant personal trait. I curse the East Coast, and its basketball teams. I curse the invention of the 20-second timeout.

The same thing happens on ESPN. But at least if they carry a doubleheader, they'll switch it over to one of their other 14 networks, usually ESPN Classic, so instead of seeing the 2002 World Series of Poker, we actually get to watch the first six minutes of a live NBA game.

It's always been like this, of course, and it's not like TNT invented this problem.

As I wrote about before, CBS missed the first four-and-a-half minutes of Game 1 of the 1983 NBA Finals. The Finals! For a golf tournament not named The Masters.

At least during basketball games fans get to see all of the on-court action. Directors don't cut away as Carmelo Anthony rises up for a jump shot to show an overweight, bespectacled man chewing his fingernails in the upper deck, only to return just as the ball's being released from his hands. Yet that's what fans witness on pretty much every baseball telecast, but especially during playoff games. My friends have heard me complain about this a dozen times. I sound like a bitter old man talking about the good ol' days. But still...

The overuse of crowd shots during a game has done more damage to baseball than steroids.*

* I'm sort of in a Skip Bayless-type mood tonight so hyperbole, moralizing and overreaction will fill this post.

Can TV producers and directors please stop showing the crowd and dugout after every single pitch. Stop with the reaction shots. Stop zooming in on the pitcher's face between every pitch, followed by a close-up of the hitter, followed by a shot of a nervous fan in an ill-fitting jersey stained with mustard holding a sign that reads "FOX AND THE RANGERS RULE!" Then a quick shot of the do-nothing manager sitting motionless in the dugout, doing his best impersonation of a human statue in a Times Square subway station. What has a manager ever done on the bench that needed to be shown live? At best we see him touching his cap, at worst we see him picking his nose. Occasionally, though not always, and only when really emotional, he blinks.

By the time the cameras scan back to the center field view, the pitcher's already in motion and they've missed the start of his windup. Stay with the center field camera, I implore you. Stop showing the crowd in the third inning. No one is nervous, no one is that excited. No one is doing something so outrageous that we have to see them. They're sitting, taking their left hand and slamming it into their right in a clapping motion. Show the game. Of course, when a fan actually does do something that is newsworthy - like, say, run on the field nude - the stations refuse to show it. I wish networks would take the same policy to every crowd shot. Show the masses at the end of the game or in the final inning when the home heroes are down to their final shot.

I get anxious, waiting for the cameras to get back in time. I'm convinced they'll actually miss the pitch, and occasionally they do miss the ball coming out of the guy's hand. If Luis Tiant pitched today, no one who watched him only on television would ever know about his bizarre deliveries, but they would know that Red Sox fans like to wear Wade Boggs jerseys and backward baseball caps.

I know, nothing on a baseball broadcast outside of a 20-minute lecture by Tim McCarver on the beauty of the infield fly rule should bother someone this much.

And I know it will never change, so I should resign myself to this TV reality. Each year brings more crowd shots, more dugout shots, more up-close shots that force viewers to miss the big picture. So what's more maddening: Not being able to see any of the game you want to watch because the network refuses to air it, or not being able to see any of the action you want to watch even when the network is airing it? I suppose most fans would say the latter. But since it's the Lakers, I'll have to say the former.

Things could be worse for the Wolves. Or not

2010-11-09T19:05:00.001-05:00

At 10:30 tonight I'll turn on NBA League Pass and watch the Timberwolves play the Lakers in LA. Judging by the respective starts for each team, the game will likely be over by 11:10, though it won't officially end for another two hours. The Lakers enter the game 7-0 and have played only two close games as they aim for a third straight title.

The Timberwolves enter the game 1-6, yet it all seems so much worse than that. In their last five games, the Wolves lost to Memphis by 20, to Miami by 32, to Orlando by 42, to Atlanta by 10 (!), and to previously winless Houston by 26. They've become the professional equivalent of a Division II team that's served up as a sacrifice for a Division I team early in the season. Playing the Wolves has to hurt their opponents' ranking in the BCS standings. The outcomes of their games aren't quite as predetermined as a Generals-Globetrotters game, but at this point Washington might be favored by 5 in a head-to-head matchup at the Target Center.

After tonight's game, Kurt Rambis might just stay back in LA, serving as a volunteer assistant under Phil Jackson, trying to forget his tenure with the Timberwolves while the franchise attempts to forget its time under him. Not that it's Rambis's fault. In his first stint as a head coach, with the Lakers in 1999, he had to deal with a young Kobe Bryant and an old Dennis Rodman and San Antonio easily swept LA in the playoffs, which led to Phil Jackson's hiring, Rambis's retreat from the bench, his return to the bench as an assistant and his ascension to Timberwolves head coach. Now he deals with a mismatched roster that has plenty of point guards, none of whom are Stephen Curry, and plenty of small forwards, none of whom possess a consistent jump shot. The good news? They're well on their way to a high draft pick in 2010, which they can use to take a...small forward or point guard.

It's a tough start to a long season. Even for the franchise of Roth, Brooks, Rider, and Lohaus, this is a low point. Remember when fans grew apathetic with the franchise because they only won 50 games each year and kept getting eliminated in the first round of the playoffs? Those teams now look like Jordan's Bulls in comparison. But has it ever been this bad, this early for the Timberwolves?

Last year the team also started 1-6, which eventually turned into a 1-15 record. But those six losses didn't resemble the six from this season. The Wolves lost by 3 to the Clippers and by 2 to the Celtics, with an 8-point defeat against Phoenix sprinkled in. Nothing like this season's debacle. The Wolves also began the 2009 season 1-6 (as you'll see, it's a pattern). Yet one loss came in double overtime to the powerful Spurs and another came in overtime against Golden State. They also had a three-point defeat against Oklahoma City. Again, nothing like this season.

The Timberwolves of 2008 also lost six of their first seven games, on their way to a 1-10 beginning. Only two of those first six losses were by double-digits.

After that you have to go back to the 1995-96 season, Garnett's rookie year, to find a Wolves team that started 1-6. But that slow start included an overtime loss to Vancouver and a six-point loss to Portland. Toronto beat the Wolves by 18 and Houston by 22, but no one beat them by 30. Or 40.

The 1995 season? There we go.
Denver 130, Wolves 108
Houston 115, Wolves 85
Detroit 126, Wolves 112
Lakers 122, Wolves 99
Bulls 112, Wolves 100
Celtics 114, Wolves 101

The Wolves lost their first six games that year before defeating Golden State by two. They went on to lose their next seven to drop to 1-13, just to prove the first seven games weren't an aberration. Not a single defeat by less than 12 points to start that season. At least this year's squad opened with a 1-point loss to Sacramento. That Wolves team did scrape together 21 victories, a number the current team will struggle to reach. Credit the leadership of top scorer JR Rider for the turnaround.

Even the worst team in franchise history - the 1992 squad, which went 15-67 under the beleaguered Jimmy Rodgers - had a three-point defeat and a pair of five-point losses in their 1-6 start. For those wondering, Tony Campbell led the team in scoring that year, followed by Pooh Richardson and Tyrone Corbin. Randy Breuer, Tod Murphy, Mark Randall, Luc Longley and Felton Spencer all manned the frontcourt that year for Minnesota, and suddenly the Darko Era doesn't seem so bad.

So is this year's start the worst ever for a franchise that's all-too familiar with on-court fiascoes? Possibly. That 1995 season was ugly. At this point it's like comparing and contrasting natural disasters. What's worse, a hurricane or a tornado? An earthquake or a tsunami? Things are bad for the Timberwolves. And tonight in LA, they're going to get worse.

There might be only one way out of the mess: Fire Childress.

Saturday potpourri: The Godfather, SNL, and KEYC

2010-11-06T17:49:00.001-04:00

Louise is unable to sit still and do just one thing at a time. If we watch a DVD, she can not simply watch the movie. She folds clothes, or files papers, or edits manuscripts or talks about how she wishes she could be doing something extra. This occasionally perturbs me, especially if there's a great scene she's just missed because she's distracted by a 12-step plan to reorganize her closet.

"I saw it, honey," she'll say. Yes, but did she appreciate it? Did she laugh at an appropriate volume or was she distracted by her address book? She explains it by saying she can't just watch a movie or do just one thing at a time when she knows she could be using the time to do five, six or seven other things. It's a miracle I ever get her to a movie theater, because I'm sure she feels like a prisoner, locked in darkness, surrounded by germs, forced to focus on the big screen for two hours. I normally don't understand this psychosis.

But today I do. I'm currently watching the tape of last night's Lakers game while also working on a story that's due in two weeks for the St. John's alumni magazine. On the computer I've called up the video feed of the St John's-St. Olaf football game, but I've turned down the audio on that so I can listen to the radio broadcast from the Johnnies announcers. I'm also typing away on the blog and occasionally turning off the Lakers game to watch The Godfather II, which is in our DVD player. Louise refers to this as putting a whole day's activity into one hour.

Some Saturday thoughts:
* This is probably, I don't know, the 50th time I've seen Godfather II. One scene always confused me. After the attempt on his life early in the movie, Michael travels to New York to talk with Frank Pentangeli and plot his revenge against Hyman Roth. During a meeting with the Rosato brothers, a would-be and mouthy assassin attacks Pentangeli and attempts to kill him after saying, "Michael Corleone says hello." Frankie escapes and later, thinking Michael betrayed him, agrees to testify against the godfather. Yet Michael didn't have anything to do with the assassination attempt. It was Roth. So why would an assassin give credit to Corleone as he kills Pentangeli? Wouldn't he want his victim to know who really gave the order? Why say "Michael Corleone says hello" when Michael really said no such thing? It worked out for Roth because Pentangeli later does turn against Michael but the assassin couldn't have known things would break that way. This guy dissects this and other issues with one of the best movies ever made.

* Newspapers are dying. That's the accepted wisdom and to protest means you're stuck in the past and unwilling to acknowledge the present or face the future. Okay. But I still read them. The paper versions, the ones that stain your hands with ink and prove unwieldy on any type of public transportation. I buy a couple every day at the newsstands and read them before and after work. I'll almost always have one on the subway. And a few times a week, a fellow passenger peers down or leans over on the subway to read the paper along with me, as if it's a community activity. I'm reading about the Yankees or chaos in the state legislature and I'll sense - and eventually see - my 1 train neighbor gazing over my shoulder, intently poring over the headlines and text. Maybe he giggles at a cartoon or shakes his head at a ludicrous editorial from Charles Krauthammer. I'll always hesitate for a few seconds, as if I'm really concerned that the freeloader has finished the story. Occasionally the other person will actually sigh when I turn the page, annoyed that I've dared to move on to the next page. Can't I see they're still dissecting the movie review of The Expendables? Buddy, it's 50 cents. A bit more if you buy the Times. You obviously enjoy reading newspapers, you appreciate the reporting, the witty tabloid headlines and the writing. So toss a few quarters on the newsstand and support this dying industry. Or at least stop breathing on my cheek.

* Everyone remembers the classic Schwetty - or is it Schweddy? - Balls skit on Saturday Night Live.

I think I found one of the inspirations for the sketch. Here's another classic from KEYC-TV. This appeared on the Noon News, and apparently aired in 1986. That was a year before I started going home for lunch, so I probably missed this thorough examination of sugar, its benefits and dangers. Some people are meant to be on TV. Some people are meant to work in extension offices and help the public with valuable initiatives that teach people how to live healthy lives. Very few people are meant to work in an extension office and appear on TV.

I'd have more but I have to get back to my article and The Godfather. Also, the Lakers game is now in the fourth quarter. And, my uncle Mike's basketball team at Minnesota West just started their second game of the season and the school broadcasts the games online. I'm learning to multitask. And I'm learning from the best.