April 9, 2012– 12:15am
Funny baseballstory about Josh Gibson, one of the greatest to ever play, the legendaryslugging catcher and all-time Negro League homerun champion.
His homeruns, in the pre-television age, were the stuff of the-fish-was-this-bighyperbolic yarn. The story goes that oneday in Pittsburgh he hit a ball so far out of the ballpark, no one ever saw itcome down. So the next day, with histeam playing another game hundreds of miles away, let’s say Harrisburg for thesake of the story, Gibson hits a towering pop fly that takes so long to comedown, everyone loses it for a few seconds. When it finally reappears and eventually lands in an infielder’s glove,the umpire turns to Gibson and says “You’re out…yesterday…in Pittsburgh.”
Point is, it’sbeen kind of a long day. I was in Tampaat the Frozen Four last night and left there this morning, I’m about to land inMiami and head to the hotel to sleep. That wouldn’t seem like much of a thing until I add that in between, therewas a Celtics game in Boston and about 94 minutes of sleep.
So right now,I feel like that Josh Gibson home run from Pittsburgh, about to crash downafter a long day’s journey that will only end up as something like 250 miles ofnet yardage.
And the pointis, I wouldn’t trade it for the world. That’s how much I love the Frozen Four.
But let’ssave that for last, since it’s so 27hours ago and start with the Celtics, who in six weeks have gone from two gamesunder .500 and four games out of first, to a three game division lead with nowjust ten games to play.
The storiesin my hockey-related absence this week were two, Ray Allen’s removal from the startinglineup, and Doc Rivers verbal beat-down of his squad. Both of which came onThursday.
I’ll reserve judgmenton Doc’s tirade, other than to say coaches have the most impact doing it whenthey don’t make a habit of it. And I think there was at least a little methodto that particular madness. With thecalendar growing short, 19 days until the playoff opener, and the very clearunderstanding that the Celtics can compete with anybody, but no longer withanything less than meticulous effort.
The Ray Allen-to-the-benchdecision to me, was if not a no-brainer, pretty close. The dilemma to me waswhether to do it to put Avery Bradley in the lineup. When Mickael Pietrus wentdown with that gruesome concussion in Philadelphia 16 days ago, I’m convinced he was headed for the starting lineup inplace of Ray, maybe as early as the next game. I’m not going to bash Ray’s defense. He’s battled hard the last fewyears the likes of Dwayne Wade and Kobe Bryant (hello…6-for-24 in Game 7anyone? The Celtics win that game, and Ray’s defense that night becomes part ofNBA lore). But it was time for the move, not to mention now you have a hall offamer coming off the bench, he’ll still get the key crunch-time minutes andmid-game minutes against other bench players. He will thrive in this role, andit could end up extending a career that doesn’t appear close to winding downanyway. Mentioned this on the broadcast a few months ago, but Reggie Millerretired with 2,560 threes. Ray, sitting at 2,711, heading into the Miami gameTuesday, has a shot at becoming the NBA’s first Mr. 3,000. Perspective? Yeah, that would be like someonehitting 900 home runs.
(Someone say,like Josh Gibson**, who might have had they let him play in the majors from thetime he was 19. John Gibson rant comingon soon…can’t stop it….)
But first,the fun stuff…the numbers. One of theadded features of the New Big Three Era has been documenting their final, wetcement steps into the concrete of the all-time records en route to the hall offame. It was inevitable, they’d get alittle tangled along the way and now they have. Tonight, Paul Pierce became one of the NBA’s all-time top 25 scorers.
Twice.
But by theend of the night, he ended up falling back to 26th. Twice.
He began thenight seven points behind the 25th spot. Easy enough. But that 25thspot at the start of the night, was held by Tim Duncan whose Spurs (after avisit to Boston on Wednesday), were set to tip off at home about an hour afterthe Celtics. 11 first-quarter points putPierce into the Top 25. But with the Celtics’ captain on the bench in thesecond, Duncan scored five early points to leap-frog back in front. A Piercethree in the 3rd quarter flipped them again…and you get thepoint. Heading into Tuesday, Duncan sitsat 22,426, Pierce at 22,423.
The Celticsremaining schedule is not easy. Seven of the ten games are against teams in theplayoff race, the other three are the back-to-back-to-back set everyone elsehas already gone through. Right now, theC’s are in the early stages of a ridiculous 12-game-in-17-night-stretch. Eight ofthe 12 on the road, and none of the home games consecutive. Meaning, they haveto travel to each game. But a three-game lead with ten to play means 5-5 shouldbe enough to get Boston the more desirable 4-seed and what they wanted, toavoid Miami and Chicago in the opening round.
OK, I need todo this and then we’re on to the Frozen Four, I promise.
(** I’vegotten myself in trouble before, which I often do, talking about JoshGibson. As I bring his name up everytime Major League Baseball, or society, tries to celebrate the anniversary ofJackie Robinson breaking the color barrier. That lonely struggle remains and always will, one of the greataccomplishments of the 20th century. Not in sport, but in humanity. But when it’s anniversary is celebrated, it always hits me as asinine and utterlylacking self-awareness. As if to say,“hooray, it’s only been 50 years since we escaped from a backwards, race-drivenculture of fear and hate.” So when theanniversary is celebrated over the accomplishment, I like to point out that twomonths before Jackie’s debut with the Dodgers, Josh Gibson died. At 35. And he died adelusional, alcoholic, one of the greatest to ever play driven to it by hisexclusion from the majors. We are proudest of sports when they lead societyrather than follow it. When they set anexample for it, rather than merely reflect and perpetuate its greatest fault lines. But while Jackie will always remind us whatis possible, Josh Gibson reminds me of what happens when fear of changeovercomes not just the better angles of our nature, but our nature itself.)
Not sure whatgot me thinking about that. Any idea,Augusta National? Exclusion, archaicthinking…any idea at all? No?
Look, I lovethe Masters, we all do. But the reality is, I don’t get ever get to see much ofit because of the weekend on which it falls. It’s Masters weekend to mostpeople. To me, it’s Frozen Four weekend.
I’m longsince over the idea of winning people over to the things I love. You learn asyou get older that’s really something of a wasted exercise in most cases. Mostly, because in the Twitter age, thenatural evolution of the “how’s my driving” joke. (You know, the one where noone ever calls that number to say “I just saw your driver back across two lanesinto that loading dock perfectly and I just wanted to say great job”), tearingdown beats lifting up by a pretty healthy margin.
I think it’scool if you’re into NASCAR, or the Premiere League. Honestly, if I had moretime, I’d like to learn then both, try to understand what makes it great, but I’vegot at least 20 channels on my cable system that are all-sports, there’s onlyso much you can soak in before it’s time to switch to Cartoon Network forFamily Guy at 2:30. I’ve never strayedtoo far from the “big six” (MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, College Football, CollegeHoops). Golf, tennis, boxing have alltheir share of my attention at times over the years, and since my outing lastyear, most of you know of my life-long passion for the pro wrestling industry.
I’m not hereto recruit you, I’m not even going to push it on you if you don’t want to tryit. But in myworld, college hockey will always have a very special place.
It’s an honorto be the “Voice of the Frozen Four”. I was told last week , and this surprisedme, that I’ve now called more NCAA Championship Games (12) than anyone else.And I will keep my promise to go back every single year they’ll have me.
I’ve gotten aton of hockey questions the last few days, and I didn’t want to blow up myTwitter with some Frozen Four blowout 140 characters at a time, so this seemed likea better place. The questions ranged from how hard is it to not to do hockeynow all year then jump into a championship weekend? (It’s complicated, and challenging, butmining is hard, construction is hard, a job you do for money, with no sense of passionor accomplishment, that’s hard. I’m one of the lucky people in the world and Iknow it, the few employable skills I have, are doing what I love, that’s ablessing). Do you feel weird having tomiss Celtics games every April? (A little, but I got my start in college hockeyand I will never forget that, that’s reason number one why I’ll always go back.It’s how I pay my respect to the game). Is this year’s BC team the best you’veever seen? (Ah, now that’s a meaty one…)
I’ve beenaround the game for a quarter-century now. (Please hang on while I process howfreaking old that last sentence makes me seem. Maybe I should spend less time blogging and more scheduling prostateexams. I don’t know.) And it’s hard to say the 2012 Boston College team is thebest I’ve ever seen. Not when you sawMaine in 1993, or some of the BU or Michigan teams of the 90’s. Theback-to-back championships of Denver and Minnesota from 2002-2005.
But not only isBoston College putting up dynasty numbers, the one common thread of this BC runthat no one else can claim in the modern era, is that when the games gettougher, and the stakes get higher, they get better. Think about that. Since 1998, BC is 79-17…in the playoffs. Saythat again with the Jim Mora voice…in the playoffs!
Theonce-in-a-lifetime Maine team in ’93 was life-and-death in the Frozen Four.Needing OT to beat Michigan in the semis and trailing 4-2 in the 3rdperiod of the title game before the epic Jim Montgomery hat trick (all assistedby Paul Kariya) to win it. The BU teamin 2009 was a wire-to-wire #1. But we all know, and by we I mean those thatfollow our beloved game, that the Terriers trailed 3-1 in the final minute ofregulation before the miracle finish at the OT championship in Washington D.C. There were teams that could have been on thebest-ever list, like Michigan in ’97, BU in ’94, Michigan State in ’91, BC in ’07.But they either couldn’t win the final game, or didn’t even get there.
In fact,Saturday BC became just the 5th top overall seed since the HrkacCircus/Ed Belfour North Dakota tram of 1987 to actually win the title.
In this epic run for Boston College, 10 Frozen Fours in 15years, it’s just the second time they entered the tournament as the top overallseed. The other, 2005, they were knocked out by North Dakota in the regionalfinals. It fits the pattern. If they win twice this weekend, they’ll becomejust the 5th overll top seed in the last quarter-century to win itall. (In the previous 11 years since thetournament expanded from four teams (1977-1987), the top-seed winning was farmore common. It happened five times in those 11 years (’77 Wisconsin, ’80 NorthDakota, ’83 Wisconsin, ’85 RPI and ’87 North Dakota)
OVERALL#1 SEEDS WINNING NCAA TITLE (Since1988)
1993 Maine
But the thingis, BC isn't just winning the tournament, they’re dominating. Two years ago at Ford Field in Detroit, theyfaced the nation’s top two teams, Miami and Wisconsin, and went all Steffi Grafon them, 7-1, 5-love. To furtherillustrate, in the ten years since you had to win four games to win the title,BC’s three title teams in the last five years are three of the four mostdominant.
NCAATOURNEY SCORING AGGREGATE (Since 16-team formatbegan 2003)
2010 Boston College +15
For 48 hoursbefore the title, game, we had to listen to people not terribly familiar withthe game, play up the David-versus-Goliath storyline. Yeah, Ferris State was David. David Freese. David Robinson. David Tua. They were the #1 team in the country for mostof February, and they entered the NCAA’s ranked #6. This was no colossalunderdog and that’s how the game played out. In 2003, Ferris had Chris Kunitz,now of the NHL MVP-favorite Evgeni Malkin’s line. And they didn’t make theFrozen Four. This was a special year for Ferris and I’m glad people got tospend some time in the world of Bob Daniels, one the most enjoyable, congenial,delightful guys and an increasingly teeth-bearing and ornery hockey coachingworld.
My favorite statof the Frozen Four this year, by the way, was that Union goaltender and Hobey finalistTroy Grosenick had more shutouts at Fenway this year than Red Sox pitchers didall of last year. And the way thingshave started, his might be the only one for a while. (The Celtics started 0-3 by the way, and now53 games later have a three-game lead in their division, so you know, let’schill for a bit.)
But as theplane starts its descent into the Sunshine State I left 17 hours ago, seemslike an interesting time to think about full circle, and different parts of mystrange life overlapping. And no, I don’t mean the once-in-who-knows-how-longchance to bring two of my buddies from opposite ends of the world together fordinner in Tampa the other night. BarryMelrose to my right, Jim Ross to my left. Clearly the beginning of a beautiful friendshipbetween two icons in their worlds. That’san entirely different blog. I’m talkingabout this one;
As thechampionship game approached, BC coach Jerry York talked about a speech histeam had gotten a few weeks earlier from another coach. About how while not everyone can be a star, everyone can be a star in their role. He talked about how it resonated with hisplayers as they made their run towards last night’s championship.
The author ofthat speech?
Doc Rivers.
We often don’tthink about how the different elements of sports, or our own lives canintertwine. But sometimes, you can be sleep-deprived, jet-lagged and not knowif you’re looking at a power play or a flagrant foul, it’s still impossible tomiss.
As we arrivedat Hanscom Air Force base for our flight to Miami tonight, Doc Rivers was handeda gift. A few hours earlier, the national champion Boston College Eagles’charter flight had touched down at the same terminal. The coaches and players he inspired had savedhim one of the championship hats they were given on the ice moments after thefinal horn. Knowing the Celtics wereabout to pass through the same halls a few hours later, since they couldn’toffer him a tip of the cap. They justleft him his own.
And now thathat, like Josh Gibson’s legendary home run, is about to touch down just a fewhundred miles from where it originated.
One finalreminder that the journey, is always more interesting than the destination.
(Althoughsince this destination includes a king size bed, in this case I’m making apersonal exception.)
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