A TLANTA — The news trickled out earlier than usual this time. Usually, most years, the folks who run the Basketball Hall of Fame keep a pretty tight lid on who has been elected to that year’s class.
It isn’t always that way: Last year, I was eating dinner at a Morton’s in New Orleans when every basketball immortal you can name started parading past our table, heading for a private room, and it didn’t take Steve McGarrett to figure out why Reggie Miller and Ralph Sampson and others were walking among them.
This time, the first reports were of Rick Pitino’s election, a fine choice no matter what happens to his Louisville Cardinals this weekend. Then came the news Jerry Tarkanian was selected, and that’s sure to keep a lot of people talking for a long time, even if there’s zero opportunity to argue whether or not Tark’s merited inclusion is based on his record as a coach.
Then, of course, came the topper for me, for so many of you, for so many of us who grew up at the Garden at that vast in-between abyss of the ’80s, our generation of fandom falling square in the middle of the ’70s glory days and the ’90s near-misses, between Willis and Patrick, between Holzman and Riley. The ’80s were a parade of guys who should have been (Micheal Ray Richardson, the late Ray Williams) and almost were (Mr. Bill Cartwright, Truck Robinson) and what-were-they-thinking (Marvin Webster, Kenny Walker).
Oh, and this:
Bernard.
Bernard King, Hall of Famer.
It’s no secret to readers of this space that there were a handful of athletes who were my icons growing up, and it’s less secret that Bernard King was at the top of that list. Even if his time in New York was brief, it coincided perfectly with my high school years, that last gasp of life where you can blindly obsess about sports without caring a whit about the real-world issues that daily infect them.
For me, for those who grew up Knicks fans and were too young to remember Hit The Open Man and too old to fully enjoy the Riley Renaissance, Bernard was it for us. He was the one who drew you to the LIRR a couple times a month to watch him torch every forward they put on him. He was the one who forced us to scream ourselves hoarse in that stolen spring of ’84, when King and King alone helped the Knicks topple one future champion (Isiah’s Pistons) and push another (Bird’s Celtics) to seven bitter games.
I don’t pretend to be objective about King, or about the years he gave me as a fan. I’ve long thought his No. 30 belongs in the rafters, and still do, though a chat not long ago with a Garden exec did make the case against him (did he really only play 206 games as a Knick? He really only won two playoff series — and never a best-of-seven — in New York?) sound reasonable.
But you know something?
When are fans supposed to be reasonable? If you weren’t there for the King Years, if you never watched his turnarounds and his ahead-of-the-field curl moves and the way he electrified the Garden the way only a handful of Knicks ever have … well, I get it. You look at the numbers. You realize the Garden, with rare exceptions, only bestows that honor on champions. That’s all fine.
And we can resume that discussion on another day. This day is to celebrate King’s inclusion in that other place of distinction, Springfield, a perfect ending for this tale that started in Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn, but reached its unforgettable pinnacle 206 times for Manhattan’s team. A good day for Bernard. A great day for those of us who watched him play.
Whack Back at Vac
Mike Gijanto: After throwing Johan Santana on the scrap heap of A-Rod, Jeter, Granderson, Teixeira and Hughes, I thought that if Sir Winston Churchill were a baseball fan he’d have said, “Never in the history of mankind have so few been owed so much ($) by so many (the fans)!”
Vac: It does seem to be raining medical tape around these parts, doesn’t it?
James H. Burns: I was delighted to see Jay Horwitz, Mets PR maven, dressed up as Bucky, the sidekick of Marvel’s Captain America, to honor David Wright’s new nickname. Which super heroes, in your expert opinion, would you next like to see New York sports personalities get dressed up as?
Vac: Judging by how sickly the Yankees’ lineup looked a couple of times against the Red Sox, and the 14 times the Mets struck out, how about anyone on the local nines dressed as Batman?
@Markbristow22: Imagine how far the Knicks could go if they were a smart team! Other than the Heat, the team most likely to beat Knicks in playoffs are … the Knicks.
@MikeVacc: I think the Pacers may take issue with that, but it’s a point well taken.
Pat Leonard: After all we know about the ’90s and steroids, how can you put the 1998 Yankees on your list of all-time New York World Series teams?
Vac: Fair question. But if we apply those standards, we’ll have to start questioning teams from the ’70s (when cocaine was king) and the ’50s and ’60s (when amphetamines were as much a part of pregame coffee as cream and sugar) and the ’20s, ’30s and ’40s (since only white faces were permitted on the field). And what fun would that list be?
Vac’s Whacks
You know, it’s one thing to say all winter, “Boy, this could really be a long baseball season around here.” And it’s another thing, given some of the snippets already on view, to actually see it.
* What do you supposed was the savvier scheduling maneuver by the people whose job it is to create such things: having both of our local nines throw their first pitches of the season within five minutes of each other, or scheduling Mets-Padres games in New York (where it was in the 40s Wednesday night) instead of San Diego (which enjoyed a high of 79 that day)?
* I have to say, every time I want to dismiss Brook Lopez as a star, he will throw a 30&12 night on the board. And every time I want to talk about him being a potential top-10 player, he misses a couple of makeable game-winners, like the other night against the Bulls.
* Three words I’m not sure anybody in America uttered this week: “Poor Scott Boras …”