Sports

Vac’s Tuesday Whacks on Mullin the immortal, a bricklayer’s delight, and the gutty, gritty Rangers

Well, there’s no way to stay objective with this one, so it’s not even worth trying: Chris Mullin officially earned a Hall of Fame nod yesterday morning, which meant that even before Kemba Walker won one for the Bronx later on in the evening, New York City was a big winner on Final Four Monday.

I was a little surprised by some of the reaction immmediately afterward, to be honest. Apparently there’s a sizable crowd out there who think Mullin might’ve gotten in criteria beyond his basketball skills; I want to try and keep cynicism out of it and think it may be because some think the Hall of Fame is an NBA Hall of Fame (though even if that were the case, he was a five-time All-Star who averaged 18.2 points over 986 NBA games, six time averaged 20-plus, made either first, second or third team All-NBA four straight years and was a contributing member of the Dream Team).

But the truth is, it is a basketball Hall of Fame, and so Mullin’s four years at St. John’s go into the mix, and when you’re allowed to do that then the issue isn’t whether he belongs but why it took so long for him to get the call. The Johnnies’ modest resurgence this season was a reminder of just how deep a part of New York City’s fabric St. John’s really is. And there has never been a greater time to be a St. John’s fan than the four years when Mullin was performing at Alumni Hall and at the Garden and pushing the Redmen to pinnacles they hadn’t seen before and have yet to visit since.

I’ve written often about how important those years were to me as a young sports fan growing up in this area, and so for me it is especially gratifying and satisfying. I had three dominant sports idols as a kid: Tom Seaver, Joe Namath, Chris Mullin. Now I can say, for now and forever, that my idols were also immortals.

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Not to be Debbie Downer but …: I assume UConn will wait to hang that banner next year until the boss is allowed to go back to work, right?

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Another brick in the wall. And another … and another … and …: My first reaction as I was watching that remarkable eyesore of a national title game last night was to ponder just how ill Bill Self, Thad Motta, Roy Williams and the like might have been if they were watching. But, really, the coaches at NJIT and Radford would have been just as sick, right?

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All heart, no quit: It flew under the radar, as these things will, but the Rangers’ comeback from a 3-0 deficit to beat the Bruins 5-3 was as feel-good a one-day sports story as we’ve seen in New York in a while, probably since the Jets beat the Patriots back in January. If Boston’s an elite Eastern team, by the way, then if you’re a Rangers fan you have to be thinking: Just get in, I’ll take my chances from there …