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jonathan · 04-04-2016, 06:10 PM

(04-04-2016 04:31 PM)L Verge Wrote:
(04-04-2016 01:22 PM)jonathan Wrote: Seeing Larry Bird play basketball as a kid in his backyard is….simply incredible. I can't even imagine what it must have been like to see him become what he became. But as a teenager there was no athlete I hated more than Larry Bird. I hated ALL of the Celtics, but Bird was the ringleader, so I hated him the most. But as the years rolled by, I had more and more respect for him, until I actually really liked him by the time the retired. Let's face it, he couldn't really jump, couldn't really run, but on a court full of supremely physically gifted athletes, he could have scored 50 points just about every single game if he wanted to. And rubbed their noses in it the entire time, as he is well known as one of the greatest trash talkers in history. As a sports fan, part of you HAS to respect that lol.

Regarding the YANKEES and the way they try to buy championships, there's a comedian named Doug Stanhope who made this joke some years ago…"Rooting for the Yankees is like going to a casino and cheering for the House."

Oh, also nice to see a mention for Pistol Pete. Seems like I never see his name when people discuss legends of the game, even here in Raleigh where he played at Broughton for a while when his dad was head coach at N.C. State. But if you have any doubts, look him up on Youtube. I'll never forget back in the day seeing some old video of him on a fast break. As they approached the basket, Pete just stopped on a dime and casually laid the ball in the basket as the defender went sailing past. I remember thinking at the time, "That was just awesome. That guy is different.".

Pistol Pete was absolutely fantastic as a ball handler. If he had not been white, he would surely have been signed by the Harlem Globetrotters!

I think his main problem, however, was that his father trained him to be the sole star of the team - not a team player. He was playing around the time that I decided to become a wife and mother, so I don't remember his later days (husband did not like sports that much - especially basketball). Didn't he die at an early age - Maravich, not the husband?

Someone mentioned the Yankees, and I'm the Mantle, Berra, Maris, etc. era. Loved those guys. One of our local stations here in D.C. recently ran a video from several years ago where they interviewed Yogi and Joe Garigiola (there's that spelling again!). It was hilarious.

I didn't realize that those two grew up together in St. Louis, played ball together (hitting everything from rocks to bottle caps), and even went pro together. Another set of National Treasures.

Maravich died at 40. From Wikipedia…"On January 5, 1988, Maravich collapsed and died at age 40 of heart failure while playing in a pickup basketball game in the gym at a church in Pasadena, California, with a group that included James Dobson. Maravich had flown out from his home in Louisiana to tape a segment for Dobson's radio show that aired later that day. Dobson has said that Maravich's last words, less than a minute before he died, were "I feel great." An autopsy revealed the cause of death to be a rare congenital defect; he had been born with a missing left coronary artery, a vessel which supplies blood to the muscle fibers of the heart. His right coronary artery was grossly enlarged and had been compensating for the defect."

Also, I guess it makes sense that he was a ball hog, since he still holds the record for most career points scored in NCAA men's division I (3,667 total, 44.2 per game), despite no 3-point line and playing only 3 years of varsity because freshmen were ineligible under NCAA rules. But it sounds like LSU wasn't any good at the time, so I guess they needed him to score a lot. Also, to your point of his ball handling ability, again from Wikipedia...In an April 2010 interview, Hall of Fame player John Havlicek said that "the best ball-handler of all time was Pete Maravich".