Sports Biblio Digest, 5.10.20: Bob Cousy and Bill Russell, Basketball’s Lions In Winter
News, Views and Reviews About Sports Books, History and Culture
Also In This Issue: Three Seconds in Munich; Willie Mays Memoir; The Art of Distance; Baseball in Korea; The Bundesliga Returns; Willis Reed and Bobby Orr; Steve Waugh and Viv Richards; English Soccer’s Longest Season; Greg Maddux; Andre Dawson, Mortician; Remembering Don Shula and Mike Storen
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In early 2016, as America was roiling in racial turmoil over police shootings of unarmed black men and with a contentious presidential election approaching, a nonagenarian in central Massachusetts mailed off a package to another older man on the other side of the country.
Bob Cousy was deeply troubled by what he was watching on cable news and reading in the newspapers enough to know he needed to understand more. The only person who came to mind, with whom he desperately wanted to connect, was the man with whom he had connected on the basketball court countless times in another world they both inhabited, several lifetimes before.
In Cousy’s package was a personal letter and a copy of the book “Between the World and Me,” by the black writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, a scorching indictment of white treatment of blacks in American society.
For many years, as author Gary Pomerantz writes in his 2018 book “The Last Pass: Cousy, Russell, the Celtics, and What Matters in the End,” the legendary Boston Celtics point guard had felt increasingly guilty that he didn’t do more to support Russell, the black center whose arrival in 1956 set off the Celtics’ dynasty.
Off the court, Russell—who did not respond to Pomerantz’ request to participate in the book—was boiling with rage about the treatment of blacks in America, and especially in Boston, which he famously called “a flea market of racism.”
“We could’ve done more to ease his pain and make him feel more comfortable,” Cousy told Pomerantz.
When they wore the same green uniforms and followed the barking commands of coach Red Auerbach, Cousy and Russell were dialed in at the same level of obsession. But Pomerantz noted:
“Cousy and Russell shared the fast break and mutual respect, but little else.”
The French-born son of immigrants to New York City, Cousy escaped parental dysfunction at home at a local gym, working on the flashy moves that made him an early marquee name in the NBA. He led Holy Cross to a collegiate championship, then was purloined by a shrewd Auerbach after resisting being drafted by the Tri City Blackhawks in 1950.
Russell was born in segregated Louisiana, and his family migrated to Oakland, where he starred for the legendary McClymonds High School teams. He was the star figure on two NCAA title teams at the University of San Francisco and joined the Celtics after leading the U.S. to the Olympic gold medal in 1956.
One of their teammates admitted to himself that Cousy and Russell simply had the drive he did not. “To win the NBA title, Tommy Heinsohn thought, They’d kill their mothers,” Pomerantz wrote.
The Celtics dynasty especially stands out as it came during a dynastic time in North American professional and collegiate team sports.
The Montreal Canadiens won five Stanley Cups in a row in the late 1950s, the New York Yankees won five World Series in the same decade, and UCLA’s basketball teams under John Wooden captured 10 NCAA championships in 12 seasons.
But the Celtics’ 11 titles in 13 years, from Russell’s rookie season to the year he hung up his high-tops, is unmatched.
Eight of those players are in the Basketball Hall of Fame, along with Auerbach, whom Cousy insisted on calling “Arnold,” his given first name.
Before all that, in the critical formative years of the NBA, Cousy was the star attraction. The league’s battles for popularity weren’t just against other pro sports, but college basketball, which featured at Madison Square Garden.
“The early NBA seemed an odd hybrid of pro wrestling and vaudeville,” writes Pomerantz, the author of previous books about Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game and the Pittsburgh Steelers (He’s also a former colleague of mine at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution but we didn’t know one another.)
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Cousy admitted that “passing was my raison d’etre,” and his creative game, which initially blossomed with the advent of the 24-second clock, Celtics needed something else to perfect Auerbach’s fast break ambitions:
“To Cousy, a fast break was a work of art, the point guard with brush in hand. Each time down the floor, he painted a different canvas based on what he heard, saw and felt.”
Before Russell, Cousy had struck up a friendship with teammate Chuck Cooper, the first black player drafted in the NBA. After a 1952 game against Rochester that was played in Raleigh, N.C., Cousy was jolted by the sting of racism Cooper felt. He volunteered to travel back to the East Coast with him via railroad, and both men were incensed by the segregated restrooms at the train station.
Instead, they relieved themselves off the platform. “It was our Rosa Parks moment that we couldn’t talk about,” Cousy admitted.
Even after Russell had established himself as a fixture in the NBA, he faced hostility in the city where he played, but could would never call an adopted home:
“As a black man with handsome earnings, Russell discovered that his financial peer group among blacks in Boston consisted mostly of gangsters and pimps.”
Russell was outspoken on civil rights, and flew to Jackson after the Medgar Evers assassination and led basketball clinics; he also was in attendance at the March on Washington in 1963 when Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech.
In Boston, where vandals broke into his home and wrote racist graffiti, Russell and teammate K.C. Jones led a march in 1963 to protest segregated public schools. Voters resoundingly re-elected school committee members who ignored calls to integrate, and Russell remained chastened long after his playing days were over about his years there:
“I played for the Celtics, period. I did not play for Boston.”
Russell, who served as a pallbearer at Jackie Robinson’s funeral in 1972, was still at war with fans, the media and others in Boston, even after succeeding Auerbach and leading the Celtics to two more NBA titles as a player-coach, and becoming the first black coach in league history.
In the book, Cousy admits to regretting not saying anything when two black teammates were denied service at a coffee shop in Lexington, Ky., before an exhibition game in 1961. The Celtics’ black players refused to suit up, and Cousy wishes now he hadn’t.
Cousy’s life in more recent years revolved around his country club friends, frequent visits to his condominium in West Palm Beach and his utter devotion to his wife Missie, his high school sweetheart, whom he married during his rookie season.
He was her primary caregiver as she was ravaged by dementia, and she lost her fight in 2012, after nearly 63 years of marriage.
Russell was enjoying a renaissance of publicity nearly 50 years after his initial fame, being honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Barack Obama. In 2019, Cousy received the same recognition from Donald Trump.
Not long before that, Cousy picked up the phone one day at his home. “It’s Bill Russell.” Cousy did most of the talking, and although he insisted that he sent the mailer for his own peace of mind, hearing the voice of his “greatest teammate” put him at ease at last.
Choas on the Court in Munich
The United States has lost only two games in men’s basketball in the history of the Olympic Games. The second of those losses, in Seoul in 1988, propelled the idea of the Dream Team into reality four years later in Barcelona.
While that development helped expand the global popularity of hoops, that first loss, at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, has become something of a distant memory beyond the line score: Soviet Union, 51, USA 50.
A last-second basket by Alexander Belov ended a 63-game Olympics winning streak for the Americans, who strenuously protested to no avail.
While many of the details have been overwhelmed by the fury and recriminations that linger, author David Sweet brings the full saga back to life in “Three Seconds in Munich,” published in 2019 by the University of Nebraska Press.
Sweet sets the game against the backdrop of an already memorable (for reasons tragic and euphoric) Summer Olympics, just days after 11 Israeli athletes and coaches were taken hostage in the Athletes’ Village and murdered by Palestinian terrorists.
The author, who interviewed several of the U.S. players for the book, captures their mood in the aftermath of those events. One of them, Tom McMillen, placed a wreath in front of 31 Connollystrasse, then was chilled by seeing bullet holes where the Israeli siege took place.
The age-old Cold War between the U.S. and Soviet Union also was starting to creep over into the athletic arena, and it spilled over in bitter fashion at the Olympische Sportshalle.
Truth be told, the U.S. program was faltering heading into Munich, and there were questions about final team selection and head coach Hank Iba, who was nearing the end of a legendary career.
His American squad struggled from the outset in the gold medal game and didn’t lead until Doug Collins sank two free throws for a 50-49 score with three seconds to play.
This is where “Three Seconds in Munich” clarifies the confusion and lack of control to follow. Two seconds ran off the clock before they were added back. The game clock, however, remained stuck at 50 seconds. A long Soviet desperation pass was tipped up, but not in, as time seemingly expired, with the Americans victorious.
But game officials and the head of FIBA, the international basketball federation, kept signalling for three seconds. Iba was ordered to put his team back on the court. This time, Belov gathered in a second desperation pass and laid it in for the Soviets.
The second half of Sweet’s book delves into the stormy aftermath, including the refusal of the U.S. team to accept their silver medals, the only time a team has done that in the history of the Olympics.
Forward Bobby Jones tells Sweet, “I was happy to be on that plane home from Munich. My faith in man was ruined—I’d been awakened to what human beings can do."
Sweet, who’s the second author in recent years to write about this subject, is no less forceful than the players in arguing they were robbed:
“To this day, the 1972 gold medal game remains the only sports championship decided in violation of its own rules.”
He also provides a nuanced portrait of a team that, nearly half-century later, hasn’t let that memory fade in the least. Others in America have urged them to bury the hatchet, but it’s something they can’t imagine doing, all these years later:
“And though that enduring, principled stand unifies them, it cannot protect them from haunting thoughts that still invade their minds from a lifetime ago.”
A Few Good Reads
This past Tuesday, Willie Mays turned 89 years old, and postings of his iconic catch in right-centerfield of the Polo Grounds in the 1954 World Series made the rounds on social media. This coming Tuesday is the publication of his new memoir, “24: Life Stories and Lessons from the Say Hey Kid.”
The book was written with John Shea, a longtime baseball writer at the San Francisco Chronicle, who’s enjoyed a long friendship with Mays that resulted in this collaboration. Shea conducted more than 100 hours of interviews with Mays (excerpt here).
At The Washington Post, Thomas Boswell is just a bit more than miffed about discussion of starting Major League Baseball in empty stadiums, given the sport’s leaders babbling about how fans always come first:
“Our major sports either can cope with a one- or two-year blow to their revenue, or they cynically can try to “pass along” their billions in coronavirus losses to their fans — and risk a fundamental change that does much longer lasting damage to their environment.
“Fans, as a group, have far more urgent issues on their minds than sports — including desperately serious subjects concerning their health and their wallets. They aren’t in a mood to put up with being taken for granted by the rich (players) or the richer (owners). “
The staff at The Paris Review is digging through old issues to highlight during lockdown life, and this week reposted some of its sports-related fare;
With no sports to write about, some newspaper sports writers and columnists are being dispatched to cover the COVID-19 response and its effect on sports and beyond;
Sports staffers at The Philadelphia Inquirer roll out their sports book favorites, with a few local titles on their lists;
At the Austin American-Statesman, sports staffers size up their favorite sports films, with links to movie trailers;
The editorial board of the Winnipeg Free Press is not enamored by a request from the Canadian Football League for a federal government bailout of up to $150 million should it cancel or diminish its 2020 season, which begins in the summer;
At The Guardian, Jonathan Wilson ruminates on Paris-St Germain’s 2017 record transfer fee of $245 million (U.S.) for Neymar as a symbol of club soccer’s financial crisis stemming from COVID-19, finding an initial outlier in the Depression-era transfer of Bernabé Ferreyra to Argentina’s River Plate;
At Wisden, a look back at a memorable 1988 English county cricket matchup in the Lancashire League, when the legendary figures Steve Waugh of Australia and Viv Richards of the West Indies faced off against one another.
Sports History Files
From The Set Pieces, a look back at English soccer’s longest season, in 1947, with delays raising the frustrations of wearied fans eager for normalcy in the first full campaign after World War II;
Another look back at an English sports season doing those years, when Glamorgan won its first county cricket title in 1948.
You Oughta Be In Pictures
Within three days of one another, the New York Knicks and Boston Bruins won the NBA and Stanley Cup finals respectively, ending a lifetime of misery for their fans.
Both achievements were marked by iconic sports photos that are being remembered this week as vivid memory pieces cementing those victories for the ages.
On May 8, 1970, after much uncertainty, Willis Reed walked out onto the floor for the Knicks at Madison Square Garden, limping with a torn leg muscle.
Waiting for him as he emerged from the tunnel was George Kalinsky, the official photographer for MSG, and Mike Vaccaro of the New York Post recounts the shot, the moment and the opening sequence of Game 7 in which Reed’s mere presence, and two quick baskets, inspired the Knicks to their first NBA crown.
Two days later, the Boston Bruins won their first Stanley Cup in nearly 30 years when Bobby Orr, a rookie defenseman, scored the winning goal that was captured perfectly by Ray Lussier of the Boston Record American.
Figures from the game recall the moment in this oral history; and from 2016, David Davis profiles Lussier, an avid hockey aficionado of French-Canadian stock who took the vacated spot of another photographer close to the St. Louis Blues’ net in Boston Garden right before the decisive overtime period began.
The Sporting News does this Q & A with actor and comedian Denis Leary, a Bruins’ fanatic as a boy during those heady days. He’s also appearing tonight in an NHL Network special, “The 1970 Bruins: Big, Bad and Bobby.”
Sports Retro Files
The latest jaw-dropper from the sports auction world: A Shoeless Joe Jackson baseball from 1910 was sold this week for nearly $500K to an anonymous buyer, after belonging to members of a North Carolina family for more than a century;
Continuing our COVID-19 sports hiatus practice of digging into sports writing archival work, this gem from 2014, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at Greg Maddux,” by Jeremy Collins at SB Nation.
Media Lodge Notes
It’s been 28 years since a Pulitzer Prize was awarded for work on a sports topic. This week the drought continued as the Class of 2020 was announced. Sally Jenkins of The Washington Post was named a finalist in the commentary category for a range of columns about the New England Patriots, the NCAA, the U.S. Women’s soccer team and the NBA and China. I don’t think there are many sports columnists still around with her combination of range, humor, insight and fire.
The commentary winner is Nikole Hannah-Jones of The New York Times, who argues in her lead essay in the 1619 Project that the American nation was founded for the preservation of slavery. It’s a claim that leading historians of that era say is historically inaccurate. Among Jenkins' authorial credits, interestingly enough, is a non-sports book about a rebellious Mississippi county during the Civil War;
Peter Schmuck, a baseball writer for the Baltimore Sun for 30 years, writes a poignant farewell column after taking retirement to stave off layoffs for his colleagues;
At The Philadelphia Inquirer, columnist Bob Ford is calling it a career after 32 years;
Jimmy Davy, who wrote about sports for The Tennessean for 45 years, died last week at the age of 87. He was a graceful writer and an extremely warm, kind and funny man, and I’m glad I got to know him on the SEC sports beat over the years. You’ve got to develop something of a sense of humor covering Vanderbilt football as long as he did.
Passings
Don Shula, 90, won more games than any coach in the history of the National Football League. His record of 347 wins overall includes 328 in the regular season, 55 more than New England’s Bill Belichick, the only current active coach (George Halas won 318 games), who has 304 overall victories.
Shula’s 26 years with the Miami Dolphins include leading the only unbeaten Super Bowl-winning team ever in 1972, and his teams in south Florida and the Baltimore Colts turned in only two losing seasons in the 33 years he spent on the sidelines. His two sons became coaches in the colleges and the pros. As he grew older, Shula wasn’t shy expressing what he thought about “Beli-cheat.”
Tom Archdeacon, the marvelous sports columnist for the Dayton Daily News and who covered Shula and the Dolphins for the late Miami News, wrote this tribute that starts with the story of his interaction with two nuns who showed up at training camp one year to visit the coach, a “good Catholic boy” who went to mass every morning.
Mike Storen, 84, was the former commissioner of the American Basketball Association and the founder of the Indiana Pacers and a general manager with the Kentucky Colonels and Atlanta Hawks during a long career as a professional sports executive. He was also the father of ESPN anchor Hannah Storm, a former Notre Dame football player and the founder of Toys for Tots.
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The Sports Biblio Digest is an e-mail newsletter delivered on Sunday. You can subscribe here and search the archives. This is Digest issue No. 204, published May 10, 2020.
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