Until yesterday, the most interesting thing I could tell you about the city of Milwaukee was this: “Happy Days.” The TV show. Remember? The Fonz. Richie Cunningham, Howard, Marion? They all lived in Milwaukee. Supposedly. With that little girl, what’s her name, Joanie? I think it’s Joanie. And Laverne and Shirley. They lived there, too. With Lenny and Squiggy.
What a town.
As a kid, the only athlete I knew personally was a gawky, 6- foot-11 basketball player named Craig Raymond. He played for the Philadelphia 76ers, and my mother, who decorated houses, found him as a client. I was thrilled. Never mind that he was the last man on the Philadelphia bench, or that he played only when the team was winning by 25 points or losing by 30. He was a pro. One time he came to our house, and I asked him, meekly, if he would dunk a basketball on my small backyard hoop. I remember to this day how the rim shook with his strength — my rim, he had dunked it!
BOSTON — There were three minutes left in what used to be a playoff series when Chuck Daly, watching his Pistons streak and soar and rise to the occasion, leaned back in his chair, shook a fist at Celtic mystique, and screamed the magic words: “LET’S GET OUT OF HERE!”
Right. No point in hanging around when there are bigger fish to fry. So Vinnie Johnson broke away and dished to Dennis Rodman, soaaaaarrrring dunk!
And John Salley launched himself in the face of Robert Parish. Look, Chief. Now I got the ball, now I don’t. Slam. Oooh, oooh.
They come clanking into the playoffs like some science fiction monster, unbeatable, unstoppable, unkillable. Buh-dump. Buh-dump.
“Hello,” they say, “we are Detroit.”
“AHHHHHHHHHH!”
People scatter. Sirens roar. The police turn on the spotlights to try to blind them into submission. Suddenly they are Godzilla in basketball shorts, the favorites, the invincible army.
“Excuse us,” they say to the people of Boston, “we don’t mean to make a fuss. Is this the way to the Garden?”
“AHHHHHHHHHH!”
“I always wanted to play for the underdog.”
Barry Sanders, Heisman winner, upon learning Lions drafted him It was as easy as letting water out of the tub. The Lions needed speed? They took the fastest running back in the draft. They needed marquee value? They took the biggest star available. Never mind that the suspense was so thin, you could cut it with a paper clip. What do you want? Drama or improvement?
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