Posted by Os Davis in all, alternate history, basketball, TV programs | 1 Comment
“What if?” sports moments (or Without “Without Bias”)
One sphere wherein science-fiction and sports meet nicely is in the realm of alternate universes. O sure, in sports they call it the “What If” game, but endlessly do fans debate what might have been…
Infinite are the parallel universes that splintered off from reality when Bobby Thompson missed Ralph Branca’s inside fastball for strike two, when Harry Frazee took the Chicago White Sox’ offer of $60,000 and “Shoeless” Joe Jackson for Babe Ruth; when Scott Norwood makes the field goal; when the Portland Trail Blazers draft Michael Jordan at no. 2.
It’s all about history, right? Alternate universe science-fiction generally turns on history’s fulcrum, a crucial moment in time is tweaked and all of reality-as-we-know-it is altered in its wake.
(Yes, exceptions exist. Most mainstream superhero comic alternate universes, which really on creating a “reality” different than that of the extant DC or Marvel mythos, and a few key Star Trek stories such as First Contact and the Deep Space 9 two-parter “Past Tense” come readily to mind as easy examples.)
And since all in sport is a matter of record, the discrete moments of action nicely strung together through the controls of (hopefully) impartial judges and a (usually) accurate timepiece. Organized sport is given to history and that history is pervasive enough to change outcomes of games based on stuff like reputation and “curses” evoked through ruminants or bad trades.
Perhaps the biggest “What If” in all of modern sports culture, however, is based on a game-changing player who never suited up professionally: He who was expected to compete with Michael Jordan himself in the NBA, Len Bias.
Happily, ESPN recently uploaded all of the “30 for 30” series onto YouTube for those of us who, ahem, live in places like Hungary where easy access to such events on TV isn’t exactly guaranteed. Here’s part one, which we’ll call “A Legend is Born.”
(Sound of needle scratching across record.)
What? WHAT? O, hell. Good old ESPN: 21st century technology, 19th century mentality about public entertainment. Too bad for them … just more customers lost, eh? Like BuckBokai for example.
Right. In order to get something of a peek through the crack in our universe and into a parallel, BuckBokai’ll just sample heavily from Bill Simmons’ excellent and much-rerun column lamenting Bias, first written in 2001.
…[in March 2001] when the Utah Jazz came into Boston to play the Celtics, I glanced at my program before the game and noticed that Karl Malone was playing in his 16th season for the Jazz. That triggered a Bias flashback for me because the Mailman had entered the league in ‘85, a year before Bias, well … you know.
Would Bias still be chugging along, much like Malone? Would he have stayed clean? Did he have a drug problem in the first place? Was that awful night at Washington Hall just an aberration? Would he have approached the 32,000 points and 15,000 rebounds that Malone compiled over the course of his career? What would he look like? Would he still be playing in Boston? Would he have a few tattoos? Would he have a shaved head? Would we call him Len or Lenny?
How many titles would Bias have been worth? How many years would he have added to the careers of Bird and McHale? Is it safe to argue that the addition of Len Bias to the ‘86 Celtics would have locked up at least two or three more titles in the ‘80s?
In BuckBokai’s chosen alternate universe, we’ll go with these answers: Yes, just about; mostly; depends what is meant by “problem” surely (“Without Bias” danced away from this issue pretty cleanly); see last answer; yes; maybe one or two; nah; Lenny, always Lenny as in “Larry ‘n’ Lenny”; two in the Bird Era and one thereafter; let’s say two each; as a Lakers fan, i’ll begrudgingly admit two more titles in the 80s.
Just to bring things full circle a bit, Simmons’ ending is a tad ironic, given BuckBokai’s present quandary.
No, Simmons answered a reader in the column, he hadn’t watched an ESPN Classic show on Lenny Bias in summer 2001:
And maybe that’s what this was really about: in a nutshell, 1) betrayal and 2) sadness. It doesn’t happen that often in sports, but when those two emotions collide for the proverbial kick in the stomach, you remember. And when that happens in your formative years, you hold onto the lingering side effects forever – emptiness, grief, anger, disappointment, dismay, everything. You harbor those feelings, each of them, all of them, a permanent grudge. And it doesn’t go away. It just doesn’t. And if none of this makes sense … well, it never happened to you.
That’s why I avoided watching that ESPN Classic show about Lenny Bias on Tuesday night…
One wonders if Simmons watched the documentary on which he’s listed as producer and one that he surely enthusiastically backed as the production team was making cuts. Too bad BuckBokai can’t. I might’ve liked to ponder that parallel universe of nights of Bias vs. Jordan again…