Posted by Os Davis | 2 Comments
Bobby Thomson, of the Shot Heard Round the World, dies at 86
Bobby Thomson, that unwitting creator of a million zillion what-if stories both published and unpublished, that subject of prose and poetry, that metaphorical slayer of poor Ralph Branca, died today at his home in Savannah, Georgia. He was 86.
Thomson played Major League Baseball for 15 years mostly with the New York Giants, going for a .270 lifetime batting average, three All-Star bids and 263 home runs plus one Shot Heard Round The World.
In its mundane three-dimensional existence on the baseball field, Thomson’s famous shot was “merely” the culmination of 154 games of war in a baseball for National League supremacy among New York City boroughs: Brooklyn vs. Manhattan. In an extra playoff game – actually, the third extra game in a best-of-three series, actually, and don’t remind Bud Selig or we’ll have another round of MLB playoffs – Thomson’s walk-off homer against the Dodgers’ Ralph Branca gave the Giants the pennant. Or, as the man said:
Read MorePosted by Os Davis | 2 Comments
Kobe Bryant vs. the Martians
If, in fact, the terrifying events speculated upon in Space Jam ever do come to pass, we can rest assured that any would-be alien conqueror (or maybe that should be conquistador, as in the San Diego Conquistadors) will find a Terran team ready with a gameplan.
Though Michael Jordan, having now been enshrined in the Hall of Fame twice to definitively end his basketball career (really), probably wouldn’t suit up for Team Earth, prospective on-court leader Kobe Bryant is ready.
Read MorePosted by Os Davis | 5 Comments
Ultimate championship: Dream Team vs. Redeem Team
As you may have heard, the 1992 version of Team USA was inducted into the Pro Basketball Hall of Fame last Friday.
Over at BuckBokai’s sister site BallinEurope.com, this writer enthused that “the only two teams … who *might* possibly give the Dream Team a series [were] Dream Team III, with much of Dream Team I plus Hakeem Olajuwon and Shaquille O’Neal, who probably should have been on the roster in lieu of the more politically-correctly chosen Christian Laettner in ‘92; and the Redeem Team of 2008, Generation Y’s own Dream Team.”
Which got BuckBokai to thinking later … Why not face ‘em off through the miracle of the virtual sports time-travel website What If Sports?
Read MorePosted by Os Davis | 0 Comments
K.C. at the Line
BuckBokai’d been wanting to write this nigh-epic poem for years and during the 2010 NBA/Euroleague playoff season, finally got it up to do so. This didn’t play so well at BuckBokai big-sibling site BallinEurope.com back then, so perhaps this lonely piece of prosody will find a more welcome home here – sorry for the lack of science-fiction, but hey, it’s literary.
(And please be sure to check out “Casey at the Bat,” still a good read. If you prefer your poetry combined with an escape from a straitjacket, plus scroll to the bottom of this entry.)
Read MorePosted by Os Davis | 1 Comment
Insights from parallel universe: Iverson goes to Olympiacos
Sometimes seemingly minor incidents in the grander scheme of sports history are exactly the opposite, for who can truly know the axis upon which events revolve?
Going into the 2009-10 NBA season, a handful of European news outlets tersely reported a rumor that those freewheeling, free-spending Angelopoulos Brothers running the Olympiacos basketball club had offered one Allen Iverson a huge chunk of change to come play in Greece with the Reds.
Yours truly’s speculation then was that ultimately substituting A.I. for Linas Kleiza – for as things turned out in the market last year, Kleiza was the highest-end free-agent the Brothers could coerce to jump the pond to play hoops – would have gotten the Reds off to the exact same start, namely near the top of the EΣAKE and Euroleague tables. (After all, i argued then, there’s nothing even A.I. could’ve done about the H1N1 that struck several members of the club numb for weeks.)
Now that this unfortunate season for both Iverson and Olympiacos are in the books, we have more details to expand the parallel universe of 2009-10 basketball.
Read MorePosted by Os Davis | 2 Comments
Brett Favre might retire, believed to be former Obsidian Order officer
In one of the most nauseating annually repeated stories in recent sports history, mainstream news outlets are once again paying attention to that Elim Garak of the NFL future Hall of Famer Brett Favre and his on-again/off-again talk of retirement. Reports ESPN.com this morning:
Favre has informed the Vikings he will not return to Minnesota for a second season, according to multiple reports.
Favre has sent text messages to teammates saying, “This is it,” league sources told ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter.
Here’s the thing. BuckBokai has figured for years that this whole will-he-won’t-he dance is a charade worthy of Starfleet’s favorite Cardassian tailor. To wit: Brett Favre *simply doesn’t want to go through the grueling workouts of training camp.* That’s it, seriously. Waiting for a decision like this every summer is tantamount to Lebron James’ ballyhooed PR-heavy exit strategy.
Except every year.
Read More