This is the anti-response to the column my colleague and friend Chuck Stark threw down in the Kitsap Sun on Thursday (June 13). He named his all-time team regardless of sport and he did it just like so many do these things nowadays – with a long-term memory lost.
Chuck’s team does not go back very far. I’m pretty sure he meant to include only active athletes and I guess that is fine – okay it’s not. I don’t know why I’m this way, but I drag all the oldsters along with me through life, and love to tell their stories so they are not easily forgotten for the things they accomplished in their lives.
So dead or alive, I’m picking my team, and for this purpose they are all alive and active (It’s my column and I can do what I want).
So my team would go back in time and include at the top George Mikan, the original big man of basketball. The 6-10 Mikan averaged over 22 points a game in his NBA career and was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1959. He was so dominant that basketball widened the lane from six feet to 10 feet in what is known as the “Mikan Rule.”
I would add Willis Reed for toughness, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson, Elgin Baylor, Jerry West, and take Michael Jordan over LeBron James any day. LeBron is a great player, but he would not get away with things he does now if he was playing 30-40 years ago. He is not tough. So Jordan sticks and James does not.
I’d sic Jim Brown on James. Brown could ball. My brother David went to Syracuse the same time as Brown and used to watch in awe at the things Brown did on the court. But Brown is in here for his days with the Cleveland Browns.
You don’t know this one, but I’m putting one of the best college players I seen on the team. That would be Tom Stith, who played at St. Bonaventure at the same time Big O was at Cincinnati. They took turns dueling to be the best scorer in college basketball.
There are so many I would like to see on the football field at the same time, but wouldn’t it be great to be able to sit in your comfortable chair, a big cigar in one hand, a drink in the other and watch these guys play football: Dick Butkus, Art Donovan, Otto Graham, Ray Nitschke, Red Grange, Jim Thorpe, Mean Joe Greene, Deacon Jones, Sam Huff, Crazy Legs Hirsch, Marion Motley, Bronco Nagurski and Dick Night Train Lane, just because he was the seventh husband of Dinah Washington, who I consider one of the greatest singers of all time.
Joe Namath would have to be there, too, for all the girls he would attract, ensuring there would be enough to go around for the rest. I’d make sure Broadway Joe would not do any sideline interviews.
I’d like to see Pistol Pete Maravich back on the floor. He was crossing over before they crossed over. And Goose Tatum, Meadowlark Lemon, Sweetwater Clifton and Marques Haynes would be part of my team also, as long as they brought along Abe Saperstein. As a young kid those Globetrotters passed through my area a couple times, giving me memories I have never forgotten. Haynes was an incredible dribbler.
Marvelous Marv Harshman has to be on the team, just so he can chew on the referees, especially Mendy Rudolph who makes it as one of the best striped shirts of all time.
I’d like to see Herman Petersen fire up the Heidelberg Hauler as the halftime entertainment. Sam Fitz would be there, proudly taking it all in.
Emmett Ashford has to be included. He became the first black umpire in baseball when he started out in the minor leagues in the early 1950s. He would be paired with Ron Luciano, who was about as big a showman as an umpire can get.
Luciano has many funny moments. He once said, “Throwing people out of a game is like riding a bike, once you get the hang of it, it can be fun.”
I like the fact Luciano was born the same month I was, lived his entire life near where I grew up in New York State (I take that back, I never grew up), and died there. He committed suicide in 1995 in his garage by carbon Monoxide poisoning. But for this purpose, he is still alive and putting on a show, and that is all good.
Of course, Luciano would be laughing it up at some bar with Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford because, well, because that was all good, too, in his time. I’d throw Billy Martin in there, too, although I wouldn’t dare throw Billy: he would snap back with a left hook.
Babe Ruth is included because we all need a place where we could room and board Micky, Whitey and Billy, and the great Bambino knows just the place where the beer flows and the girls gather.
Hank Aaron and Bobby Bonds are in. But they have to room together. Boxing referees Miles Lane and Arthur Mercante Sr. would babysit the pair. And if that didn’t work out, Jack Dempsey would enter the room.
Muhammad Ali is in as is Rocky Marciano. I might actually pay to see them fight. I don’t know if Rocky could stick with the float like a butterfly and sting like a bee guy, but it would be interesting. Rocky could hit like a thunder bolt with either hand, and was not actually the cleanest fighter to come down the pike.
George Foreman could sell his outdoor grill with Jack Johnson acting as the carnival barker for it. Joe Louis with his plodding style and vicious jab makes it. Sam Langford would be hanging around trying to get into the Dempsey-Ali-Marciano-Foreman-Johnson-Louis inner circle.
You got to have LBJ there, sitting on the bench directing traffic, and FDR and JFK also, because I have to make this look presidential. All three could bring along their mistresses, although JFK would be limited to just two.
I have to have two coaches. Red Auerbach and Winston Churchill. They were both audacious and full of it, which they would need to handle this bunch.
Churchill could tip a few, so he fits in with the Mick and Gang. When he once was confronted with his state of being, he often got the best of the ensuring conversation.
Like this:
Bessie Braddock: “Sir, you are drunk.”
Churchill: “Madam, you are ugly. In the morning, I shall be sober.”
Then this:
Nancy Astor: “Sir, if you were my husband, I would give you poison”
Churchill: “If I were your husband I would take it.”
Besides, in this day and age, Churchill fits right in. He once said, “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to put its pants on.”
That is so very true in today’s social media-packed world.
And Churchill, like Auerbach, was a fighter who never gave in. As the horrible Nazi war machine looked to eat up England, Churchill sneered:
“We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills, we shall never surrender.”
Then he flashed his V-for-Victory sign with his two fingers. What most people didn’t understand was he was actually ordering two beers.
That’s my kind of guy.
When my team gets done beating up on Chuck’s team, Auerbach and Churchill will sit back, smile, light up their cigars and blow smoke in Chuck’s team’s eyes.
Then they will order two more beers.
Be well pal
Have a great day.
You are loved.