Bingo Smith

     The recent passing of Bingo Smith brought some thoughts to mind that I hadn't thought of in quite a while.

In a series of events throughout one weekend, Bingo Smith was the first bounce in how I became a Cleveland Cavaliers fan.

In 1976, I was a basketball fan of two leagues. In the soon-to-be-merged ABA, I rooted for the Kentucky Colonels.

 In the NBA, I didn't have a favorite team I liked as much as the Colonels, but my lukewarm favorites were the Washington Bullets and the Phoenix Suns. 

My parents usually visited Ohio one weekend a year when I was a child, and on this April weekend, I was getting closer to my eighth birthday, and my dad flipped on the AM radio and found Game Two of the Eastern Conference semi-finals between the Bullets and the Cleveland Cavaliers. 

As we drove on the signal from WWWE in Cleveland became stronger and stronger and the game wound down to its final minutes, Cavaliers radio play-by-play commentator Joe Tait was in full excitement mode (even if we weren't traveling, the game was untelevised in either city) with the style that made him the best radio commentator in the league screaming to be able to be heard over the crowd noise.

With the Bullets leading the series 1-0, and the Cavaliers desperate for a win to avoid a 2-0 deficit and going on the road for game three in Landover, Bingo Smith drained a twenty-five-foot jumper (in the era without the three-point line) to lift the Cavaliers to an 80-79 win and a series tie.

In a series filled with improbable endings (three of Cleveland's four wins came at the buzzer or under five seconds remaining), Bingo Smith had delivered the first victory. When we pulled into Ashland and my grandfather's house, I was still excited.

My uncle Russ was staying there that evening, and as I talked excitedly to him (he was listening on the radio also), he asked me if I was a Cavalier fan, and then he said You should be.

In the way that seven-year-olds think, I said sure, and that's the way it's been ever since.

Cleveland's series victory in seven games would be the only playoff series win that I would see for the next sixteen years, and when they would finally win a series (in those sixteen years, Cleveland would lose in the first round six times), and I would be watching it ( a win over the New Jersey Nets in five games) with my son.

Bingo Smith had been the first-round pick (sixth overall) of the then-San Diego Rockets from Tulsa in 1969 in the final year before the Rockets moved to Houston, averaging seven points in only sixteen minutes per game before the Rockets left him unprotected in the famous expansion draft where the Cavaliers used Topps basketball cards as their scouting records in the expansion draft.

Just imagine the difference in the league now. Can you imagine a team allowing the sixth overall pick to be available in the expansion draft after one season?

Or can you imagine buying basketball cards as your scouting materials for the draft? Crazy!

Known for his shooting range that would have seen even more success had Smith played in the three-point era, Smith would play for Cleveland for nine-plus seasons, being traded after eight games of the 1979-80 season to, ironically, the San Diego Clippers for a future third-round draft pick.

I use the word ironically as the Clippers didn't protect Smith after the season for the expansion draft of the Dallas Mavericks, who drafted Smith, but Smith never played for the team and retired, making Smith the only player to be selected twice in expansion drafts and from the same city.

Smith had his number seven retired by the Cavaliers during the 1979-80 season when the Clippers visited the Cavaliers after being traded to San Diego as the second retired number (after Nate Thurmond) in team history. 

Bingo Smith- long-range marksman, member of the Miracle of Richfield, a retired number for the Cleveland Cavaliers, and the man who started the ball rolling into making me a Cavaliers fan for life.

R.I.P. Bingo. 

Joe Tait

     The recent passing of Joe Tait at the age of 83 made me recall lots of memories of Cavaliers past, but the passing of the legendary play-by-play announcer also made me look forward to the future and a future that, as it usually does, is looking less and less like the past.

I wrote about Joe back in 2011, when Joe retired from calling the Cavaliers games, and those feelings hold up ten years later.

Terry Pluto of the Cleveland Plain Dealer was a long-time friend of Tait and co-wrote his autobiography in 2011.

Pluto wrote a recent article on a visit to Tait's home and his recent struggles with his health, which I still have in the inbox for the next cleaning.

I knew that Tait was in ill health, but I didn't expect his passing to come so soon.

Joe Tait called every Cavalier season of their start in 1970 through his 2011 retirement with the exception of one season in Chicago and one season with New Jersey in the Ted Stepien years in the early 80s and while Austin Carr may be named "Mr.Cavalier", up until the Cavaliers drafted LeBron James in 2003, Joe Tait was the true star of the franchise.

More than just "the Voice of the Cavs", Tait also announced Indians games in the 70s and 80s among other sports, but it always came back to Cleveland to Richfield and then back to Cleveland again with the Cavaliers.

When Joe Tait started with the Cavaliers, the NBA in Cleveland was a radio game, and evidence of that is in the Miracle of Richfield season of 1975-76.

The seven-game series win over the Washington Bullets that still stirs in the hearts of those over fifty did not have one game televised in Cleveland, and the two surviving videos of that series were from the Coliseum and televised back to the Washington audience.

Therefore, Cavalier fans were either slammed into the Richfield Coliseum or they listened on the radio and the domain of Joe Tait.

And it was Joe Tait who helped me become a Cavalier fan.

Fast forward to April 1976 and Game Two of the series against the Bullets.

My parents and I usually visited my relatives in Ohio once a year, and we would leave on a Friday night after my dad returned home from work.

On the way out, we were listening to that game on the radio.

I was mostly a college fan then and a casual NBA fan (I liked the ABA Kentucky Colonels), so at the beginning of the game, I was leaning towards the Bullets as the team I knew.

But as the game continued on the radio, I remember being overwhelmed by the excitement from the Cavaliers announcer.

It was legitimate excitement, not the manufactured kind that so many spout from the booth today (COUGH Gus Johnson COUGH), and when Bingo Smith hit a game-winning jumper to win game two, I was hooked on the Cleveland Cavaliers, and much of that credit goes to Joe Tait.

I spent lots of time as a kid listening to Joe on the radio, but even more in the car driving around in the pre-internet days listening to Cavalier games after dark, when the AM signal from Cleveland would come in clearly.

In those days, that was about the only connection that someone in Maryland could have with a team not from Cleveland, particularly a bad team such as the Cavaliers after Richfield until the late 80s.

Joe Tait still made rooting for bad teams fun.

His catchphrases still ring with me in everyday life.

Slamming garbage into the trash can brings a "WHAM! With the right hand!

Shooting for the hamper, recycling bin, etc- "Three Ball-GOT IT!"

Tuning something in makes me think of "Cavaliers moving right to left on your radio dial."

The best radio basketball one-man show that I can remember listening to since he didn't use a color analyst, Joe Tait made basketball a radio sport and is the main reason that the Cavaliers connected with their fan base at a time when the NBA was lukewarm with fans.

I've missed Joe's work at the mic since his retirement, and that's not a knock at all on the Cleveland radio announcers at all.

It's very similar to the New Jersey Devils situation on television with Steve Cangelosi replacing Mike "Doc" Emrick- fans get spoiled having the very best in the business calling their team's games, and in any profession, it's very difficult to follow the best.

I don't think fans will ever have the connection with radio announcers that my generation has ever again.

The world has changed too much with far more options than strictly listening to games on the radio constantly, but to fans over fifty, it'll always be Joe Tait as the Voice of the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Rest Well. 

Have a Good Life,Joe Tait!

The best play-by-play man in the NBA finished off a career last night as the Cleveland Cavaliers defeated the Washington Bullets and avoided having the worst record in the league as a result.
However, this isn't about the Cleveland Cavaliers on the floor.
It is about the man that has brought the team into the homes and vehicles of Ohio and beyond and described the game in a way that was interesting, but not hysterical.
One could tell that Joe Tait wanted the Cavaliers to win, but he wasn't afraid to criticize and tell the truth of what was developing on the floor.
Joe Tait was not a Johnny Most type homer and he was not as smooth for television as Chick Hearn, but he was the best play by play man in the business.

More than any player, coach or owner-Joe Tait was the Cleveland Cavaliers to their fans as it will be Tait's voice that they remember as the soundtrack to the greatest memories in Cavalier history.
Tait has been that voice for the entire history of the Cavaliers with the two-year exile during the Ted Stepien years being the only exception and that was for being too honest about the way that the franchise was being run.

It was Joe Tait's voice on my lost tape (GRRR..) of the Miracle of Richfield, his voice that chronicled the World B. Free years (Dan Gilbert-please retire World's 21 NOW!), the near misses of the Price, Daugherty, and Nance teams of the late 80's and early '90s, and the great games of the mayor of South Beach as well.
If you are from Ohio or spent time there/near there-Joe Tait is likely the first person that you think of when you think Cleveland basketball.

Joe Tait might have the record for most bad basketball games watched as well between the expansion days, the Stepien years, and the pre-23 time period, Tait had to watch some pretty horrid teams every night and make the broadcast still entertaining.
Tait has several signature calls with a few personal favorites being "3 ball-Got it!" and for a Cavalier dunk
"WHAM with the right hand!".
Listening to some of those makes you almost "see" the action through the eyes of Tait-which is exactly what a good radio play-by-play man is supposed to do.

Tait also is one of the last (could even be the last) of the breed of solo radio announcers without a color analyst.
Tait never needed one and I think that having to set another person up might have taken away from his game a bit as well.
Joe Tait was the best basketball announcer that I have ever listened to and basketball in Cleveland can never be the same after his retirement from the team last night.

I'll say goodbye with a paraphrase of the Joe Tait signoff that he used to conclude last night's game
"Have a good life, everybody"!
Same to you, Joe.
Same to you.

Photo Credit-Unknown