Cleaning out the Inbox:Basketball Passings Plus One

   The tributes continue with recent passings from the basketball world and a plus one to try to narrow the total number down a bit.

Goodbye to Bird Averitt at the age of 68.

Averitt led college basketball in scoring when he averaged 33.9 points per game in the 1972-73 season for the Pepperdine Waves, but Averitt's best success as a pro came with his second team when he averaged 13 points a game as part of Hubie Brown's guard rotation with the 1974-75 ABA champion Kentucky Colonels.

Averitt would top that the following season when averaging 17 points per game for the Colonels in the final season of the ABA. 

Averitt would be drafted by the Buffalo Braves in the dispersal draft in 1975-76, would spend the season with Buffalo before moving to the New York Nets to start the following year.

Averitt split the season between New York and a return to Buffalo for his final year as a player at only 25.

Goodbye to Tom Heinsohn at the age of 86.

Heinsohn did about all that you could do in a career that saw him reach the Hall of Fame.

Heinsohn made six All-Star teams, won eight NBA championships in nine seasons as a player, won the rookie of the year award, coached the Celtics to two more titles in 1973-74 and 1975-76, and after being fired in 1978 as Boston's coach, Heinsohn would spend over three decades announcing Celtics games becoming a franchise icon as arguably the biggest homer in local basketball!

That's one great resume' and I'm not sure anyone in basketball can match that kind of success at all three levels of hoops with only one franchise.

Heinsohn's playing career ended due to a foot injury and had he not been forced into retirement at age 30, Heinsohn would have likely added the other three Celtic titles to his list, which would have been eleven titles in thirteen seasons.

Goodbye to Billy Tubbs at the age of 85.

The fast-talking and fast-break offense-running Tubbs won 641 games with Lamar (in two stints), Oklahoma, and TCU in a head coaching career that stretched over parts of four decades.

Tubbs coached teams that won more than 20 games on sixteen different occasions and his 1987-88 team with Oklahoma finished 31-4 before losing to underdog and fellow conference rival at the time, Kansas in the national championship in the Danny Manning and "the miracles" season for the Jayhawks.

Tubbs took all four universities that he coached to the NCAA tournament with an elite eight and three sweet sixteen trips besides the title game loss.

Goodbye to Jimmy Collins at the age of 74.

Collins was the captain of the 1970 New Mexico State Aggie team that reached the final four under coach Lou Henson and was then selected in the first round by the Chicago Bulls.

After that season, Collins was selected by the Chicago Bulls in the first round of the 1970 draft.

Collins disappointed in his two seasons as a Bull in averaging less than four points a game.
Collins was selected by the Bulls over two future Hall of Famers that were taken in the second round in Nate Archibald and Calvin Murphy.

Collins returned to the side of Lou Henson, first at New Mexico State and then to Illinois where Collins earned a reputation as one of the nation's top recruiting assistants and it was Collins that was the point man in bringing in the talent that built Henson's 1989 Final Four team.

Collins took over at Illinois-Chicago as head coach and took the Flames to three NCAA appearances in fourteen seasons as head coach.

Goodbye to Rafer Johnson at the age of 88.

Johnson won the 1960 Olympic Gold at the Rome Olympics in the decathlon in the final event of his athletic career.

Johnson also played basketball for UCLA under John Wooden before the Rome games with Wooden stating that the slowdown game that Wooden preferred at that time didn't play to the strengths of Johnson's abilities.

Johnson's brother, Jimmy, spent a long career as a cornerback with the 49ers and is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Johnson, along with Rosey Grier, apprehended Sirhan Sirhan in the Ambassador Hotel following Sirhan's assassination of Robert Kennedy in 1968.

In the film/audio that exists of the assassination, a newsman's voice can clearly be heard "Rafer, hold him down"!.

Johnson also acted in several films that included an Elvis Presley film, "Wild in the Country".

And a sad last-minute addition from Ryan.

Goodbye to K.C.Jones at the age of 88.

Jones is one of seven players to have won a Olympic gold medal, NCAA national championship and an NBA title, won eight championships as a player and two more as the head coach of the Celtics.

Jones could have won even more titles as a coach, but lost one NBA final series with Washington and two others with Boston.

Known for his defense as a player, Jones likely owns the lowest career scoring average for a Hall of Fame inductee as Jones averaged only seven points a game in his career.

Along with the Bullets and Celtics, Jones also served as head coach for the ABA San Diego Conquistadors and the Seattle Super Sonics.

A little of this, A little of that

Well, since the manager of Mikkel LesPierre couldn't bother to stay Covid-Clean while entering the Top Rank bubble, the main event of the card and the only boxing challenge bout of the evening was canceled, I'll try to add a few notes on some various topics.


My frustration with baseball grows and deepens as the owners continue to shove a shortened and gimmicky season at players and fans as one of many things that cause me to feel like the game is eating itself on the way to disinterest.
Forcing the universal DH for the 2020 season is one thing, it's another to keep it for 2021.
When you work any job or deal with a government, you realize one general rule- Something added is seldom to be taken away.

There is almost a one hundred percent chance that we have seen the last game played under the original player lineup with the nine players on the field all in the batting lineup and I think that is sad.
I know there is a place for the designated hitter and I'm not really a DH hater, but I do prefer the National League game.
There is more than one flavor or style of anything, and there could be room for both versions of the game, and if it shortchanges a few teams (from both leagues) during interleague play, so be it.

Take this, the changes that have been sampled in the minors (but not installed), the looming destruction of the minors, and the other ridiculous ideas that Rob Manfred's office has considered and you have a recipe for a game that I don't recognize.
Rob Manfred continues to chase a fan that baseball will never catch as he snatches the game that long-time fans love away as Lucy moves the football from Charlie Brown.

Ohio State signed an agreement to play Alabama in football for the 2027 and 2028 seasons as the best programs of their conferences will battle in the regular season for only the second time and for the first ever at their school site.
The two played in the now-defunct Kickoff Classic at Giants Stadium in 1986 with Alabama winning.
The 2027 game will be in Columbus with the return engagement in Tuscaloosa in the following season.
I always like these games as it's good for the best to try to play the best, but the best part is the campus sites as often these are the dreaded neutral site games that take away from the grandeur of the game.

The Athletic ranked the various local broadcasting crews for baseball and the folks that I like fared well in the rankings.
The Giants team of Mike Krukow, Duane Kuiper, and Amy Gutierrez ranked a very close second to the Mets team of Gary Cohen, Ron Darling, and Keith Hernandez as the two were only 0.03 apart for the win at 4.91 to 4.88.

Other favorites- Brewers play-by-play man Brian Anderson helped the Milwaukee team to a sixth-place finish, Cubs analyst Jim Deshaies and his unit ranked in seventh, Tampa's extremely underrated group of Dewayne Staats, former Indian (the other)  Brian Anderson, and Tricia Whitaker landed in the eighth spot overall.

Two TRS favorites that received excellent reviews despite their team finishing deep in the pack were Bob Carpenter of Washington (23rd), Emily Jones of Texas (25th), and Dan Shulman of Toronto (26th), all were mentioned fondly by their fans voters.
The Indians team of Matt Underwood, Rick Manning, and Andre Knott finished in the middle of the league in the 18th position.

As for me and what I've been doing since baseball isn't around and despite the easing of some of the Covid restrictions, I still don't really want to test the other people right now.
I don't see where wearing a mask hurts anyone and it seems like it is more of a "don't tell me what to do" thing than it is a real issue in wearing it.
Feel free to take your chances, just stay away from me (within reason).

I've messed around with the metal detector once, working on clearing the yard of brush that has accumulated for years and nuisance trees that weaken and fall during winter ice and snow and summer thunderstorms, and believe it or not- I did get a reading of something metal under the brush!
I figured that for just a dirt patch, and I haven't been able to access the area directly, but I am excited to test that area when everything is moved out!

As for television, I'm still watching the same shows as I mentioned last time out- Once Upon A Time (Just started season six), Without A Trace (middle of season two), and the Spanish with sub-titled Monzon (episode three).
I have to really have time to concentrate when watching Monzon as I have to read the subtitles, so I usually watch alone and not when doing anything else.

In the gaming world. I've been stuck in the basketball world with the ABA and the Kentucky Colonels.
The Colonels had to win their last game to finish in a tie for second in the Eastern Division with St.Louis and hold homecourt advantage in their first-round playoff matchup against those Spirits.
They did so and grabbed the second seed clinching a winning record at 43-41.
Considering in real life, those same Colonels won 58 games (losing only 26) and won the division over the New York Nets (the division winners by six games over the Colonels and Spirits in this replay) by winning a one-game tiebreaker against the Nets.
The coaching by your humble author likely contributed far more to the sixteen extra losses than the luck of the game, but as the season moved on, I improved in my in-game coaching.
I'm interested to see the results of my next basketball project to evaluate my coaching.
Anyway, I have been playing the entire playoffs and of this writing, I finished the Western semi-finals earlier tonight at the road office.
Here are the playoff results

Eastern Division
Semi-Finals-Best of Five
New York (1) over Memphis (4) 3 games to 2
Kentucky (2) over St.Louis (3) 3 games to 0

Finals-Best of Seven
Kentucky (2) over New York (1) 4 games to 2

Western Division
Semi-Finals-Best of Five
Indiana (1) over Utah (4) 3 games to 1
Denver (3) over San Antonio (2) 3 games to 2

Finals-Best of Seven
Indiana (1) over Denver (3) 4 games to 3.

This places Kentucky against Indiana in the ABA Finals- the exact matchup that the real finals saw.
The real fun was in the Western regular season where Indiana and San Antonio finished with the exact same record (52-32) with Denver only one game behind.
All three would have easily won the Eastern Division.

I've played two hockey games with the 1974-75 Kansas City Scouts since the last update, losing to the Chicago Blackhawks 3-2 in Chicago and stunning the eventual Stanley Cup champion Philadelphia Flyers with three goals in the first ten minutes and holding on desperately for a 3-2 win at home.
The Scouts are 6-18-1 for 13 points and last in the Smythe Division, trailing the next team above them, the St.Louis Blues by nine points.
The Scouts and fellow expansion team Washington have the fewest points in the league with the California Golden Seals one point ahead, but Washington has played two more games and California three more at this writing.

I haven't played baseball, but I've been working on adding players, logos, and ballpark pictures as a gentleman that helps at a site for Action fans made "homebrews" of all the 2019 minor leagues.
I've never seen those before, so I downloaded the South Atlantic League, Carolina League, and Eastern League to be able to play those leagues!
I'm really looking forward to giving those a shot, particularly since it looks like it will be the last year of the Hagerstown Suns.

Joe's Day

Friends and Family week continues as Joe Plum takes his turn at TRS.
Joe is my second longest friend in tenure and is a friend of mine for around thirty years, having met him right after Cherie and I were married and Joe was a teenager working at a neighborhood drug store/baseball card shop.

Joe's decided to take Fred's five questions idea, but add his own twist with Five Questions to be answered with my Top Three for each question.
I'm going to answer these as my favorite three, which may or may not be the "best" three in any category!
Here we go!
Joe: Your top three all-time Wrestling Tag Teams

TRS:
1: Midnight Express- Bobby Eaton & Dennis Condrey Version
2: Midnight Express- Bobby Eaton & Stan Lane Version
3: Tully Blanchard and Arn Anderson
Honorable Mention: Hart Foundation- Bret Hart & Jim Neidhart

This one was an easy question, yet a hard question as I'll explain shortly.
The Midnight Express is easily my favorite tag team, but the Eaton/Condrey version and the Eaton/Lane versions are so close that I waver between each team as my favorite.
I didn't have actual video exposure to the NWA until after I was married (different cable systems) and that was two months after Dennis Condrey left the team, so my "first" Midnights was actually the second.
Usually, the first act that you see and enjoy winds up being the one you like best (which might be why I'm the only person I know that prefers Dick Sargent over Dick York as Darrin Stevens on Bewitched), so for years I would have picked Eaton and Lane.
However, in the YouTube era, I've been able to see Condrey and Eaton in action and the pure "heat" that Condrey/Eaton and, of course, Jim Cornette had with fans gives them a hairline edge over the terrific matches of Eaton/Lane.
Dennis Condrey was more of a pure heel than Stan Lane and that might be the difference.
Tully Blanchard ranks in my top five favorites of all time and his team with Arn Anderson might be my favorite pure wrestling team.
Tully and Arn didn't have the flashy double-team moves of Eaton and Lane and the pure hatred that fans had for Condrey and Eaton, but an argument can be made for them at the top as an all-around team.
Because of the circumstances with the Midnight Express, I added an honorable mention with the Hart Foundation as my favorite team before I was able to start watching non-WWF products.


Joe: Top Five Defunct Sports Teams

TRS:
1: Arizona Wranglers USFL
2: Kentucky Colonels ABA
3: Cleveland Crusaders WHA

Two defunct NHL teams could have applied for this, but since they technically still exist with the Kansas City Scouts tracing to the New Jersey Devils and the Cleveland Barons having ties to the Dallas Stars, so I eliminated them.
This was a very hard choice, but I gave the 1984 Arizona Wranglers a close decision over the Kentucky Colonels at the top mainly because I watched all the Wranglers games and the Colonels were a radio team only for a seven and eight-year-old.
I've written about the 1984 Wranglers before and the bizarre reasons that saw me root for three different teams in the three years of the USFL.
The Colonels rate second with all-time favorite Dan Issel and I wrote about my Colonels fandom as well.
The Cleveland Crusaders earned the third spot as my favorite WHA team.


Joe: Top Three Comic Book Villains

TRS:
1: Deadshot
2: Riddler
3: Captain Cold

Wow, another difficult question.
The Riddler was my favorite through childhood in the Batman comics and the brilliant Frank Gorshin portrayal in the Batman TV series, but my love of the 1980s comic- Suicide Squad introduced me to Deadshot, who I've written about here as well!
The layers of the Floyd Lawton "character" are many, Suicide Squad is a brilliant comic, and if more comics existed of Squad member Count Vertigo as a solo villain Count Vertigo might have made this list.
Riddler gets second and Captain Cold gets third as my favorite of a deep bunch of Flash villains over Count Vertigo.


Joe: Top Three 1980s Movies

TRS:
1: National Lampoon's Vacation
2: Major League
3: The Survivors

There were movies that I love that didn't make this list, I could likely make a top ten to twenty of these and there was a few that I thought of as "80s movies" that were actually late 70s films.
I kept this list to comedies.
I love the first Vacation and if it's on television, I almost always stop to watch.
Same with Major League and there are so many great quotes from both that I use often with Ryan and the "IFL Guys" (Real Tomato Ketchup, Eddie?).
The third spot goes to the badly underrated The Survivors with Robin Williams and Walter Matthau.
It's sardonic and dry, but if you watch this, get the underlying humor, and laugh like crazy- I think we just might be friends!


Joe: Top Three Defunct Fast Food/Chain Restaurants

TRS:
1: Burger Chef
2: Red Barn/The Farm
3: Arthur Treacher's

This one wasn't close, but I did have some problems closing this list out.
It seems that many chains that most people seem to think are dead still have a few stragglers around in locations that you may not expect.
Burger Chef was not only my first job, but they also had great burgers such as the Super Chef (Quarter Pounder), Big Chef (Big Mac), and the Philly Chef with peppers, onions, and mushrooms!
Burger Chef also was the first place with a "works bar" that you could fix your own sandwich with what you wished to place on it.
My personal favorite was the "Shawn Chef" which was fixed after hours with the Big Chef-style roll with Super Chef meats on each slab with the mushrooms, peppers, and onions from the Philly Chef!
Red Barn, which transitioned to The Farm before going out of business, had great burgers as well with the Barn Buster, Cheese Buster, and Big Barney and the local franchise here was the first place to offer an AYCE chicken and sides dinner.
Although the waitresses took orders for new plates rather than a conventional buffet ( and I look for some places to try this post-COVID), there wasn't a limit on food.
My favorite Chinese restaurant is in the location of the local Red Barn building and it literally is two blocks down the street. Sob.
Arthur Treacher's is still in existence with Wikipedia reporting that only seven locations still survive with one of the seven inside a New Jersey Turnpike rest stop.
Arthur Treacher's had a location in Breezewood, PA and that location was a regular stop of Cherie and mine's coming home (or going to) Ohio for many years.
It was much like a Long John Silvers, so if you like one, you would likely enjoy both.


Thanks to Joe for the questions and I hope you enjoyed the answers.
Back next time with another Friends and Family post unless there is breaking sports news.

A little of this, a little of that.

In these times when very little news from the sports world is available after the NFL Draft as the other three major sports are in the midst of a roster freeze, it can be a grind after a while to come up with topics to write about.
I've come up with an idea to kill a few columns if the people close to me that I've asked to participate choose to do so.
I'll have no idea how that will turn out, but it might be interesting at a minimum.

Here are a few notes and opinions on items that didn't quite make into Cleaning out the Inbox, but are newsworthy on their own.

Boy, I thought the Indians trade of Corey Kluber was light in its return as it was, but the 80 game suspension of the main piece coming to Cleveland in pitcher Emmanuel Clase for a PED, makes the trade even more questionable.
I know Kluber battled injuries last season, but he was on track for full recovery on the last time that I heard about his status and what looked to be a pure salary dump in December looks awful now with Clase's suspension.
With Clase on the sidelines, the Indians only have another light-hitting outfielder (Delino DeShields Jr) to show for a Cy Young contender as recently as two years ago.

The Browns picked up the fifth-year option on Myles Garrett and David Njoku, which would have been a mild surprise a few months ago in the case of Njoku.
The option doesn't mean more than the Browns will have the pair for the 2021 season, although the Browns are likely to work on a long-term extension for Garrett.
Njoku will be a wait and see candidate for an extension beyond 2021.

The Browns also made a popular move with the fanbase by agreeing to a one year contract with Rashard "Hollywood" Higgins to keep Higgins with the team.
Higgins had fallen deeply out of favor with former coach Freddie Kitchens and rarely saw the field after returning from injury.
Higgins took less money to remain with Cleveland, which will endear him to fans even more and will fight for the third wide receivers spot on the roster.

Since today is supposed to be Kentucky Derby Day and there isn't a Derby to run, Churchill Downs and NBC are running a virtual Derby involving all the Triple Crown winners that you can even bet on.
While I would bet on Citation, such races tend to favor the best known (Secretariat) or the most recent (Justify), but often the winner is one that you wouldn't expect.
I remember attending a computer race at Pimlico for the greatest horses of all-time and the winner in an upset was the great handicap horse Kelso.

What have I been watching during the Covid-Hiatus?
Been mixing up a few series from Netflix and the Roku Networks that aren't on the networks anymore, but I've never watched either at all or from beginning to end.
ABC's Once Upon A Time, CBS's Without A Trace and a Spanish Language mini-series on former middleweight champion Carlos Monzon have been my home viewing while I've been watching the various Star Trek shows at the road office and I'm now starting Deep Space Nine.

And the games?
Well, I've been in a basketball mode and I haven't played any of the other games of late, so it's been a lot of the 1974-75 Kentucky Colonels.
I've rallied the Colonels since the last notation and they have moved into a tie for first with the New York Nets with a record of 19-16, percentage points ahead of the Nets and a half-game ahead of the Spirits of St.Louis.
The Colonels had won five in a row before a blowout loss to the Spurs in San Antonio.
Artis Gilmore leads the team in scoring (25 PPG), rebounds (14.7), and blocks (3.3) while Ted McClain leads the Colonels in assists with 5.1 per game.
Dan Issel is averaging 18 points and 7 rebounds a game, while Louie Dampier is averaging 16 points and just under five assists a game.

Counting Flowers on the Wall

Covid-19 certainly has made keeping busy a challenge without sports.
While I've been working regular hours (and extra this week), I've been trying to follow the edict to stay inside and away from the vulnerable folks.
Decisions to follow or not has to be a choice made by each individual and I respect that, if not agree.

However, I'm not going to live with ending someone's life because I  think Covid-19 cannot reach me, so I've visited no one and seen few other than Ryan, going to work and whomever I would see while gathering supplies.
When I type that, I sound like I'm Radar O'Reilly getting ready to hit Kempo to trade a case of beets for some penicillin to keep the 4077th afloat!

To a certain degree and without live sports and the roster freeze that baseball has enacted due to the virus, it seems like all I've been writing about of late has been tributes.
And while I think of the tributes posts as just that, I can't lie and say too many in a short period isn't pretty depressing.
Many times I feel like I'm just killing time with sorting 2020 Topps Heritage ( If anyone reading this has any of the short prints, let me know as I'm trying to make those as part of my set), binging television shows, playing games, and what seems often to be counting Flowers on the wall.
Hence, the above picture of the Statler Brothers and contrary to popular belief, that photo is not a 1971 Heimberger family outing!
BTW- The Statlers made some great music, but once Lew DeWitt got sick and the little short guy with the shrill voice came in, the Statlers became more of a comedy team that sang rather than a great singing group.


So, what have I been watching and doing specifically?
I've watched the entire run of the CBS program "Under The Dome" which I thought was pretty good for the first two seasons and its final season was pretty weak and I barely finished the season.
I've also finished a long-time favorite in "Cold Case" and Cherie and I have begun "Without A Trace", another past favorite that Cherie and I haven't seen in quite a while.
I've been watching "Star Trek" on DVD at work, finishing the original series and moving on to the 1973 animated version before I'll start "Deep Space Nine".
I always like to bring the shows that lasted a while to the road office because it enables me to skip watching for a bit if I need a change occasionally.
Work has also added "Criminal Minds" as it's on every night as I work and it's pretty good from what I've seen, although some seasons are better than others.
Unlike Cold Case and Without a Trace, Criminal Minds was hit off and on with cast changes and some characters I like better than others, so when they aren't around, those episodes aren't quite as good.

I've also been watching YouTube videos with people who treasure hunt with metal detectors and underwater diving.
I've mentioned that Cherie and Rachel purchased me a detector for Christmas and I'm trying to learn more about how to use it before I take it out seriously.
I might be using it more often this year than I expected with the minor league baseball season heavily shortened at best and eliminated at worst, so I'm enjoying getting to know how detectors work and what to expect.

You might have noticed a lack of sports at this point.
To my surprise, I haven't missed things as much as I expected.
That doesn't mean that I don't miss sports, but that I have been able to fill that hole thus far with other programming.
Let's see if that continues as the quarantine drags on.

And with all this time, I've been playing various seasons of Action PC sports.
I just finished a replay of the 1967 NFL season that ended with the Los Angeles Rams of George Allen defeating Tom Landry's Dallas Cowboys in the NFL championship game 20-14 in double overtime to win the title when Rams linebacker Maxie Baughan intercepted a Don Meredith pass and ran twenty-five yards for the championship-winning score.
I was in the middle of that project when the quarantine hit, so that wasn't a new season.
I'll likely be beginning the 1968 AFL season next as I played the 1967 AFL season last year with Joe Namath and the New York Jets winning that title over the Oakland Raiders.

I haven't started a baseball project as I am trying to decide just what season I'd like to play.
When you play a 154 or 162 game season, you see these teams for quite a while, so I want to make sure that I want to play a certain team for a while.
Contenders are the 1951 Giants, 1971 Indians, 1977 Rangers, 1979 Indians, and 1990 Pirates along with a possible "Ball Four" replay in which I replay the 1969 Seattle Pilots until Jim Bouton is traded to Houston and when I would then jump to the Astros.

I've started a hockey season months ago and I've played in starts and stops with the expansion 1974-75 Kansas City Scouts.
The Scouts were terrible and finished ahead of only fellow expansion mate Washington in the standings with a record of 15-54-11.
My version of the Scouts has played about as bad as one would expect with five wins, seventeen losses, and a tie.
The funny part of these Scouts so far- four of their five wins were over Atlanta and Vancouver, both of whom are in first place in their division.
I don't score a lot with the expansion Scouts and as I attempt to compete, I play a much more defensive game to keep the games close.
Kansas City's first-round pick Wilf Paiement, who is one of two players on the team to have a nice career, is tied for the team lead with Ed Gilbert with only seven goals.
Paiement scored 26 goals on the season to tie Simon Nolet for the team lead in the actual season.

I started a basketball season yesterday and decided to move oppositely from the Scouts as I'm playing the same 1974-75 season with the ABA champion Kentucky Colonels.
The Colonels lost their first game 118-113 at home to the Denver Nuggets.
The Nuggets finished the regular season with the league's best record, so that's not an awful defeat.
Kentucky rebounded to even their record at 1-1 with a 126-117 home win over the Indiana Pacers.
Artis Gilmore scored 28 points in the win with Louie Dampier adding 27 for the victorious Colonels.

There you have it- how I've been running the Four Corners offense to wind down the clock.
Next time, I'll have some recent links of note, and if any of these interests you, let me know.
I might be able to work another post out of this.

The best team that you never saw....

Is it possible to love a team that you NEVER saw play?
Really, not once.

Not the occasional once-a-year or two national game appearance or only when they played a game against your local team -NEVER.

Well, I am here to tell you that it is possible, as I did, and believe it or not, at the ages of seven and eight.

I was a junkie from day one, and my dad started and fed my addiction through the weekend games, to live games when we lived in Ohio, the constant stream of magazines in the era before ESPN and sports radio, and most important of all, trading cards.

I bought them all: baseball, football, hockey, and maybe best of all at that time- basketball.

The rural store in our area sold just about all of them, and I vividly recall even before school age turning down Popsicles and other treats for walking to the store with either my mother or grandmother in favor of the latest pack of cards from whatever sport was available at that time from Topps, as no other company could make cards.

Fleer made these game-action NFL cards with team logo stickers, but they didn't have the NFLPA's approval to use names, so they were generally cool-looking cards that lacked the trading ability of the Topps cards.

As much as I loved baseball and football at that age, I think I loved basketball the most.
In 1975, I hadn't truly discovered the Cavaliers yet and watched the NBA as a Kareem fan more than anything.
The NBA had a CBS TV contract (with that neat opening that I post here on YouTube occasionally and Brent Musberger screaming his lungs out), but the ABA had no contract at all.
However, I had a small radio that picked up pretty long distances for such a small radio.
I suppose at the time, with fewer stations, there was less interference and signals (especially AM ones) could travel a long way.

And one of the best signals to my room at that time (we would move across the street in 1978, literally, and the signals that my new room grabbed were different than my old one) was 840 WHAS AM out of Louisville, Kentucky, and a gentleman named Van Vance and the Kentucky Colonels.

Vance was the "voice of the Colonels," and to me, Vance ranks right there behind Joe Tait as the elite of pro basketball radio announcers for the ability to create that "spoken word picture" of the game in the listener's eye.

As I have written before about other things as a child in a rural community (although size-wise calling it a community is a stretch), I always got a huge kick out of feeling like I knew about this secret that few others knew about, and the Colonels were one of those for those two years.

The only thing that I had to connect me to those teams was the basketball cards.
No ABA shirts, hats, etc nothing but those cards and the voice of Van Vance, first next to my bed and then under my pillow after the first radio broke.

Sidenote- the second radio I obtained by selling the most "booster tickets" for my little league team, and a few years back, I was going through an Ohio flea market and found the exact "Spirit of 76" radio in its box with original instructions. I bought and have it here, but haven't had the heart to fire her up...

I would use her for the next few years until my brother and I's first good stereo for better reception.

There was just one other child in the neighborhood who collected basketball cards, with the soon-to-be basketball famous name of Chris Mullin, and for the two years that I was a Colonels fan, I would bet that I completed a Colonels team set for both seasons through packs and trades.

The best part was after the ABA/NBA Merger, when he decided that he didn't want his basketball cards anymore, and I traded for all his cards for doubles of baseball cards.

I also remember quite a few one-on-one games on his backyard hoop between the Colonels and the Capital/Washington Bullets, where Dan Issel took on Elvin Hayes!
Another Colonel's/Cavaliers memory for me was the old game BAS-KET, which used levers to flip a ball through the net.

Amazingly, this simple game is still available!
I cannot remember how many hours Shane and I spent with basketball cards sprawled out around this game, playing it.

The Colonels also had one other thing in their favor for those two seasons-Dan Issel.

Issel (His forgotten superstars' post can be found here) was my favorite Colonel, and one day I wrote his name on a book cover or something, and my gym teacher, Brad Keller (what a great guy and influence on me as a child), saw it and told me about seeing Issel play when he was at Kentucky.

Mr.Keller was cemented in my mind as a great guy then, I mean, my gym teacher SAW Dan Issel play!!
Issel could score with the best of them, as he showed after the merger with Denver.

Artis Gilmore was the dominant ABA post player of the league's existence, and few could shoot with Louie Dampier, who spent the entire nine years of the league with the Colonels.

Hubie Brown, the noted NBA analyst, was the coach of the 74-75 Colonels and he insists that the title winners were the best team that he ever coached, and that includes some pretty decent NBA clubs.

The Colonels were good in the 1975-76 season, but things weren't the same after John Y. Brown (yes, the KFC guy) sold Dan Issel to Baltimore and after the Claws went under to Denver.
John Y. somehow managed to parlay selling the Colonels (and the Colonel) into quite a career that saw him buy the Celtics after selling off the Colonels, become governor of Kentucky, and marry Phyllis George.

The Colonels lacked the second scorer that the team truly needed to keep teams from sagging in on Gilmore and to keep bigger guards from swarming the smaller Dampier on the outside without Issel, and after a seven-game semi-final series loss to ironically Issel and the Nuggets, the Colonels were history.
To this day, I have seen two Colonel's games on NBA TV, and they were quite a treat for this aging fan.

I realize this was more about my memories of the Colonels than the Colonels themselves at times, and maybe down the road, we can write more about the team of my initial youth than about my memories.
They still are the best team that I have never seen..



Photo Credits

Colonels logo-Sportslogos.net
Others-Unknown