The Lakers have been radio broadcast on KLAC AM570 since our very first strains of purple and gold myopia in the late 60’s. As a native Glendalian, KLAC radio was the local radio station right down on Glendale Blvd. They had an old school DJ in the window spinning country tunes and crooning into a microphone the size of a Direct TV dish. It was a country station but 82 + nights a year it was the Laker station.
Laker nation was more like Laker County in those days. The Lakers had already lost five NBA finals to the Boston Celtics before Yard youth was able to embed basketball into our tortured legacy. Being an LA Ram fan had built up the required scar tissue before the Lakers were added. We were fully engaged for the back to back NBA Final upset losses in 1969 and 1970. The Lakers were heavily favored in both finals with three Hall of Famers, Elgin Baylor, Jerry West and Wilt in the starting lineup. West became the only NBA Finals MVP to play for the losing team in 1969.
The Lakers played at the Sports Arena and were rarely on TV and barely on radio. Chick Hearn put the mustard on our hot dog while we dribbled along in his cadence. Chick told the story each night with passion and emotion without being a homer. Radio and television broadcasting are completely different given the nature of the media. Chick was the only broadcaster who did the play by play on television and radio at the same time. He kept both audiences in awe.
Mornings after the games, it only took one Wichita lineman and an “I Walk the Line” to recall the hard court memories on these same airwaves eight hours earlier. KLAC was our local station that provided our portal to Chick. The Laker legacy improved through the exploits of Kareem, Magic, Big Game James and the rest against the freeway overpass of our memories. Along the ride, Chick called every single play on AM 570.
ESPN took over this year broadcasting the Laker games. Spiro Dedes and Mychal Thompson worked the broadcast at KLAC and have moved over to ESPN. It only a click up the dial and another chit whittled from the legacy of our youth. The Lakers will win the west regardless of which network broadcasts the games and we will listen. Kobe has the best supporting cast and the highest quotient of unbridled relent in the relentless skill set. He will never let Ron Artest listen to the voices in Artest’s head. He will be the voice in Andrew Bynum’s head. Kobe is and it will be.
Trojan Fan, calm down. You could have been the lead story. A bad day in the Cardinal and Gold is a lifetime in blue and gold. These historic defensive melt downs will end soon. Pete has two weeks to prepare for the Trojans next home game. The team will be angry and focused and playing their cross town rival at home which is never good for the cross town rival. Pete, if Rick Neuheisel is ever ahead of your team 48-21 with seven minutes left in the game, he will not go for two!
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Monday, November 2, 2009
Ducks in the Mist
When your team loses every Saturday for a month, it is an ugly stretch. When the moons align and there are five Saturdays in the month, it is a downright frightful stretch of primordial goo. The Bruins were “0” for October with the final Halloween beat down by the Beavers on Saturday. The only bright spot was it was televised in tape delay and we chose not to watch. October was not much kinder to the Dodgers or Angels either. When all seemed to swirling down the emotional drain of futility, USC delivered in the clutch in Eugene. It was heartwarming to see the Trojans go down hard in the Oregon mist.
That morning, we were startled to see the young USC quarterback Matt Barkley being interviewed on ESPN during College Game Day. His confidence was stout and endearing to the cardinal and gold. Barkley is a likeable kid and unfortunately has a huge upside in the wrong colors for years to come. During the course of the interview, Mattie from the OC smiled and winked about the unruly crowds he had faced in Columbus, South Bend and Berkley during his freshman year. With three victories in the duffel bag, he smirked at the reporter and said he enjoyed quieting those hostile crowds in victory. There was no such disquiet on this night.
Eugene is not Columbus or South Bend and on a Halloween night it is a nightmare on Elm Street for stout youth. Autzen Stadium holds 40,000 less than the horseshoe in Columbus. It can sound like 40,000 more and a young QB can hear every derisive comment and smell every pre-game beverage. Barkley may have wanted to silence the crowd but his offensive line twitched with each yell in route to seven illegal procedure calls. It was a beat down that we anticipate in Westwood but has never happened during the reign of Prince Pete. Bruin humility is a coping strategy, Trojan humiliation is karma.
Oregon wins out, USC wins out and the Pac-10 wins out with possibly two BCS teams and the resulting pay day for the UC system. USC will recover and let us all root on the Ducks. Chip Kelly has done an outstanding job navigating a first game melt down in Boise that still has a right jab on You Tube.
The Bruins have Washington at home and WSU wherever and they will win those games. It is a difficult time but Neuheisel has always been willing to do the unsavory things that lead to success. Bob Toledo was too lazy and Karl Dorrell was too proud. The 4th stringer at USC will come to UCLA in the years ahead. The 4th stringer that chose not to go to USC beat them on Halloween.
That morning, we were startled to see the young USC quarterback Matt Barkley being interviewed on ESPN during College Game Day. His confidence was stout and endearing to the cardinal and gold. Barkley is a likeable kid and unfortunately has a huge upside in the wrong colors for years to come. During the course of the interview, Mattie from the OC smiled and winked about the unruly crowds he had faced in Columbus, South Bend and Berkley during his freshman year. With three victories in the duffel bag, he smirked at the reporter and said he enjoyed quieting those hostile crowds in victory. There was no such disquiet on this night.
Eugene is not Columbus or South Bend and on a Halloween night it is a nightmare on Elm Street for stout youth. Autzen Stadium holds 40,000 less than the horseshoe in Columbus. It can sound like 40,000 more and a young QB can hear every derisive comment and smell every pre-game beverage. Barkley may have wanted to silence the crowd but his offensive line twitched with each yell in route to seven illegal procedure calls. It was a beat down that we anticipate in Westwood but has never happened during the reign of Prince Pete. Bruin humility is a coping strategy, Trojan humiliation is karma.
Oregon wins out, USC wins out and the Pac-10 wins out with possibly two BCS teams and the resulting pay day for the UC system. USC will recover and let us all root on the Ducks. Chip Kelly has done an outstanding job navigating a first game melt down in Boise that still has a right jab on You Tube.
The Bruins have Washington at home and WSU wherever and they will win those games. It is a difficult time but Neuheisel has always been willing to do the unsavory things that lead to success. Bob Toledo was too lazy and Karl Dorrell was too proud. The 4th stringer at USC will come to UCLA in the years ahead. The 4th stringer that chose not to go to USC beat them on Halloween.
Monday, October 26, 2009
CSI: The Yard
It has been CSI: TheYard these last few weeks. Horatio should have been there to flip those shades up and say, “There won’t be any more fun when he gets back from the Yard”. There was very little trace evidence but a full season of baseball allegiance and an infant college football season were murdered with extreme prejudice. We had to pull the yellow tape out for this crime scene and we can only hope the CSI team can find the culprit before next season.
It all started two weekends ago on a scorching October afternoon at the Rose Bowl. UCLA was still amongst the “other receiving votes” club nationally and proud of it. The Bruins faced a resurgent Oregon team donning one of their 81 uniform combinations that Phil Knight has bequeathed them. It was a particularly ghastly ensemble.
The home team fought hard to a 3-0 half time lead. The kick off to start the second half was gloriously booted three yards deep in the Cal end zone. The play ended 103 yards later in the Bruin end zone. Ducks up 7-3. After the ensuing kickoff, UCLA’s first offensive play covered thirty seven yards beginning with a Duck interception in the flat and ending with a personal foul for excessive celebration in the Bruin end zone. Ducks 14-3. Twenty minutes of half time optimism died in the first thirty six seconds of the second half reality. The Bruin football season left some telling DNA at the crime scene on this afternoon.
In the week that followed, the Yard and the Dodgers basked in the sweep of the favored Cardinals and the fodder contained in our first high profile celebrity divorce. Then the Dodgers were bludgeoned during a Phillies home invasion robbery on Thursday night. The CSI team was already Birkenstock deep in the Bruin crime scene before Randy Wolf threw his 34th pitch in the first inning at the Ravine in Game 1 of the NLCS. The Phillies came on harder than a DEA dragnet in Broward County. Cole Hamels pitched as marginally as advertised but two three run homers beats fourteen hits and a full house most nights.
Then on another Saturday of despair, we were reluctantly called back to the Rose Bowl by the double helix of myopia and hope. Cal was coming off a bye week after two weeks and 66 points in losses. It was a battle of California State institutions fighting through the work furloughs of their coaching staffs to come up with a game plan. Tom Tedford and Rick Neuheisel each gave 10% of their salaries back to the state. We wish Cal had given back the 277 rushing yards last Saturday afternoon. We made a decision not to read about this past Saturday’s game at Arizona until we were safely shielded in the Laker basketball season opener.
John Broxton went from being a massive 100 mph country boy flame thrower to part of the discussion that includes Terry Forster and Tom Neidenfurer. These two Dodger relievers had prodigious body types, threw hard and gave up legendary post season changing home runs. Johnny B has more upside but he has had back to back years when a save changes the series. He might have been thinking about the home run 67 year old Matt Stairs hit last year when he walked him on four pitches in Game 4 this year. In the end, Stairs started a rally that ended the Dodgers hopes and our dreams.
TMZ is good. They had the Frank McCourt letter firing his wife as Dodger team president posted on their website practically before she did. Frank wrote the Jamie had become insubordinate and had acted inappropriately. The Yard has some experience in this area and insubordination and inappropriate behavior are pretty standard offerings during divorce proceedings. Jamie seemed like a load but she was Frank’s load. They were omnipresent and worked hard to become celebrity owners in a town of celebrity fans. Gradually, the team improved and so did our perception. Suddenly, what took years to achieve has been destroyed in the past week. We understand Frank firing Jamie he should have never hired her as team president.
It was a nice touch that the news broke before game one of the NLCS. Apparently, what had been known for months had to get into the LA Times prior to the first pitch. We were at that game and Jamie gabbed on her cell phone, cried on a Dodger executive shoulder and acted about as involved in the game as Paris Hilton while Frank sat stoically two rows behind her. She now wants to buyout Frank and be the owner of the Dodgers. If that happens, I have two words-Georgia Frontiere. And as TJ Simers queried, "Who gets custody of Lasorda?"
It all started two weekends ago on a scorching October afternoon at the Rose Bowl. UCLA was still amongst the “other receiving votes” club nationally and proud of it. The Bruins faced a resurgent Oregon team donning one of their 81 uniform combinations that Phil Knight has bequeathed them. It was a particularly ghastly ensemble.
The home team fought hard to a 3-0 half time lead. The kick off to start the second half was gloriously booted three yards deep in the Cal end zone. The play ended 103 yards later in the Bruin end zone. Ducks up 7-3. After the ensuing kickoff, UCLA’s first offensive play covered thirty seven yards beginning with a Duck interception in the flat and ending with a personal foul for excessive celebration in the Bruin end zone. Ducks 14-3. Twenty minutes of half time optimism died in the first thirty six seconds of the second half reality. The Bruin football season left some telling DNA at the crime scene on this afternoon.
In the week that followed, the Yard and the Dodgers basked in the sweep of the favored Cardinals and the fodder contained in our first high profile celebrity divorce. Then the Dodgers were bludgeoned during a Phillies home invasion robbery on Thursday night. The CSI team was already Birkenstock deep in the Bruin crime scene before Randy Wolf threw his 34th pitch in the first inning at the Ravine in Game 1 of the NLCS. The Phillies came on harder than a DEA dragnet in Broward County. Cole Hamels pitched as marginally as advertised but two three run homers beats fourteen hits and a full house most nights.
Then on another Saturday of despair, we were reluctantly called back to the Rose Bowl by the double helix of myopia and hope. Cal was coming off a bye week after two weeks and 66 points in losses. It was a battle of California State institutions fighting through the work furloughs of their coaching staffs to come up with a game plan. Tom Tedford and Rick Neuheisel each gave 10% of their salaries back to the state. We wish Cal had given back the 277 rushing yards last Saturday afternoon. We made a decision not to read about this past Saturday’s game at Arizona until we were safely shielded in the Laker basketball season opener.
John Broxton went from being a massive 100 mph country boy flame thrower to part of the discussion that includes Terry Forster and Tom Neidenfurer. These two Dodger relievers had prodigious body types, threw hard and gave up legendary post season changing home runs. Johnny B has more upside but he has had back to back years when a save changes the series. He might have been thinking about the home run 67 year old Matt Stairs hit last year when he walked him on four pitches in Game 4 this year. In the end, Stairs started a rally that ended the Dodgers hopes and our dreams.
TMZ is good. They had the Frank McCourt letter firing his wife as Dodger team president posted on their website practically before she did. Frank wrote the Jamie had become insubordinate and had acted inappropriately. The Yard has some experience in this area and insubordination and inappropriate behavior are pretty standard offerings during divorce proceedings. Jamie seemed like a load but she was Frank’s load. They were omnipresent and worked hard to become celebrity owners in a town of celebrity fans. Gradually, the team improved and so did our perception. Suddenly, what took years to achieve has been destroyed in the past week. We understand Frank firing Jamie he should have never hired her as team president.
It was a nice touch that the news broke before game one of the NLCS. Apparently, what had been known for months had to get into the LA Times prior to the first pitch. We were at that game and Jamie gabbed on her cell phone, cried on a Dodger executive shoulder and acted about as involved in the game as Paris Hilton while Frank sat stoically two rows behind her. She now wants to buyout Frank and be the owner of the Dodgers. If that happens, I have two words-Georgia Frontiere. And as TJ Simers queried, "Who gets custody of Lasorda?"
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