OT: Best pickup games vs CBB/Pro athlete stories...

[Col. Bleep]

Any Carmen Basilio stories?

I've got one.

I was doing a radio call-in show in Syracuse with Carmen and Pat Nappi...coach of the tremendous 1976 Olympic boxing team (Ray Leonard, the Spinks brothers).

The show is percolating. The guests are great. We're getting wall to wall good phone calls.

Then the guy in charge of the show insists that I end with a lengthy taped feature piece about hockey. Hockey!??!
When we've got a world's champ who beat Sugar Ray Robinson and a guy who coached some of the greatest ever.
I tried to talk him out of it during breaks.
But no dice.
So I thank Carmen and Pat and go to the hockey story.

As soon as the tape hits the air, Carmen gets out of his chair, walks out of the studio door and heads to the control room saying, "Where is that guy?"
He walks in to the control room and starts slapping around the executive producer (playfully...I think).
I would have joined him but I had to wrap the show.
Wound up wasting about ten minutes of what could have been productive air time.
One of the worst decisions ever in the history of sports broadcasting.

Although I unintentionally may have surpassed him in bad decision making.
I was working in NYC producing the Mets 1986 World Series victory parade.
All communication with people along the parade route broke down.
So, I had to guess when to go to different people.
And every time I decided to go to a different person along the parade route... Mookie Wilson was going by.
So, for anyone watching our station it became just the Mookie Wilson victory parade.

 

[DoctorBombay]

I was working in NYC producing the Mets 1986 World Series victory parade.
All communication with people along the parade route broke down.
So, I had to guess when to go to different people.
And every time I decided to go to a different person along the parade route... Mookie Wilson was going by.
So, for anyone watching our station it became just the Mookie Wilson victory parade.

So that was you?!?! Why, I oughta….

(From a rabid Gary Carter fan…who was there!)

 

[Millhouse]

I was in a dunk contest against Kenny Smith at a camp one year...of course I lost

I played many games or horse at Manley late night with Marius Janulis...basically he would hit shots from 30+ feet out and laugh at me trying to match him. Great dude...

Played a few late night pick-up games against some assistant coaches at the time, including the new women's coach Felicia Legette-Jack. Yes, she made me look foolish more than once

It wasn't a game but your mutombo sorry is excellent

 

[AlaskaSU]

Not a game story. My wife was one of 2 white employees at the HoneyPot, the upscale black LA nightclub where the Lakers held court. She was MatreDe and knew them all and their spouses. Got to sit courtside at Lakers games. Helped Shaq shop for his house near Hollywood. Recalls him dancing with the little woman that became his wife. She danced on a table while Shaq danced on the floor with her. She also had Bob Marley fall in love with her, "his green eyed Rastafarian", but that is another story going back to London, Jamaica and Island Records.
One day Meadowlark Lemon walks in. She looked up at him and says, " my...are you big all over? He gives a big smile and says, "yes Mam".

 

[Jake]

Back in the early 90s I played with the WSYR Hi 5s.(and later with the TV3 3-pointers) We played charity games to raise $ for local community groups. (Some of us) took the games way too seriously.

One game the host team shows up with Stevie Thompson playing for them. Stevie scores about 40 dunking on everyone.

End of the game and we’re up 2 with a few seconds on the clock. Stevie gets the ball and we foul him. He misses one and we end up winning.

He. Was. Not. Amused.

 

[LAOrange]

1972-3 School year - playing a pick-up game in Archbold Gym. Chris Sease joins the other team. We didn't know who he was at the time. He was a freshman and had to sit out the season. Anyway, he switched onto me out on the perimeter and I hooked a twenty footer over his head. I winked at him. I didn't get another shot off and he scored about 150 points off of me. When they won, he winked at me.