So long and good luck to Bob Ryan

Bob Ryan has decided to retire from his media home of 43 years—the Boston Globe. (His first season as a writer was Bill Russell's last as a player.) I'm not sure, but I assume Bob's also going to be separating himself from his other media affiliations.

Everyone knows that Bob's always been a basketball junkie. Yes, his expanded duties as sports editor have spread him increasingly thin over many sports, just as the greater restrictions, over time, on media access behind the scenes (especially practices) have undoubtedly diluted his ability to be so dependably incisive about the game of basketball.

But almost nothing could ever dilute the passion this native New Yorker has for the Boston Celtics. In fact, for all Boston teams. But, first and foremost, the Celtics. He's a season ticketholder of the Celtics—not just relying on his media credentials to get him into games. In the early 70s, it was not unusual to see Bob scrimmaging against Celtics players—and holding his own—after practices.

All of which makes it very sad for me to hear that one the main motivations for his retirement is that he just doesn't so thoroughly enjoy going to see the game of basketball any longer. It's not so much a function of reduced quality of the game itself (although I could empathize with him if it were). It's more about the game presentations that become events in themselves and assume we dummy fans need to be exhorted as to when to make noise when it's the game that should be the focal point. And I speculate that part of Bob's reasoning is owing to disillusionment caused by the fact that so many attendees really ARE basketball dummies who go to games mainly to see and be seen from behind panes of glass that protect them from the inconvenience of actually hearing real crowd noise while they socialize.

Anyway, I salute Bob's service to us over the years as not just a basketball junkie but as a Celtics junkie. I will always believe there can be no more constructive type of junkie to be. Thanks, Bob. Whether or not I've consistently agreed with you, I've always respected the substance and passion behind your perspectives. And thank you, especially, for your years as a Celtics beat writer when few (if any) could touch your instinctive wisdom about the game and the team.

Sam

http://www.boston.com/sports/video/?bctid=1802850544001

Sam, there is a big difference between a spectator and a fan. Now there are to many of the prior and not enough the latter.

I like you have read/ and listened dto him a lot.

Like the old Garden another institution is now gone.

beat

Beat,

Your distinction between a spectator and a fan is an important one. I'd be willing to wager that the percentage of game attendees who are fans has lost 10% per decade to the percentage who are spectators. That would yield something like:

Fifties: Off the charts, 100% fans
Sixties: 90% fans, 10% spectators
Seventies: 80% fans, 20% spectators
Eighties: 70% fans, 30% spectators
Nineties: 60% fans, 40% spectators
Zeroes: 50% fans, 50% spectators
Teens: 40% fans, 60% spectators

Whatever the true degree of shifting there has been (and a lot would depend on one's definition of a "fan" versus a "spectator"), much of it is obviously a function of corporate suites in arena—especially the newer arenas. But I also believe there's a change in the way people have learned how to follow sports and their priorities for being excited about a sport.

In a nutshell, I think increasing numbers of young people are viewing basketball for its entertainment value rather than embracing the values that loyalty and precepts of team play can impute to the sport. That evolution falls right into lock step with what I see as the waning attention spans invading newer generations of our society. And what's been happening is that the youths of yesterday are becoming the media of today.

I honestly believe that the basics of basketball make for a beautiful sport that can be as demanding as (let's say) soccer but more consistently exciting. I also feel that three rule changes would result in a reversion back in the direction that allowed the real beauty and life lessons associated with the sport to shine through. (1) Do away with the arc and make every long-distance field goal worth two points. (2) Make every dunk worth one point. (3) Allow a player to enter free agency only after he has earned the right by having spent eight full seasons or 560 regular season games (whichever is lower) in the NBA.

Then we would really see how great the game can be if the focus is toward execution and away from entertainment. We would see beauty born of enhanced chemistry. Young people would be more attuned to the merits of loyalty.

I realize that none of these directions would stand the slightest change of being adopted. But one thing I've learned in 75 years is that nobody on earth can stop me from dreaming whatever I wish.

Sam

I grew up in NY a Knick fan: Willis Reed, Dave Debusschere, Clyde and Earl the Pearl. I moved to Boston after graduating college (SUNY Albany) in 1976 and got a job in the Ellis Island of Boston, Allston-Brighton. My company had season tickets to every sports team and, when customers didn't want them, offered them to the peons in the accounting dept.

The 76 & 77 seasons were the Sidney Wicks/Curtis Rowe years, with Hondo's motor finally running down and Cowen's ankles turning into a couple of beanbags. Nobody wanted to watch that so I got to go to a lot of games. The corporate seats were at mid-court, first row balcony, right behind the press box. Specifically right behind the Boston Globe's seat. It was a pleasure to be able to peek over Bob Ryan's shoulders and read what was going to be in the paper the next day. I have always enjoyed his writing. He made the game come alive like Johnny did.


bob



.

Sam, Bob

Even I am not as rabid a fan as I was in an earlier lifetime. No less a fan but perhaps a bit more so shall we say... subdued.

I remember yelling and screaming at the TV, now even it the tight games not as much (cept for 08 perhaps)

As for rule changes.

I have no issue with the ones you propose. I'd just like to see the basic palming and travel called as it is written but like yours (suggestions) that will never happen either.

I'd like to see the actual court widened by a couple feet. Perhaps even add a foot under the basket along the baseline. I think most arenas have the space to accomplish this. Players have gotten bigger and a bit more room is certainly warranted. Yeah so have football players....ect.

The skill of the passing game might be better if players could run a little wider going up and down the floor.

beat

Beat,

Good idea about expanding the floor in keeping with the size and certain elements of athleticism that have evolved.

My suggestions were mainly in keeping with the aspects of the game that have led to my own reduced enthusiasm for the NBA "product." Thank goodness I still maintain a passion for the Celtics. Win or lose, I believe they still come closest of any team to honoring the way the game was meant to be played.

Even in speeding up the game to a level Dr. Naismith might never have dreamed of, the Celts did so without bending rules such as traveling or palming the ball. They were on the cutting edge of heralding the flop, but I'm willing to give them a pass for that one misstep (no pun intended).

Sam

Bob,

Ryan and Most were two members of the media I felt had great analytical strengths. Johnny might even have been the more amazing of the two because most of his comments involved "shots from the hip" during game action.

John had this habit of looking at the game from two perspectives simultaneously. He did a great job of keeping up with the play-by-play on a medium that didn't supplement his comments with visuals. But, in addition, he was keenly aware of trends in the game, and his analyses frequently provided contexts for certain upcoming plays or moves. Some examples (which I have admittedly concocted):

"The game of the (insert opponent here) is to pester Bob Cousy. They want to distract Rapid Robert, and he's getting banged around pretty badly.. It's becoming a game of roughness. And Jim Loscutoff reports to the scorer's table."

Or

"Russ is in foul trouble, and Satch is expending all his energy trying to guard the much bigger Jim Krebs. The Celtics are basically operating without a pivot man. Now here comes K.C. Jones for Ramsey, and it looks like Cooz is going to play the pivot."

Johnny's analyses were more intuitive, whereas Ryan's analyses were more considered and in-depth. In Ryan's early years, it was usually futile to question his thoughts because they so frequently turned out to be right on the money: trades, playing styles, chemistry, player burnout, whatever.

It would have been interesting to have seen Ryan cover the team when Red coached them. I'm absolutely certain that, every time Ryan predicted an Auerbachian move, Red would have done something else just to spite Bob. I can almost hear Red saying, "You can't become predictable. The other fellas read the sports pages too."

Until the late 1980s, I always tried to attend as many games as possible (and the same for practices until the late 1970s). Seeing the action live meant you could search, search, search for every minute detail that transpired out there without any interference from television commercials or the camera's penchant for focusing on irrelevancies.

I wanted to know if a certain opponent was drinking more water than usual...which specific floor action triggered conversation between teammates who were sitting together...which player might be trying to hide an injury...what substitution patterns Red was favoring in various game situations (in the great majority of instances when the Celtics were in trouble, Satch was inserted into the game, which quickly became a defensive contest that usually favored the Celtics)...when Red was trying to get tossed vs. trying to get the ref to feel he owed the Celtics one. (On that last one, the clue I looked for was whether Red simply screamed non-stop at the referee or also made gestures toward the playing floor. Screaming exclusively usually meant Red wanted to be tossed as quickly as possible, perhaps so his athletes wouldn't cool off. Gestures suggested Red was trying to reason with the ref and gain enough of an edge with his logic so that the ref would give the Celtics the benefit of the doubt on the next 50/50 play.

That kind of scrutiny was instilled in me by Johnny Most and later reinforced by Bob Ryan. Above anything else, a primary lesson they taught me might be considered a corollary to a law of physics: For virtually every event on the floor or bench—apparently trivial or not—there is an implication for the game. And the challenge for the fan is to learn, by trial and error, how to match events and implications.

This rambling discourse explains my fascination with the rhythms, nuances, ebbs and flows, strategies, chemistry, and myriad other intangibles that permeate pro basketball and have made it so vibrantly alive for me. And, in large part, I have Johnny Most and Bob Ryan to thank.

Sam

I read Ryan if I wanted an entertaining read and wanted to come away with a feel for how the game flowed. When I watched the game his column always agreed and supported what I felt I saw. I feel like a lot of the higher level feel I've developed over the years (decades) came from his engaging and informing style of writing. When I graduated from college I knew how to write reports. Dry, boring but factually accurate reports. I learned a lot about how to combine supportable opinions with a style that didn't put everybody except university graduate TAs to sleep from Bob Ryan since I read his column religiously.

I used to turn on the TV, turned off the sound and turn Johnny on and felt like I landed on another planet. The game he was calling was nothing at all like the game I was watching, but God Almighty it was entertaining. Did I learn anything about basketball from listening to Johnny? No, in fact I had to try hard to inject my own analysis into the game, but it was Johnny, not Ryan, that turned me into a Celtics fanatic. Ryan made me appreciate and understand the artistry of what I was watching and mold me into a better writer. Johnny turned my blood permanently green.

It takes all kinds to make Celtic Planet to go around.

bob

.

Johnny Most....

"McFilthly and McNasty"

"he's fiddleing and diddleing.."

"stop and pop..........BANG"



Listened intently on the AM radio dial for years 103 WBZ still remember the phone number that they use to advertise a call in show 254-5678.

Then I actually got to meet him in the press room in Buffalo before a game when I was in College (1975-76) Let's just say that he was wonderful to chat with him for 10-15 minutes. He had about 10 of those ciggarettes he called minutes, cause thats about the time it took fo him to smoke one.

After a game I rememeber staying long after others had left we had our college radio station press passes and had gone in the locker rooms. Finally after almost all had left I remember seeing Red, Tommy, and John walking side by side to the exit to head to the ???? Hotel Airport??? whatever. I wish at that moment I had a camera as they walked away in a dimly lit hallway. 3 silouettes of guys that were Celtics and as green as they came. One tall guy sided by a couple shorties, about to head out into the winter chill on a frosty Buffalo eve.

beat

Bob,

I thought Johnny very faithfully reported what I watched on television (although I still preferred going to the games). If anything, I believe he anticipated things a bit. In fact, he was so in synch with the action that he'd frequently have to interrupt himself.

Perhaps the most obvious example of what I mean was Johnny's commentary that we've all heard scores of times. "All right now. Greer puts the ball into play. He gets it out deep (interruption of himself) and Havlicek steals it! Over to Sam Jones.......etc., etc., etc." Most play-by-play announcers I've heard would simply have reported the entire sequence with something like, "Now there's a steal by Havlicek." They wouldn't even have mentioned the leadup because they tended to be a bit behind the action. It gave them what I'd call a "safety cushion" so they wouldn't have to inconvenience themselves by interrupting themselves if a given event went awry. Johnny reported the action instantly and with reckless abandon. The fact that he'd sometimes have to reverse himself never undermined his passion for conveying the action instantly.

Since I scored most of the games I listened to, starting a number of years before Russell joined the team (I still have the scorecards), another thing I appreciated about Johnny was that he never sacrificed details despite his machine gun-like delivery. He'd say something like, "They're calling it on Satch, and that's number four...and four on the team as well." And then, only after he had moved on, you could hear the p.a. announcer say, "Boston foul on Sanders. That's four fouls on Sanders and the fourth foul in the quarter on Boston."

When you're scoring games (especially with the aid of a flashlight under the covers), you appreciate that kind of immediate detail. I bet Beat could relate to that since he's so precise in gathering stats on Marcus' games.

Come to think of it, Bob Ryan was a bit of a gatling gun himself in his broadcast gigs.

Sam

sam wrote:Bob,

I thought Johnny very faithfully reported what I watched on television (although I still preferred going to the games). If anything, I believe he anticipated things a bit. In fact, he was so in synch with the action that he'd frequently have to interrupt himself.

Perhaps the most obvious example of what I mean was Johnny's commentary that we've all heard scores of times. "All right now. Greer puts the ball into play. He gets it out deep (interruption of himself) and Havlicek steals it! Over to Sam Jones.......etc., etc., etc." Most play-by-play announcers I've heard would simply have reported the entire sequence with something like, "Now there's a steal by Havlicek." They wouldn't even have mentioned the leadup because they tended to be a bit behind the action. It gave them what I'd call a "safety cushion" so they wouldn't have to inconvenience themselves by interrupting themselves if a given event went awry. Johnny reported the action instantly and with reckless abandon. The fact that he'd sometimes have to reverse himself never undermined his passion for conveying the action instantly.

Since I scored most of the games I listened to, starting a number of years before Russell joined the team (I still have the scorecards), another thing I appreciated about Johnny was that he never sacrificed details despite his machine gun-like delivery. He'd say something like, "They're calling it on Satch, and that's number four...and four on the team as well." And then, only after he had moved on, you could hear the p.a. announcer say, "Boston foul on Sanders. That's four fouls on Sanders and the fourth foul in the quarter on Boston."

When you're scoring games (especially with the aid of a flashlight under the covers), you appreciate that kind of immediate detail. I bet Beat could relate to that since he's so precise in gathering stats on Marcus' games.

Come to think of it, Bob Ryan was a bit of a gatling gun himself in his broadcast gigs.

Sam

sam,

When I said that the game I watched was nothing like the one Johnny was calling I was referring to his staggering level of bias. The Titanic had less tilt than Johnny. If somebody put a body on Bird to try and push him off his spot Johnny would start shouting about how "Bird was getting mugged". The same play, with McHale on defense, and it was good, strong defense. One time I was watching the Sixers play the Celtics and had Johnny doing the play-by-play. During a stretch Billy Cunningham, then coaching the Sixers, was arguing with the refs about the foul calls. They all do it, it's practically in their job description. Johnny would mention it as it happened, nothing getting past him, and then, finally, he just snapped. He started screaming into the mike, with that voice that sounded like 10 miles of gravel road, "AND THERE GOES BILLY CUNNINGHAM AGAIN! CRYING LIKE A BABY TO THE REFS! (his voice now goes up another 20 decibels) I WISH HE'D JUST SHUT UP!!"

The ultimate homie.

bob


.

Bob

I remember he (Johnny Most) referred to that screaming voice as his "dog whistle" voice in that only dogs could hear it.

beat

Bob,

I guess one man's bias is another man's passion. Johnny was employed by the Celtics; he traveled with the Celtics; he was broadcasting Celtics games back when the Celts desperately needed public support.

In his passionate loyalty to the Celtics. I always felt he was doing what came naturally. That same sense of passion was what fueled a technically excellent play-by-play performance. Other play-by-play announcers (possibly ALL others) were less "biased." For my money, they were less effective play-by-play announcers too. If John hadn't been prone to "going over the top" occasionally, the same degree of passion simply wouldn't have existed, and his play-by-play performance would have suffered accordingly.

I also think his diminutive stature could have had something to do with his loyalty and his bombastic style. Imagine him going through life, through a war, as the shortest guy around. And then coming upon an opportunity to make some serious noise (figuratively and literally). I would imagine his gratitude over the opportunity would have easily translated to loyalty; and some of his stentorian delivery could have been his answer to an earlier life spent largely in the shadows.

Who knows?

Sam

The Globe has had so many great sports writers over the years, it is hard to replace the good ones. Will McDonough, Peter Gammons, Jackie Mac, and, I will choke on this, Dan Shaunessey. But Ryan was the one I read the most. I bought the paper daily, hoping there would be something in there about the Celtics, even in the off season. They just don't make them like that any more. Everything is email, twitter, facebook, whatever else they use. I don't blame Bob for retiring and taking some time to smell the roses while he is young enough to enjoy life. He has been opinionated, resourceful, entertaining, and, most of all, a true fan of the game of basketball.

As far as Johnny Most is concerned, I am glad to have lived through the era of his reign as the Voice of the Celtics. He taught me basketball. I used to lie in bed with a small transistor radio, listening to him describe the play from beginning to end. I envisioned it all in my mind. Long before televised games, there was Johnny Most. What better way to fall in love with a team than to listen to his "unbiased" version of what was going on. He made us laugh, he made us cry, but he always was true to the Celtics.

Life at the Globe is alot different now, I don't blame Bob for getting out. Time to live life.

Rosalie

Great memories, huh Rosalie? And my parents used to wonder why I often had to take a nap when I got home from school—but only between October and April. Not only was Johnny a great "teacher" but also the game was relatively basic and easy to grasp in those days. Red used just a few plays. The weave was something we were taught in junior high gym class. Without a load of complexity, there was great opportunity to ferret out and and grapple with the intangibles and nuances of the game.

The arch enemies in the really early days were the Knicks of Clifton, Simmons, Gallatin, Boryla, Braun, Vandeweghe, and the McGuire Brothers. They were always a bit better than the Celtics, and it was frustrating to think that was going to be the Celtics' lot as long as I lived. I got the occasional thrill when Cooz dribbled out the clock in the last minute or so to protect a one point lead. The quadruple overtime playoff win over Syracuse still ranks among the most exciting sports events I've ever been exposed to. But a championship somehow seemed like a pipe dream in those days.

But nonetheless, the Celtics had indelibly become my team and Cooz was my guy. And then, in 1957, my mental highlight reel morphed from black and white to color (like in the Wizard of Oz), and an also ran though likable aggregation evolved into nirvana.

Why do I hear "Life could be a dream, Shaboom" playing in the background?

Sam

Some added perspective on Bob Ryan's "retirement." He's actually resigning from full-time chores. He'll be periodically contributing Sunday columns in the Globe and accepting free-lance opportunities.

I was very interested in his assessment of the directions in which sports media reporting is headed.

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2012/08/31/bob-ryan-talks-retirement-on-toucher-rich/

Sam