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Bob Cousy and the Wonderfully Primitive Days of Professional Basketball."
by Sam Sat Sep 15, 2012 3:18 pm
Following is an article about Bob Cousy that I shocked myself by successfully googling. It's from the March 1, 1955, issue of Sport Magazine, and it was written by one of Boston's great writers on baseball, basketball and hockey—Al Hirshberg. (Among many other books he authored was "Feat Strikes Out," the story of Jimmy Piersall that was made into a very successful movie.)
I've described, on the "Friends and (roster) foes" thread, how I've been seeking a copy of the article for nearly six decades, and I'm very proud to be sharing it with the board. If any single piece describes what the Celtics and pro basketball represented to me and how inspired I was by the Celtics (and The Cooz in particular) in the pre-Russell years, this is it.
Sam
http://www.thesportgallery.com/blog/sport-articles/around-the-circuit-with-the-wizard-of-pro-basketball-bob-cousy/
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1953 Mar1 Around the Circuit with the Wizard of Pro Basketball: Bob Cousy Roommate: By Al Hirshberg
FOR the swing around the western half of the league, the Boston Celtics had chartered a Northeast Airlines DC‑3 which, complete with crew and flight agent, would carry us on the whole trip, from Boston to Rochester to Minneapolis to Milwaukee to St. Louis to Fort Wayne and back to Boston. I arrived at Logan Airport in East Boston with a few minutes to spare and hurried aboard the plane. There was a single row of seats on the right and a double row on the left, and everyone seemed pretty well settled when I arrived. Bob Cousy was in the front single seat, busily shuffling a deck of cards. Bill Sharman was directly across the aisle from him, and Johnny Most, who broadcasts the Celtics’ games on radio, was on the window seat next to Sharman. Fred Scolari sat right behind Cousy, with Ed Crowley, the radio engineer, and sportswriter Larry Claflin of the Boston American opposite him. The six of them were deep in a card ,game before the engines had begun warming up.
I was curious to know what they were playing but I couldn’t see; another card game was blocking my view. This one numbered Ed Macauley, Red Auerbach, the coach, Bob Brannum and Dwight (Red) Morrison. Sitting on aisle seats opposite each other, they had constructed a card table out of a blanket spread across the aisle and hooked on the arm rests of each of the four seats. They were playing bridge.
Further back in the plane, I sat down next to Jack Barry of the Boston Globe and said, conversationally, “I’d like to sit and talk to Cousy for a while.”
“You might as well forget about talking to him until we get to Rochester,” he said.
«Why?»
“Because he won’t get up off that seat and neither will those guys playing bridge.”
“What’s Cousy playing?”
“Oh, hell,” Barry said.
“What’s the matter?” I asked him.
“Not a thing,” he said cheerfully. “Why?”
“Why’d you say `Oh, hell’?”
“Because that’s the name of the game.”
“Oh,” I said, relieved. “How do you play it?”
“Hanged if I know,” Barry said. “You’ll have to ask Cousy.”
We took off at 10:45 and Cousy lit a cigar the moment the “No Smoking” sign went off. I passed the time talking to Barry and to the non‑card‑playing Celtics, Togo Palazzi, Frank Ramsey, Don Barksdale and Jack Nichols. Joan Barrett, the pretty, blue‑eyed stewardess, came by from time to time with cookies and coffee. Once in a while she handed cartons of milk to Cousy and Sharman, who would surely drink up all the profits if they were dairy farmers. The trip to Rochester took about two hours and 15 minutes and they must have guzzled a quart and a half apiece.
It was bitter cold at the Rochester airport, but the boys in the “Oh, hell” game were in no hurry to get into the terminal. Instead, they crowded around Cousy as he stood beside the plane, working with a pencil over a complicated chart of figures on a sheet of paper. Finally, Cousy announced the results. With nothing at stake, I was already retiring to the warmth of the airport building.
“How did you come out?” I asked Cousy, as he came in.
“Lost a half a buck.”
“Anybody lose more?”
“Not much. Nobody ever loses more than a buck or so at this game.”
“And you guys stood around and froze to settle fifty‑cent accounts?”
Cousy shrugged. “I’d rather die from freezing than from worrying,” he said.
Since we weren’t staying overnight in Rochester, those of us who were supernumeraries left our luggage on the plane. Only the players carried their grips into town. In the lobby of the Hotel Seneca, Auerbach said, “Mind if your career as Cousy’s roommate doesn’t start until we get to Minneapolis? The boys will only be here for the afternoon.”
Cousy’s regular roommate is Sharman. The two were standing in the lobby, staring at a 1955 model automobile on display.
“Reminds me of a Christmas tree,” Cousy said.
“I’ll bite,” I said. “Why does an automobile remind you of a Christmas tree?”
“Because I can’t figure out how they got the car in here and how they’ll get it out again.”
“What’s that got to do with a Christmas tree?”
“Because I can’t figure out how they’d get a Christmas tree in and out of here either,” he said.
“What are you going to do this afternoon?”
“I’m undecided whether to sack out or go to the movies. I might even eat.”
He ended up eating‑about a side of beef, two glasses of milk and a huge plate of ice cream. By the time he got through, it was after three o’clock. Then, with Sharman and Palazzi, he went to the movies. After that, he had a quick sandwich and some more milk, then headed for the Arena.
The Rochester Arena is a big, barn‑like building, with tiers of seats rising from the floor on both sides of the basketball court. There is a reverberating echo in the place, and the name that bounced around it most was Cousy. Everyone was either cheering or jeering him, but apparently impervious to the crowd reactions, he played a solid, stead game. The Royals won, 107‑101 Cousy, with five field goals and 1successful foul conversions, had 2 points, a good night’s total.
“Those noises bother you?” asked him later.
“I’d be out of business if them did,” he said.
“Some of the riding was pretty rough.”
“They paid their money. They had a right to say anything they felt like.”
“Some guys resent it,” I rot marked.
“Any professional athlete who resents anything a paying customer says ought to have his head examined,” Cousy said.
We ate at a diner near the airport, with Cousy packing away two sandwiches, a huge piece of pie and two glasses of milk. As we walked to the plane for a midnight takeoff, he asked, “You going to play `Oh, hell’?”
“Don’t know how,” I told him.
“Want to learn?”
“Sure,” I said.
We got back into the plane, and I took the front window seat. Cousy was beside me and Sharman sat in the single seat across the aisle. Crowley sat in one of the seats behind us, with Houbregs, who had met us at the airport, in the other. When the game began, I figured we’d play for an hour or so and then call it a night, but I was living in a fool’s paradise. Hour after hour, the boys kept dealing, and by 3 a.m. I was ready to throw in the towel.
“Look,” I asked, “how long are you guys going to play?”
“Until we get to Minneapolis,” Cousy said blandly.
“Until when?”
“No sense breaking up the game right in the middle, as long as we’ve got players.”
“Don’t you intend to get any sleep?”
“You one of these guys who sleeps his life away?” he needled me. “Come on, now, don’t be a spoilsport.”
So I played “Oh, hell” all night.
Well, not exactly all night. We stopped in Milwaukee at 4:30 in the morning to fuel up, and had sandwiches and coffee (milk for Cousy and Sharman) while we were waiting. On the way back to the plane, we bought chocolate‑covered ice cream sticks out of a slot machine and ate them as we walked toward our DC‑3. When we got aboard, we found Crowley and Houbregs asleep, and the game had to be rearranged. Scolari sat in the seat behind Sharman, and he played for an hour or so. When he wilted, Brannum moved in. By the time we reached Minneapolis at 6 a.m., Cousy, Sharman, Brannum and I were staggering through the last hand. I lost $2.70.
“I thought you said nobody ever loses more than a buck at this game,” I remarked.
“Never in my entire career,” Cousy said earnestly, “have I run into as lousy an `Oh, hell’ player as you.”
“I’ll learn.”
“You’d better. There are only eight people in the whole world who know how to play it and they’re all on this trip.”
“Oh, hell” is not a difficult game to learn, as I found out later when,refreshed from a whole three hours of sleep, I could think fairly straight. Depending upon the number of players in the game, eight or ten cards are dealt on the first hand, and a card is turned up as trump. Each player announces how many tricks he expects to take, and the cards are then played out as in bridge. Players who take exactly as many tricks as they predicted get a 15‑point bonus; otherwise, only as many points as they take tricks. In each succeeding hand, one less card is dealt, and the game ends on the one‑card deal.
I played the game practically every single minute we were airborne and I never did learn how to keep score. Furthermore, Cousy, Sharman and Scolari weren’t too sure of themselves. Even Cousy and Sharman who, for all I know, might have invented “Oh, hell,” were half‑way into the next game before they had figured out the results of the last one.
Minneapolis was cold, colder than Rochester. Between a long delay waiting for luggage and a long ride in from the airport, we couldn’t check into the Hotel Nicollet until about 7:30‑an hour and a half after we landed. Just before we got into the elevator to go to our room, Auerbach said, “Leave a call in time to meet at 12:30.” Cousy just looked at him and nodded. I shuddered.
We rode up without a word, then headed for our room. The only sound that came from either of us was Cousy’s grunted “Long halls I hate ‘em” as we struggled with grips which suddenly had become as heavy as lead. Once in the room, Cousy left a call for noon. The two of us took off our clothes and flopped into bed without even opening our suitcases. It was nearly eight o’clock.
The next thing I knew, Cousy was wheezing, from the depths of his blankets, “What time is it?”
I looked at my watch and wheezed back, “11:30.”
He got up, jumped out of bed, took his toilet kit from his suitcase, rushed into the bathroom and started shaving. Ten minutes later, he poked his head out and barked, “What time did you say it was?”
“11:30.”
“What did you wake me up for?”
“I didn’t wake you up. You woke me up,” I said.
“The hell I did! I messed myself out of half an hour’s sleep. Well, I’ll get it now.” And he flopped back into bed again.
Fifteen minutes later, the operator rang with our noon call, which we had both forgotten. With murder in my heart but sugar on my tongue, I thanked her, then got up.
At 12:15, I woke Cousy, and a quarter of an hour later, we were on our way downstairs to meet the rest for the ride to the game.
“Do you do this sort of thing often?” I asked him.
“This,” he said, “is practically routine.”
“How do you feel?”
“Terrible.”
“Then how can you play?”
By this time, we were getting off the elevator in the lobby. Cousy turned to me and said, “I can play all right. What worries me is how 1 can eat. It’s too soon before the game to have a big meal.”
“But the game doesn’t worry you?”
“Oh, I’ll have trouble trying to score. I always do in this town.”
“Why?” I asked him.
“On account of Slater Martin. That little guy is the greatest guard in the league. He sticks to me like court plaster. Whenever I play him, I’m glad to settle for ten points.”
“And the way you feel now‑?”
“I’ll settle for five,” Cousy said.
He had a light breakfast‑orange juice, toast and milk‑and we headed for the Armory at about 1:15 for a 2:30 game. Everyone looked tired, although some of the boys had slept fairly well on the plane. Neither Cousy nor Sharman, who had sat up all night, appeared to be ready to play a basketball game, and, with the Lakers in their own hometown, this one figured to be a slaughter.
But Minneapolis was lucky to win. Once the game got under way, the Celtics got their second wind, and they put up a real battle before losing, 115‑108. The Lakers didn’t clinch the issue until the last two minutes of play. It was the second time in a row that the Celtics had scored over 100 points in a losing cause.
Cousy, a hard loser, was grim and silent for an hour or so after the game. He had hit for 21 points, with five baskets from the floor and 11 foul shots, in spite of the fact that he had neither eaten nor slept well. Yet he was very unhappy.
Later, I said to him, “You didn’t really expect to win, did you?”
“Well, I never go into a game expecting to lose.”
“I know, but look what you guys had been through. And you certainly scored more than five points off Martin.”
He smiled, then said, “Y’know something? That’s the best day I’ve ever had against him.”
We had dinner a couple of hours later, and Cousy, as usual, demolished a tremendous slab of roast beef. Sharman and Palazzi, who were rooming together, joined us, along with Ed Crowley. At about 6:30, we went to the movies. When we came out, it was nine o’clock.
I yawned and said, “Well, guess it’s time to go to bed.”
“Bed‑at nine o’clock? You crazy?” Cousy said.
“Have you got any better ideas?”
“Sure. There’s another movie across the street.”
That was too much. I watched the boys buy their tickets and go into the show, then I picked up some newspapers and went back to the hotel. Playing cards all night on an airplane was all right. So was going to one movie. But two movies in one night was more than I could take.
“You must be daffy about the movies,” I said to Bob when we got up Monday morning.
“Once in a while, you see a real good one. Mostly, I just go to pass away the time.”
“Do you ever see the same show twice?”
“That I won’t do,” Cousy said. “But I can always find a show somewhere I haven’t seen before.”
“What time did you get in?”
“About 1:30. We had something to eat after the show.”
“Aren’t you tired?”
“Sort of,” he said. “But there’s no sense in my going to bed early. . just toss around half the night and then get up exhausted.”
The phone rang, and Cousy, after talking for a few minutes, hung up and said, “That was one of my campers. He apologized for not coming to the game.”
Bob is part owner of Camp Graylag in Pittsfield, New Hampshire. He has 100 boys, ranging in age from eight to 16, and they come from all over the East and Midwest. Last year, he ran a post‑season basketball clinic and it was so successful that he plans to make it a permanent fixture. The clinic lasted ten days and drew 100 boys, some from as far away as the West Coast.
“Basketball is the greatest game in the world,” he said, “and I’ll do anything I can to sell the game. Now, take our league. We’ve still got a few kinks to iron out, but we’re getting there. I’d like to see teams in cities like Chicago and Detroit, and I think we’ll have them some day. The new rules have worked great. They’ve made for a faster, better, more exciting game than ever.”
He was referring to the 24‑second rule, which makes it necessary for a team to take a shot at the basket within 24 seconds after getting possession of the ball, and the six‑foul rule, which gives an extra penalty shot for every foul over six in a given period.
“Before the new rule, the last quarter could be deadly in a pressure game,” he said. “The team in front would hold the ball indefinitely, and the only way you could get it was by fouling somebody. In the meantime, nobody dared take a shot and the whole game was slowed up. Of course, the new game is tougher on the ballplayers, and I’m trying to work something out to protect them.”
Cousy has spent considerable time in the last two years forming a players’ association, similar to the group operating among professional baseball players.
“The players have as much at stake as the owners,” he said. “If the league weakens or folds, it will cost a lot of guys their living. I think we should have more to say about how the league is run.”
“What would you want done?” I asked.
“Well, we’ve kidded around a lot about this trip, for example, but it’s really a killer. Just imagine playing in Rochester one night and in Minneapolis the next afternoon! Today’s our only day off this trip Milwaukee tomorrow night, St. Louis Wednesday night, Fort Wayne Thursday night! And we’re not the only ones. That sort of thing happens to everyone in the league. We’ve got to work something out that makes more sense.
“And there should be some kind of a minimum salary, and better incentives. We don’t even have a Most Valuable Player award, or an award for the highest scorer or anything like that. The boys should be given more to shoot for than just those post‑season playoff bonuses.
“I’d like to see a good minor league developed,” he said. “The way it is now, there’s no place for a boy to go if he’s dropped from an NBA squad. There are only a few independent teams and no real league. Some of the younger fellows need nothing more than experience, but where can they get it? Instead of taking a chance on struggling back into the NBA some day, most of the promising kids quit the game altogether if they don’t make the big league on their first try.
“I don’t know what the solutions are, but I want to do something to help find them. We’re all college men and we’ve got normal intelligence. There’s no reason why we can’t be consulted for ideas. That’s one of the big reasons why we’re forming this association.”
On the way to the airport‑we were scheduled for a 1: 30 p.m. takeoff for Milwaukee‑I said, “How come you didn’t drop dead during the game yesterday afternoon?”
“It really wasn’t so bad.”
“But didn’t you ever feel so tired you thought you’d have to call it a day?”
“Well,” he said, “there are always times when I feel that way. I can run up and down the floor twice at constant top speed without getting tired, but when I have to do it a third time; it really gets me.”
“That’s right,” said Sharman, who was in the taxi with us. “You run the ball down, lose it at the other end and then run back, all without stopping, and you’re all right. But if you steal it at your end and have to move back down again without breaking your stride, it’s murder. As a matter of fact, it’s easier on the Cooz than on any of us.”
Cousy is not a robust‑looking athlete. On the contrary, with his long, thin face and his sloping shoulders, he looks actually frail. And ..t six feet two inches, he is a great deal shorter than the average professional basketball player.
“Where does all the stamina come from?” I asked.
“My legs,” Cousy answered. “They’re my strongest asset. The bulk of my weight is below my waist. I look about 160, but I weigh around 185. Nobody ever believes that until they see me standing on the scales.”
“This guy can run forever,” Sharman said.
“I grew up playing basketball on concrete outdoor courts on Long Island,” Cousy pointed out. “I never played indoors as a kid. I built up my legs on those hard courts, and when it came time to play on wooden floors, it was that much easier for me.”
We took off from Minneapolis at 1:45 p.m. and landed in Milwaukee an hour and three‑quarters later. During that brief time, Cousy, Sharman, Scolari and Houbregs officiated while I dropped six dollars at. “Oh, hell.”
“If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it possible,” said Scolari.
“Don’t let him get away, boys,” Cousy added. “This is his only trip.”
At the desk of the Hotel Wisconsin, Auerbach said, “You’ve got two roommates instead of one this time. Sharman’s going in with you.”
As soon as we had checked in, Cousy and Sharman went to the Milwaukee Auditorium, where the Hawks were working out, to visit Chuck Cooper, who had roomed with Cousy when he was with the Celtics. The two are close friends. Cousy had once refused to stay in a Raleigh, North Carolina, hotel because it wouldn’t accept Cooper, a Negro.
I didn’t see Cousy until four or five hours later when he and Sharman walked into a movie palace around the corner from the hotel. The theater was advertising a triple bill, so I knew it would be a long evening. It was. The boys got out at one o’clock in the morning, and by the time they had eaten and gone to bed, it was after two.
When we got up the next morning‑Tuesday‑I asked them why, on the one day they had off, they didn’t take advantage of the chance to get to bed early.
“Because it throws our schedule all out of kilter,” Cousy said. “We play most of our games at night, so we gear our lives accordingly. We eat a big meal at around three in the afternoon, then take in a movie or loaf around the room and go to the arena an hour or so before the game. Then we eat again after it’s over and get to bed at 1:30 or 2:00 in the morning. On our days off, we do the same thing, because we don’t have enough days off to shift to a more normal routine.”
“You know how baseball players hate to go from day games to night games and back again,” Sharman pointed out. “Well, we’re the same way, except we play more nights than ballplayers do. The worst thing for us is a day game, because that messes everything up.”
Sharman is an authority on the subject of baseball players. He is still an outfielder in the Brooklyn Dodgers’ chain. He didn’t play in 1954, but he’s toying with the idea of returning to baseball this year.
The boys had a big breakfast at about 10:30 Tuesday morning, and then went to the movies. They ate again in the middle of the afternoon, then rested for an hour or so. That ended their longest free period of the trip.
The game Tuesday night was played in the Milwaukee Auditorium, and it marked the Hawks’ debut of Frank Selvy who, like Houbregs, was a refugee from the Baltimore Bullets. The rookie star from Furman got a big buildup locally, and a good crowd showed up for a well‑publicized CousySelvy duel.
The fans were on Cousy all night, but, as usual, he showed no signs of being annoyed. One leather‑lunged observer kept yelling, “Cousy, you’re a bum! Cousy, you’re a bum!”
But Cousy was no bum that night. On the contrary, both he and Selvy built up impressive point totals. When Cousy scored his 34th point late in the game to set a new Milwaukee record, his heckler yelled, “Don’t that bum ever miss?” A minute later Selvy, who had 33 points himself, racked up two more, and Cousy’s tormentor was back in business. As the game ended, the walls were jumping again with the raucous, “Cousy, you’re a bum!” But Cousy was all smiles as he ran off the floor. The Celtics, hitting the hundred mark for the third straight game, won a 118‑99 victory.
Cousy was bubbling and grinning and swapping wisecracks when I walked into the locker room ten minutes later.
“Now everything’s fine,” he said. “We finally won one.”
“Did you hear that guy yelling at you?” I asked.
“You mean the fog‑horn? There’s one like that in every town. ‘Long as they pay their way in, they don’t bother me any.”
Later about ten of us sat down for a “snack.” Cousy’s consisted of a full‑course dinner, complete from soup to nuts and featuring a thick, juicy steak. It was exactly midnight when he started cutting into it.
“Hey, Red, what time do we meet tomorrow morning?” he asked.
“Nine o’clock, in the lobby,” Auerbach replied. “It’s two and a half hours to St. Louis and I don’t want to get there too late.”
Cousy turned to me. “How about a card game back in the room?”
“You mean tonight?” I said.
“Sure.”
“But we won’t get started until about half past one.”
“That’ll be all right.”
“How long do you want to play?”
“Well,” Cousy said, “we have to be out of here by nine. We can’t play any longer than that.”
So we played cards‑but not until nine in the morning. That would have been all right with Cousy and Sharman, but the rest of the boys broke it up at four. Grateful for small mercies, I was happy to settle for four hours’ sleep in the pungent atmosphere of drying uniforms. Both Cousy’s and Sharman’s were draped along the radiators.
“How come I never noticed this fragrance before?” I asked, as I struggled out of bed Wednesday morning.
“Very simple,” Cousy explained. “I didn’t have time to hang my suit up after the Rochester game, and by the time we got into the room Sunday night at Minneapolis, it was all dry. We had an afternoon game there‑remember?”
“I wish they were all afternoon games,” I muttered.
It was snowing hard when we took off from Milwaukee, and we found out later that we ran away from a blizzard. We got off the ground at about 10:30 a.m., and landed in St. Louis two and a half hours later. On this trip, Johnny Most, the radio announcer, helped Cousy, Sharman, Scolari and Houbregs relieve me of $3.75.
“A game of pennies, and the guy loses in dollars,” said Most. “Where have I been? You been keeping him to yourself?”
“Don’t worry,” Cousy told him. “We’ve got time for a couple more sessions. Don’t worry, you’ll get your share.”
Scolari, the elder statesman of the ball club, rode with Cousy, Sharman and me into St. Louis from the airport.
“How old are you really, Freddie?” Cousy asked him.
“I’m 32. I’ll be 33 in March.”
“You’ve been 32 for years. You were playing in this league before I was in high school.”
“This is my ninth year. I started when I was 23,” said Scolari, haughtily.
“That’s your story. Hey, Willie,” Cousy said, turning to Sharman, “how many ages have you got?”
“Three,” said Sharman. “One for baseball, one for basketball and one for when I first got into Southern California.”
“Which is the right one?” Cousy asked him.
“I don’t remember which is which. Anyhow, I’m 26.”
“Twenty‑six?” roared Scolari. “Why, you’ve got a daughter in high school!”
“That’s my kid sister,” said Sharman.
“How old do you claim you are, Cousy?” Scolari demanded.
“I’m 26.”
“And I’m Childe Harold. Why don’t you guys be like me and tell the truth?”
The game at the spacious new St. Louis Arena was scheduled for 9:30 Wednesday night. Sharman roomed with us again, and after we checked into the Hotel Melbourne, he and Cousy had their big dinner and then went off to the inevitable movie.
The Hawks, who came in from Milwaukee by train, arrived early hardly neutral crowd was on hand for what turned out to be an easy game for the Celts. St. Louis is Ed Macauley’s hometown, and as far as the Celtics were concerned, the game might just as well have been played in Boston.
Cousy had another great night. Besides piling up 31 points to lead both clubs, he put on a bewildering show of dribbling behind his back, scoring from odd angles and looking in one direction while passing the ball in another. He banged in 12 baskets from the floor and, as usual, played practically the whole game.
The Celtics won their second in a row, and, for the fourth straight time, scored over 100 points. The score was 101‑90, thanks not only to Cousy’s hot streak but also to Macauley’s 28 points and a magnificent job of defending against Selvy on the part of Sharman. The Hawks’ rookie, who had finished up with 44 points the night before in Milwaukee, was held to 15 points.
It was Cousy’s game all the way, but he was particularly brilliant in the last period. The Celtics had a seven‑point lead going into it, and Cousy made some unbelievable shots as he racked up five field goals. When the lead had increased to 16, he dug into his bag of tricks and delighted the crowd with his passing, shooting and dribbling.
“The guy’s the greatest,” said Auerbach, after the game. “There isn’t anyone in the business who can come close to him. He’s had 65 points in two nights. And when he gets a chance to put on a show the way he did tonight, he’s in a class by himself.”
“Why don’t you do that sort of thing more often?” I asked Cousy, later.
“The only time I can do it is when we’ve got a safe lead,” he said, “and in this league, that doesn’t happen very often. I can’t fiddle around out there just for the sake of fiddling around. My job is to help win ball games. When a stunt will help me out of a jam, I’ll use one. Otherwise, I have to play it straight.
“That behind‑the‑back dribble which seems to attract a lot of attention was originally a desperation measure. I picked that one up while I was at Holy Cross. We played Loyola one night, and the only way I could get around a guy was by shifting the ball from one hand to the other. He had me so well guarded that I couldn’t do it in front, so I did it behind my back.
“As a matter of fact,” Cousy added, “I’m not the only guy who can do that. I’ve seen others work it, and I imagine everyone on a club like the Harlem Globetrotters can do it as a gag. I guess maybe I’m the only one who does it consistently, and as a strategic measure during a regular game.”
“Do you mind being called a basketball magician?”
“Hell, no. It suits me fine. If people want to think of me as a magician, that’s wonderful, just so long as they don’t think of me only as a magician. I’m a professional basketball player, and I have to be a lot more than a so‑called magician in order to be a successful one.”
Cousy, as a matter of fact, is almost as proud of his defensive ability as of his passing, shooting and legerdemain. When he first joined the Celtics five years ago, he had some defensive weaknesses. They since have been ironed out, and he is now a comparatively stingy opponent.
“Of course, I’m not the best in the business,” he said. “Nobody on our club is a defensive genius. If we were as good on defense as on offense, we’d be unbeatable. We’re the highest scoring team in the NBA, but we lose a lot of ball games because opponents score heavily on us. But the game we play is wide open, and I’m sure the customers like it better that way.”
The usual midnight “bite” was another steak. At about 12:30, I went back to the room for what I hoped would be a night’s sleep. We had to meet in the lobby at nine o’clock the next morning for the flight to Fort Wayne, where the Celtics were winding up the trip Thursday night. I left a call for 8:30, read the papers for a while and put out the light at one o’clock.
It didn’t stay out long. Just as I was dropping off to sleep, the door burst open and in trooped Cousy, Sharman, Houbregs and Ramsey.
“Come on, come on, get up!” yelled Cousy. “This is no time to be sleeping.”
“Ga‑a‑a‑” I grunted.
“Half‑past one and you’re in bed? Where do you think you are ‑in a hospital?”
“I will be by the time you guys get through with me.”
I struggled up to a sitting position, while the boys dragged a table and some chairs over by my bed. Cousy took a deck of cards out of his pocket and started shuffling. Before he began dealing, he said, “We’re going to play buck‑up.”
“Buck‑up?”
“You know the game?” asked Cousy.
“Never heard of it.”
“Well, Ramsey never heard of `Oh, hell,’ and he’s too young to teach.”
Buck‑up is a fast, three‑card game which we played for a fast two hours. At 3:30, when Ramsey and Houbregs finally left the room, I collapsed.
“Look at that crumb, Willie,” I heard Cousy say. “He died on us.”
“Better it should happen to you,” I snarled from under the pillow.
“You going to bed, Willie?” he asked Sharman.
“I guess so,” was the reply. “There doesn’t seem to be anything else to do.”
“Well, I’m not tired,” said Cousy. “I’m going to read a while.”
Cousy and I were the last ones out of the hotel the next morning. Sharman was up and dressed before either of us had set our feet on the floor.
“What time did you get to sleep?” I asked.
“About 4:30, I guess,” Cousy yawned.
“Did you read all that time?”
“Sure.”
“What did you do that for?”
“Good book,” he said.
Palazzi was waiting for us on the sidewalk. The youngster started to get into the back seat, but Cousy said, “Why don’t you sit in front, Toge? It’s more comfortable.”
Cousy and I climbed in back and, when the taxi started rolling towards the airport, Cousy said, casually, “Say, Toge, did you notice that sign on the dashboard?”
When Palazzi shook his head, Cousy told him to read it aloud.
“The right front is the most dangerous seat in the car,” Palazzi read, slowly. “Please do not sit here unless all other seats are taken.”
Cousy killed himself laughing. He was still chuckling when we arrived at the airport. Palazzi climbed out of the cab looking like a man who had just sat in an electric chair with the power off.
It was exactly 10:30 when we took off from St. Louis, and, with a one‑hour change back to Eastern Standard Time, we got into Fort Wayne at 1:45 p.m. During the two and a quarter hours, I lost only $1.25.
“You’re getting there,” said Cousy.
“In another week you’ll be playing us even,” Sharman added.
I lost my roommates at the Van Orman Hotel. Since we were leaving right after the game to fly back t‑o Boston, there was no purpose in my checking in. Besides, I couldn’t be with Cousy anyhow, since several of his campers live in Fort Wayne and he would be busy until it was time to go to the Coliseum, which, incidentally, is the most beautiful arena on the NBA circuit. We arrived there during the early stages of a game between Milwaukee and Minneapolis, since the Celtics‑Pistons contest was the windup of a doubleheader.
In most league cities, Cousy receives phone calls from boys who attend his summer camp located in Pittsfield5 N. H.
With no Sharman to guard him, Selvy had a field day against the Lakers. He scored 42 points, setting a new Coliseum record, and the first to congratulate him after he left the floor was Cousy.
“That boy’s great,” Cousy said, later. “He’ll be good for a long time, too. He’s only a kid, fresh out of college.”
The game at Fort Wayne started as if it would be a cinch for the Celtics. At the end of the first quarter, they had a 28‑21 lead, but they slipped in the second and held only a one‑point advantage at half‑time. It was 71‑71 at the three‑quarter mark and then the roof fell in on the Celtics. The Pistons scored 45 points in the last session and piled up a 116‑98 decision. It was the only game on the whole trip in which the Celtics failed to score 100 points.
After the first period, when he scored four times from the floor, Cousy was held to one basket. He was glum and uncommunicative when the game ended, but hamburgers and milk at the airport helped bring back his normal good humor. He didn’t even get mad when I asked, “What makes a bad night?”
“Maybe you‑maybe the other team‑it all depends,” he answered.
“Well‑like tonight.”
“I guess it was a combination of the two. We were hot at first, and then we cooled off. And the Pistons are in a terrific streak. A good club going well is the hardest combination in the world to beat.” ‘
“You started out as if you were going to have another big night.”
“It looked that way, didn’t it?” he nodded. “But I went cold. Those shots that rolled in when we played at Milwaukee and St. Louis just dropped out here.”
“Do you keep track of your baskets during a game?”
He shook his head. “I don’t even try,” he said. “If I only get a few, I don’t want to know the total and if I get a lot, I can’t add them up.”
We were sitting at the airport, waiting for the writers, who were still filing their stories from the Coliseum. Someone griped about the delay, and Cousy quickly turned on him.
“Never squawk when writers are working,” he said. “If you’re lucky, they might be writing about you.”
“They might be beating my brains out, too,” the other man remarked.
“I’d rather have them beat my brains out than not mention me at all,” Cousy said.
“There are athletes who don’t have much use for writers,” I commented.
“I feel sorry for them. They don’t realize how much help writers can give them. I don’t know where we’d be without the writers. Basketball is over 50 years old, but the game never really caught on until the writers began telling the world about it.”
lie leaned forward. “Y’know,” he said, slowly, “there are some people who think they’re more important than anyone else just because they have some God‑given talent‑maybe they’re athletes, maybe artists, maybe stage or screen people, maybe even writers. But I’ll tell you this, no matter how big a person is, there’s never an excuse for his having a big head.”
We got off the ground at 1: 15 in the morning, with two stops before Boston ahead of us. We were hitting Washington to refuel and landing in Worcester to drop Cousy off.
“They always do that for you?” I asked him, as we sat down for the last “Oh, hell” game.
“What do you want ‘em to do, drop me off by parachute?”
“That wouldn’t be so bad?” Scolari commented.
“Deal the cards, Gramps,” Cousy said, “and try not to look at them while you’re doing it.”
The game lasted all night. At about 3:30 a.m., the plane began pitching and tossing. Joanie, the stewardess, walked by and Cousy asked, “Is this Washington or bad weather?”
“Washington,” she told him.
We were there nearly an hour. Back in the plane, we picked up the game again, and kept going until we started coming down in Worcester. Just as the wheels touched, Sharman, who was keeping score, was ready with the results.
“How did I do this time?” I asked.
“You won a quarter,” he said.
We were on the field now, rolling toward the main building. Cousy stood up, bowed deeply and said, “Congratulations. I never thought you’d do it.”
He walked up the aisle toward the door. When he got there, he turned and yelled something that sounded like, “Don’t think it hasn’t been swell, buddy, because it hasn’t!” I can’t be sure. I was practically asleep.
I slept all the way to Boston‑the whole 30 minutes. It’s lucky Cousy wasn’t there to see me. He’d have thought I was an awful sissy.
I've described, on the "Friends and (roster) foes" thread, how I've been seeking a copy of the article for nearly six decades, and I'm very proud to be sharing it with the board. If any single piece describes what the Celtics and pro basketball represented to me and how inspired I was by the Celtics (and The Cooz in particular) in the pre-Russell years, this is it.
Sam
http://www.thesportgallery.com/blog/sport-articles/around-the-circuit-with-the-wizard-of-pro-basketball-bob-cousy/
***************
1953 Mar1 Around the Circuit with the Wizard of Pro Basketball: Bob Cousy Roommate: By Al Hirshberg
FOR the swing around the western half of the league, the Boston Celtics had chartered a Northeast Airlines DC‑3 which, complete with crew and flight agent, would carry us on the whole trip, from Boston to Rochester to Minneapolis to Milwaukee to St. Louis to Fort Wayne and back to Boston. I arrived at Logan Airport in East Boston with a few minutes to spare and hurried aboard the plane. There was a single row of seats on the right and a double row on the left, and everyone seemed pretty well settled when I arrived. Bob Cousy was in the front single seat, busily shuffling a deck of cards. Bill Sharman was directly across the aisle from him, and Johnny Most, who broadcasts the Celtics’ games on radio, was on the window seat next to Sharman. Fred Scolari sat right behind Cousy, with Ed Crowley, the radio engineer, and sportswriter Larry Claflin of the Boston American opposite him. The six of them were deep in a card ,game before the engines had begun warming up.
I was curious to know what they were playing but I couldn’t see; another card game was blocking my view. This one numbered Ed Macauley, Red Auerbach, the coach, Bob Brannum and Dwight (Red) Morrison. Sitting on aisle seats opposite each other, they had constructed a card table out of a blanket spread across the aisle and hooked on the arm rests of each of the four seats. They were playing bridge.
Further back in the plane, I sat down next to Jack Barry of the Boston Globe and said, conversationally, “I’d like to sit and talk to Cousy for a while.”
“You might as well forget about talking to him until we get to Rochester,” he said.
«Why?»
“Because he won’t get up off that seat and neither will those guys playing bridge.”
“What’s Cousy playing?”
“Oh, hell,” Barry said.
“What’s the matter?” I asked him.
“Not a thing,” he said cheerfully. “Why?”
“Why’d you say `Oh, hell’?”
“Because that’s the name of the game.”
“Oh,” I said, relieved. “How do you play it?”
“Hanged if I know,” Barry said. “You’ll have to ask Cousy.”
We took off at 10:45 and Cousy lit a cigar the moment the “No Smoking” sign went off. I passed the time talking to Barry and to the non‑card‑playing Celtics, Togo Palazzi, Frank Ramsey, Don Barksdale and Jack Nichols. Joan Barrett, the pretty, blue‑eyed stewardess, came by from time to time with cookies and coffee. Once in a while she handed cartons of milk to Cousy and Sharman, who would surely drink up all the profits if they were dairy farmers. The trip to Rochester took about two hours and 15 minutes and they must have guzzled a quart and a half apiece.
It was bitter cold at the Rochester airport, but the boys in the “Oh, hell” game were in no hurry to get into the terminal. Instead, they crowded around Cousy as he stood beside the plane, working with a pencil over a complicated chart of figures on a sheet of paper. Finally, Cousy announced the results. With nothing at stake, I was already retiring to the warmth of the airport building.
“How did you come out?” I asked Cousy, as he came in.
“Lost a half a buck.”
“Anybody lose more?”
“Not much. Nobody ever loses more than a buck or so at this game.”
“And you guys stood around and froze to settle fifty‑cent accounts?”
Cousy shrugged. “I’d rather die from freezing than from worrying,” he said.
Since we weren’t staying overnight in Rochester, those of us who were supernumeraries left our luggage on the plane. Only the players carried their grips into town. In the lobby of the Hotel Seneca, Auerbach said, “Mind if your career as Cousy’s roommate doesn’t start until we get to Minneapolis? The boys will only be here for the afternoon.”
Cousy’s regular roommate is Sharman. The two were standing in the lobby, staring at a 1955 model automobile on display.
“Reminds me of a Christmas tree,” Cousy said.
“I’ll bite,” I said. “Why does an automobile remind you of a Christmas tree?”
“Because I can’t figure out how they got the car in here and how they’ll get it out again.”
“What’s that got to do with a Christmas tree?”
“Because I can’t figure out how they’d get a Christmas tree in and out of here either,” he said.
“What are you going to do this afternoon?”
“I’m undecided whether to sack out or go to the movies. I might even eat.”
He ended up eating‑about a side of beef, two glasses of milk and a huge plate of ice cream. By the time he got through, it was after three o’clock. Then, with Sharman and Palazzi, he went to the movies. After that, he had a quick sandwich and some more milk, then headed for the Arena.
The Rochester Arena is a big, barn‑like building, with tiers of seats rising from the floor on both sides of the basketball court. There is a reverberating echo in the place, and the name that bounced around it most was Cousy. Everyone was either cheering or jeering him, but apparently impervious to the crowd reactions, he played a solid, stead game. The Royals won, 107‑101 Cousy, with five field goals and 1successful foul conversions, had 2 points, a good night’s total.
“Those noises bother you?” asked him later.
“I’d be out of business if them did,” he said.
“Some of the riding was pretty rough.”
“They paid their money. They had a right to say anything they felt like.”
“Some guys resent it,” I rot marked.
“Any professional athlete who resents anything a paying customer says ought to have his head examined,” Cousy said.
We ate at a diner near the airport, with Cousy packing away two sandwiches, a huge piece of pie and two glasses of milk. As we walked to the plane for a midnight takeoff, he asked, “You going to play `Oh, hell’?”
“Don’t know how,” I told him.
“Want to learn?”
“Sure,” I said.
We got back into the plane, and I took the front window seat. Cousy was beside me and Sharman sat in the single seat across the aisle. Crowley sat in one of the seats behind us, with Houbregs, who had met us at the airport, in the other. When the game began, I figured we’d play for an hour or so and then call it a night, but I was living in a fool’s paradise. Hour after hour, the boys kept dealing, and by 3 a.m. I was ready to throw in the towel.
“Look,” I asked, “how long are you guys going to play?”
“Until we get to Minneapolis,” Cousy said blandly.
“Until when?”
“No sense breaking up the game right in the middle, as long as we’ve got players.”
“Don’t you intend to get any sleep?”
“You one of these guys who sleeps his life away?” he needled me. “Come on, now, don’t be a spoilsport.”
So I played “Oh, hell” all night.
Well, not exactly all night. We stopped in Milwaukee at 4:30 in the morning to fuel up, and had sandwiches and coffee (milk for Cousy and Sharman) while we were waiting. On the way back to the plane, we bought chocolate‑covered ice cream sticks out of a slot machine and ate them as we walked toward our DC‑3. When we got aboard, we found Crowley and Houbregs asleep, and the game had to be rearranged. Scolari sat in the seat behind Sharman, and he played for an hour or so. When he wilted, Brannum moved in. By the time we reached Minneapolis at 6 a.m., Cousy, Sharman, Brannum and I were staggering through the last hand. I lost $2.70.
“I thought you said nobody ever loses more than a buck at this game,” I remarked.
“Never in my entire career,” Cousy said earnestly, “have I run into as lousy an `Oh, hell’ player as you.”
“I’ll learn.”
“You’d better. There are only eight people in the whole world who know how to play it and they’re all on this trip.”
“Oh, hell” is not a difficult game to learn, as I found out later when,refreshed from a whole three hours of sleep, I could think fairly straight. Depending upon the number of players in the game, eight or ten cards are dealt on the first hand, and a card is turned up as trump. Each player announces how many tricks he expects to take, and the cards are then played out as in bridge. Players who take exactly as many tricks as they predicted get a 15‑point bonus; otherwise, only as many points as they take tricks. In each succeeding hand, one less card is dealt, and the game ends on the one‑card deal.
I played the game practically every single minute we were airborne and I never did learn how to keep score. Furthermore, Cousy, Sharman and Scolari weren’t too sure of themselves. Even Cousy and Sharman who, for all I know, might have invented “Oh, hell,” were half‑way into the next game before they had figured out the results of the last one.
Minneapolis was cold, colder than Rochester. Between a long delay waiting for luggage and a long ride in from the airport, we couldn’t check into the Hotel Nicollet until about 7:30‑an hour and a half after we landed. Just before we got into the elevator to go to our room, Auerbach said, “Leave a call in time to meet at 12:30.” Cousy just looked at him and nodded. I shuddered.
We rode up without a word, then headed for our room. The only sound that came from either of us was Cousy’s grunted “Long halls I hate ‘em” as we struggled with grips which suddenly had become as heavy as lead. Once in the room, Cousy left a call for noon. The two of us took off our clothes and flopped into bed without even opening our suitcases. It was nearly eight o’clock.
The next thing I knew, Cousy was wheezing, from the depths of his blankets, “What time is it?”
I looked at my watch and wheezed back, “11:30.”
He got up, jumped out of bed, took his toilet kit from his suitcase, rushed into the bathroom and started shaving. Ten minutes later, he poked his head out and barked, “What time did you say it was?”
“11:30.”
“What did you wake me up for?”
“I didn’t wake you up. You woke me up,” I said.
“The hell I did! I messed myself out of half an hour’s sleep. Well, I’ll get it now.” And he flopped back into bed again.
Fifteen minutes later, the operator rang with our noon call, which we had both forgotten. With murder in my heart but sugar on my tongue, I thanked her, then got up.
At 12:15, I woke Cousy, and a quarter of an hour later, we were on our way downstairs to meet the rest for the ride to the game.
“Do you do this sort of thing often?” I asked him.
“This,” he said, “is practically routine.”
“How do you feel?”
“Terrible.”
“Then how can you play?”
By this time, we were getting off the elevator in the lobby. Cousy turned to me and said, “I can play all right. What worries me is how 1 can eat. It’s too soon before the game to have a big meal.”
“But the game doesn’t worry you?”
“Oh, I’ll have trouble trying to score. I always do in this town.”
“Why?” I asked him.
“On account of Slater Martin. That little guy is the greatest guard in the league. He sticks to me like court plaster. Whenever I play him, I’m glad to settle for ten points.”
“And the way you feel now‑?”
“I’ll settle for five,” Cousy said.
He had a light breakfast‑orange juice, toast and milk‑and we headed for the Armory at about 1:15 for a 2:30 game. Everyone looked tired, although some of the boys had slept fairly well on the plane. Neither Cousy nor Sharman, who had sat up all night, appeared to be ready to play a basketball game, and, with the Lakers in their own hometown, this one figured to be a slaughter.
But Minneapolis was lucky to win. Once the game got under way, the Celtics got their second wind, and they put up a real battle before losing, 115‑108. The Lakers didn’t clinch the issue until the last two minutes of play. It was the second time in a row that the Celtics had scored over 100 points in a losing cause.
Cousy, a hard loser, was grim and silent for an hour or so after the game. He had hit for 21 points, with five baskets from the floor and 11 foul shots, in spite of the fact that he had neither eaten nor slept well. Yet he was very unhappy.
Later, I said to him, “You didn’t really expect to win, did you?”
“Well, I never go into a game expecting to lose.”
“I know, but look what you guys had been through. And you certainly scored more than five points off Martin.”
He smiled, then said, “Y’know something? That’s the best day I’ve ever had against him.”
We had dinner a couple of hours later, and Cousy, as usual, demolished a tremendous slab of roast beef. Sharman and Palazzi, who were rooming together, joined us, along with Ed Crowley. At about 6:30, we went to the movies. When we came out, it was nine o’clock.
I yawned and said, “Well, guess it’s time to go to bed.”
“Bed‑at nine o’clock? You crazy?” Cousy said.
“Have you got any better ideas?”
“Sure. There’s another movie across the street.”
That was too much. I watched the boys buy their tickets and go into the show, then I picked up some newspapers and went back to the hotel. Playing cards all night on an airplane was all right. So was going to one movie. But two movies in one night was more than I could take.
“You must be daffy about the movies,” I said to Bob when we got up Monday morning.
“Once in a while, you see a real good one. Mostly, I just go to pass away the time.”
“Do you ever see the same show twice?”
“That I won’t do,” Cousy said. “But I can always find a show somewhere I haven’t seen before.”
“What time did you get in?”
“About 1:30. We had something to eat after the show.”
“Aren’t you tired?”
“Sort of,” he said. “But there’s no sense in my going to bed early. . just toss around half the night and then get up exhausted.”
The phone rang, and Cousy, after talking for a few minutes, hung up and said, “That was one of my campers. He apologized for not coming to the game.”
Bob is part owner of Camp Graylag in Pittsfield, New Hampshire. He has 100 boys, ranging in age from eight to 16, and they come from all over the East and Midwest. Last year, he ran a post‑season basketball clinic and it was so successful that he plans to make it a permanent fixture. The clinic lasted ten days and drew 100 boys, some from as far away as the West Coast.
“Basketball is the greatest game in the world,” he said, “and I’ll do anything I can to sell the game. Now, take our league. We’ve still got a few kinks to iron out, but we’re getting there. I’d like to see teams in cities like Chicago and Detroit, and I think we’ll have them some day. The new rules have worked great. They’ve made for a faster, better, more exciting game than ever.”
He was referring to the 24‑second rule, which makes it necessary for a team to take a shot at the basket within 24 seconds after getting possession of the ball, and the six‑foul rule, which gives an extra penalty shot for every foul over six in a given period.
“Before the new rule, the last quarter could be deadly in a pressure game,” he said. “The team in front would hold the ball indefinitely, and the only way you could get it was by fouling somebody. In the meantime, nobody dared take a shot and the whole game was slowed up. Of course, the new game is tougher on the ballplayers, and I’m trying to work something out to protect them.”
Cousy has spent considerable time in the last two years forming a players’ association, similar to the group operating among professional baseball players.
“The players have as much at stake as the owners,” he said. “If the league weakens or folds, it will cost a lot of guys their living. I think we should have more to say about how the league is run.”
“What would you want done?” I asked.
“Well, we’ve kidded around a lot about this trip, for example, but it’s really a killer. Just imagine playing in Rochester one night and in Minneapolis the next afternoon! Today’s our only day off this trip Milwaukee tomorrow night, St. Louis Wednesday night, Fort Wayne Thursday night! And we’re not the only ones. That sort of thing happens to everyone in the league. We’ve got to work something out that makes more sense.
“And there should be some kind of a minimum salary, and better incentives. We don’t even have a Most Valuable Player award, or an award for the highest scorer or anything like that. The boys should be given more to shoot for than just those post‑season playoff bonuses.
“I’d like to see a good minor league developed,” he said. “The way it is now, there’s no place for a boy to go if he’s dropped from an NBA squad. There are only a few independent teams and no real league. Some of the younger fellows need nothing more than experience, but where can they get it? Instead of taking a chance on struggling back into the NBA some day, most of the promising kids quit the game altogether if they don’t make the big league on their first try.
“I don’t know what the solutions are, but I want to do something to help find them. We’re all college men and we’ve got normal intelligence. There’s no reason why we can’t be consulted for ideas. That’s one of the big reasons why we’re forming this association.”
On the way to the airport‑we were scheduled for a 1: 30 p.m. takeoff for Milwaukee‑I said, “How come you didn’t drop dead during the game yesterday afternoon?”
“It really wasn’t so bad.”
“But didn’t you ever feel so tired you thought you’d have to call it a day?”
“Well,” he said, “there are always times when I feel that way. I can run up and down the floor twice at constant top speed without getting tired, but when I have to do it a third time; it really gets me.”
“That’s right,” said Sharman, who was in the taxi with us. “You run the ball down, lose it at the other end and then run back, all without stopping, and you’re all right. But if you steal it at your end and have to move back down again without breaking your stride, it’s murder. As a matter of fact, it’s easier on the Cooz than on any of us.”
Cousy is not a robust‑looking athlete. On the contrary, with his long, thin face and his sloping shoulders, he looks actually frail. And ..t six feet two inches, he is a great deal shorter than the average professional basketball player.
“Where does all the stamina come from?” I asked.
“My legs,” Cousy answered. “They’re my strongest asset. The bulk of my weight is below my waist. I look about 160, but I weigh around 185. Nobody ever believes that until they see me standing on the scales.”
“This guy can run forever,” Sharman said.
“I grew up playing basketball on concrete outdoor courts on Long Island,” Cousy pointed out. “I never played indoors as a kid. I built up my legs on those hard courts, and when it came time to play on wooden floors, it was that much easier for me.”
We took off from Minneapolis at 1:45 p.m. and landed in Milwaukee an hour and three‑quarters later. During that brief time, Cousy, Sharman, Scolari and Houbregs officiated while I dropped six dollars at. “Oh, hell.”
“If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it possible,” said Scolari.
“Don’t let him get away, boys,” Cousy added. “This is his only trip.”
At the desk of the Hotel Wisconsin, Auerbach said, “You’ve got two roommates instead of one this time. Sharman’s going in with you.”
As soon as we had checked in, Cousy and Sharman went to the Milwaukee Auditorium, where the Hawks were working out, to visit Chuck Cooper, who had roomed with Cousy when he was with the Celtics. The two are close friends. Cousy had once refused to stay in a Raleigh, North Carolina, hotel because it wouldn’t accept Cooper, a Negro.
I didn’t see Cousy until four or five hours later when he and Sharman walked into a movie palace around the corner from the hotel. The theater was advertising a triple bill, so I knew it would be a long evening. It was. The boys got out at one o’clock in the morning, and by the time they had eaten and gone to bed, it was after two.
When we got up the next morning‑Tuesday‑I asked them why, on the one day they had off, they didn’t take advantage of the chance to get to bed early.
“Because it throws our schedule all out of kilter,” Cousy said. “We play most of our games at night, so we gear our lives accordingly. We eat a big meal at around three in the afternoon, then take in a movie or loaf around the room and go to the arena an hour or so before the game. Then we eat again after it’s over and get to bed at 1:30 or 2:00 in the morning. On our days off, we do the same thing, because we don’t have enough days off to shift to a more normal routine.”
“You know how baseball players hate to go from day games to night games and back again,” Sharman pointed out. “Well, we’re the same way, except we play more nights than ballplayers do. The worst thing for us is a day game, because that messes everything up.”
Sharman is an authority on the subject of baseball players. He is still an outfielder in the Brooklyn Dodgers’ chain. He didn’t play in 1954, but he’s toying with the idea of returning to baseball this year.
The boys had a big breakfast at about 10:30 Tuesday morning, and then went to the movies. They ate again in the middle of the afternoon, then rested for an hour or so. That ended their longest free period of the trip.
The game Tuesday night was played in the Milwaukee Auditorium, and it marked the Hawks’ debut of Frank Selvy who, like Houbregs, was a refugee from the Baltimore Bullets. The rookie star from Furman got a big buildup locally, and a good crowd showed up for a well‑publicized CousySelvy duel.
The fans were on Cousy all night, but, as usual, he showed no signs of being annoyed. One leather‑lunged observer kept yelling, “Cousy, you’re a bum! Cousy, you’re a bum!”
But Cousy was no bum that night. On the contrary, both he and Selvy built up impressive point totals. When Cousy scored his 34th point late in the game to set a new Milwaukee record, his heckler yelled, “Don’t that bum ever miss?” A minute later Selvy, who had 33 points himself, racked up two more, and Cousy’s tormentor was back in business. As the game ended, the walls were jumping again with the raucous, “Cousy, you’re a bum!” But Cousy was all smiles as he ran off the floor. The Celtics, hitting the hundred mark for the third straight game, won a 118‑99 victory.
Cousy was bubbling and grinning and swapping wisecracks when I walked into the locker room ten minutes later.
“Now everything’s fine,” he said. “We finally won one.”
“Did you hear that guy yelling at you?” I asked.
“You mean the fog‑horn? There’s one like that in every town. ‘Long as they pay their way in, they don’t bother me any.”
Later about ten of us sat down for a “snack.” Cousy’s consisted of a full‑course dinner, complete from soup to nuts and featuring a thick, juicy steak. It was exactly midnight when he started cutting into it.
“Hey, Red, what time do we meet tomorrow morning?” he asked.
“Nine o’clock, in the lobby,” Auerbach replied. “It’s two and a half hours to St. Louis and I don’t want to get there too late.”
Cousy turned to me. “How about a card game back in the room?”
“You mean tonight?” I said.
“Sure.”
“But we won’t get started until about half past one.”
“That’ll be all right.”
“How long do you want to play?”
“Well,” Cousy said, “we have to be out of here by nine. We can’t play any longer than that.”
So we played cards‑but not until nine in the morning. That would have been all right with Cousy and Sharman, but the rest of the boys broke it up at four. Grateful for small mercies, I was happy to settle for four hours’ sleep in the pungent atmosphere of drying uniforms. Both Cousy’s and Sharman’s were draped along the radiators.
“How come I never noticed this fragrance before?” I asked, as I struggled out of bed Wednesday morning.
“Very simple,” Cousy explained. “I didn’t have time to hang my suit up after the Rochester game, and by the time we got into the room Sunday night at Minneapolis, it was all dry. We had an afternoon game there‑remember?”
“I wish they were all afternoon games,” I muttered.
It was snowing hard when we took off from Milwaukee, and we found out later that we ran away from a blizzard. We got off the ground at about 10:30 a.m., and landed in St. Louis two and a half hours later. On this trip, Johnny Most, the radio announcer, helped Cousy, Sharman, Scolari and Houbregs relieve me of $3.75.
“A game of pennies, and the guy loses in dollars,” said Most. “Where have I been? You been keeping him to yourself?”
“Don’t worry,” Cousy told him. “We’ve got time for a couple more sessions. Don’t worry, you’ll get your share.”
Scolari, the elder statesman of the ball club, rode with Cousy, Sharman and me into St. Louis from the airport.
“How old are you really, Freddie?” Cousy asked him.
“I’m 32. I’ll be 33 in March.”
“You’ve been 32 for years. You were playing in this league before I was in high school.”
“This is my ninth year. I started when I was 23,” said Scolari, haughtily.
“That’s your story. Hey, Willie,” Cousy said, turning to Sharman, “how many ages have you got?”
“Three,” said Sharman. “One for baseball, one for basketball and one for when I first got into Southern California.”
“Which is the right one?” Cousy asked him.
“I don’t remember which is which. Anyhow, I’m 26.”
“Twenty‑six?” roared Scolari. “Why, you’ve got a daughter in high school!”
“That’s my kid sister,” said Sharman.
“How old do you claim you are, Cousy?” Scolari demanded.
“I’m 26.”
“And I’m Childe Harold. Why don’t you guys be like me and tell the truth?”
The game at the spacious new St. Louis Arena was scheduled for 9:30 Wednesday night. Sharman roomed with us again, and after we checked into the Hotel Melbourne, he and Cousy had their big dinner and then went off to the inevitable movie.
The Hawks, who came in from Milwaukee by train, arrived early hardly neutral crowd was on hand for what turned out to be an easy game for the Celts. St. Louis is Ed Macauley’s hometown, and as far as the Celtics were concerned, the game might just as well have been played in Boston.
Cousy had another great night. Besides piling up 31 points to lead both clubs, he put on a bewildering show of dribbling behind his back, scoring from odd angles and looking in one direction while passing the ball in another. He banged in 12 baskets from the floor and, as usual, played practically the whole game.
The Celtics won their second in a row, and, for the fourth straight time, scored over 100 points. The score was 101‑90, thanks not only to Cousy’s hot streak but also to Macauley’s 28 points and a magnificent job of defending against Selvy on the part of Sharman. The Hawks’ rookie, who had finished up with 44 points the night before in Milwaukee, was held to 15 points.
It was Cousy’s game all the way, but he was particularly brilliant in the last period. The Celtics had a seven‑point lead going into it, and Cousy made some unbelievable shots as he racked up five field goals. When the lead had increased to 16, he dug into his bag of tricks and delighted the crowd with his passing, shooting and dribbling.
“The guy’s the greatest,” said Auerbach, after the game. “There isn’t anyone in the business who can come close to him. He’s had 65 points in two nights. And when he gets a chance to put on a show the way he did tonight, he’s in a class by himself.”
“Why don’t you do that sort of thing more often?” I asked Cousy, later.
“The only time I can do it is when we’ve got a safe lead,” he said, “and in this league, that doesn’t happen very often. I can’t fiddle around out there just for the sake of fiddling around. My job is to help win ball games. When a stunt will help me out of a jam, I’ll use one. Otherwise, I have to play it straight.
“That behind‑the‑back dribble which seems to attract a lot of attention was originally a desperation measure. I picked that one up while I was at Holy Cross. We played Loyola one night, and the only way I could get around a guy was by shifting the ball from one hand to the other. He had me so well guarded that I couldn’t do it in front, so I did it behind my back.
“As a matter of fact,” Cousy added, “I’m not the only guy who can do that. I’ve seen others work it, and I imagine everyone on a club like the Harlem Globetrotters can do it as a gag. I guess maybe I’m the only one who does it consistently, and as a strategic measure during a regular game.”
“Do you mind being called a basketball magician?”
“Hell, no. It suits me fine. If people want to think of me as a magician, that’s wonderful, just so long as they don’t think of me only as a magician. I’m a professional basketball player, and I have to be a lot more than a so‑called magician in order to be a successful one.”
Cousy, as a matter of fact, is almost as proud of his defensive ability as of his passing, shooting and legerdemain. When he first joined the Celtics five years ago, he had some defensive weaknesses. They since have been ironed out, and he is now a comparatively stingy opponent.
“Of course, I’m not the best in the business,” he said. “Nobody on our club is a defensive genius. If we were as good on defense as on offense, we’d be unbeatable. We’re the highest scoring team in the NBA, but we lose a lot of ball games because opponents score heavily on us. But the game we play is wide open, and I’m sure the customers like it better that way.”
The usual midnight “bite” was another steak. At about 12:30, I went back to the room for what I hoped would be a night’s sleep. We had to meet in the lobby at nine o’clock the next morning for the flight to Fort Wayne, where the Celtics were winding up the trip Thursday night. I left a call for 8:30, read the papers for a while and put out the light at one o’clock.
It didn’t stay out long. Just as I was dropping off to sleep, the door burst open and in trooped Cousy, Sharman, Houbregs and Ramsey.
“Come on, come on, get up!” yelled Cousy. “This is no time to be sleeping.”
“Ga‑a‑a‑” I grunted.
“Half‑past one and you’re in bed? Where do you think you are ‑in a hospital?”
“I will be by the time you guys get through with me.”
I struggled up to a sitting position, while the boys dragged a table and some chairs over by my bed. Cousy took a deck of cards out of his pocket and started shuffling. Before he began dealing, he said, “We’re going to play buck‑up.”
“Buck‑up?”
“You know the game?” asked Cousy.
“Never heard of it.”
“Well, Ramsey never heard of `Oh, hell,’ and he’s too young to teach.”
Buck‑up is a fast, three‑card game which we played for a fast two hours. At 3:30, when Ramsey and Houbregs finally left the room, I collapsed.
“Look at that crumb, Willie,” I heard Cousy say. “He died on us.”
“Better it should happen to you,” I snarled from under the pillow.
“You going to bed, Willie?” he asked Sharman.
“I guess so,” was the reply. “There doesn’t seem to be anything else to do.”
“Well, I’m not tired,” said Cousy. “I’m going to read a while.”
Cousy and I were the last ones out of the hotel the next morning. Sharman was up and dressed before either of us had set our feet on the floor.
“What time did you get to sleep?” I asked.
“About 4:30, I guess,” Cousy yawned.
“Did you read all that time?”
“Sure.”
“What did you do that for?”
“Good book,” he said.
Palazzi was waiting for us on the sidewalk. The youngster started to get into the back seat, but Cousy said, “Why don’t you sit in front, Toge? It’s more comfortable.”
Cousy and I climbed in back and, when the taxi started rolling towards the airport, Cousy said, casually, “Say, Toge, did you notice that sign on the dashboard?”
When Palazzi shook his head, Cousy told him to read it aloud.
“The right front is the most dangerous seat in the car,” Palazzi read, slowly. “Please do not sit here unless all other seats are taken.”
Cousy killed himself laughing. He was still chuckling when we arrived at the airport. Palazzi climbed out of the cab looking like a man who had just sat in an electric chair with the power off.
It was exactly 10:30 when we took off from St. Louis, and, with a one‑hour change back to Eastern Standard Time, we got into Fort Wayne at 1:45 p.m. During the two and a quarter hours, I lost only $1.25.
“You’re getting there,” said Cousy.
“In another week you’ll be playing us even,” Sharman added.
I lost my roommates at the Van Orman Hotel. Since we were leaving right after the game to fly back t‑o Boston, there was no purpose in my checking in. Besides, I couldn’t be with Cousy anyhow, since several of his campers live in Fort Wayne and he would be busy until it was time to go to the Coliseum, which, incidentally, is the most beautiful arena on the NBA circuit. We arrived there during the early stages of a game between Milwaukee and Minneapolis, since the Celtics‑Pistons contest was the windup of a doubleheader.
In most league cities, Cousy receives phone calls from boys who attend his summer camp located in Pittsfield5 N. H.
With no Sharman to guard him, Selvy had a field day against the Lakers. He scored 42 points, setting a new Coliseum record, and the first to congratulate him after he left the floor was Cousy.
“That boy’s great,” Cousy said, later. “He’ll be good for a long time, too. He’s only a kid, fresh out of college.”
The game at Fort Wayne started as if it would be a cinch for the Celtics. At the end of the first quarter, they had a 28‑21 lead, but they slipped in the second and held only a one‑point advantage at half‑time. It was 71‑71 at the three‑quarter mark and then the roof fell in on the Celtics. The Pistons scored 45 points in the last session and piled up a 116‑98 decision. It was the only game on the whole trip in which the Celtics failed to score 100 points.
After the first period, when he scored four times from the floor, Cousy was held to one basket. He was glum and uncommunicative when the game ended, but hamburgers and milk at the airport helped bring back his normal good humor. He didn’t even get mad when I asked, “What makes a bad night?”
“Maybe you‑maybe the other team‑it all depends,” he answered.
“Well‑like tonight.”
“I guess it was a combination of the two. We were hot at first, and then we cooled off. And the Pistons are in a terrific streak. A good club going well is the hardest combination in the world to beat.” ‘
“You started out as if you were going to have another big night.”
“It looked that way, didn’t it?” he nodded. “But I went cold. Those shots that rolled in when we played at Milwaukee and St. Louis just dropped out here.”
“Do you keep track of your baskets during a game?”
He shook his head. “I don’t even try,” he said. “If I only get a few, I don’t want to know the total and if I get a lot, I can’t add them up.”
We were sitting at the airport, waiting for the writers, who were still filing their stories from the Coliseum. Someone griped about the delay, and Cousy quickly turned on him.
“Never squawk when writers are working,” he said. “If you’re lucky, they might be writing about you.”
“They might be beating my brains out, too,” the other man remarked.
“I’d rather have them beat my brains out than not mention me at all,” Cousy said.
“There are athletes who don’t have much use for writers,” I commented.
“I feel sorry for them. They don’t realize how much help writers can give them. I don’t know where we’d be without the writers. Basketball is over 50 years old, but the game never really caught on until the writers began telling the world about it.”
lie leaned forward. “Y’know,” he said, slowly, “there are some people who think they’re more important than anyone else just because they have some God‑given talent‑maybe they’re athletes, maybe artists, maybe stage or screen people, maybe even writers. But I’ll tell you this, no matter how big a person is, there’s never an excuse for his having a big head.”
We got off the ground at 1: 15 in the morning, with two stops before Boston ahead of us. We were hitting Washington to refuel and landing in Worcester to drop Cousy off.
“They always do that for you?” I asked him, as we sat down for the last “Oh, hell” game.
“What do you want ‘em to do, drop me off by parachute?”
“That wouldn’t be so bad?” Scolari commented.
“Deal the cards, Gramps,” Cousy said, “and try not to look at them while you’re doing it.”
The game lasted all night. At about 3:30 a.m., the plane began pitching and tossing. Joanie, the stewardess, walked by and Cousy asked, “Is this Washington or bad weather?”
“Washington,” she told him.
We were there nearly an hour. Back in the plane, we picked up the game again, and kept going until we started coming down in Worcester. Just as the wheels touched, Sharman, who was keeping score, was ready with the results.
“How did I do this time?” I asked.
“You won a quarter,” he said.
We were on the field now, rolling toward the main building. Cousy stood up, bowed deeply and said, “Congratulations. I never thought you’d do it.”
He walked up the aisle toward the door. When he got there, he turned and yelled something that sounded like, “Don’t think it hasn’t been swell, buddy, because it hasn’t!” I can’t be sure. I was practically asleep.
I slept all the way to Boston‑the whole 30 minutes. It’s lucky Cousy wasn’t there to see me. He’d have thought I was an awful sissy.
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Re: Bob Cousy and the Wonderfully Primitive Days of Professional Basketball."
by bobheckler Sun Sep 16, 2012 2:12 pm
Great story, sam. Really brings home the lifestyle and rhythm of an athlete, in this case Bob Cousy. He was a pioneer in more than just basketball style, he was one of the first ambassadors of the game, determined to turn it into a world-class sport. I'm glad he's still alive to be able to enjoy the fruits of his early labors.
A couple of things struck me, while reading this.
1. This was written on March 1, 1953 and yet in the piece it was written that Cousy and Sharman were admiring a 1955 model car.
2. While not specifically mentioned, it seems that NBA teams had double-header nights, with 2 teams facing off in the opener and another 2 in the second game. I say this because he said that Selvy, without Sharman guarding him, had a big night, and then the Celtics played. Can you imagine that happening now?
3. Cousy was always talking up opponents, like Frank Selvy and Slater Martin, both before and after beating their brains in. "no matter how big a person is, there’s never an excuse for his having a big head.”
4. They played a lot of games with few days off. Players complained about all the back-to-back games last season and especially the back-to-back-to-back game, but that was more the norm back then. So much for the newer NBA fans, those with the historical bandwidth of a June bug, who think that today's athletes are so much better than those oldtime white guys in their short shorts. The schedule described above would kill the newbies deader than Caesar's ghost.
5. Can you imagine a team plane making a landing just to drop off a player in his hometown which is just a 1 hour drive from Boston?
6. As noted in the piece about Don Barksdale, Bob Cousy was a pioneer in race relations. That's great stuff.
7. A milk and steak diet? Who does that nowadays? I can feel my arteries clogging up just thinking about it.
8. A part of me can't believe that Cousy and Sharman, who seem to have been the only people who knew how to score "Oh Hell", didn't take the rookie for a trip down the primrose path. How else do you lose multiple dollars in a game of pennies, and then win a small victory on your last game of the trip to leave you with a positive taste in your mouth and thinking your finally gotten it figured out?
9. The Celtics were a high scoring, offensively-oriented team. It also looked like they lost a lot of games. Both of those changed with the arrival of defensive genius Bill Russell. They still had a good offense but became defensive pythons and won like it was their birthright. With all due respect to Cousy, Sharman etal, I think the record is pretty clear on what "winning Boston Celtic basketball" means.
bob
.
A couple of things struck me, while reading this.
1. This was written on March 1, 1953 and yet in the piece it was written that Cousy and Sharman were admiring a 1955 model car.
2. While not specifically mentioned, it seems that NBA teams had double-header nights, with 2 teams facing off in the opener and another 2 in the second game. I say this because he said that Selvy, without Sharman guarding him, had a big night, and then the Celtics played. Can you imagine that happening now?
3. Cousy was always talking up opponents, like Frank Selvy and Slater Martin, both before and after beating their brains in. "no matter how big a person is, there’s never an excuse for his having a big head.”
4. They played a lot of games with few days off. Players complained about all the back-to-back games last season and especially the back-to-back-to-back game, but that was more the norm back then. So much for the newer NBA fans, those with the historical bandwidth of a June bug, who think that today's athletes are so much better than those oldtime white guys in their short shorts. The schedule described above would kill the newbies deader than Caesar's ghost.
5. Can you imagine a team plane making a landing just to drop off a player in his hometown which is just a 1 hour drive from Boston?
6. As noted in the piece about Don Barksdale, Bob Cousy was a pioneer in race relations. That's great stuff.
7. A milk and steak diet? Who does that nowadays? I can feel my arteries clogging up just thinking about it.
8. A part of me can't believe that Cousy and Sharman, who seem to have been the only people who knew how to score "Oh Hell", didn't take the rookie for a trip down the primrose path. How else do you lose multiple dollars in a game of pennies, and then win a small victory on your last game of the trip to leave you with a positive taste in your mouth and thinking your finally gotten it figured out?
9. The Celtics were a high scoring, offensively-oriented team. It also looked like they lost a lot of games. Both of those changed with the arrival of defensive genius Bill Russell. They still had a good offense but became defensive pythons and won like it was their birthright. With all due respect to Cousy, Sharman etal, I think the record is pretty clear on what "winning Boston Celtic basketball" means.
bob
.
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Re: Bob Cousy and the Wonderfully Primitive Days of Professional Basketball."
by Sam Sun Sep 16, 2012 2:49 pm
Bob,
If you'll look at the bottom of the article, you'll see that it was published on March 1, 1955.
Yes, the each NBA team in those days would play as part of something like 10 doubleheaders in a season. There were also doubleheaders starring the Globetrotters in the first game. The home team would always play in the second game. So, when a doubleheader was held at the Garden, the first game was an ideal time to sneak down front (the ushers were no problem) and chat with the Celtics players as they watched the early action in the stands. That's just one element of the "primitive" years that made the team so approachable and, frankly, endearing.
Yeah, imagine the plane dropping off The Cooz in Worcester. The only thing I wonder about is, since they didn't fly charters in those days, whether they diverted a commercial flight from it flight plan.
I can cite at least one season—well into Russell's tenure with the Celtics—when the Celtics played five games in five nights. I'd have to check, but they may never have been in the same city (including Boston) for two consecutive games during that skein. You're preaching to the choir when you intimate that today's players are relative (hmmm) kitty cats (so to speak) when it comes to endurance.
Yup, the pre-Russell Celtics were an offensive juggernaut. After their defensive juggernaut donned #6, it was all she wrote. Winning basketball !
Sam
If you'll look at the bottom of the article, you'll see that it was published on March 1, 1955.
Yes, the each NBA team in those days would play as part of something like 10 doubleheaders in a season. There were also doubleheaders starring the Globetrotters in the first game. The home team would always play in the second game. So, when a doubleheader was held at the Garden, the first game was an ideal time to sneak down front (the ushers were no problem) and chat with the Celtics players as they watched the early action in the stands. That's just one element of the "primitive" years that made the team so approachable and, frankly, endearing.
Yeah, imagine the plane dropping off The Cooz in Worcester. The only thing I wonder about is, since they didn't fly charters in those days, whether they diverted a commercial flight from it flight plan.
I can cite at least one season—well into Russell's tenure with the Celtics—when the Celtics played five games in five nights. I'd have to check, but they may never have been in the same city (including Boston) for two consecutive games during that skein. You're preaching to the choir when you intimate that today's players are relative (hmmm) kitty cats (so to speak) when it comes to endurance.
Yup, the pre-Russell Celtics were an offensive juggernaut. After their defensive juggernaut donned #6, it was all she wrote. Winning basketball !
Sam
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Re: Bob Cousy and the Wonderfully Primitive Days of Professional Basketball."
by gyso Sun Sep 16, 2012 5:06 pm
Sam,
That trip was on a chartered plane, according to the article.
gyso
That trip was on a chartered plane, according to the article.
FOR the swing around the western half of the league, the Boston Celtics had chartered a Northeast Airlines DC‑3 which, complete with crew and flight agent, would carry us on the whole trip, from Boston to Rochester to Minneapolis to Milwaukee to St. Louis to Fort Wayne and back to Boston.
gyso
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Re: Bob Cousy and the Wonderfully Primitive Days of Professional Basketball."
by Sam Sun Sep 16, 2012 8:13 pm
Gyso,
Thanks. I missed that part. It didn't seem likely that a commercial flight would make a special stop—not even for The Cooz. I should have realized it was a charter when the same "stewardess" kept popping up. Interesting that they chartered a plane back in those days. Perhaps some combination of the nearly game-a-night schedule, the number of miles they'd be traveling, and weather threats caused them to make that decision. I wonder how often it happened.
It doesn't exactly sound as though they were traveling in the lap of luxury though, improvising with a blanket on which to play cards. But the plane definitely had refrigeration for the milk. Lots and lots of milk.
I flew on a DC-3 while in the army. Also, they used to fly DC-3s on the Boston-Provincetown run. It was really funny, having to walk uphill from the front of the plane to your seat. But they were considered pretty safe.
It was in a DC-3 (described in one news report as "ancient charter") that the 1960 Lakers—then in their last Minneapolis season—were forced down in a corn field when the instruments froze during a raging snow storm. The passengers included a 25-year-old Elgin Baylor, who played his first two NBA seasons in Minneapolis, losing the title to a Celtics sweep in 1959. Jerry West didn't join the Lakers until the following season.
Sam
Thanks. I missed that part. It didn't seem likely that a commercial flight would make a special stop—not even for The Cooz. I should have realized it was a charter when the same "stewardess" kept popping up. Interesting that they chartered a plane back in those days. Perhaps some combination of the nearly game-a-night schedule, the number of miles they'd be traveling, and weather threats caused them to make that decision. I wonder how often it happened.
It doesn't exactly sound as though they were traveling in the lap of luxury though, improvising with a blanket on which to play cards. But the plane definitely had refrigeration for the milk. Lots and lots of milk.
I flew on a DC-3 while in the army. Also, they used to fly DC-3s on the Boston-Provincetown run. It was really funny, having to walk uphill from the front of the plane to your seat. But they were considered pretty safe.
It was in a DC-3 (described in one news report as "ancient charter") that the 1960 Lakers—then in their last Minneapolis season—were forced down in a corn field when the instruments froze during a raging snow storm. The passengers included a 25-year-old Elgin Baylor, who played his first two NBA seasons in Minneapolis, losing the title to a Celtics sweep in 1959. Jerry West didn't join the Lakers until the following season.
Sam
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Re: Bob Cousy and the Wonderfully Primitive Days of Professional Basketball."
by beat Mon Sep 17, 2012 12:03 pm
Sam
Nice piece finally had the chance to read it.
As to the card game sort of reminded me of the scene from the movie "Bang the Drum Slowly" The baseball players had a game called TEGWAR (the exciting game without any rules) and a few vets would get together and sucker some unsuspecting rookie into it and virtually take all his money.
beat
Nice piece finally had the chance to read it.
As to the card game sort of reminded me of the scene from the movie "Bang the Drum Slowly" The baseball players had a game called TEGWAR (the exciting game without any rules) and a few vets would get together and sucker some unsuspecting rookie into it and virtually take all his money.
beat
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Re: Bob Cousy and the Wonderfully Primitive Days of Professional Basketball."
by bobheckler Mon Sep 17, 2012 12:15 pm
beat wrote:Sam
Nice piece finally had the chance to read it.
As to the card game sort of reminded me of the scene from the movie "Bang the Drum Slowly" The baseball players had a game called TEGWAR (the exciting game without any rules) and a few vets would get together and sucker some unsuspecting rookie into it and virtually take all his money.
beat
beat,
That was my thought exactly (see my #8 above). Thanks for putting a name to it.
bob
.
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Re: Bob Cousy and the Wonderfully Primitive Days of Professional Basketball."
by Sam Mon Sep 17, 2012 11:36 pm
Beat and Bob,
When I reread the article, I thought of that movie too. A really fine movie.
Sam
When I reread the article, I thought of that movie too. A really fine movie.
Sam
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Re: Bob Cousy and the Wonderfully Primitive Days of Professional Basketball."
by beat Tue Sep 18, 2012 10:48 am
bobheckler wrote:beat wrote:Sam
Nice piece finally had the chance to read it.
As to the card game sort of reminded me of the scene from the movie "Bang the Drum Slowly" The baseball players had a game called TEGWAR (the exciting game without any rules) and a few vets would get together and sucker some unsuspecting rookie into it and virtually take all his money.
beat
beat,
That was my thought exactly (see my #8 above). Thanks for putting a name to it.
bob
.
Bob
A minor correction to my above statement. In the movie the game of TEGWAR was played in a hotel lobby I believe and it was not a unsuspecting rookie but a common "fan" that thought it was neat to play cards with the players. And he was taken for as much as they could get.
beat
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