A lousy team and a coach named Brown
I know half of the twelve of you have no interest in sports, and I don't really blame you. But there is occasionally a powerful need within me to talk, write, watch and play them, so you will just have to deal.
Last week I mentioned that I had stumbled across a Knicks game from 1984 on MSG Network. MSG has a series called "Knicks 101" which is basically just edited-down-for-time old Knicks broadcasts. First of all, it's a terrible show name. What the fuck? Shouldn't this name be used for the show where the teenagers enlist the help of Knicks scrubs to teach kids basketball fundamentals? Yes. Whatever, my second thought is that screening, editing and coming up with little on-screen factoids for this series is the job I was meant to perform since I came tumbling out of the womb. I just need to find out who's doing it now and take them out big time. Because frankly they ain't doing that good a job. The factoids are ugly and for the most part uninteresting. MSG, I can do better. I would like to make a lot of money, though. Is that cool?
Anyway, I have added "Knicks 101" to my DVR list, and tonight I came home to discover that the Magic Box had a game from 1.5.85 all cued up and ready for me to watch. It was Michael Jordan's second game in NYC (not the first one where he ripped the ball from Ernie Grunfeld and did that flying cradle dunk). Here are my observations:
1. Jim Karvellas was excellent on play-by-play again tonight -- he really observed the game well, caught lots of little things. I will say that the game was much easier to follow then, too, but I don't exactly know why. Maybe it was just slower. Karvellas and Butch Beard each called Michael Jordan "Sky Jordan," which was pretty hilarious. The way it went down was that Karvellas said, "What a play by Sky Jordan..er...Air Jordan." Then like five minutes later Butch Beard is like, "What a play by Sky Jordan. Had to make sure we got that nickname right." This even though MJ was wearing Air Jordans.
2. Jordan had a semi-quiet 40, although he pretty much took over in the 4th quarter. He was so much faster, stronger, more coordinated, more fundamentally sound and just cooler looking than all the other players, it was like watching a man from the future dropped into the past. Like that old Scottie Pippen ad. There were like ten times during the game when the announcers were forced to admit they were seeing things they'd never seen before. He was that much better than everybody else. By the end of the game the Knicks were sending like three guys at a time at him, and each guy had a desperate and embarrassed look on his face.
3. It was also cool to see Hubie Brown pleading with the refs to call Jordan for palming the ball. It must have been tough for an old purist like Hubie to watch the game change right in front of his face like that. Especially because he was right -- the guy was flagrantly breaking the rules and nobody did anything about it. I bet he stopped worrying about it by the end of that season. Or at least by now.
4. Orlando Woolridge was on fire. Although Bernard put the game away with a jumper in his face with like 20 seconds left.
5. Darrell Walker dribbled the ball off his foot and it smacked the ballboy in the face, knocking him over.
6. The NBA three point shot was five years old then, and it was for the most part a strange and mysterious beast. The Knicks hit three in this game and the announcers were talking about what a huge number that was. In fact, I just looked it up: the entire team hit 51 on the season, an average of .62 per game.
7. There was indeed a moment when Ron Cavenall and Ken "The Animal" Bannister were occupying the two inside rebounding positions as Chicago shot free throws. That's like seeing Ben Franklin and George Washington sitting down together at an old wooden table, smoking Philly Blunts and playing Crazy Eights. Something you knew was historically possible but you never thought you'd see with your own eyes.
8. Jawann Oldham was playing with the Bulls then. Karvellas hinted that the Knicks were looking to pick him up, which eventually proved accurate. Unfortunately. Karvellas also astutely observed after Oldham misfired badly on a hook shot, "Wow, what a brick. He almost broke the basket."
PBdotC suggests a round of pickthedaythenewverbungleovertakestheoldverbungleongoogledat, by which I assume he means name the date when a simple google search of the word "verbungle" will bring up this site as the #1 result instead of bringing up verbungle classic. I am game. Fifteen points to the closest guess. Although I have no reason for believing this, something tells me that it will never happen. I think google probably protects their search criteria formula as closely as The Colonel guards the KFC recipe, but I have a suspicion that one of the first things the search does on a one-word nonsensical query like "verbungle" is check to see if a (legitimate) site exists with the address "www.(search word).com," and if it finds something then that comes up as the number one result. I am probably wrong and can easily be proven so.
Another fifteen points to the person who can most closely guess the date when Baby Bungle first says the word "Daddy" or some form thereof. Not sure if I just used the word "thereof" correctly but you know what I mean. As Baby Bungle gets older, Ma Bungle and I have realized that we are terrible parents for not owning a video camera. So we are going to buy (an inexpensive) one. Your suggestions are welcome. Here is what we need: something that is of reasonable quality and in the $600 price range. I would like to use it for softball games as well as drooling baby footage. Thanks for your help.
My week now looks like this: two hours of American Idol, and 166 hours of waiting for American Idol. Being a darkhearted bastard, in the past I always gave up after the first couple of rounds when all the disaster cases got their chance to show their stuff. I didn't really care about the later rounds with the people who could actually sing. This year is different -- I have picked out a few people to root for and I am finding the show hopelessly addictive. So are you.
Last week I mentioned that I had stumbled across a Knicks game from 1984 on MSG Network. MSG has a series called "Knicks 101" which is basically just edited-down-for-time old Knicks broadcasts. First of all, it's a terrible show name. What the fuck? Shouldn't this name be used for the show where the teenagers enlist the help of Knicks scrubs to teach kids basketball fundamentals? Yes. Whatever, my second thought is that screening, editing and coming up with little on-screen factoids for this series is the job I was meant to perform since I came tumbling out of the womb. I just need to find out who's doing it now and take them out big time. Because frankly they ain't doing that good a job. The factoids are ugly and for the most part uninteresting. MSG, I can do better. I would like to make a lot of money, though. Is that cool?
Anyway, I have added "Knicks 101" to my DVR list, and tonight I came home to discover that the Magic Box had a game from 1.5.85 all cued up and ready for me to watch. It was Michael Jordan's second game in NYC (not the first one where he ripped the ball from Ernie Grunfeld and did that flying cradle dunk). Here are my observations:
1. Jim Karvellas was excellent on play-by-play again tonight -- he really observed the game well, caught lots of little things. I will say that the game was much easier to follow then, too, but I don't exactly know why. Maybe it was just slower. Karvellas and Butch Beard each called Michael Jordan "Sky Jordan," which was pretty hilarious. The way it went down was that Karvellas said, "What a play by Sky Jordan..er...Air Jordan." Then like five minutes later Butch Beard is like, "What a play by Sky Jordan. Had to make sure we got that nickname right." This even though MJ was wearing Air Jordans.
2. Jordan had a semi-quiet 40, although he pretty much took over in the 4th quarter. He was so much faster, stronger, more coordinated, more fundamentally sound and just cooler looking than all the other players, it was like watching a man from the future dropped into the past. Like that old Scottie Pippen ad. There were like ten times during the game when the announcers were forced to admit they were seeing things they'd never seen before. He was that much better than everybody else. By the end of the game the Knicks were sending like three guys at a time at him, and each guy had a desperate and embarrassed look on his face.
3. It was also cool to see Hubie Brown pleading with the refs to call Jordan for palming the ball. It must have been tough for an old purist like Hubie to watch the game change right in front of his face like that. Especially because he was right -- the guy was flagrantly breaking the rules and nobody did anything about it. I bet he stopped worrying about it by the end of that season. Or at least by now.
4. Orlando Woolridge was on fire. Although Bernard put the game away with a jumper in his face with like 20 seconds left.
5. Darrell Walker dribbled the ball off his foot and it smacked the ballboy in the face, knocking him over.
6. The NBA three point shot was five years old then, and it was for the most part a strange and mysterious beast. The Knicks hit three in this game and the announcers were talking about what a huge number that was. In fact, I just looked it up: the entire team hit 51 on the season, an average of .62 per game.
7. There was indeed a moment when Ron Cavenall and Ken "The Animal" Bannister were occupying the two inside rebounding positions as Chicago shot free throws. That's like seeing Ben Franklin and George Washington sitting down together at an old wooden table, smoking Philly Blunts and playing Crazy Eights. Something you knew was historically possible but you never thought you'd see with your own eyes.
8. Jawann Oldham was playing with the Bulls then. Karvellas hinted that the Knicks were looking to pick him up, which eventually proved accurate. Unfortunately. Karvellas also astutely observed after Oldham misfired badly on a hook shot, "Wow, what a brick. He almost broke the basket."
PBdotC suggests a round of pickthedaythenewverbungleovertakestheoldverbungleongoogledat, by which I assume he means name the date when a simple google search of the word "verbungle" will bring up this site as the #1 result instead of bringing up verbungle classic. I am game. Fifteen points to the closest guess. Although I have no reason for believing this, something tells me that it will never happen. I think google probably protects their search criteria formula as closely as The Colonel guards the KFC recipe, but I have a suspicion that one of the first things the search does on a one-word nonsensical query like "verbungle" is check to see if a (legitimate) site exists with the address "www.(search word).com," and if it finds something then that comes up as the number one result. I am probably wrong and can easily be proven so.
Another fifteen points to the person who can most closely guess the date when Baby Bungle first says the word "Daddy" or some form thereof. Not sure if I just used the word "thereof" correctly but you know what I mean. As Baby Bungle gets older, Ma Bungle and I have realized that we are terrible parents for not owning a video camera. So we are going to buy (an inexpensive) one. Your suggestions are welcome. Here is what we need: something that is of reasonable quality and in the $600 price range. I would like to use it for softball games as well as drooling baby footage. Thanks for your help.
My week now looks like this: two hours of American Idol, and 166 hours of waiting for American Idol. Being a darkhearted bastard, in the past I always gave up after the first couple of rounds when all the disaster cases got their chance to show their stuff. I didn't really care about the later rounds with the people who could actually sing. This year is different -- I have picked out a few people to root for and I am finding the show hopelessly addictive. So are you.
posted by hans q. bungle at 02:20
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