Margarito KO’s Cotto
July 27, 2008
Former champion Antonio Margarito (37-5, 27 KOs) regained the world welterweight title with a brilliant eleventh round knockout of previously unbeaten WBA champion Miguel Cotto (32-1, 26 KOs) on Saturday night at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. Read more
2008 NBA Champions Boston Celtics
June 18, 2008
BOSTON (AP) — With Russell and Havlicek sitting courtside, and Red surely lighting up a victory cigar somewhere, these Boston Celtics returned to glory like the great teams before them.
Dominant in every way.
On a new parquet floor below aging championship banners hung in the rafters two decades back, the Celtics won their 17th NBA title and a first one — at last — for Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen — their Big Three for a new generation.
After 22 long years, the NBA has gone green.
Lifted by ear-splitting chants of “Beat L.A.” early and cries of “Seven-teen” in the closing seconds by their adoring crowd, the Celtics concluded a shocking rebound of a season with a stunning 131-92 blowout over the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 6 on Tuesday night.
It means so much more because these are the guys, the Havliceks, the Bill Russells, the Cousys,” Pierce said. “These guys started what’s going on with those banners. They don’t hang up any other banners but championship ones.
“And now I’m a part of it.”
With the outcome assured, Boston fans sang into the night as if they were in a pub on nearby Canal Street. They serenaded the newest champs in this city of champs, and taunted Kobe Bryant and his Lakers, who drowned in a green-and-white wave for 48 minutes.
Garnett scored 26 points with 14 rebounds, Allen scored 26 and Pierce, the Finals MVP who shook off a sprained right knee sustained in Game 1, added 17 as the Celtics, a 24-win team a year ago, wrapped up their first title since 1986.
Rajon Rondo had 21 points, eight assists, seven rebounds and six steals as the Celtics, who built a 23-point halftime lead and obliterated the Lakers, who were trying to become the first team to overcome a 3-1 deficit in the Finals.
They didn’t stand a chance.
Boston’s 39-point win surpassed the NBA record for the biggest margin of victory in a championship clincher; the Celtics beat the Lakers 129-96 in Game 5 of the 1965 NBA Finals.
In the final minute, Pierce doused Celtics coach Doc Rivers with red Gatorade. Owner Wyc Grousbeck, who named his group Banner 17 to leave no doubt about his goal, put an unlit cigar in his mouth — a tribute to Auerbach, the patriarch who had a hand in the franchise’s first 16 titles.
Garnett dropped to the parquet and kissed the leprechaun at center court and then found Russell, the Hall of Famer who taught him the Celtic way, for a long embrace.
“I got my own. I got my own,” Garnett said. “I hope we made you proud.”
“You sure did,” Russell said.
Rivers pulled Pierce, Garnett and Allen with 4:01 left and they shared a group hug with their coach, who was nearly run out of town last season. Rivers lost his father at the beginning of this remarkable run, a season no one expected.
By the time Rivers was handed the Larry O’Brien Trophy, it was June 18 — his late father’s birthday.
When the game clock reached zeros, Rivers reflected on his dad.
“My first thought was what would my dad say,” Rivers said, “and honestly I started laughing because I thought he would probably say, if you knew my dad, ‘It’s about time. What have you been waiting for?’”
It’s was Boston’s first title since the passing of Auerbach, whose presence was the only thing missing on this night. Even Auerbach, who died in 2006, got some satisfaction. Led by Rivers, Auerbach’s beloved team denied Lakers coach Phil Jackson from overtaking him with a 10th championship.
The Boston-Los Angeles rivalry, nothing more than black-and-white footage from the 60s and TV highlights of players wearing short shorts in the 80s to young hoops fans, remains tilted toward the Atlantic Ocean. The Celtics are 9-2 against the Lakers in the Finals.
Boston missed its first crack at closing out the series in Game 5, but the Celtics didn’t miss on their second swing, running the Lakers out of the gym.
Bryant, the regular season MVP, finished with 22 points on 7-of-22 shooting.
He started 4-of-5 from the field and seemed intent on forcing a Game 7. But he missed seven shots in a row and everywhere he went, L.A.’s No. 24 ran smack into a wall of Boston defense as high as the Green Monster.
“They were definitely the best defense I’ve seen the entire playoffs,” Bryant said. “I’ve seen some pretty stiff ones and this was right up there with them. The goal was to win a championship, it wasn’t to win MVP or anything like that, it was to win a championship.”
Garnett and Allen were All-Stars in other cities, stuck in Minnesota and Seattle, respectively, on teams going nowhere. But brought together in trades last summer by Celtics general manager Danny Ainge, a member of the ‘86 Celtics champions, they joined Pierce and formed an unbreakable bond, a trio as tight as the club’s lucky shamrock logo.
They resisted being called The Big Three, a nickname given to Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish two decades ago.
“This is the reason we came here,” Garnett said. “This is the reason we got together, and Danny made it go down. This is it right now.”
With Garnett scoring 17 points and Pierce adding 10, Boston built a 58-35 halftime lead, and unlike Game 2 when they let the Lakers trim a 24-point lead to two in the fourth quarter before recovering, the Celtics never stopped.
They pushed their lead to 31 in the third, and with Boston still up by 29 after three, plastic sheets started going up in the Celtics’ locker room in preparation for a champagne celebration.
No team had to work harder for a championship than these Celtics, who were playing in their record 26th postseason game after being pushed to seven games by Atlanta and Cleveland before taking care of Detroit in six to win the Eastern Conference title.
They entered Game 6 slowed by injuries as Pierce, Kendrick Perkins (shoulder) and Rondo (ankle) were less than 100 percent. There was also uncertainty surrounding Allen, who stayed behind in Los Angeles following Game 5 after his youngest son became ill and was diagnosed with diabetes. The Celtics needed three planes to get back from L.A. and didn’t get home until late Monday night.
But there were no excuses, and just as they had while winning 66 games during the regular season, the Celtics got plenty of help from their bench as P.J. Brown, James Posey, Leon Powe and rookie Glen “Big Baby” Davis came in and contributed.
It was a group effort by this gang in green, which bonded behind Rivers, who borrowed an African word ubuntu (pronounced Ooh-BOON-too) and roughly means “I am, because we are” in English, as the Celtics’ unifying team motto.
The Celtics gave the Lakers a 12-minute crash course of ubuntu in the second quarter.
Boston outscored Los Angeles 34-19, getting 11 field goals on 11 assists. The Celtics toyed with the Lakers, outworking the Western Conference’s best inside and out and showing the same kind of heart that made Boston the center of pro basketball’s universe in the ’60s.
House and Posey made 3-pointers to put the Celtics ahead by 12 points and baskets by Pierce, Garnett and Rondo put Boston ahead by 18.
In the final minute, Garnett floated in the lane, banked in a one-handed runner and was fouled. His free throw made it 56-35, and after Perkins scored, the Celtics ran to the locker room leading by 23.
On his way off the floor, Garnett screamed, “That’s that.”
And so it was.
Game notes
The Lakers had won their previous eight straight Game 6s in the Finals. … Since the Finals began in 1947, 16 have gone seven games, the most recent in 2005 when San Antonio had to go the distance to beat Detroit. … It was the second biggest margin in Finals history behind Chicago’s 96-54 win over Utah in 1998. … The Celtics went 48-7 at home, including 13-1 in the postseason.
Lakers Tell Celtics Not On My Watch!!
June 17, 2008
The Los Angeles Lakers aren’t done playing. The NBA Finals are headed East. Read more
The Ultimate Choke Lakers Lose 24 Point Lead Celtics One Win Away
June 13, 2008
LOS ANGELES (AP) — This was how the Boston Celtics of yesteryear — Cous and Russell and Bird and Hondo and the Chief — would do it. Digging deep, they fought for every loose ball, scrapping with grit and guts, champions clad in green.
These Celtics are no different.
And they are just one win from another NBA title.
“Yeah,” Kevin Garnett said. “I can taste it.”
In their comeback season, Boston saved its biggest one of all for the finals.
The Celtics rallied from a 24-point deficit and beat the Los Angeles Lakers 97-91 on Thursday night to take a commanding 3-1 lead in this history-rich series and move within one victory of a 17th championship that seemed impossible a year ago.
“I don’t want to get overjoyed,” Paul Pierce said. “I want to go out there to try and win Game 5 on Father’s Day and then I’ll be able to breathe. Right now, I’m waiting to exhale.”
He’s not alone.
A rivalry between the league’s two most storied franchises — with some of the game’s biggest names and biggest moments — now has a rally for the ages.
No team had ever overcome more than a 15-point deficit after the first quarter, and Elias Sports Bureau said it was the largest comeback in the finals since 1971. One thing’s for sure, it will forever be remembered in the annals of Celtics-Lakers lore.
When the final horn sounded, Pierce, an L.A. kid playing in front of family and friends, doubled over in exhaustion and exuberance. The Celtics, the team he stuck with through 10 years, including a 24-win season in 2006-07, had done the impossible.
“It’s definitely a great win, one that you’re going to put up there in the library and break back out one day for your kids to watch,” Pierce said. “But I want nothing more than that ring right now.”
Pierce scored 20 points, Garnett had 16 points and 11 rebounds and Ray Allen had 19 points, two coming on a marvelous reverse layup in the fourth as Boston’s Big Three, thrown together last summer by general manager Danny Ainge to revive a franchise accustomed to hanging banners from the rafters, put the Lakers on the brink of a summer vacation.
It took an epic comeback to do it, and now the Celtics can reclaim their place atop pro basketball with a win in Game 5 on Sunday night in Los Angeles.
No team has ever recovered from a 3-1 deficit in the finals.
Kobe Bryant scored 19 points on 6-of-19 shooting but the league’s MVP couldn’t rescue the Lakers when they needed him most. Lamar Odom had 19 points — 15 in the first half — and Pau Gasol, whose addition in a midseason trade was supposed to give the Lakers their final piece to complement Bryant, had 17 points and 10 rebounds.
Trailing by 18 points at halftime and seemingly done when they fell behind by 20 with 6:04 left in the third quarter, the Celtics outscored the Lakers 31-15 in the third quarter to pull within 73-71 going into the fourth.
The remarkable rally was reminiscent of what Los Angeles did in Game 2, when the Lakers trimmed a 24-point deficit to two in the fourth quarter before the Celtics regrouped to open a 2-0 lead. But Boston had another 12 minutes to finish off theirs, and the green-and-white did.
“Some turnaround in that game. The air went out of the building,” said Lakers coach Phil Jackson, who was asked what he told his club afterward. “Well, it’s not over. This is not over. The series is not over.”
Boston’s comeback included a 21-3 run over the final five minutes, fueled by two 3-pointers from Eddie House, who was getting more playing time because of Rajon Rondo’s tender left ankle. The Celtics were still down by double digits with 2 minutes left in the third but closed the quarter with a 10-1 run, capped by P.J. Brown’s dunk — a slam that could be felt all the way back to Boston’s North End.
The Celtics finally caught the Lakers at 73-all on Leon Powe’s jumper in the lane with 9:05 remaining, tying the score for the first time since it was 2-2 in the first minute.
At that point, the Lakers looked lost, confused, you name it. And when House hit an 18-foot jumper with 4:07 remaining, the Celtics had their first lead, 84-83. Boston’s bench erupted, Lakers fans gasped and it was just a matter of time before they were heading out of Staples Center wondering what went wrong.
Allen, one of the game’s purest shooters, then drove to the basket and made a reverse layup as dramatic as the Celtics’ comeback.
“It was huge,” Boston coach Doc Rivers said. “It was really supposed to be a middle pick-and-roll with Kevin and Ray, and Ray waved Kevin off because he liked the matchup that he had already, so he didn’t want to bring another defender in to help. It was a great call by Ray. The layup was just tremendous.”
Bryant, who except for a 36-point performance in Game 3 has been an ordinary superstar in his try for a fourth championship ring, didn’t score in the first half. He tried to rally the Lakers and got them within 89-87 with one of his patented twisting layups. But James Posey drilled a 3-pointer for Boston to make it 92-87 with 1:13 left. Derek Fisher’s long jumper got the Lakers within three.
But Pierce was fouled and made two free throws, forcing Jackson to call a timeout with 47 seconds to go. As the Lakers headed toward their bench, Pierce pumped his fists, flexed his muscles and let out a yell.
At the other end of the court, Bryant hung his head.
“They were determined not to let me beat them tonight,” he said. “I saw three, four bodies every time I touched the ball.”
Surrounded by Hollywood stars on their own back lot sound stage, the Lakers were seeking their 10th straight win at home in the postseason and were about to drop the “if necessary” tag from Game 6. Now, they have to hope they can force the series back to Boston.
For the third time in this series, commissioner David Stern met with the media before the game. It was an unusual step for the league’s long-tenured leader, who went on the offensive to defend the integrity of NBA officials under fire in the Tim Donaghy scandal.
Maybe the next investigation should focus on what happened to the Celtics in the first quarter.
L.A’s crowd, notorious for arriving late, leaving early and spending more time text messaging and talking on cell phones than clapping, was much more involved than in Game 3. They roared when Lakers Hall of Fame center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar presented the game ball to officials and were on their feet when Los Angeles blasted to a 16-6 lead.
By then, Odom had scored eight points, doubling his total from Game 3 and the enigmatic forward finished the first quarter having made all six field goal attempts and scoring 13 points. Moments later, Garnett went out with his second personal, and with the NBA’s best defender on the bench, the Lakers ran wild.
Odom made consecutive jumpers from the top of the key to put Los Angeles ahead 26-7. The Lakers eventually pushed their lead to 45-21 when Sasha Vujacic, whose 20 points sparked his team in Game 3, nailed a 3-pointer and it was the Boston Massacre, West Coast style.
But the Celtics wouldn’t quit.
“Once we got the lead, obviously, we were thrilled to death,” Rivers said. “As far as we were down, nothing was going right for us, and we just hung in there.”
Game notes
Some of Hollywood’s brightest stars glimmered, including the usuals: Jack Nicholson, Denzel Washington and Dyan Cannon. They were joined by former NFL star Jerry Rice, actress Jennifer Garner with husband Ben Affleck, singer Justin Timberlake and Arizona quarterback Matt Leinart. … The Celtics and Lakers finished with the best records in their respective conferences. It’s the first time teams with the top marks have met in the finals since Indiana and Los Angeles in 2000. The last team to have the league’s top record and win the title was San Antonio in 2003. … Two hours before tipoff, two seats in the lower bowl were going for $3,500 apiece through an on-line ticket brokerage.
The Kobe & Sasha Show Defeats Celtics Lakers Win Game 3
June 11, 2008
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Magic Johnson looked very nervous. Across the court, Jack Nicholson fidgeted with his sunglasses, Sylvester Stallone squirmed in his seat and nearly everyone else styling in shades of purple and gold was on edge.
The Los Angeles Lakers, kings of the Western Conference, were in real trouble, end-of-the-season kind of trouble.
Kobe Bryant pulled them out of it.
On his floor and on his game, Bryant revived the Lakers — and the NBA Finals.
Bryant scored 36 points with an MVP-worthy performance, Sasha Vujacic added 20 points and the Lakers, teetering on the brink of falling into an impossible hole in the NBA Finals, beat the Boston Celtics 87-81 in Game 3 on Tuesday night.
L.A.’s brightest sports star, Bryant was California cool.
“What I tried to do with my teammates is just stay calm,” he said. “It wasn’t the end of the world. They did a great job of defending home court. We knew we had to come here and do the same. They feed off of my confidence and I have all the confidence in the world that we can come here and win.”
A change of time zones, jerseys and attitude did wonders for the Lakers, who staggered home from Boston in an 0-2 hole and couldn’t afford to fall any further behind in the first best-of-seven matchup between the league’s marquee teams since 1987.
No team in NBA playoff history has ever overcome an 0-3 deficit.
Bryant made sure the Lakers won’t have to.
And this time, the superstar got some help.
Vujacic, the self-proclaimed “Machine,” made three 3-pointers, including a crucial one from the left corner with 1:53 left that gave the Lakers an 81-76 lead. Pau Gasol finally flexed his muscles with two inside baskets in the fourth quarter and Derek Fisher, who took an $8 million pay cut to come back and play for the Lakers, made two free throws with 1:33 remaining as the Lakers held on.
“We just wanted to play,” said Bryant, whose only flaw was an 11-of-18 night from the foul line. “I don’t think anyone was feeling desperate.”
Game 4 is Thursday night at the Staples Center, where the Lakers are 9-0 in the playoffs and unbeaten in 15 games since March 28.
But it took everything they had to keep that streak alive as the Celtics, two wins from their 17th NBA title but only 2-8 on the road in this postseason, made the Lakers play a more physical, Eastern Conference-style game and nearly walked away with a win.
Ray Allen scored 25 points — 15 on 3-pointers — for the Celtics, but only one-third of Boston’s Big Three showed up.
Kevin Garnett scored 13 points on just 6-of-21 shooting and Paul Pierce, playing a short drive from his childhood home, had only six points, missed 12 shots and was in foul trouble all night.
“As bad as we played, we still had opportunities,” Allen said. “That’s the positive. We can look at it, but I don’t think on either side of the floor we were good. We had so much more room for improvement.”
The Celtics enjoyed a huge disparity from the line in Game 2, shooting 38 free throws to 10 for the Lakers.
But the whistles were more well-balanced as Los Angeles took 34 free throws to Boston’s 22.
After Garnett’s dunk brought the Celtics within 83-78 with 1:28 to go, Bryant made sure that it was he who took L.A.’s next shot. He drove on Allen to get some space, pulled up and drilled the kind of jumper he has practiced tens of thousands of times.
Eddie House, who gave Boston big minutes when Rajon Rondo went out with an injury, countered with a 3-pointer, and suddenly the Lakers’ glitzy crowd, which included Nicholson in his familiar courtside seat, grew uneasy.
But Bryant calmed their twitching nerves quickly.
On the Lakers’ next possession, Bryant, whose shot wouldn’t drop in Boston, backed down in the lane and dropped in a short jumper to make it 87-81.
House missed for Boston, both teams committed silly offensive fouls in the closing seconds, and when the final horn sounded, the Lakers could finally relax.
Los Angeles coach Phil Jackson knew whom to credit for the win.
“I think undoubtedly it’s the leadership of Kobe Bryant,” he said. “He was aggressive right from the start, put the defense on its heels.”
Los Angeles is trying to become the fourth team to come back from an 0-2 deficit, and with two more games at home, they’ve got a chance to turn this renewed rivalry around.
Celtics coach Doc Rivers figured Bryant would take over the series at some point, but he didn’t expect Vujacic, who scored a combined 16 points in Games 1 and 2, to be such a factor.
“Kobe was fantastic but I thought Vujacic was the key to the game,” he said. “I said before we are going to have to win a game when Kobe Bryant plays well. We know that. But when that happens, we have to shut off the other avenues.”
This game won’t be remembered as one of the better ones in the storied Lakers-Celtics rivalry, but it did have a few moments of the physical nastiness that defined their matchups during the 1980s.
“It was not a beautiful ballgame,” Jackson said. “That’s a transition game from East Coast to West Coast. But we’ll have a day to catch up tomorrow and hopefully both of us will play better basketball on Thursday night.”
With the Lakers down two and running out of time in the fourth, Bryant took a pass from Luke Walton at the top of the key. Knowing he was about to try a shot that could have lasting importance, Bryant gathered himself, measured the rim and let fly with a 3-pointer that gave Los Angeles a 69-68 lead with 6:55 left.
Fisher made two free throws and Bryant, who had missed seven from the line, knocked down two more foul shots as the Lakers went up 73-68.
Pierce grew up in Inglewood, Calif., where he learned to play in the shadow of the Fabulous Forum, the Lakers’ former home where Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and “Showtime” had an extended run of championship seasons.
But Pierce’s finals homecoming was homely.
The Celtics’ star forward, who came in averaging 25 points in the series, went just 2-for-14 and missed all four 3-pointers.
Despite his struggles, the Celtics were only down six early in the third quarter when Rondo went down with a sprained left ankle. As he laid on the floor, his teammates rushed over to check on Rondo, who limped off the court without aid — or a wheelchair — like Pierce famously needed after hurting his knee in the opener.
House, who hadn’t played a minute in the series, replaced Rondo and drilled a 3-pointer and Garnett scored underneath before finally making a jumper as Boston took a 51-49 lead. Moments later, Allen stuck a 3-pointer that sent Boston’s bench bounding onto the floor when the Lakers had to call a timeout.
The Lakers didn’t have to endure the deafening chants of “Beat L.A.” Instead, they warmed up to Randy Newman’s “I Love L.A” and Los Angeles fans screamed “Boston [Stinks]” every chance they could.
Unlike Game 2, when so much of the pregame attention was on Pierce’s sprained knee, the chatter before tipoff included uneasy discussions about past officiating.
The league was again having to deal with allegations made by former referee Tim Donaghy, who claims in court documents that NBA referees rigged the 2002 playoff series between the Lakers and Sacramento Kings.
Commissioner David Stern reiterated the league’s stance that Donaghy acted alone and feels his lawyers were using Game 3’s platform to help their client.
After Game 2, Jackson, Bryant and a few other Lakers had made pointed and sarcastic comments about the lopsided whistles. But if they were worried about there being any favoritism toward Boston, they were mistaken as the Lakers attempted 14 free throws — four more than in all of Game 2 — in the first quarter.
Game notes
Informed that Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, who sat courtside and within a few feet of the Lakers bench in Game 2, blogged about Bryant criticizing his teammates, Jackson said he wished fans were further back. “I’ve been against that for as long as I’ve been coaching,” he said. “Those people don’t belong there, somebody is going to get hurt. But that becomes part of what the NBA is about, being close to the action and close to the scene. We have to suffer the consequences because of it.” … American Idol winner David Cook sang the national anthem.
Ken Griffrey Jr. Joins The 600 HR Club
June 10, 2008
We knew 20 years ago, when he was 19 and skinny, that an achievement of this magnitude was possible. The signs were everywhere. Ken Griffey Jr. was the son of a major leaguer, he was from Stan Musial’s hometown, Donora, Pa., he says he never struck out in a high school game and he was the Seattle Mariners’ No. 1 pick in the June 1987 draft.
Now he is 38 and thick, he wears Babe Ruth’s No. 3, not Willie Mays’ No. 24 as he did in those early seasons. He plays right field now, not center field. He doesn’t scale fences like he used to and he doesn’t smile as often as he used to. But nonetheless, in the first inning Monday night at Florida against Mark Hendrickson, he joined Ruth, Mays, Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron and Sammy Sosa in the most exclusive and prestigious club in sports, the 600 Home Run Club.
“I was there in his prime,” said Cubs manager Lou Piniella, who managed Griffey in Seattle. “He was special. And he was fun to watch.”
It was clear right away that he was special. Only days after Griffey signed with the Mariners, he came to Seattle and took batting practice with the major league club before a game.
“I’ve seen it before when a No. 1 draft pick comes to the big club right after he’s drafted, and the kid is nervous, he gets in the cage, pops up a bunch of balls, swings and misses at a couple because he’s trying to hit it so high and so far because he doesn’t feel like he belongs,” said Scott Bradley, who is Princeton’s baseball coach, and a former teammate of Griffey during 1989-92. “That wasn’t the case with Junior. He got in the cage, and he was kind of carrying on a conversation with the media while he was hitting. The first 25 swings, he just hit line drives to left field. He didn’t overswing one time. Then he hit balls up the middle. Then he took a break, came back loose, and started hitting balls into the seats. I looked at [veteran Mariners] Harold Reynolds and Alvin Davis and said, ‘It looks like he belongs.’”
After two seasons in the minor leagues, none above the Double-A level, another clear sign came.
“When he came to camp in 1989, he had no chance to make the team,” Bradley said. “But he got a lot of at-bats early that spring because a lot of veterans don’t like to play a lot early. After 20 games, he wasn’t just the best player on our team, he was the best player in the league that spring. The Mariners basically said, ‘We don’t want this to happen, we don’t want to rush him, we don’t want him to make the team.’ So they started running him out there against every elite pitcher, against all the nastiest left-handers they could find in hopes that he would stop hitting, and they could send him out. It never happened.”
He made the club as a 19-year-old, the youngest player on an Opening Day roster that season. In his first at-bat at the Seattle Kingdome, he hit a home run on the first pitch he saw from the White Sox’s Eric King. Griffey went on to hit 16 home runs that season — in baseball history, only Tony Conigliaro and Mel Ott hit more homers as teenagers.
Ken Griffey Jr. debuted in the majors with the Mariners in 1989, and has played with the Reds since 2000.
Griffey started the All-Star Game in his second season, then the third youngest player ever to do that. Almost as memorable in 1990 were the back-to-back home runs that he and his father hit against the Angels’ Kirk McCaskill, a first in baseball history, and likely to also be the last. In 1993, Griffey hit a home run in eight consecutive games, tying the record held by Dale Long and Don Mattingly. During 1997-98, he joined Babe Ruth as then the only American League players (Alex Rodriguez has joined that club) to hit 50 home runs in back-to-back seasons. When he hit 50 for the first time, he joined Mays as then the only players ever to win a Gold Glove in a season in which they hit 50. In 1999, he became the first American League player since Harmon Killebrew to lead the league in home runs three seasons in a row.
“His swing,” former Oriole Brady Anderson said, “is absolutely perfect.”
Griffey had the amazing ability for a young hitter to see, react and hit the breaking ball if it stayed in the strike zone for too long. As he grew as a hitter by developing his opposite field power and still maintaining his pull power, the huge home run seasons came. He was then the youngest player to reach 300, 350, 400 and 450 home runs. He was named to the All-Century team when he was 29 and he was named the Player of the Decade for the 1990s. When he was 31, he was a legitimate threat to break Hank Aaron’s record of 755 home runs. The projections were for 800 home runs, nothing could stop him.
“The first time I saw him was in Arizona for spring training,” Piniella said. “He would hit these towering fly balls that would carry and carry, and go out of the ballpark. I just figured it was the thin air in Arizona. Then he kept hitting those towering fly balls wherever we went, and I realized it wasn’t the thin air, it was him. And it was so effortless.”
When the Reds traded for Griffey before the 2000 season, bringing him home to Cincinnati in a trade that left Mariners fans wanting and angry, it seemed inevitable that Griffey would break Aaron’s record as a member of the Reds. On the day of the trade, then Reds general manager Jim Bowden called Griffey “the Michael Jordan of baseball.” That first season in Cincinnati, he hit 40 home runs and drove in 118 runs.
Then the story began to change. Four seasons in a row, Griffey suffered a major injury, limiting him to 111, 70, 53 and 83 games played, respectively. When he finally got to 500 home runs in 2004, everyone knew, that without the injuries, 500 might have been 600. The following three seasons, he missed another 105 games. We all realize that with better health, the 600 he just reached would have been 700.
But Griffey is far from done as a power hitter. There are still homers to hit, and milestones to reach. He could become the third player ever, joining Ty Cobb and Rusty Staub, to hit a home run as a teenager and as a 40-year-old. He could join Ted Williams, Rickey Henderson and Willie McCovey as the only players to hit home runs in four different decades and he could become the first player to hit 300 home runs for two different teams.
It is easy to look at 600 and wonder what might have been with improved health. But it is easier and more fun to remember Griffey at his best, a wondrous athlete who streaked through the outfield, climbed an outfield wall and made a catch that only Mays could make, then the next inning, hit a ball to places that very few players could reach. Six hundred home runs is a tremendous milestone, but Griffey at 100, 200, 300 and 400 was simply breathtaking.
Tim Kurkjian is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine.
Celtics Dominant For 3 3/4 Quarters Win Game 2
June 9, 2008
BOSTON (AP) — The Boston Celtics left the comforts of home exalted and exhausted, halfway to hoisting a 17th NBA championship banner.
They’re up 2-0 in the NBA Finals.
But they needed some of their leprechaun’s luck to get there.
Paul Pierce, darting around the parquet floor with ease, scored 28 points, unknown Leon Powe added 21 and the Celtics held off a remarkable rally by Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers for a 108-102 win Sunday night in Game 2 of these trip-down-memory-lane Finals.
The Celtics had to work every second to get the win.
Up by 24 points in the fourth quarter, they nearly blew it.
“We’re happy because we won, but we definitely learned a lesson,” Pierce said.
The Lakers trailed 95-71 with less than 8 minutes to go, but used a 31-9 run to pull to 104-102 on two free throws by Bryant with 38.4 seconds left. Pierce, though, made two free throws, then blocked a 3-pointer by Sasha Vujacic, and James Posey made two free throws with 12.6 seconds left to ice it for Boston.
“We’ve got to play through the game for 48 minutes, and I didn’t think we did that,” Celtics coach Doc Rivers said. “I thought we got cute when we got the lead.”
The Lakers, who dropped 41 points on the league’s defensive team in the final 12 minutes, simply ran out of time.
“It’s something that we can take from,” Bryant said of the furious but failed comeback. “We played with a sense of desperation and aggression. I think that’s something to take home and learn from.”
Boston enjoyed a huge free-throw advantage, going 27-for-38 from the foul line, while the Lakers were just 10-for-10.
The whistles were one-sided.
“I didn’t notice,” Bryant said, cracking a smile.
Pierce wasn’t slowed by a sprained right knee suffered in the series opener, when he was carried from the court and plopped into a wheelchair. The Boston captain paced the Celtics, who are back in the Finals for the first since 1987, when Larry Bird was the main man and gasoline cost 91 cents per gallon.
As usual, Boston’s Big Three — Pierce, Ray Allen (17 points) and Kevin Garnett (17) — were the ringleaders but Powe, a second-year reserve had the game of his career, adding his 21 points in 15 minutes that may make him a Celtics fan-favorite for life.
Powe, who played a total of 68 seconds during one stretch of 13 games during the season, scored six points to close a 15-2 run ending the third quarter that gave the Celtics a 22-point lead. The quick burst had the Lakers California dreaming. At one point in the fourth quarter, Boston fans discarded the familiar chants of “Beat L.A.” for cries of “Le-on Powe!”
“He was terrific,” Celtics coach Doc Rivers said.
Rajon Rondo had a career-high 16 assists and Garnett added 14 rebounds for the Celtics, back in the Finals for the first time since 1987.
Game 3 is Tuesday night at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, where the Lakers are 8-0 in the postseason and have won 14 in a row at home since March 28. Bryant had better hope the rims there are a little kinder than the ones in TD Banknorth Garden.
Bryant, who pledged to bounce back from a sub-par Game 1, scored 30 points — 13 in the fourth — on 11-of-23 shooting. In four losses to Boston this season, Bryant is just 35-of-93 from the field and can’t seem to get the same easy looks he enjoys against every other team.
Pau Gasol had 17 points and 10 rebounds for the Lakers, who were so far down in the fourth that many of their purple-and-gold clad fans who came to cheer them on, headed toward the exits and maybe to Logan Airport for the trip out West.
But Bryant brought them back — almost all the way.
His 3-pointer made it 102-91 and then the self-proclaimed “Black Mamba” slithered down the lane for two quick baskets that got the Lakers within 104-95. The Celtics, meanwhile, began to stand around on offense, thinking the game was in hand.
It was anything but.
After Vujacic hit a 3-pointer, Vladimir Radmanovic made a steal and dunk to make it 104-100 and Celtics fans, who had been dancing moments earlier, began to panic. None of Boston’s players seemed to want the ball as it moved around like a hot potato before Rondo missed a jumper with 44 seconds left.
Bryant’s free throws brought Los Angeles to 104-102 before Pierce slashed down the lane and got fouled by Derek Fisher. As a few of his teammates locked arms on the bench like a college team trying to advance in March, Pierce knocked down both foul shots. Then, on defense, he got just enough of Vujacic’s shot from the left wing with 14 seconds left.
Posey was fouled on the play and calmly made his two free throws. The Lakers rushed the ball down but missed on a couple jumpers, and when the final horn sounded, a collective sigh of relief rushed through the exits as the Celtics and their fans left the building confident, if not shaken.
“We’re not settling on a 2-0 lead,” Garnett said. “We want to go out there and win two games in L.A.”
Called “unstoppable” by Lakers coach Phil Jackson, Bryant got off to another slow start. He missed his first two shots, one an uncontested layup underneath and was unable to get the looks he wanted as the Celtics followed the MVP around like a pack of hungry wolves on the hunt.
Bryant was just 1-of-4 from the floor when he was called for pushing off on Allen — his second personal foul — and spent the final 1:59 of the opening period a few seats away from Jackson. Soon, Bryant was joined by Lamar Odom and Jackson was forced to give his reserves extended early minutes.
They weren’t good ones.
The Lakers’ heralded bench bunch struggled, and the Celtics took advantage. Trailing by two after one, Boston opened the second quarter with a 10-0 run, capped by Pierce’s 3-pointer. As bad as Los Angeles was playing, the Lakers hung around and closed within 41-37 on Gasol’s three-point play.
But Pierce knocked down another 3, Allen followed with one of his own and the Celtics closed the half with a 13-5 burst to open a 54-42 halftime lead.
Game notes
Jackson, a renowned world traveler who often reviews trips to his destinations, was asked for an overview of his extended stay in Boston, where the weather this week ranged from chilly, October-like conditions to sweltering heat. “It’s very green,” Jackson deadpanned, drawing laughter at the reference to the Celtics’ primary colors. “Boston Commons, the Public Gardens. Very green.” … Among the celebrities in attendance: Boston Red Sox Curt Schilling — wearing a Larry Bird jersey, Jon Lester and Josh Beckett, NFL quarterbacks Donovan McNabb and Vince Young and actor Leonardo DiCaprio. Lester, a cancer survivor who recently pitched a no-hitter, was honored during a timeout in the second quarter.
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