“FALL BACK BABY” and “HUNTING MOOSE”

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756. NEW YORK KNICKS VS ATLANTA HAWKS

EASTERN CONFERENCE SEMIFINALS

GAME ONE

MARCH 25, 1971

MADISON SQUARE GARDEN

QUALITY OF PLAY—7.21

DRAMA—6.70

STAR POWER—7.93

CONTEMPORARY IMPORT—7.15

HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE—7.36

LOCAL IMPACT—7.84

TOTAL: 44.19

The 1969-70 Knicks won it all, the first NBA title in franchise history, and deservedly went down in the pantheon of great single-season teams, albeit as much for their geographical location and “proper” style of basketball than for their dominance.

The following season, the Knicks franchise celebrated its silver anniversary as favorites to repeat as NBA champs. They stormed to a 52-30 record behind their totemic leader, Willis Reed, and the other great names—Bill Bradley, Walt Frazier, etc. One name seldom remembered—but revered among true basketball heads—among the icons is Dick Barnett, the leathery tough guard with the bizarre shooting stroke.

Barnett was the “other star” in the fabled Indiana High School Basketball State Final of 1955, when his Roosevelt High team from Gary lost to Oscar Robertson and Crispus Attucks High in the first all-black Indiana state final. Barnett went to Tennessee A&I (now Tennessee State) and won three straight NAIA titles there. He then played for multiple NBA teams before coming to the Knicks in 1965.

At this point, he was known mainly for his quick wit with the media and his oddball jumper, shot lefty as his legs kicked back behind him, assuming roughly the shape of a question mark. “Too late—fall back, baby,” he would taunt defenders trying to check him. “You’d get up on him and he’d shoot behind his head,” said Jim Satterwhite, one of Barnett’s Tennessee State teammates. “So it was almost impossible to block his shot.” Dick became known as “Fall Back Baby” around the league.

FBB scored 23 per game in his first season in the Garden, becoming an insta-fave among the fans. He ruptured his Achilles the following year but bounced back to become an All-Star in ’68, and in that championship season he started every game for the Knicks.

Now at age 34 Barnett remained a workhorse, playing every game and averaging 34 minutes a night, in part because New York had no other real option at shooting guard. He scored 15 per game in ’71 and continued to fit seamlessly into the Kncks fluid offense.

After their dominant regular season, the Knicks were the top seed in the East, and drew Atlanta as a first-round opponent.

The playoffs got started, randomly, on Thursday afternoon, March 25, 1971, in front of the usual 19,500 screaming maniacs at the Garden. The Knicks were up by ten after the first quarter behind Reed, and seemed in control. Barnett was mostly floating around, allowing Reed and Bradley to take most of the shots.

But the Hawks rallied behind rookie shooting sensation Pistol Pete Maravich and reserve center Jim Davis, who came off the bench to score eight straight points at the beginning of the fourth quarter. Atlanta, shockingly, took a seven-point lead with just over seven minutes left.

Then the ancient Barnett took over. Since it was late-afternoon, just about time for the early-bird special, the old man was hungry, and he scored 13 of 14 New York points in a lightning display of scoring prowess. “He seemed to sip from the Fountain of Youth between periods,” wrote Phil Pepe in the News. “He hit from every angle, popping that crazy-quilt jumper from all over to destroy the Hawks, turn the momentum to the home side, and help the Knicks win going away.”

“I started to call my own plays,” said Barnett, “and the guys got the ball to me.” Always respect one’s elders…

In all Barnett scored 17 in the fourth quarter, giving him 20 for the game, and the Knicks used the 21-7 run to win going away, 112-101, to take a 1-0 lead in the series. Reed finished with 22, Bradley with 25.

It was a classic Knicks comeback, and a tribute to their toughness and deep lineup. Repeating as champs would not be easy, but with contributions from the likes of Barnett, they would have a fighting chance.

AFTERMATH:

The Knicks lost in Game Two thanks to a monster rebounding performance from Atlanta’s Bill “The Train” Bridges. But New York took the next three and the series. But alas and alack, they fell in a big upset in the next round to Baltimore, and failed to repeat.

After retirement, Dick Barnett got a PhD in education from Fordham and taught Sports Management at St. John’s for years, retiring in 2007.

WHAT THEY SAID:

“Old man Dick Barnett, confined to his rocking chair for three periods, tossed away his Geritol and his cane and got his creaking bones working.”

—Phil Pepe, New York Daily News

FURTHER READING:

Inside Basketball by Dick Barnett

VIDEO:

755. NEW YORK YANKEES VS DETROIT TIGERS

AMERICAN LEAGUE DIVISION SERIES

GAME TWO

OCTOBER 5, 2006

YANKEE STADIUM

QUALITY OF PLAY—7.11

DRAMA—7.04

STAR POWER—7.54

CONTEMPORARY IMPORT—7.95

HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE—7.09

LOCAL IMPACT—7.47

TOTAL: 44.20

“HUNTING MOOSE”

In 2006, the Detroit Tigers hired a “new” manager. The “new” is in quotes because Jim Leyland was 62 years of age and seemed at least a decade older. A primordial package of crusty wisdom and Pall Mall ash, Jimmy steered the Detroiters to 95 wins in his debut at the helm, good for the wild-card berth in the American League. Alas, that meant an ALDS matchup with the all-powerful Yankees. Leyland took a gander at the Yanks lineup and christened it “Murderers Row and then (Robinson) Cano.” Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Jason Giambi, Jorge Posada—you know the names. Not satisfied with a team that would lead the majors in runs, hits and OPS, New York added “La Leche,” Bobby Abreu, at midseason, giving the offense “supertanker momentum” in the words of Roger Angell in The New Yorker.

Nevertheless, Leyland felt his team had a good chance.

The Yanks creamed Detroit starter Nate Robertson for five runs in the third inning and Jeter went 5-5 in Game One, an easy 8-4 rout. Game Two was postponed by rain for a day, and whatever momentum the Yanks had was blunted. The makeup was played on a beautiful fall Thursday afternoon, October 5, 2006, and yet another full house of 56,252 packed the Stadium with the expectation of another bludgeoning. “The place looked like a snapshot out of the 1960s,” wrote Mike Lupica in the News, and indeed, a day playoff game at Yankee Stadium was a treat. There was no way the Yanks could lose on a day that echoed the afternoons of Ruth, DiMag and the Mick, right?

The Yanks drew a record 4.24 million fans through the turnstiles that season, and Rodriguez was a big reason why, despite his fugue state and—for him—pedestrian numbers (35 homers, 121 RBI). But he had been abysmal in the 2005 ALDS loss to the Angels (hitting .133), and had a terrible night in this game, striking out three times in an 0-4, including with the bases loaded in the first inning against Jason Verlander. “I don’t like him that much,” said Big Stein, George Steinbrenner, about A-Rod in the wake of the performance. “No, he’ll pull out of it—I hope.”

Jeter wasn’t much better. He doubled in four trips, but also popped up a bunt attempt in that first inning, and later made an error at short, the 13th of his postseason career. In the second he came up with two on and two out, and bounced out.

For all that the Yanks led after Johnny Damon’s 3-run homer in the fourth, and with Mike Mussina on the bump, they were confident in holding it. “Moose" had been a solid starter since arriving in New York from Baltimore in 2001, if not quite as dominant as he was with the O’s. He went 15-7 with a 3.51 ERA in 2006, and was 16-5 in his career against Detroit. But like A-Rod, the postseason tightened Mussina like a tennis racket; he sported just a 7-7 record in October.

And on this afternoon he couldn’t hold the lead. “Gloomy and pained,” as Angell put it, Mussina struggled to locate his fastball. “It was sporadic,” he said. “One inning it was pretty good, the next inning it wasn’t so smooth. And while I was battling with it they scratched out a few runs.”

Three, in fact, a sac fly from future Yankee Curtis Granderson, a game-tying homer by Carlos Guillen, and a seventh-inning triple by Granderson that scored the winning run. As the shadows lengthened in the late afternoon, classically when the Yanks would win October games during the dynasty years, the great New York batsmen couldn’t do a thing against a series of fireballing Tigers relievers. The Yanks did nothing after the Damon dinger, Joel Zumaya and Todd Jones got the job done on the mound, and Detroit won 4-3 to even the series at one-all.

Leyland, when asked about the “Murderer’s Row” after the game, merely smiled like the wily old vet he was.

AFTERMATH:

The Yanks, shut out for the final five innings of Game Two, incredibly didn’t score again until the seventh inning of Game Four, a 20-inning drought, by which point the Murderer’s Row was dead and buried. The Tigers won both games in Motown, 6-0 and 8-3, in a shocking ass-kicking. Detroit, not New York, went on to the World Series, where they were taken out by the Cardinals in five games.

Days after the ALDS defeat Yanks pitcher Cory Lidle was killed while piloting his small plane, which crashed into the Belaire Apartment building on 72nd Street. It was a tragic capper to a—by franchise standards—horrible season.

WHAT THEY SAID:

“The other team isn’t going to lie down and say, ‘here, you can have this one’ just because you lead the game.”

—Derek Jeter

FURTHER READING:

Living On The Black by John Feinstein

VIDEO: