Category Archives: Sports

Note- sports content… Jodi, you might just skip this one..

Big night for Team Sank tonight, we’re off the the much beloved (in this home) Golden State Warriors play the local lads, the Timberwolves. My relationship with the hapless Warriors goes deep, back to the days of Joe Barry Carroll, Sleepy Floyd and World B. Free. I have a lot of fine memories of some real characters.. Actually I remember, as a kid, idolizing Rick Barry and his famous granny free throws.  I still remember Sleepy’s big game vs. the Lakers in 1987 where he went crazy for one night and scored something like 50 points. I remember sitting in an empty Oakland Coliseum to see the Twin Towers of Ralph Sampson and Hakeem Olajuwaan visiting us. It was only a few games after that where there was a famous shot of Ralph, being blind sided with the announcement of his trade to the “I’ve been traded WHERE?” Warriors. Ironically, Ralph is now seen often in the in Twin Cities as his son plays for the University of Minnesota.

Sparkplug 6th man and early Euro import Saranus Marciulionis, the Lithuanian Legend. Matter of fact, who remembers that Don Nelsons kid, also coach, Donny Nelson coached the Lithuanian Olympic team to a bronze medal in 1992? The best part of that team had to be their warmups.. Donn, leveraging Bay Area connections actually got the Grateful Dead to sponsor the team, resulting in the tie-died warmups and tee shirts in Lithuanian flag colors. The tee shirts were sold to raise money for the team.

I remember the big three, RUN TMC- Chris Mullin, Tim Hardaway and Mitch Richmond. That was some run and GUN hoops. 120 points a game were not uncommon. To bad they gave up 121 most of the time. The sense of disappointment when Richmond was dealt to the valley, the Kings for a poor Billy Owens, and man who was 180 degrees contrast from the always give it your all guy Mitch was. Billy was overweight and lazy.. with occasional sparks of goodness, and a presence at the free throw that would make Shaq look good. (he sucked in other words) We were there for the Chris Webber fisaco.. opting out of his deal after a year, which BTW, was the begging of the downward spiral. There was the pre-choke-your-coach thing Sprewell.

Who followed us to Minnesota BTW and was a key player in the Timberwolves ONE good season here in 21 years. Of course now Spre I hear is having some serious financial issues, yacht repossessed, mortgage default, and his spinner hub company unable to pay it’s bills. Probably a nice example of Kharma.

I remember when 7′ 7″ Manute Bol came to the team in Don Nelsons lifelong quest for a center. Manute was great shot blocker who always wanted to shoot 3 pointers. Since they guy weighed about 100 pounds in spite of his towering height, on offense the Warriors would have him hang out around the point line in an attempt to get the opposing center to have to drift back as well, lest they be called for the hard-to-explain 90′s version of the “illegal D”, sort of like offisides in soccer for my European friends.. you can explain it, but it’s hard to see on a court when it happens. Every so often, Manute would raise the ball over his head, (the ball would be about 10 feet off the ground as the guy could dunk without jumping) and line up one of his famous rim bending brick, the whole arean would start screaming NOOOOO as he got ready to shoot.. The few times he made it.. cheers would erupt.

Back then the Warriors used to fly commercial when they traveled and I remember one day flying to Phoenix to see the Warriors vs. Suns, (and my wife’s parents)on good old Southwest. Mrs S and I were walking through airport and she made the comment that “the Warriors are here, those guys look like basketball players.” This prompted a lecture from me on racism and why “just because you see a tall black person you shouldn’t assume they’re a basketball player”.

She stared at me pissoff like and pointed to Chris Mullin, the star of the team, who was also white and commented.. “Well smart-ass, then that Irishman is basketball player ” All of a sudden I started recognizing all the formally anonymous people around as players. When I turned around I found myself starting directly at Manute, more specifically, Manute’s belt buckle.. which was at my eye level. As we sat to wait for our flight, Warriors Guard Winston Garland asked us to watch his bag while he went to the can.. my brush with fame.

As it turns out the Warriors were on the flight before us, and were delayed while the airlines removed a seat from the plane so Bol could fit on the flight. When your over 7 and half feet tall, commercial airlines don’t offer enough legroom for you to sit. Neither do cars since he drove a Chevy Blazer modified so the rear seat was removed and the front drivers seat moved to back to the middle of the car so he could fit.

In the late 80′s, when Don Nelson came to the team the first time, was my first year as a season ticket holder. I spent every year at the Warriors until we moved here in 1995. Sad enough until last year, after living here for 14 years I could say that I was in attendance at the last Warriors home playoff game. Two years ago that stretch came to an fantastic end when Nellie stuck it his old squad, the heavily favored Dallas Mavericks.

So tonight, Mrs S and I, with our kids will be reminiscing the old days, a shitty local squad taking on our lads, also shitty in an empty arena. And we’ll have the same seats we had at the Warriors, about 3 row off the floor, on difference is the seats we’re sitting in the same seats printed on our tickets. In the old days, that was never the case.