At some point, you know, this starts to feel personal.
At some point, you feel the bullseye on your back. You feel the eyes on you, and you alone. You get that ol' paranoid itch you can't scratch, sense your inner Travis Bickle stirring inside your gut.
You talkin' to me? You talkin' to ME?
"Taxi Driver." DeNiro. You remember.
And so: You talkin' to me, 2020? You talkin' to ME?
Because, listen, this has gone far enough. Every week or two weeks or month, it seems, you steal another piece of my childhood. You kill another of the Sports Illustrated covers I used to plaster on my bedroom walls. You take Al Kaline and Glenn Beckert and Mike Curtis and Don Shula and Jerry Sloan -- and now you take Wes Unseld?
Wes Unseld, who died the other day at the age of 74.
Wes Unseld, who starred at Louisville and then with the Washington Bullets, and who, late in his career, was the NBA playoff MVP when his Bullets finally won the title in 1978.
Wes Unseld: Who was listed at 6-7 but probably didn't clear 6-6, which was tiny even then for a center on the NBA.
Yet the man worked the low blocks the way Van Gogh worked in oils, and did it right out of the gate. His rookie year, 1968-69, he averaged a double-double -- 13.8 points and a staggering 18.2 rebounds -- and won both Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player, only the second player ever to do so after Wilt Chamberlain.
In his very first game, he scored eight points and pulled 22 boards. Thirteen years later, he finished with career averages of 10.8 points, 14.0 rebounds and 3.9 assists. He was inducted into the basketball Hall of Fame in 1988, coached the Bullets for a time, and was so universally regarded as an exemplary human being the requisite post-mortem tributes have focused almost more on those credentials than his credentials as a player.
Which is saying something.
At some point, you feel the bullseye on your back. You feel the eyes on you, and you alone. You get that ol' paranoid itch you can't scratch, sense your inner Travis Bickle stirring inside your gut.
You talkin' to me? You talkin' to ME?
"Taxi Driver." DeNiro. You remember.
And so: You talkin' to me, 2020? You talkin' to ME?
Because, listen, this has gone far enough. Every week or two weeks or month, it seems, you steal another piece of my childhood. You kill another of the Sports Illustrated covers I used to plaster on my bedroom walls. You take Al Kaline and Glenn Beckert and Mike Curtis and Don Shula and Jerry Sloan -- and now you take Wes Unseld?
Wes Unseld, who died the other day at the age of 74.
Wes Unseld, who starred at Louisville and then with the Washington Bullets, and who, late in his career, was the NBA playoff MVP when his Bullets finally won the title in 1978.
Wes Unseld: Who was listed at 6-7 but probably didn't clear 6-6, which was tiny even then for a center on the NBA.
Yet the man worked the low blocks the way Van Gogh worked in oils, and did it right out of the gate. His rookie year, 1968-69, he averaged a double-double -- 13.8 points and a staggering 18.2 rebounds -- and won both Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player, only the second player ever to do so after Wilt Chamberlain.
In his very first game, he scored eight points and pulled 22 boards. Thirteen years later, he finished with career averages of 10.8 points, 14.0 rebounds and 3.9 assists. He was inducted into the basketball Hall of Fame in 1988, coached the Bullets for a time, and was so universally regarded as an exemplary human being the requisite post-mortem tributes have focused almost more on those credentials than his credentials as a player.
Which is saying something.
What I'll say is I used to pretend I was Wes Unseld in my driveway, when I wasn't pretending to be Kareem or Oscar or Pete Maravich or John Havlicek. This was beyond comical, because I stood about 5-9 at the time. My weight was Hotdog Wrapper. Wes Unseld, on the other hand, checked in at about 250 and had shoulders like the Himalayas. So, yeah, it took some imagination.
And now, he's gone.
Now another part of growing up a sports-obsessed twerp in the 1960s and early '70s is part of the Great Vanishing.
Stop it, 2020. Please just stop it.
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