Tag Archives: Sports Illustrated

Dream Team Book Q/A: Best show ever in basketball; landing an interview with elusive Jordan

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Jack McCallum was witness to one of the greatest miracles in sports: He saw me make a birdie on the par 3 12th hole at Augusta National. I dropped a six-iron to within four feet and actually made the putt. Not bad for a 15-handicapper who was playing like a 30 prior to that hole.

“Pretty good shot,” said McCallum, recalling our round the day after Jose Maria Olazabal’s victory in the 1999 Masters.

While it was the highlight of my pitiful sporting career (note: this is my blog and I will try to tell that tale as often as possible), McCallum has seen much greater feats of athletic prowess. Perhaps none were greater than the collective talents of the original “Dream Team.”

Twenty years later, the long-time Sports Illustrated writer is out this week with what should be the hottest sports book of the summer: Dream Team: How Michael, Magic, Larry and Charles and the greatest team of all time conquered the world and changed the game of basketball forever.

It seems like every sports book these days has the “changed the game forever” kicker. Publishers must think it adds some gravitas to entice sales.

Often the label isn’t deserved, but not in this case. The Dream Team did change basketball, and sports for that matter.

It was an unprecedented, and never duplicated, array of transcendent superstars playing for the same team; 11 of the 12 players are in the Hall of Fame. The Dreamers featured Michael Jordan, fresh off a second NBA championship with the Bulls, trying to grab the torch away from Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, two aging stars who saved the NBA in the 80s.

McCallum writes, “It couldn’t have been scripted any better, and when the Dreamers finally released all that star power into a collective effort, the show was better than everyone thought it would be…and everyone had thought it would be pretty damn good.”

McCallum, who covered the team from beginning to end, brings his A-game in telling the many stories and taking readers behind the scenes. He includes personal moments of covering the team, including the time he and fellow David Dupree asked to get a picture taken with the team.

McCallum writes that the moment was incredibly awkward, leaving him open to some good-natured verbal abuse from Bird. “Hey Jack,” drawled Bird, “later on, you wanna blow us?”

On that note, here’s my Q/A with Jack:

There’s no talk about this year’s U.S. Olympic team. What made that team so special in 1992?

It’s a cliche, but it was the perfect storm. There was the first time news angle. Then there was the fact that the international stage was set for them. All of sudden at a time (when overseas fans) were experiencing the NBA as an appetizer, here comes the whole entree in the form of the greatest team ever.

I think it was the only time in the sporting culture where NBA players were the biggest stars. LeBron James is huge, but I don’t think, fair or not, he has the same positive impact across the culture like they did back then.

Those guys truly were rock stars. What was it like to travel with them?

I had seen a mini-version of it with Jordan. The best way to describe it is when they got to Barcelona, there was thousands of people surrounding the hotel. I thought, OK, maybe it will be like this for a day or two. On day 17, they were still there. To this day, I still have a hard time trying to figure it out.

In the book, you revisited many of the players and did portraits of their lives today. Why did you take that route?

As you know, access sucks at the Olympics. I was not inside the bubble. I needed to talk to the players to get information on what occurred during the Olympics.

I also wanted to see what they’re doing now. I wasn’t looking to do a Boys of Summer. These are famous guys even in retirement. But I still knew I could find out something else about them. For instance,  to see David Robinson run his school in San Antonio, that puts him in perspective.

Michael Jordan doesn’t do many interviews these days. How difficult was it to get him?

It was difficult. He’s at war with Sports Illustrated (for mocking his attempt at baseball), although that didn’t have anything to do with me. I made it clear this was not a SI project. Finally, I got, ‘Michael Jordan will see you. But it only will be for 15 minutes and you must keep your questions to the Dream Team.’

I knew I was OK. He’s not Charles Barkley, but he’s pretty honest. Michael is an incredible bullshitter and I knew he’d talk about anything. I also knew it wouldn’t be for 15 minutes. The key was getting in the room. It was a great interview. Afterward, I had a sense of relief wash over me. I got him.

Talk about Jordan’s teammate, Scottie Pippen.

He surprised me. Pippen always got the shortshrift. Every time, I came to Chicago, I’d wind up writing Jordan. One time I came in to write Horace Grant and still wound up writing Jordan.

I found a guy in Pippen who you could clearly see how this experience meant so much to him. He couldn’t believe it when he got invited. The way it validated his career was interesting. Chris Mullin said the same thing. Karl Malone, in his own way, did too. It was interesting to me to see how much these guys needed that validation.

What is the legacy of the Dream Team?

All the players wanted to make the point that there was only one Dream Team. Don’t get into this BS about a Dream Team II. As accomplished as they were individually, they all knew they were on the one team that was different. They knew not only how meaningful it was to them, but also across the entire history of basketball.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author Q/A: Sports Illustrated’s Ballard on unlikely story of high school baseball team

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Trust me, the book business is extremely tough these days. So it’s difficult to imagine publishers getting excited for a proposal about a small-town high school baseball team from central Illinois in the 1970s.

Yeah, we haven’t had a good high school baseball book in a long time.

But that’s what exactly happened for Chris Ballard’s One Shot at Forever: A Small Town, An Unlikely Coach, and A Magical Baseball Season. The book tells the story of the Macon (Ill.) baseball team’s bid to win the state title against the big-city teams from Chicago led by its beatnik coach Lynn Sweet.

Actually, it hardly was a surprise that publishers (Hyperion in this case) wanted the book. When Ballard wrote about the team in a 10,000-word story for Sports Illustrated, the response was huge. Boom, built-in audience. The next step was to expand the magazine article into a book.

In the capable hands of Ballard, One Shot gets to the heart of what high school sports means to a small town and the lasting impact the games had on those boys more four decades later. Never thought I would get into a book about high school baseball, but I did.

Here’s my Q/A with Ballard:

Given the subject, how unlikely was it for this book to get published?

The battle I originally fought was with the magazine. When I came to them with the initial idea, one editor said, ‘Just start working on it, but it’s going to be a hard sell.’ Even after I wrote it, it sat around the system for a long time before it finally ran. Once it got into the magazine, the reaction was so positive, and the magazine received more letters than it had for a story in a long time. From there, it wasn’t that difficult to get into the book phase.

How did you find out about the story?

An e-mail came into the office from a guy named Chris Collins. He grew up in Macon and was 10-years-old at the time. He wrote a screenplay about the team and wanted to make it into a movie. He hoped if somebody wrote about it, it would be intriguing enough to generate some interest.

What made the story work for you?

When I met Sweet, I knew it could work. (The book) needed a protagonist, and he was that was that guy. There was the counter culture clash. It was pretty pronounced. He had this charisma of not giving a damn while really caring about the kids. That was an easy combination to root for.

What does this book say about the grip of high school sports that lasts a lifetime?

Had they won, it wouldn’t have been all that interesting. They would have been just another underdog team that won. Instead, it was the ability to look back 40 years later and see the power of sports memories from when you go from boy to man. A lot of people can relate to that.

What was the reaction from the Macon players when they learned you wanted to do a book on their team?

It went from being very excited to being very reticent. (For the star player), it was the one thing he couldn’t let go.

I was at a function with the team. There were 350 people, and they gave them a standing ovation. They saw how people responded to them. The guys were laughing and crying. After that, the players understood what that season meant. It reaffirmed that something happened that mattered.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Make up your mind SI: Is it LeBron’s era or Durant’s?

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There’s a fundamental problem when you anoint a new era in a sport before the finals is played. Your new era guy might lose out to the old era guy.

A few weeks ago, Sports Illustrated ran Kevin Durant on the cover with the big headline declaring: “The New Era.”

Then mockingly, it had a small insert of an old SI cover declaring LeBron James as “The New Era.” Hey, LeBron, you are so yesterday.

Well, now we all know the rest of the story. James and the Heat defeated Oklahoma City in five games.

As a result, SI went back to the old era with James on the cover this week. Lee Jenkins wrote a post finals piece with the now official King of basketball.

Who knows? Perhaps the Durant cover inspired James?

And who knows? Perhaps Durant was done in by yet another tale of the SI cover jinx?

 

 

 

Sunday funnies: Billy Martin, Frank Deford and Marvelous Marv in Miller Lite ad

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In honor of Frank Deford’s new book, Overtime, and my Q/A with him earlier in the week, it is only appropriate to select his 1981 Miller Lite ad for this week’s entry.

He teamed with Billy Martin and “Marvelous Marv” Throneberry.

Not only could he write, but Deford also could act a little too. And imagine a sportswriter in a major national ad? All hail Frank.

This week’s SI: The untold story about steroids in baseball

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Back in 2002, Ken Caminiti’s revelations in Sports Illustrated blew open what was painfully obvious: rampant use of steroids in baseball.

This week, Caminiti, who died of a drug overdose, is back on the cover of SI. However, on the 10th anniversary of the original story, SI’s Tom Verducci takes a different approach on discussing the impact steroids had on the game.

His opening paragraph:

This is a story about the real cost of steroids in baseball–not the broken records, not the litigation, not the talk-show drone about the elite players who juiced and how to weigh their Hall of Fame candidacy. This is a story about the hundred, even thousands, of anonymous ballplayers whose careers and lives were changed by a temptation that defined an era.

Kudos to Verducci and SI for detailing the deeper implications here. It went far beyond Bonds, McGwire, Clemens, Sosa, etc..

This is a must-read story. One of the best I’ve seen in SI in a long time.

From the release:

(Verducci) examines the playing careers of four right handed pitchers who were members of the Minnesota Twins organization in mid-to-late 1990s. They had similar skills and backgrounds. None were drafted by the Twins higher than the fourth round of the MLB amateur draft. One of the four, however, took steroids, and he was the only one who ever reached the major leagues. His name was Dan Naulty and his decision to cheat the game, his teammates and himself affected all their lives.

Naulty was 6’6’’ and 180 pounds as a senior at Cal State Fullerton, had a fastball that sat around 85mph and was drafted in the 14th round. After using steroids and other performance-enhancement drugs, he began throwing his fastball at up to 95mph and at one point weighed 248 pounds. He spent three seasons with the Twins, pitching in 97 games before being traded to the New York Yankees in 1999, where he won a World Series.

On the outside, he looked like many other major leaguers, but inside he was an emotional wreck from the steroids, the guilt of cheating and a drinking problem. Naulty hit rock bottom just after the World Series. After a night of celebrating with some teammates, Naulty asked his driver as they crossed the George Washington Bridge, “Tell me. Tell me if this is all there is to life. Because if this is all there is, just stop this car right now and I’ll jump…. I had no hope. I had sold myself that bill of goods so long that I believed it. But I realized at that moment I had totally destroyed my life. And I had destroyed countless other people’s lives. I was ready to die.”

 

A little trash talk between ESPN-NBC Sports Network

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It isn’t often that we get trash talking between two sports networks. So let’s celebrate while it’s here.

In an interview on SI.com, Richard Deitsch asked ESPN President John Skipper the following question: “How concerned are you about NBC and Comcast creating a national network to rival  you?”

OK, Skipper had to know the question was coming. Initially, he was corporate respectful, but then in mid-answer he turned into Rex Ryan.

We know those guys. They have significant resources and smart folks there. They  have platforms, so we have a lot of respect for what they do, and we of course  pay attention.

Trash talk alert:

However, we’ve been doing this for 32 years and I do think  there’s a little too much respect paid to the great brand names. Everybody sort  of assumes, ‘Oh, my gosh, NBC is going to a 24/7 network and it’s a two-horse  race.” But they don’t look like we look. You guys saw all the stuff today —  mobile, Internet. We have more viewers in an average minute on ESPN mobile than  they have on NBC Sports Network.

Sure enough, that is the case. During the average minute in TV daytime, there’s 93,999 people using ESPN Mobile and apps compared to 82,421 watching NBC Sports Network, said ESPN spokesman Mike Soltys in USA Today.

Nevertheless, NBC Sports Network wasn’t about to let that shot slide. From USA Today.

NBC Sports Group spokesman Greg Hughes responded Wednesday with a statement suggesting ESPN overcharges TV customers. And that NBC Sports Network provides more value for the buck than the self-proclaimed Worldwide Leader in Sports.

“The NBC Sports Group brands are among the most powerful brands in sports. We don’t look like anyone else and we’re very proud of that fact. They’ve been at this a long time and at a significantly higher cost to consumers,” Hughes said. “Our audience and market share are increasing as evidenced by the NHL playoffs and at great value to our viewers.”

Interesting comment. Let’s examine.

Yes, ESPN does charge much more than anyone else. You know why? Because they can. Let’s not kid ourselves, for all the talk of being such a bargain, NBC Sports Network would do the same thing if they could. Comcast isn’t running a non-for-profit.

However, NBC Sports Network can’t reach those pricing levels because its programing doesn’t come close to matching ESPN’s arsenal. And it won’t for a long time with ESPN locking up many long-term deals.

Perhaps that should be ESPN’s retort here. But I’m guessing we have heard enough trash talk for now.

 

 

 

 

 

Junior Seau on SI cover; examines his suicide

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Junior Seau is featured on the cover of this week’s Sports Illustrated. Sporting a big smile, he seemed so full of life in the picture.

The issue examines his tragic death. From the release:

Senior writer Jim Trotter (@SI_JimTrotter), who covered Seau and the Chargers as a beat reporter in the 1900s, spoke with close friends and former teammates about who Seau was on and off the field. Seau grew up in the Oceanside section of San Diego, played professionally for the Chargers for 13 seasons and lived in San Diego until his death. His loyalty for the community was evident in his foundation, which since 1992 has dispersed nearly $4 million to aid disadvantaged kids and young adults in San Diego County, through programs such as Gangbusters (page 38).

Said former Rams and Bears lineback Pisa Tinoisamoa, “That saved my life. It had people around me and help set me straight…. June [Seau] was behind that. I saw him on my birthday last July, and he came in playing his ukulele and singing Happy Birthday. I didn’t get to tell him personally what he meant to me, but he knew. He saw the success I had, and he was proud of me. Whenever I saw him, he would talk about how good I was. He was always positive. That’s why everyone loved him. They felt they were friends with June. He had that status about him, but to us he was just a man of the people.”

Seau led by example. He was the first to the practice facility in the morning and provided helpful advice for his teammates. Seau ignored pain and insisted that if you could walk, you could play.

Former teammate LaDainian Tomlinson said, “I feel awful that Junior didn’t feel he was close enough to anybody that he could say, ‘Look, something isn’t right.’ He didn’t feel there was anybody, and we all need someone we can go to and say, ‘There’s something going on with me.’ That’s the sad thing, but that’s who Junior was. He didn’t want us to know he was hurting on the field, so off the field he certainly wasn’t going to say anything.”

Senior writer Peter King reflects on a time when he watched Seau play a game in 2000 with a severely pulled hamstring. Because Seau’s pain threshold was high, King held Seau to a higher standard, something King would think twice about doing again.

Also in this week’s SI:

THE RUSSIAN QUESTION – MICHAEL FARBER

The 2012 NHL playoffs have been filled with intensity and excitement, but many of the biggest story lines have been about the missteps of players from the former Soviet bloc. The Predators’ Alexander Radulov and Andrei Kostitsyn missed a team curfew and were suspended for Game 3 and scratched for Game 4 of the Western Conference semifinals. Alexander Ovechkin, a two-time Hart Trophy winner, has seen significantly less ice time in the playoffs. Ilya Bryzgalov, who signed a nine-year, $51 million contract with Philadelphia in the off-season, has been inconsistent for the Flyers (page 56).

There have been a few bright spots, but mainly, it’s been an uneasy postseason for Russian players. Some believe it could have an impact on the Edmonton Oilers, who have the first pick in this year’s NHL draft, and will likely choose Nail Yakupov. Terry Jones, a columnist for the Edmonton Star, tweeted last week, “The way the Russians are going in Stanley Cup playoffs, Oilers better give a real, real, real, real good hard think about Nail Yakupov, huh?”

WHERE DOES GREATNESS COME FROM? – CHRIS BALLARD (@SI_ChrisBallard)

You might assume that Kobe Bryant inherited his talent for basketball and his burning need for success from his father, former NBA and Italian league player Joe (Jellybean) Bryant. But Joe and Kobe are strikingly different, and while the son got some gifts from his father, he got his fire from an unexpected source, his mom.  When Kobe was 14 years old he tried to dunk on his mom in a backyard game, and she leveled him with a forearm. Kobe said, “She would drop you. Oh, yeah, she was rough. My mom’s the feisty one. She has that killer in her.”

Joe Bryant has been married to the same woman for 38 years, and has close relationships with his children and grandchildren. He travels around the world, immersing himself in new experiences, and is generally loved by the players he coaches. After playing for 10 pro teams in three countries over 18 years, he has coached in the WNBA, the ABA, Japan, Mexico, Italy and now in Bangkok. Joe may never be great, but he is happy. Kobe Bryant may never be happy, and perhaps that’s what makes him great (page 60).