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Archive for January 3, 2008

Alonzo Mourning: Great Sports Moment

January 3, 2008 by enchantingsunshine.

Cal Ripken, Jr. has some competition in the hero arena. I rarely watch the local news, starting back to when I first moved to Charlotte. One channel in particular was, and is, notorious for being sensational (though Fox far outdoes them now). The teaser before the 5 pm news was, “Girl killed when something goes wrong.” That “something” was that a small child ran into the street in front of a moving car. Sure, I’d agree that something went wrong, but it’s not what I would call surprising or unexpected. Though tragic, it was the simple realization of Newton’s First Law of Physics. Doesn’t everyone take physics? Maybe newscasters don’t. I was expecting something more like, “Child’s Baby Alive suddenly malfunctions and strangles child after struggle over toy baby food and wet diaper.” After one too many news stories of “when something went wrong,” I gave up on the local television news.

Tonight however, I had the tube burning waiting for the start of “King of Queens.” If I were superstitious, I’d say it was a deliberate act of the spiritual world so that I could see the important story about a guy called Jerry Reese. Reese is trying to bring major league baseball to Charlotte. What the genius Charlotte planners want instead is to build a new stadium downtown for our minor league team, the Charlotte Knights (White Sox AAA, formerly the Os AA–Dempsey, Ripken, and Murray came through here). Reese keeps blocking the building of the stadium, I guess trying to buy time until we get a real team. The newscaster - it was FOX - asked him, “Is this good for the Charlotte taxpayers to keep paying to fight you?” or some such nonsense question. She ended the interview by thanking him and then added “I don’t think most families can afford $22 per ticket.” Then the segment closed and the honorable Mr. Reese had no opportunity to say anything else. Good ol Fox and their quality, objective journalism.

I doubt Charlotte will get a team, though it would be sweet. There’s a handful of people who have been trying to bring pro baseball here for years, but instead we got a replacement basketball team for the Hornets. (I seem to have a history of living in cities whose teams are whisked away in the middle of the night.)

When I started this paragraph over an hour ago, I started with, “Who the hell cares about basketball anyway?” Then I got to thinking and got all nostalgic and have now made myself quite sad missing the old times. Back when we had the Hornets, basketball was a lot of fun. What’s not to love about Mugsy Bogues (a Baltimoron, thank you very much), Larry Johnson, Alonzo Mourning, Dell Curry.

One of my all-time-favorite sports moments was a play by Alonzo Mourning. It was Game 4 in the first round of playoffs in 1993: Hornets vs Celtics. The Hornets were down, and in the last second, Alonzo Mourning threw a three-pointer from a freaking mile from the basket (Wikipedia says it was a “20-footer”) and it went in at the buzzer! The Hornets won 104-103. I had a full house of friends watching the game and we went nuts. It was such a moment.

I searched and searched for a good quality video, but these are the best I can find: Video 1 and Video 2 (the shot is at the very end of both videos). Neither gives you a real sense of where Mourning was in relation to the basket. Nor does it show how Mourning’s last toss was to our eyes a casual, last attempt. None of us expected the ball to go in.

Charlotte has the Bobcats now, but they’re a big yawn, and it’s a different (read “corporate”) atmosphere. The Coliseum, which used to be just up the street from my house, was imploded last year, to make way for golf course homes and high-dollar shopping.

I’d do better to not reminisce. How this once, tree-lined, sleepy little town has changed.

Still, I’d trade basketball for baseball any day, and the person who made that happen would be my hero.

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