Re: [Celtics' Stuff Re: High Above the Parquet Floor--er, Tray Table

[JB <jimmetz@xxxxxxx>]

On Tuesday, December 31, 2002, at 06:44  AM, Dan Forant wrote:

> I'd listen to Johnny on the radio before watching a telecast anytime. 
> Great
> announcer.
>
> DanF
>
> *********************
	Back in the day, that's  all we had. Red wouldn't allow television for 
most of those years and of course, a great bit of the legend that is 
the Celtics, originated with Johny's colorful approach, of turning the 
games into a morality play, with the good guys wearing (green and) 
white.
	So many of the rivalries seemed to come right out of Most's head.  Our 
bangers: McHale and Robie, were a benign: "Bumper and Thumper." Their 
bangers:  Mahorn and Ruland, were a malignant; "McFilthy and McNasty." 
Did the teams pick up on that? You bet. I'll be the ref's did also. Was 
Parish even called for a foul, when he sucker punched; villain "uber 
alles," Bill Laimbeer?
	Interestingly, strategies along these lines, of creating rivalries, 
based on dislike, real and imagined, has resurfaced recently, with 
several of our Eastern Conference rivals. Both Larry Brown and Byron 
Scott have tried to make things "personal," when their teams played the 
C's this season and now, most recently, Doc Rivers has (lamely) used; 
Johny Most's, most apparent successor, Tommy Heinson's, words, from his 
telecast, to try and  inspire the same kind of angry emotion on his 
team, on the eve of the last Celtics game.
	Will "old school," Tommy Heinsohn, take the bait? So far we've  heard 
no comment from him, after Rivers went public with his ploy, on Sunday. 
The usual "modis operandi," for announcers, is to be heard, but not to 
impose themselves into the game, to make themselves bigger than the 
game, as Most often did.
	I surely miss "Old Leather Lungs," rasping through a pack and a half 
of Camel's, "high above court side," into the little plastic ear piece 
from my "transistor" radio, way past my bedtime, so long ago, during 
those impressionable years, when, in all probability, my presence on 
these boards and love for the Celtics was  born: riding on the voice of 
our master of emotion, listening to my team, with as much, or more 
ardor, as  my contemporaries shared with  their celluloid heroes of the 
era.

		JB

	Unchain My Heart !