On the rebound

["Stephen Beauregard" <sb@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On the rebound
Celtics' Baker reflects on a turbulent year
By Peter May, Globe Staff, 11/27/2003

He'll wake up today and, after practice, head back to his house in Weston and
help prepare Thanksgiving dinner. Maybe when the Baker clan says grace before
the meal, it will acknowledge the obvious: This will be a Thanksgiving unlike
any other.

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"This is going to be a special Thanksgiving," Vin Baker said. "It's a
Thanksgiving that I can appreciate with my family, with my mom and dad and
children. And then I can appreciate that I'm alive, I'm sober, and that God
has really changed my life. I have so much to be thankful for."

The ongoing Baker recovery/turnaround is one of the undeniably feel-good
stories of the season. But it might never have happened had not Celtics
ownership forced Baker's hand last winter -- and Baker finally owned up to a
drinking problem. After seeing Baker labor through the first half of last
season, there were two, "What's really going on here, Vinnie?" meetings in
February between Baker and the owners. Ownership and management strongly
suspected alcoholism. Baker had repeatedly denied it.

But in the second of those meetings, on the morning of Feb. 27, Baker finally
admitted what everyone else in the room already knew. Today, Thanksgiving Day,
is the nine-month anniversary of the day that changed Vin Baker's life.

"That was a big day for me, an important day," Baker said in a recent
interview. "We discussed where I needed to go as a person and that I needed to
make the change. I needed rehabilitation for alcoholism. In the past, I had
had the conversation and always said, `It's not a problem.' This time, I knew
I had to get away and get my health, first for me, to stay alive, but also for
my family, my kids, and this organization."