Little vs. Van Breda Kolff

[Michael Gooen <callmebogie@xxxxxxxxx>]

In response to my "find a stupider coaching/managerial decision"
challenge, Snoopy wrote:

<<Bill Russell's last game against the Lakers in the playoffs, game 7.  
Wilt Chamberlain had come to the Lakers, and it looked like one final 
showdown between Russell and Chamberlain.  But with the C's holding a
17-point lead, Wilt took himself out of the game.  When the Lakers--with
Mel Counts taking Wilt's place on the court--mounted a comeback, Wilt
wanted back in.  But his coach, Butch Van Breda Kolff, was annoyed that
Wilt had taken himself out in the first place, and refused to send him
back in.>>

<<Don't know much more about baseball other than Snoopy plays shortstop, 
but I think that the Lakers screwing up game seven of the finals against 
Boston was a bigger mistake than the one you cite.  Never could resist a 
challenge.>>

Sorry, Snoop.  While I confess I didn't watch Game 7 in '69 (I was a month
shy of my 4th birthday), I can't accept Van Breda Kolff's stubbornness as
comparable to Little's idiocy.  The Lakers were down with Wilt in the game
and made their run without him.  One can justify VBK's decision on the
theory that if it works, stick with it.  It may have been wrong, but
hardly as stupid as sticking with a clearly tired pitcher.  The Red Sox
had a 3 run lead, two relievers who'd been just about automatic throughout
the playoffs (plus a third who'd been pretty close to automatic), and a
starter who almost always falters at the 110 pitch mark.  My 6 year old
daughter could've made that call.

The better basketball analogy would be if VBK had benched Chamberlain with
the Lakers up 15 and refused to put him back in as the lead slipped away. 
Perhaps the best analogy would be Chamberlain going off on a gimpy Willis
Reed in Game 7 of the following year's Finals and Red Holzman refusing to
take Reed out -- but of course, that couldn't have happened.  Wilt wasn't
that tough when it counted, and Holzman wasn't that stupid.  No one not
named Grady Little is.

Michael Gooen



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