{"id":3943,"date":"2021-01-25T22:29:11","date_gmt":"2021-01-25T22:29:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/?p=3943"},"modified":"2021-01-25T22:29:11","modified_gmt":"2021-01-25T22:29:11","slug":"let-the-kids-play-their-local-sports-and-wilt-still-the-best","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/?p=3943","title":{"rendered":"Let the kids play their local sports, and Wilt still the best"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

TERRY MOSHER<\/p>\n

TOP OF THE TOWN<\/strong> \u2013 Does it make sense that MLB can play baseball games and local high schools cannot? Am I missing something? Professional baseball players go home to their families after games. They aren\u2019t quarantine. High school players go home to their families after games. They aren\u2019t quarantine. The same goes for girl\u2019s softball games, high school basketball games and high school football games. Colleges and pros are doing it, why aren\u2019t local high schools allowed to do it? Same goes for track and field and tennis. Let the kids play. I can understand it is more problematic to bring teachers into the building to teach. It\u2019s problematic to bring the students into the building. It\u2019s difficult to practice safe distancing with a mass of students. We need to get this virus under control, though. It\u2019s not going to be easy even with vaccines, but if we don\u2019t a lot more lives will be lost. One thing I see is that we humans are adapting to the unusual situations and it\u2019s likely we will never go back to the normal before the virus hit. We are learning how to cope with it and we are changing the way we live. There will be more remote visiting and likely more delivering of food to consumers. It\u2019s definitely made us more cautious. \u2026 I\u2019m of the opinion that you can\u2019t compare athletes from one generation to the next and make a grand statement who is the best in a particular sport. Our games evolve so much that a guy like Wilt Chamberlain, who could not handle the ball well, would not be as dominant as he was when he played (1959-73). Yet I still insist he was the greatest basketball player. Why? He could do whatever he wanted against the best of his era \u2013 lead in assists, rebounds, scoring. But in today\u2019s game the 7-foot-1 Chamberlain would be asked to bring the ball up the court, which is something he could not do. Chamberlain, however, continues to have the highest vertical at 48 inches even in the NBA (Michael Jordan\u2019s was 46) and could bench press 500 pounds. In short, he was a monster basketball player. Wilt died in 1999. He was 63. If I make a list of the greatest players it would not mean much because just about everybody can make a different list and may be just as right as I would. Okay, I will try. Wilt obviously, Michael Jordan, Elgin Baylor, Larry Bird, and Julius Erving. Baylor is always the most underrated guy in any list that is made. But he could do anything he wanted. The story North Kitsap\u2019s Jim Harney tells is telling. Harney was the point guard on the Seattle University team that featured Elgin. They were playing, I believe, San Francisco, and needed a basket to win a game in the closing seconds. During a time out coach John Castellani turned to Harney and asked him what they should do. Harney\u2019s reply: \u201cGive the ball to Elgin and get out of his way.\u201d They did and they won when Baylor scored. That reminds me of what Sweet Charlie Brown told me about Baylor. Seems Baylor had incredible instincts. They were so good that his teammates in practice would test him. Brown said they would wait until Elgin wasn\u2019t looking and then they would fire the basketball at him. He always \u2013 ALWAYS \u2013 caught the ball. He would flick his fingers out and snatch it. It was sort of a running test that always failed. I was talking to Elgin a few years ago and I mentioned to him, \u201cI remember a play you made I thought was incredible. You jumped up for a rebound, grabbed the ball that had bounced to the top of the backboard, turned in mid-air and fired a full-court pass to \u2026.\u201d Elgin interrupted me and finished the sentence \u2026to Harney, he said. He remembered the play!!! \u00a0Seattle U lost the 1958 NCAA championship game to Kentucky that was played at Freedom Hall in Louisville before an all-white crowed of 18,803. The consensus then and now is Seattle was the much better team, but they couldn\u2019t overcome the obvious racism. Seattle led 60-58 with seven minutes left, but had been playing since the first minutes of the second half with Baylor hampered with four fouls, fouls that were a mystery until you throw in the racism. \u00a0Kentucky went on to win 84-72 and legendary Kentucky coach Adolph Rupp came into the Seattle U lockerroom after the game to congratulate Baylor for his unbelievable greatness. Baylor had 25 points and 17 rebounds and against Kentucky while playing with a broken rib suffered in the semifinals against Kansas State. Baylor, named the MVP of the tournament, averaged 32.5 points that season, second to Cincinnati\u2019s Oscar Robertson. Okay, that is enough. Stay safe.<\/p>\n

Be well pal.<\/p>\n

Be careful out there.<\/p>\n

Have a great day.<\/p>\n

You are loved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TERRY MOSHER TOP OF THE TOWN \u2013 Does it make sense that MLB can play baseball games and local high…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-column","category-mosher"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3943"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3944,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3943\/revisions\/3944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}