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    Before LeBron and Bronny, These Fathers and Sons Made Sports History

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    The Los Angeles Lakers are poised to have the first father-son N.B.A. duo in league history. But other dads and sons have played pro sports together as well.When the Los Angeles Lakers selected Bronny James, 19, in the second round of the N.B.A. draft on Thursday night, the team set up an intriguing story line. Next season, he could play in the same lineup as his father, the 39-year-old superstar LeBron James.While there have been many great parent-child combos in sports history — Bobby and Barry Bonds in baseball; Peter and Kasper Schmeichel in soccer; Pamela, JaVale and Imani McGee in basketball — seldom do they play at the same time, much less on the same team.But at least on a few other occasions, the stars have aligned to make it possible.The Ageless Gordie Howe and SonsGordie Howe retired from hockey at age 43 after an illustrious career. But when his sons Mark and Marty joined the Houston Aeros of the World Hockey Association three seasons later, he could not resist.“They knew my greatest wish has always been to play pro hockey with my sons,” he said, “and when they asked me, ‘Would you be interested?’ I said, ‘Hell, yes.’”His return proved not to be a brief cameo. Astonishingly, he played with his sons for seven seasons, moving on to the New England Whalers, who joined the N.H.L. for the 1979-80 season as the Hartford Whalers. Howe Sr. was skating on major league ice at 51.He played 80 games with the Whalers in his final season, scoring 15 goals before finally hanging up his skates. “I think I have another half-year in me,” he declared at the announcement.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Premier League stadium looks unrecognisable as it transforms to host monster trucks and baseball in stunning timelapse

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      THE LONDON STADIUM looks unrecognisable in a new timelapse video of its summer transformation.During the off-season, the 66,000 capacity venue hosted a variety of events, including monster trucks and baseball.
      The London Stadium looks unrecognisable in a new timelapse videoCredit: YouTube
      West Ham’s home was transformed to host monster trucks and baseballCredit: YouTube
      A new video showing the stadium’s transformation between May 21 and August 14 has now been released.
      The video starts with the conclusion of West Ham’s final home match of last season against Leeds.
      Workers immediately begin removing the pitch in order to erect a stage, with Nigerian singer Burna Boy staging a concert on June 3.
      The venue is then converted into a baseball pitch to host the MLB London Series at the end of June.
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      Pictures from the stadium at the time showed it looking unrecognisable following the transformation.
      However, the work caused controversy amongst fans as the baseball event prevented the club from screening the Europa Conference League final.
      Another pair of concerts were then held in July, with The Weeknd performing twice once the baseball pitch had been removed.
      Dirt and ramps were later installed for the Monster Jam monster truck event later that same month.
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      Grass made its return to the London Stadium before the end of July, though, with a London Athletics meet taking place.
      The event also saw the ground’s athletics track revealed around the outside of the pitch.
      West Ham’s pitch has since been restored for the start of the new season, with the timelapse ending on August 14.
      The Hammers host Chelsea in their first Premier League home game on Sunday. More

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      Victor Wembanyama Takes the Subway to Yankee Stadium to Throw First Pitch

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      It was a rather unremarkable Tuesday at Central Park West and Columbus Circle. Vendors sold hot dogs, coffee and overpriced bottled water nearby. A light breeze rustled the sycamore branches hanging over a bicycle rental kiosk filled with neat rows of mint green helmets. Then, at 4:41 p.m., a black Mercedes van crept through the jam of buses, police vehicles and flower-adorned bicycle cabs.Two teenagers watched as a lanky young man in dark sunglasses, black shorts and a white T-shirt unfolded himself out of the van and stood at more than seven feet tall.“Oh my god!” one of the teenagers said. “It’s Victor Wembanyama!”Wembanyama was in town for the N.B.A. draft at Barclays Center in Brooklyn on Thursday, when he will almost certainly be selected No. 1 overall by the San Antonio Spurs as one of the most anticipated prospects since LeBron James. He was on his way to Yankee Stadium to throw the ceremonial first pitch for Tuesday night’s game with Seattle. But before that, he wanted to try something he had never done: ride the New York City subway.Wembanyama greeted fans as he arrived at Columbus Circle.And as he entered the subway.“Watch your head!” a police officer bellowed as Wembanyama walked through the station and ducked beneath a cream-painted pipe on the ceiling.“I’m used to it,” said Wembanyama, who is at least 7-foot-4. In France, where he grew up and played professional basketball last season for Metropolitans 92, he has ridden the Paris metro plenty of times. By now, at 19 years old, he is generally accustomed to bobbing his head to keep it from hitting things.He had flown to the New York metropolitan area on Monday afternoon, when he was swarmed by fans at Newark Liberty International Airport. Now he had just visited the offices of the N.B.A. players’ union on Sixth Avenue, about a block from Bryant Park. He needed to catch a Bronx-bound D train at Columbus Circle. A teammate from France, Bilal Coulibaly, who is also expected to be drafted early on Thursday, Wembanyama’s agents and his communications manager had come along.Wembanyama’s family met him at the subway station — his parents, brother and sister — as did police officers, N.B.A. security personnel, in-house content producers for the N.B.A., and reporters and photographers from two French news media outlets and The New York Times. It was a formidably sized group for a Tuesday afternoon subway car.At over seven feet tall, Wembanyama had to bend his head to keep it from touching the ceiling of the subway car.Exiting the D train at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx.Harry Cisse, 17, who was on the way to a friend’s graduation, sighed deeply as the group packed onto the train, leaving little space to move or breathe.“WELCOME TO NEW YORK!” a woman’s voice boomed in the distance as the train began to roll. She added, as Wembanyama stood in the middle of the car with his head bent: “HOW TALL IS HE?”Sebastian Cardona, 22, immediately texted and called some friends on FaceTime with his iPhone to let them know he was on the train with Wembanyama.“Rookie of the year!” Cardona yelled before trying to get Wembanyama to turn around for a photo. Cardona, too, was on his way to see the Yankees. He said he knew Wembanyama was going to throw out the first pitch, but he never expected to see him on the subway.A few feet away, a woman shouted in French for Wembanyama to turn. He obliged a couple of times and smiled for her photos. Aladji Sacko, 25, a Frenchman who now lives in New York, was standing next to the woman on his way home.“I’ve only seen him on TV,” Sacko said as he grinned. A few minutes later he wove through the crowded car to sneak closer for a photo.Wembanyama surrounded by police and his entourage, walking in the Bronx.Many eager fans awaited a Wembanyama signed baseball.After the first stop, at 125th Street, Wembanyama found a seat. Two seats away, a woman’s headphones flashed colored lights. She closed her eyes and ignored the commotion around her.Wembanyama smiled as he sat, then spent most of the ride like anyone might — checking his phone, chatting with his companions. He did a short interview with the N.B.A.’s entertainment group, telling them he wished he had a chance to visit more of the city. After Thursday night, Wembanyama is expected to be whisked off to San Antonio.It took four stops on the D train to go from Columbus Circle to Yankee Stadium. Wembanyama and his court left the train together, ascending a yellow-tiled stairwell into the Bronx. People driving and biking by Wembanyama yelled to get his attention. One person in a car shouted, “Go Spurs!” and Wembanyama smiled to acknowledge the cheer.Trying to see if the Yankees were a good fit.Wembanyama, left, spoke to Yankees catcher Jose Trevino inside the Yankees’ dugout.Fans waiting in line to enter Yankee Stadium grabbed their cellphones to record Wembanyama as he passed by, chattering excitedly about the N.B.A. draft.Inside the stadium, Wembanyama spent some time in the dugout with Yankees catcher Jose Trevino, perhaps getting some advice on his impending pitch. Wembanyama fiddled with a baseball that looked like a golf ball in his outsize hands. He left the dugout to sign autographs and pose for pictures with children.He still had more than an hour before his pitch.When it was finally time, he clapped as he approached the mound. The crowd, still filling in, cheered to welcome him. Wembanyama wound up and threw the pitch too far outside for Yankees pitcher Clarke Schmidt, stationed behind home plate, to catch it.Wembanyama shrugged, and then he laughed.Wembanyama threw a wild first pitch. More

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      Premier League stadium looks unrecognisable as it’s completely transformed for entirely different sport

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      THE London Stadium has undergone a dramatic transformation in preparation for the return of Major League Baseball.West Ham’s home ground has been transformed into a full-purpose baseball pitch in preparation for next week’s MLB London Series.
      Major League Baseball returns to the London Stadium next weekCredit: TIMES NEWSPAPERS LTD
      The home of West Ham United has undergone a face lift to prepare for the latest MLB London SeriesCredit: PA
      Ground staff re-jigged the pitch and installed a pitcher’s mound and strike zone on ThursdayCredit: PA
      The St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs will duke it out in a two-game series at the home of the Europa Conference League champions.
      And ground staff have already laid down the pitcher’s mound and bases in preparation for the matches.
      Over 144,000 square feet of artificial turf and 345 tonnes of clay have been installed at the stadium.
      The foul poles on either side of the playing area are 18metres high – almost as tall as the arena.
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      The Cardinals and Cubs’ London clash was announced last year, much to the delight of UK-based baseball fans.
      Cardinals CEO William DeWitt Jr said: “The Cardinals are excited and honored to be a part of the London Series next year.
      The Cardinals-Cubs rivalry is one of the best in sports, and it will be exciting to bring it to Europe for a new audience to experience.
      “I have no doubt that the passionate sports fans in London will love these games and we look forward to creating some new Cardinals fans overseas.”
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      Cubs Executive Chairman Tom Rickets said: “The MLB London Series between the Cubs and Cardinals has been in the works for years now and we’re thrilled to finally be able to bring one of baseball’s biggest rivalries to fans abroad in 2023.
      “We hope that this series not only excites and entertains but brings more international sports fans to the game we all love.”
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      Even the changing rooms have had a face lift for the visit of the Cardinals and the CubsCredit: GETTY
      The New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox did battle in the last MLB London SeriesCredit: GETTY
      London Stadium bigwigs are also thrilled at the upcoming series between the MLB big boys.
      CEO Graham Gilmore said: “We are immensely proud to host Major League Baseball back at London Stadium, after the hugely popular London Series in 2019.
      “This commitment will allow us to support the aim of MLB to grow the game in the UK for years to come, while demonstrating the versatility of our magnificent venue.”
      The 2019 MLB series at the London Stadium saw the New York Yankees take on their bitter rivals the Boston Red Sox.
      The Yankees came out of the series victorious, winning the first match 17-13 and the second 12-8.
      St Louis Cardinals will play Chicago Cubs in the MLB World Tour: London Series 2023 on June 24-25 at London Stadium. Tickets are available now at ticketmaster.co.uk/mlb. More

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      The Miami Heat Might Blow a 3-0 Series Lead

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      No N.B.A. team has lost a best-of-seven playoff series after winning the first three games, but the Heat are one loss from being the first.When a team takes a three-games-to-none lead in a best-of-seven series, it is time to start looking ahead to the next round or to a championship parade.Most of the time.In the history of sports, a few teams with 3-0 series leads have managed to lose three straight games before recovering. Some of them lost one more game — and the series — as well.That’s the history facing the Miami Heat, who won the first three games of their N.B.A. Eastern Conference finals series against the Boston Celtics, then lost the next three, including Game 6 at home on Saturday night.Game 7 is Monday night in Boston, and the Heat are 48 minutes away from historical ignominy. No N.B.A. team has ever blown a 3-0 series lead dating to 1947, when the N.B.A. was called the Basketball Association of America and had teams like the Cleveland Rebels and the St. Louis Bombers. This year, in the Western Conference finals, the Denver Nuggets took a 3-0 series lead against the Los Angeles Lakers, then finished them off in a four-game sweep.A collapse after taking a 3-0 series lead has happened in other leagues, though. Let’s relive some of those dark moments (for one team in those series anyway).BaseballDavid Ortiz’s home run in the 12th inning of Game 4 of the 2004 American League Championship Series put an all-time comeback in motion.Barton Silverman/The New York TimesThe most famous 3-0 comeback in sports certainly came in 2004 when the Boston Red Sox stunned their hated rivals, the Yankees, and made Major League Baseball history.The victory in the American League Championship Series, snatched from the jaws of defeat, came in defiance of the fabled Curse of the Bambino that had supposedly consigned the Red Sox to perpetual defeat after they sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1920.“This is obviously crushing for us,” said Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez, a sentiment the Heat may soon be feeling.The only other time a major league team battled back from 3-0 down, it didn’t finish the job. The Tampa Bay Rays raced to a 3-0 series lead in the 2020 A.L.C.S., played at a neutral site in San Diego because of the coronavirus pandemic. The Houston Astros claimed the next three games, but Tampa Bay pulled out a 4-2 victory in the decider before losing the World Series to the Los Angeles Dodgers.“I don’t know if I went to bed,” Rays Manager Kevin Cash said about the aftermath of Game 6. “It was tough, there’s no doubt. A lot of anxiety.”No team has blown a 3-0 series lead in the World Series, but in the Japan Series, the Nishitetsu Lions came back from 3-0 down to win in 1958 against the Yomiuri Giants and the Giants managed the same feat against the Kintetsu Buffaloes in 1989.HockeyThe N.H.L. has treated fans to the most four-game collapses, and one of those came in the Stanley Cup final.In 1942, the Detroit Red Wings won the first three games, but the Toronto Maple Leafs came roaring back with four straight. The Cup had switched to a best-of-seven format in 1939 and this was the first series to go the distance.“By Jiminy” was the postgame reaction of the Leafs great Syl Apps.Four-game comebacks were also achieved in earlier rounds by the Islanders over the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1975, the Philadelphia Flyers over the Boston Bruins in 2010 and the Los Angeles Kings over the San Jose Sharks in 2014.BasketballAlthough no N.B.A. team has — yet — lost a series it led by 3-0, a few, like this year’s Heat, have lost three straight to get to 3-3.It happened once in the finals, in 1951. The Rochester Royals (now the Sacramento Kings via Cincinnati, Kansas City, Mo., and Omaha) took a 3-0 lead over the Knicks, who rallied with three wins. The final game came down to the last seconds before Bob Davies of the Royals sealed it with two free throws.It is the one and only championship for the Royals/Kings franchise, in any city. The Knicks would have to wait until 1970 for their first.A three-game collapse followed by Game 7 redemption was also achieved in earlier rounds by the 1994 Utah Jazz against the Denver Nuggets and the 2003 Dallas Mavericks against the Portland Trail Blazers.So the full collapse has never happened in the N.B.A. But in all of basketball?How could you forget the classic Beermen-Aces series?In the 2016 Philippine Cup final, the Alaska Aces looked set to claim the title after three straight wins. (Their name came from their sponsor, Alaska Milk, not their home base.)But it was a mistake to count out the reigning champion San Miguel Beermen, who won four straight to do what no N.B.A. team has ever done.The Celtics will be hoping to match the Beermen on Monday night. More

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      Turning Sports Statistics Into Riveting Cinema

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      Jon Bois and his collaborators specialize in documentaries about seemingly unremarkable teams. Then he wields charts and graphs to spellbinding effect.Toward the end of “The History of the Atlanta Falcons” (2021), a seven-part, nearly seven-hour documentary, the writer-director Jon Bois describes a surprise 82-yard interception return by the Falcons cornerback Robert Alford, executed with just minutes left in the first half of Super Bowl LI, in 2017, as “one of the very most impactful individual plays in all of N.F.L. history.”Almost any other filmmaker would have been content to leave it at that. But Bois shows his work. On the sports statistics website pro-football-reference.com, Bois explains, there is a metric called expected points that “estimates how many points an offense should be expected to score on a drive before a particular play and after that play.” Subtract one from the other, and you determine the play’s overall impact. Alford’s interception return resulted in negative seven points for the New England Patriots on a drive that should have earned them three, for a differential of 10.7. Bois pulls up a chart graphing the differential “of all 8,982 individual plays in Super Bowl history.” The Alford touchdown, we can plainly see, ranks as the third biggest of all-time.This was not an exaggeration for rhetorical effect. When Bois says that a play is “one of the very most impactful,” he means it.Bois is the poet laureate of sports statistics. His documentaries, including the acclaimed “The History of the Seattle Mariners” (2020) and the recent Charlotte Bobcats-themed “The People You’re Paying to Be in Shorts” (both streaming on his YouTube channel, Secret Base) are packed with charts, graphs and diagrams scrupulously plotting wins, losses, points, home runs and field goals with a rigor that borders on scientific.“I was one of the weird kids who actually liked high school algebra,” Bois said recently in a video interview. “And as I grew up, I just loved the statistical side of sports. The ability to condense sports into a bar graph or a pie chart or a scatter plot — in a way, you can watch a thousand games in 10 seconds. It’s like a little time warp.”A longtime sportswriter and editor with SB Nation, the respected sports-industry blog owned by Vox Media, Bois, 40, has emerged as a singular voice in documentary film — in part, he explained, because of the style he “stumbled into” as a result of his “limited technical abilities.” A self-taught video editor without a background in motion graphics, Bois, unusually, makes most of his video work within the satellite imaging app Google Earth, importing images directly onto Google’s 3-D environments and using the satellite maps as a kind of virtual sandbox. It looks a little like a PowerPoint presentation ported into a street-view map, with huge blocks of text floating above pixelated renderings of roads and baseball stadiums.Bois and his collaborators work in the Google Earth app, using pixelated images of stadiums and other sites.via Jon BoisThe style is unmistakable. The camera seems to float in the air above graphs and charts, and, as Bois or one of his collaborators narrates, we’re treated to old photographs, quotes from newspaper clippings and the occasional grainy clip of archival game footage. And all of it is scored to mellow, synth-laden yacht rock and smooth jazz. It’s as if Ken Burns had adapted “Moneyball” with a soundtrack by Steely Dan.“In an era of impersonal and interchangeable internet content, Bois has a signature all his own,” said Jordan Cronk, a film critic and founder of the Acropolis Cinema, a screening series in Los Angeles. “Unlike other journalists who have tried their hand at filmmaking, Bois found a cutting-edge form for pop-encyclopedic explorations of sports history, combining a YouTuber’s flair for storytelling with a tradition of hyper-analytic essay cinema.”Bois acknowledged that “for better or worse, it doesn’t look or sound like anything else out there.” And to him, it’s most important “not to be better than anybody, but to be different from everybody.”No less unique are the kinds of stories Bois and his regular co-writer and producer Alex Rubenstein choose to tell. The teams, players and seasons they focus on are not typically well-known, lacking the obvious drama of underdog success or rags-to-riches glory. The Mariners, Falcons and Bobcats are not perennial favorites or inspirational fodder. Their lore is esoteric and offbeat.“We realized no one in a thousand years would do a movie on the history of the Mariners or the history of the Falcons,” Bois said. “Those stories would not get tackled like they deserve to.”Bois’s level of exacting detail can be overwhelming and, in the course of generous running times, occasionally exhausting. But his work isn’t for stats nerds who want to geek out on numbers. In fact, his approach has the opposite effect: The films’ depth makes them more accessible. You don’t have to know anything about the Mariners to enjoy his nearly four-hour documentary about them. You don’t even have to know anything about baseball.“He manages to use statistics not as background support for dramatic entertainment but the most foregrounded and visually stimulating element in his narratives,” said Jake Cole, a film critic with Slant Magazine.“No one in a thousand years would do a movie on the history of the Mariners or the history of the Falcons,” Bois acknowledged. Lila Barth for The New York TimesAs Bois put it, he and Rubenstein are “making sports documentaries for people who don’t watch sports.”“I find it not only a great honor but also a hell of a lot of fun to be able to bring this cool, weird, often stupid world of sports to somebody who otherwise didn’t get the invite,” Bois said. Essential to that experience is getting swept up in the vicarious thrill of an unfamiliar team and its mundane drama. Bois and Rubenstein manage to compress decades of often tumultuous history into a few hours of densely packed nonfiction, describing the dramatic account of an obscure team’s rise and fall (or fall and further fall) on a momentous scale. After watching one of their films, you inevitably feel an intimate connection with the subject: You know every heartbreaking Bobcats loss and every hard-won Mariners victory. It’s a gratifying entrée into a world ordinarily reserved for homegrown fans.Bois doesn’t necessarily come to these stories as a fan himself. His latest, “The People You’re Paying to Be in Shorts,” is about the 2011-12 Charlotte Bobcats, a short-lived team that was somewhat infamous among basketball fans for its record-breaking awfulness and that broke N.B.A. records for losing streaks before reclaiming its previous name, the Hornets, in 2014. (The team had been the Charlotte Hornets from 1988 to 2002.)But Bois was quick to admit that he is no expert on the N.B.A. To pull off this comprehensive look at a truly lousy season, he brought on the producer Seth Rosenthal, who specializes in basketball, and spent countless hours poring over old copies of the Charlotte Observer, reading “every single thing they wrote about the Bobcats” during that period. “I realized that I didn’t have to be an expert in basketball,” Bois said. “But I can randomly be the world’s foremost expert in this one season of one team,” he added, using an expletive for the abysmal Bobcats.The result is a documentary that makes you root for this wonderful assortment of oddballs despite recognizing how amazingly terrible they are. He gets into the nitty-gritty of contract negotiations, career field goal percentages and N.B.A. draft lottery odds in a way that makes the numbers utterly riveting, and he finds the cosmic beauty in the contrast between the worst team in league history and their principal owner, Michael Jordan, the greatest player of all time. It’s not just that you wind up knowing more about an obscure team. You wind up moved by them.“I operate by the general theory that there is always a story,” Bois said. “I could throw a dart at any season of any team — the 2005 Timberwolves, the 1987 Astros, whoever, and I could find something. There’s always something there no matter what.”He paused a moment. “Although,” he reconsidered, “the weirder and more awful the team is, the better.” More

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      Who is Willie Mays?

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      RETIRED baseball player Willie Mays is widely considered one of the most noteworthy athletes in the league’s history.Willie and his achievements are recognized by MLB contemporaries such as Aaron Judge, Pete Alonso, and Mike Trout.
      At 91 years old, Willie Mays is the oldest living Baseball Hall of Fame playerCredit: Getty
      Who is Willie Mays?
      Born on May 6, 1931, Willie Mays is an American baseball player from Westfield, Alabama.
      Baseball fans also refer to him by the nicknames “The Say Hey Kid” and “Buck.”
      In 1948, he was drafted by the Negro American League as a player for the Birmingham Black Barons.
      On May 24, 1951, the MLB selected Willie to play centerfield for the New York Giants, who have since rebranded as the San Francisco Giants.
      He stuck with the SF Giants for 20 years until he was traded to the opposite coast.
      In May 1972, the team traded him to the NY Mets in exchange for late pitcher Charlie Williams.
      On September 20, 1973, Willie retired from the MLB and announced that year’s baseball season was his last.
      His retirement from the league followed a career that spanned 21 total seasons.
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      Since then, the famed centerfielder’s legacy has been recognized consistently through later decades.
      What is Willie’s net worth?
      On January 23, 1979, Willie was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
      While receiving the honor, he reflected on his career and shared with the crowd: “What can I say? This country is made up of a great many things. You can grow up to be what you want. I chose baseball, and I loved every minute of it.
      “I give you one word—love. It means dedication. You have to sacrifice many things to play baseball.
      Willie’s time with the SF Giants and NY Mets spanned 21 total MLB seasonsCredit: Getty
      “I sacrificed a bad marriage and I sacrificed a good marriage. But I’m here today because baseball is my number one love.”
      According to Celebrity Net Worth, Willie amassed an estimated fortune of $3million.
      He is also a 24-time MLB All-Star, a World Series champion, and 12-time Golden Glove winner.
      How can I watch the Willie Mays documentary?
      On November 8, 2022, baseball fans can revisit Willie’s career in his eponymous documentary titled Say Hey, Willie Mays!
      That Tuesday, the feature is scheduled to premiere at 9pm EST on HBO and will be available on HBO Max.
      Regarding the documentary, the Hall of Famer told Deadline: “Some say that throughout my life I have inspired others, but the truth is that so many have done this for me.
      “My teammates, my friends, and of course the fans mean so much to me.
      “So I hope this documentary can give back to all of them something enjoyable and inspiring in return.” More

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      Why Del Harris and Other Hall of Famers Had to Wait

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      The basketball, baseball and pro football halls of fame make some deserving candidates wait decades for enshrinement. For the few who are chosen, the wait is hard but worth it.Del Harris tried not to think about enshrinement in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. He told his avid supporters, including the Hall of Famer John Calipari, not to worry about his fate. It did little good.Harris, 85, already had many awards and honors from his coaching career: enshrinement in the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame, lifetime achievement awards from Naismith and from the National Basketball Coaches Association, screen time in the original “Space Jam.” But he admits that wasn’t quite enough.“I don’t want to diminish any of the other awards and things, but I think everybody understands if you’re a baseball guy, it’s Cooperstown,” he said. “If you’re a football guy, it’s Canton. And in basketball, it’s the birthplace of the game.”On Saturday, Harris will be inducted into the Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., the last of the summer’s salutes to sports heroes past after the Pro Football Hall of Fame held its induction in August and the Baseball Hall of Fame held its in July.Harris’s long wait — he was last a head coach in 1999 — isn’t an outlier. Nearly every year’s inductions in the American sports Halls of Fame feature honorees who have been asked to wait decades to receive their officially sanctioned immortality. A mixture of hope, logic and good old-fashioned denial is required. No matter how many times they hear “better luck next year,” the long-skipped want the honor.Del Harris coached the Los Angeles Lakers to 50 or more wins in three straight seasons, the last two of which came with Shaquille O’Neal.Mike Nelson/AFP, via Getty ImagesHarris was honored for his Hall of Fame induction at a Final Four game in April. He had not been a head coach in the N.B.A. since the 1998-99 season.Tom Pennington/Getty ImagesTony Boselli, 50, had not played in the N.F.L. since 2001 and had been a Pro Football Hall of Fame finalist six times before he was inducted this summer. Boselli, who was a superstar left tackle for seven seasons, had talked with his wife, Angi, about the possibility of never getting in. “I’ll be fine; I’ll be OK,” he told her. “I have a great life. I have an amazing family. I’ve been blessed by God to be able to do what I love to do. I have great friends.”It was the best attitude to take, “especially being a finalist that many times and being told that I didn’t make it,” Boselli added.For Drew Pearson, a star receiver for the Dallas Cowboys in the 1970s, the “logjam” of qualified candidates gives the Pro Football Hall of Fame its prestige and meaning. Pearson was finally inducted in 2021 after having retired in 1983. As the Hall of Fame eluded his grasp, Pearson sought clarity. The process for induction, he said, has biases and politics, but it’s the best option available.“There are guys that say, ‘I don’t like the Cowboys so I’m not voting for Drew Pearson’ and that type of thing,” he said, lamenting how there is nothing a former player can do in that situation to help his case. “You can’t go out there and run any more routes. You can’t catch any more balls or Hail Marys. It is what it is, and you hope that it’s good enough.”That doesn’t mean the process doesn’t rankle. Jim Kaat, a star pitcher for the Minnesota Twins who retired in 1983 but was not enshrined in Cooperstown until this summer, knew the writers wouldn’t vote him in. That was for the Seaver-Koufax class of pitchers. And the Hall of Fame’s veterans committees over the years had routinely been populated by people who had never seen him play, he said, which was frustrating.Injuries limited Tony Boselli to seven seasons in the N.F.L., but the left tackle for the Jacksonville Jaguars was a three-time All-Pro and five-time Pro Bowler.Rick Wilson/The Florida Times-Union, via Associated PressTony Boselli, third from left, said he felt an immediate connection to the Pro Hall of Fame’s Class of 2022. Three members of the class did not live to see their induction.Gene J. Puskar/Associated PressThis year, Kaat liked his chances. Voters on the Hall’s Golden Days Era Committee had played against him, played with him or were active when he pitched from 1959 to 1983. They knew he was durable and reliable and that his numbers dipped because he moved to the bullpen. He was named on 12 of the committee’s 16 ballots — exactly the number needed for election.For Kaat, Pearson, Boselli and others, the sense of relief when their sport’s Hall of Fame does come calling can be palpable.After Pearson was passed over one last time in 2020, he broke down. It was filmed by a Dallas news crew, and he said his reaction was not the exception. The rejection is personal. You just never see it.“It showed the committee what it means to us players, so don’t mess around, OK?” he said. “Don’t mess around with us, don’t have the biases, don’t have the politics.”That pain is still the reality of Marques Johnson, a five-time N.B.A. All-Star in the 1970s and 80s, and a star at U.C.L.A. in the late 1970s. He has been a finalist for basketball’s Hall of Fame three times, including 2022. He considered removing his name from consideration until his sons and friends dissuaded him.Induction would put a “cap on a great career, a great life, he said, but “it’s the not the be-all, end-all for me. There are more important things.”Encouragement from Hall of Famers such as Walt “Clyde” Frazier and Bill Walton, he said, reinforced that he had been an elite player. But that praise doesn’t protect a psychic wound.Marques Johnson had his jersey number retired by the Milwaukee Bucks in 2019. He is still hoping to be elected to basketball’s Hall of Fame.Morry Gash/Associated Press“In the recovery process, we try to avoid the deliberate manufacturing of misery,” Johnson, who is 20 years sober, added via text message. “That day, waiting to hear whether I ‘made the cut,’ is one that I can easily do without. It dredges all types of memories, good and bad — my exceptional exploits and my shortcomings as a player and human being, on both counts.”Time, though, can exact a toll. When Johnson’s mother Baasha, whom he referred to as Madea, was hospitalized with a stroke in October, he urged her like “a Baptist preacher” to hang on — Madea had to make that trip to Springfield. She died Jan. 5. Kaat’s wife of 20 years, MaryAnn, died in 2008. His daughter, Jill, died in 2021.Of the seven players elected into Cooperstown this year, only three lived to see their induction.Time, though, can also bestow gifts. Kaat, who has remarried, shared the day with his grandchildren and was inducted with longtime teammate and friend, Tony Oliva. Pearson, 71, has seen an uptick in endorsements and business opportunities. Boselli developed a kinship with his classmates.“You get to know their families — their wives, their kids — who they are as men,” he said. “You go from maybe casually knowing some of these guys — you compete against them, maybe see them around — to really being tied together forever in football history as the Class of 2022.”Bob Dandridge, upper left, was part of fearsome Milwaukee Bucks team that also included, clockwise, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Greg Smith, Oscar Robertson, Coach Larry Costello and Jon McClocklin.Associated PressDandridge, who retired after the 1981-82 season, was presented at his Hall of Fame induction in 2021 by Robertson. Robertson was inducted in 1980.Maddie Meyer/Getty ImagesFor Bob Dandridge, who was elected into basketball’s Hall of Fame in 2021, the 39-year wait after his N.B.A. career ended resulted in his children being old enough to realize the occasion’s importance. Even his two basketball-obsessed grandsons, Thaddeus, 5, and Zachary, 7, were excited to attend. They recognized the legends of more recent vintage such as Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce. Family members assembled “without any malice, just love.”“Ten years ago,” Dandridge said, “I wouldn’t have had this type of quality in my life. The wait has been awesome for me.”Weeks before his induction, Harris, recovering from a back operation, could not yet reflect on how the Hall of Fame has changed his life. But he knew the role basketball had played.“I had graduated from college to be a preacher,” Harris said. “My Greek professor called me two weeks before school was supposed to start at seminary. He said, ‘I’ve been thinking about you. I really think you should work a year before you go to graduate school; there are no scholarships for that. If you agree, I already have a job for you.’”Harris coached middle school basketball at King Springs School in Tennessee, a short drive from Milligan College, his alma mater. That was in 1959. Coaching in the N.B.A. finals, writing six books and teaching in clinics worldwide followed. He’s still working in basketball, now as vice president of the G-League’s Texas Legends.It all started with those boys and girls decades ago. “As I saw their lives change,” Harris said, “mine changed.” More

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      ‘Stick to football’ – Gareth Bale trolled by new club LAFC after throwing first pitch ahead of LA Dodgers MLB game

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      GARETH BALE was hilariously told to “stick to football” after throwing the first pitch at a baseball game yesterday.The 33-year-old Wales star was given the honour by the Los Angeles Dodgers ahead of their MLB game against the Minnesota Twins.
      Gareth Bale threw out the first pitch at an LA Dodgers baseball gameCredit: Reuters
      Bale was hilariously trolled by his new team for the effortCredit: Reuters
      Bale did better than LAFC team-mate Kelly AcostaCredit: Rex
      Bale threw out their first pitch alongside LAFC team-mate Kelly Acosta dressed in an LA Dodgers jersey.
      And Bale gave a better account than Acosta for his pitch, finding the gloves of Dodgers ace Justin Turner without the ball bouncing on the floor.
      Acosta meanwhile got it all wrong, throwing a grounder as his ball bounced into Turner’s hands.
      But the LAFC Twitter account was far from impressed with both of their efforts.
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      They mercilessly trolled the pair by posting a video of his pitch and writing: “Stick to football.”
      Bale did redeem himself by showing off his football skills… with a baseball.
      He casually performed kick-ups with the smaller than normal sized ball as he enjoyed a night off at Dodger Stadium.
      The Welsh wizard took in the action as the Dodgers eased to a 10-3 win over the Twins.
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      LAFC ace Bale has enjoyed a stellar start with his new team – scoring two goals in four MLS games since leaving Real Madrid.
      One of those strikes being an individual wondergoal against Real Salt Lake at the weekend.
      The effort helped LAFC to a fifth successive league win and saw them stay top of the Western Conference. More