NEW YORK. Stunned by an $11.6 million sexual harassment verdict for crude remarks and unwanted advances by head coach Isiah Thomas, the New York Knicks today selected Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to lead a team that hasn't won a playoff game in four years out of its current doldrums.
Clarence Thomas: "I'm here to clean house. Now somebody get me a Diet Coke."
"I'm pumped and I'm jacked," the normally sedate jurist said at a press conference. "I want to bring the intelligent basketball of the Knicks' glory days back to the Garden," he said, referring to the franchise's roots as the Knickerbockers, an all-Dutch aggregation that invented the back-door play.
"The 2 man cuts to the basket and the high post hits him with a bounce pass."
Clarence Thomas knows a few things about sexual harrassment, having been pilloried in a 1991 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing for allegedly making suggestive remarks to Anita Hill, a co-worker at the federal Department of Education and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Thomas has steadfastly denied the accusations, claiming that Hill was a "scorned woman" who turned on him after he refused to sell her NCAA Final Four bracket sheets during the late 80's. "She kept picking teams because their mascots were cute," said a former EEOC staff member. "That wouldn't have been a problem if she hadn't won all the time."
"I can't spell 'Isaiah', so call me Zeke."
Isiah Thomas has presided over a steady decline in the Knicks' fortune, marked by expensive free agent busts that have cost the franchise millions. "The reason they're going with Clarence Thomas is they'll save money on name tags and letterhead," said NBA Insider columnist Charlie Rosen. "Staples shut off their charge account."
"Offensive foul on 33 white--charging."
The jury verdict was assessed against Madison Square Garden and its chairman James Dolan but not Thomas, recalling the days when the Hall of Fame guard was an instigator on the Pistons' championship teams of the 80's while teammate Bill Laimbeer would be ejected. "Ain't that just like Zeke," Laimbeer said. "He's always stiffing somebody."
"Your feet must remain on the ground at all times."
Clarence Thomas attended Holy Cross, which was NCAA men's basketball champion in 1947 when the two-handed set shot was still legal. As an undergraduate he played intramural basketball on the "Miss Worcester Night Owls", a team named after a local diner in Worcester, Mass., that went 23-3 his senior year.
Landis: "Go ahead--pull my finger."
Other sports have turned to former judges to clean house after scandals, most notably Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who became the first commissioner of major league baseball following the Chicago "Black Sox" scandal of 1919. Landis is credited with the invention of the "pull my finger" gag, which Laimbeer used successfully on Boston Globe sportswriter Dan Shaugnessy in the 1980's before it was banned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
BEIJING. Faced with the failure of its "One-Child" policy to curb overcrowding in urban areas, the People's Republic of China is considering a wholesale expansion of televised sports in order to slow the growth of its population, already the world's largest at 1.3 billion.
"Uh, actually I was going to stay up and watch Game 3 of the Chengu Dragons-Tianjin Bulldogs Divisional Championship Series."
"Human fertility can be managed by robust bi-coastal rivalries such as the New York Knicks-Los Angeles Lakers from the late 60's to the early 70's," noted Li Changchun, Senior Population Officer of the Communist Party of China. "When teams play on the western border, guys in the east stay up too late to have sex. When teams play on the eastern border, it ruins dinner in the west and the little woman gets all whiny and goes out for rice wine with her girl friends."
Willis Reed: Responsible for decline in New York birth rate, 1969-1973.
While a link between late-night sports and declining birth rates has been suggested for many years, the evidence was largely anecdotal until a longitudinal study of the Boston Celtics-Los Angeles Lakers rivalry in the mid-80's was completed. "Eighteen years after the last Celtics championship you had high school graduating classes in Boston with like four kids," noted demographer Walter Casner of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Too many guys told their wives 'Hold that thought, there's only two minutes left,' without mentioning that it takes an hour to play the last two minutes of an NBA playoff game.'"
Bird: "If it's a boy, we'll name him Larry Joe, right?"
China's One-Child policy is enforced by monetary fines on urban couples who have a second child without a valid excuse notes Pro Basketball Insider columnist Ernie Povich. "You have to approach it like the salary cap," he says. "Do I want to use my rookie exception on little Xiang-Jiang, or wait a couple of years and give up Ling-Ling for adoption?"
"You guys had better start blocking out on rebounds, or Shanghai's gonna hit 18 million by the fourth quarter."
Skeptics say the program is unlikely to succeed until the quality of play in the Chinese Basketball Association improves. "You've got teams who can't hit the Great Wall from three-point range," says long-time pro scout Mitch Ross. "Most guys will eventually come to bed if a game is lousy enough, unless they've got money riding on it."
Jar Jar Binks, the inept Gungan general who starred in the Star Wars “prequel” movies, withdrew from public life after he was accused of perpetuating racial stereotypes by political columnists who dreamed of moving to the arts and entertainment pages. Bill Moyers is America’s most beloved public affairs windbag, known for his boring three-part examinations of social issues that suppress PBS viewership, forcing local outlets to resort to ever-longer pledge drives. Join Binks and Moyers for a thought-provoking “Conversation on Race”.
MOYERS: Mr. Binks . . .
BINKS: Pleesa–calla meesa Jar Jar.
MOYERS: Sure. Jar Jar, did you feel you were treated unfairly when people called you a racist?
BINKS: Letta meesa tell you one thing–Jar Jar no racist.
MOYERS: I hear you, but what do you say to critics who claim you were a parody of servile black actors such as Stepin Fetchit?
BINKS: Me donta know Stepin Fetchit. You know who racist?
MOYERS: Who?
Bill Cosby
BINKS: People who think black people talk like Gungan, that who. Do I sound like Bill Cosby?
MOYERS: I don’t know–say “Jello Pudding Pop”.
BINKS: “Jellopuddypoppa”
MOYERS: You may have a point.
Jabba the Hut: “Just a Diet Coke, thanks.”
BINKS: When I grow up inna Naboo, we all getta long. Gungan, Qui-Gon Jinn, Jabba the Hut–we alla play together.
MOYERS: So yours was a prejudice-free childhood?
BINKS: Thassa right. Me thinka movie critic wannabes project their prejudice onna me!
MOYERS: Fair enough. Do you think current race relations are poisoned by the media’s need to report–some would say to highlight–racial conflict?
BINKS: Abba-so-loota-lee.
MOYERS: What about Isiah Thomas?
BINKS: What he say now?
MOYERS: In a videotaped deposition he said it was all right for a black man to call a black woman a word that won't make it through the foxsports.com filter, but not a white man.
BINKS: Meesa no lika Isiah. Much prefer Vinnie Johnson.
Vinnie Johnson
MOYERS: "The Microwave"?
BINKS: Thassa right. Issa shame he never get popcorn endorsement deal.
MOYERS: How about O.J.?
BINKS: Iffa you have popcorn, you needa something to drink--otherwise kernels stick to teeth.
MOYERS: No, I meant O.J. Simpson.
BINKS: Why alla this talk about O.J.? He not even #1 Buffalo Bill named after food or beverage.
MOYERS: And who would that be?
BINKS: Cookie Gilchrist.
MOYERS: You seem to bear some ill will towards O.J.
BINKS: Heesa daughter spit on my wife's sister when they little girls in Buffalo.
Jim Schoenfeld
MOYERS: Wow--anybody else in the neighborhood who was famous?
BINKS: Jim Schoenfeld.
MOYERS: Back when he played for the Sabres?
Don Koharski
BINKS: Thassa right. Schoenfeld my kinda hockey coach. None a this "I thought the officiating was a little uneven tonight." No--he go right after Don Koharski inna da 1988 Stanley Cup Playoffs and say "Have another donut you fat pig!"
MOYERS: That incident was parodied in "Wayne's World", right?
BINKS: You so smart!
MOYERS: Well, I am on Public TV. But we seem to have gotten off the topic of race . . .
BINKS: Other thing notta lotta people know is that donut shop inna Wayne's World is "Stan Mikita's", whicha takeoff on Tim Horton's.
Stan Mikita
MOYERS: Really--the Canadian donut chain?
BINKS: Yep--anna Tim Horton actually play on defense line with Schoenfeld with the Sabres.
MOYERS: Fascinating. Jar Jar, you were a General in the Gungan Grand Army, Representative of the Gungan race, Senator of Chommell Sector. Ever think of running for office in your adopted home of California?
Arnold Schwarzenegger
BINKS: I no plan to run against the Terminator–I lika him.
The Boston Celtics have acquired Sebastian Telfair from the Portland Trailblazers. On a trip to Boston in 2005, a loaded gun was found in a pillowcase in Telfair's luggage. He claimed it belonged to his girlfriend. Boston Herald
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Con Chapman is a Boston-area writer. He is the author of "The Year of the Gerbil: How the Yankees Won (and the Red Sox Lost) the Greatest Pennant Race Ever," a history of the 1978 AL East pennant race, and a number of plays, including "Number One Hockey Mom," "Please, Pope," and "What Mickey Belle Isle Told You," a trilogy about hockey (JAC Publishing). His work is available on Amazon Shorts (at 49 cents a dowload), and he writes on sports for Flak Magazine.
