When it comes to basketball, I'm not much of an expert, so I won't be providing a detailed breakdown of last night's NBA Finals Game Six.  There were, however, a few things that stood out even to a casual fan such as myself: 

The No Call On Dwyane Wade: In the fourth quarter, the Mavericks went to a 2-3 zone, allowing them to double team Wade on the perimeter (at least that's what Hubie Brown told me).  Wade fought through the initial pressure before reversing direction to the left side of the court, where Dirk Nowitzki was fighting through a screen.  Dirk beat the screen and started to slide into position in front of Wade when - WHAM - Dwyane blatantly slugged him in the chest with his forearm (a commenter on another blog referred to it as a "gut punch", an apt description).  The referees saw the contact, assumed that Dirk initiated it because he had just come off the screen and was moving quickly, and whistled him for the foul.  I understand that Wade has been getting more calls in the playoffs because a) he is aggresssive and makes moves to the basket to draw contact and b) he is a superstar, but this was different territory: an offensive player delivering a blow to his defender and getting away with it.

Terry's Last Shot: Why was Jason Terry taking the final shot for the Mavericks?  True, they were out of timeouts and had to go for the tie without diagramming a set play.  And Terry put up some great numbers for Dallas throughout the Finals.  But he was only 2-for-10 from behind the arc before he took that shot, which was off-balance, and had previously launched several attempts that were flat-out ugly.  Two better options would have been Nowitzki or Stackhouse.  Dirk was 1-for-2 for the game and 6-for-24 in the series -- not great numbers, but he's the best player on the team and not a bad outside shooter; the ball should have found its way into his hands as the first option.  If he couldn't find a good shot, the play should have gone to Stackhouse, who had hit a big trey earlier in the quarter and was 2-for-6 in the game.  It's admirable that Terry had faith in his ability to make such an important shot, but he should have been no higher than the third option.

The Mourning Factor: Much was made over the past few days of the fact that the Heat were getting to the free throw line much, much more than the Mavericks.  In Games Five and Six, Wade singlehandedly shot just two fewer free throws than the entire Dallas team.  As mentioned above, this was due in part to the fact that he attacked the rim consistently, drawing contact almost every time; in those same two games, he attempted 41 shots and only five threes.  In the early part of Game Six, the Mavericks used the same approach, scoring points on the fast break and refusing to settle for jump shots.  Then Alonzo Mourning came in and changed the game.  Though Zo played just fourteen minutes, scoring eight points, his defensive presence and five blocks completely altered the Mavericks approach.  It was like watching a real life version of an NBA Live video game: every time the ball came into the paint, the dominant center would swat it away.  Consequently, Dallas players began to settle for more outside shots, which they were not able to convert with any consistency.

Individually, none of these makes or breaks the game for the Heat or Mavericks.  Taken together, however, and combined with the fact that Dallas could not make a shot in crunch time, the result was the first championship in Miami's history.

I want to stay up tonight to watch Game Six of the NBA playoffs.  I really do.  After staying up late the last two nights to watch Game Five of this series and Game Seven of the Stanley Cup Finals, however, it might not be in the cards.  All I can do is hope that if I doze off early tonight, the Mavs have the decency to win and force Thursday's Game Seven, when I will hopefully be more rested.

While I'm on the subject, can anyone defend the NBA's decision to start these games at 9 PM EST?  I understand that Dallas is located in the central time zone and that starting the games slightly later makes sense because they are an hour behind eastern time.  I'm fine with that.  But isn't 9 PM overdoing it a little?  What's wrong with an 8 PM start time (provided they actually tip off at eight and not 8:19) -- that extra hour would make a difference in markets from Los Angeles to Boston.

And I'm not only complaining for selfish reasons, but for the fact that this approach is not the best way for the NBA to work toward developing a younger fan base.  Because the games begin so late at night, it has become increasingly difficult for teenagers and other casual fans to follow the games all the way through, if at all.  This seems especially silly on a Sunday, when the ratings for an afternoon game can't possibly be all that different from those for an evening game.  The only thing working in the league's favor is that of the other three major sports, only football has figured out that earlier isn't necessarily better, annually beginning its signature event at 6:20 PM EST.

Tell me again: what sport is the most popular in America right now?

This past weekend, I planned to write a post on the anniversary of the death of Eddie Gaedel, the midget who played in one game for the 1951 St. Louis Browns, thereby setting the bar for innovative baseball promotions.  June 18 marked the 45th year since Gaedel's untimely 1961 demise, which I was certain would go unreported by the mainstream media but deserved at least an honorable mention in the weekend's news reports.

While cruising Wikipedia tonight, I came across an interesting fact that made me glad I never got around to writing anything worthy of reading.  Gaedel, it turns out, is not the only notable baseball personality (part of me wants to use the word legend, but it's overused to the extent that it has lost much of its meaning) to pass away on June 18, but one of three.  The other two men are both Hall of Famers: announcer Joe Buck, who was honored with the Ford C. Frick award in 1987, and Larry Doby, who not only broke the American League's color line in July 1947 but later became one of the first former major leaguers to play professionally in Japan and was the second black manager in major league history.

(It's ironic, given the stature of Gaedel, Buck and Doby, that when I casually asked my wife about the three, she recognized only the name of "the midget".  Buck was "Joe Buck's father", while Doby was an unknown entity.)

All three of these men are, of course, extremely important to the history of major league baseball.  Gaedel, as previously mentioned, played the principal role in the greatest promotion in major league history, drawing a leadoff walk for St. Louis against Detroit's Bob Cain on August 19, 1951.  It was an act that was so unexpected, so unusual and so original that it remains the gold standard toward which everyone involved in baseball promotions strives to reach and hopefully surpass.

Gaedel worked for Bill Veeck, the owner of the Browns and later the Chicago White Sox, on at least two other occasions, but developed a drinking problem that often caused him to behave in a belligerent manner -- not always the best reaction considering his 3'7, 65 pound frame.  The details of June 18, 1961 are still cloudy, but it is believed that he was followed home after an incident at a local bowling alley, severely beaten and left to be found by his mother.  An alternate theory is that he suffered from an enlarged heart, a condition that when combined with the fight might have been enough to cause his death.  He was 36 years old.  The only baseball person to attend his funeral was Cain.

Jack Buck, on the other hand, enjoyed a long life and career as the broadcaster for the St. Louis Cardinals.  His greatest talent was expressing unbelievable events in the simplest terms, a trait perhaps best exhibited by his two most famous homerun calls: Kirk Gibson's walk-off shot against Dennis Eckersley in Game One of the 1988 World Series ("I don't believe what I just saw!") and Mark McGwire's 61st round tripper in 1998 ("Pardon me while I stand up and applaud.")    Memorably, it was his voice that welcomed baseball back following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks when he fought off illness to appear at Busch Stadium to read a poem he had written about the national tragedy. 

Altogether, Buck worked behind the mic for the Cardinals for 48 seasons, stopping only when lung cancer, Parkinson's disease and a laundry list of other ailments forced him into the hospital in early 2002.  The day he passed away, Cardinals pitcher Darryl Kile pitched the Redbirds into first place in the National League Central Division.  It was Kile's last game before his own death four days later.

And that leaves Larry Doby, one of the great underrated figures in baseball history.  Brought to the major leagues when he was just 23 years old, Doby struggled as an infielder for half a season before moving to the outfield and blossoming into a perennial All-Star for the Cleveland Indians.  After playing out the string in the major leagues, he continued to break down walls, first joining Don Newcombe as the first ex-big leaguers to play in Japan before following Frank Robinson as the second black manager in the major leagues when he took over Veeck's Chicago White Sox in 1978.  Despite these outstanding personal attributes and solid career numbers (which Veeck believed were adversely affected by the pressure bestowed upon him), Doby was not elected to the Hall of Fame until 1998, five years before his death.

As you can see, June 18 was a rough day for baseball.  It was also a rough day for heroic figures who happened to play baseball. 

Rest in peace.

More information about Eddie Gaedel's famous at-bat and life after the fact is available here: ESPN Outside The Lines transcript 

If nothing else comes from this year's NBA Finals (aside from the arrival of Dwyane Wade as the newest "next Jordan"), it is my hope that the national media can figure out the correct way to pronounce the name of Dallas Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki.  Nowitzki is German, and linguistic logic dictates that the "w" should be pronounced as a "v" , or No-vit-skee.  That's the way I've always heard it; it's even broken down that way on his ESPN.com player page.  But during these playoffs, listening to different commentators reveals that many choose to go with the phonetic pronunciation - "No-wit-skee".  This discrepancy speaks poorly to the professionalism of those broadcasters who fail to take the time to learn the proper pronunciation of the players they cover.

A similar situation arose on ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball this past weekend involving Jon Miller, one of baseball's most respected broadcasters, who referred to Boston Red Sox reliever Rudy Seanez as Rudy "See-AHN-yez", whereas local commentators typically pronounce his name "See-an-ez" (the ESPN web site supports Miller's pronunciation).  Regardless of who is correct and who isn't, it is a show of disrespect toward Seanez, Nowitzki and all other professional athletes to mispronounce their names without making an attempt to correct the error.

My wife was recently disturbed by a relatively average fact: Boston Red Sox second baseman Alex Cora and Chicago White Sox third base coach Joey Cora are brothers.

This should not have been an overly shocking discovery.  Given the age difference between the two, however, we kinda always assumed that they were nephew and uncle.  It just made sense.  My wife, in fact, created a rallying cry for every time she heard Alex's name: "UNCLE JOEY!" 

Unfortunately, this gleeful exclamation was rendered inaccurate by a visit to retrosheet.org (I know this is twice in four postings that I've mentioned Retrosheet, but the continued praise is deserved; this web site makes research almost criminally easy), which tells us of the true relationship between the two.  It was disappointing.

Ever the trooper, my better half insists that this new information means nothing -- she will continue to salute Alex Cora with "UNCLE JOEY" whenever he is referenced in her presence.  I think they call this the denial phase.