This Book Has Balls Read online

  It doesn’t even matter that you’re wearing a suit to your job at this point because no one sees it—they’re too busy questioning your head. It might look better if you dressed in a robe like Rodney Dangerfield. Dick, please hear me out here. I used to see Rodney Dangerfield walking around my neighborhood on the Upper East Side in pajamas, a robe, and slippers in broad daylight. It was like he went out to get the paper and just kept walking. He would be rolling around smoking cigarettes and getting bagels, and nobody batted an eye. You know why? Because it made sense. It was what he was supposed to look like. Dick Stockton, you can do the same thing. It’s time. The cat’s out of the bag and on your head. Show up to the game for TNT in your jammies and the white cotton slippers you found in the bedding section of Nordstrom’s and get your fucking soul in sync. The Brooks Brothers suit doesn’t look comfortable, and the “now you see it, now you don’t” combover is worrisome. I love you, Dick. Please.

  Let me keep it real for a minute. I’ve struggled with my own hair shit; I know what it is to worry that it’s going away. I’ve felt the beginnings of male pattern baldness. I’ve run my fingers through my hair and thought, Where the fuck did it go? I’ve taken pills and potions and dyes and dips to keep my shit intact. It’s part of the game out here in Hollywood.

  You think it’s a coincidence that ten out of ten top Hollywood stars have all their hair? Take it from me, kids, there ain’t no coincidences at the Hollywood Hair Club for Men. I’m not here to name names, George, Brad, Ben, or Matt, but things just can’t be that fucking good. You can’t be that talented and rich and naturally have all your hair at forty-five plus. Not all of you fucks. Shit just don’t work that way. Especially you, George. I know before bed, you gotta lay that perfect nest on the end table. When was the last time you saw a gigantic trillion-dollar-grossing movie star go bald? Case closed.

  But this ain’t about movie stars. This is about one-of-a-kind talents with one-of-a-kind voices who should work until the wheels fall off. Marv Albert is seventy-five and he’s not replaceable. The man owns the word Yes. You can never have another broadcaster say “Yes” when Steph Curry makes a rainbow three-pointer. Only Marv Albert can do that. Get off his head.

  Only Hubie Brown and Mike Fratello can riff on the air and go on and on about the brilliance of Pete Maravich and the times when Pistol Pete and Dr. J played one-on-one during ABA practice. They were there. They can’t be replaced. They’re sports icons.

  Why the hell am I the only one bringing up the problem? Why am I the only one it seems to bother so badly? Why am I the only one so damn offended by these wacky wigs and these horrendous horse hairpieces? I shouldn’t be alone here. I want you guys to be offended and to get upset here, too. Fuck the wigs and the plugs—you don’t need ’em. We are lucky to have you calling games, telling stories, and sharing your lives and points of view. Stand up and get mad! Be fed up and take a stand on live TV. The next time your no-good, hotshot twenty-nine-year-old director in his three-piece clown suit yells “Action,” you say, “Fuck you and this wig. I’m done. Now take this ridiculous-looking animal fur off my perfectly shaped yet slightly dented head. I’m not doing this anymore. I’m better than this wig, and I’m better than this oversized suit that never fits!” Look into camera three and tell the world, “I am mad as hell, and I’m not gonna wear this anymore!” I want you to throw the fucking pig wig down and tell your producer to get you a ginger ale and a toasted English muffin and to get the fuck out of your face. Then say it again and say it loud, boys: “I am mad as hell, and I’m not gonna wear this anymore. I am mad as hell, and I’m not gonna wear this anymore!”

  For the record, I can’t be sure that they all wear toupees, and if I’m wrong, I am sorry . . . about the state of their hair, and I truly love all you guys.

  Bill Russell Is Overrated, Deal with It

  If you think Bill Russell is “the Best NBA Player Ever,” then Skip This Chapter, because I’m here to tell you he ain’t. I’m sorry, but your hero Bill Russell is not the best, and he’s not the second best, and, no, he’s not even the third best. As a matter of fact, he doesn’t make the Rapaport Top Ten. Don’t get mad at me. It’s not my fault your parents and your grandparents have been selling you this shit the same way they sold you on cod liver oil being good for you, when in fact no one knew what the fuck cod liver oil was.

  I know you are thinking this is coming from the bitter soul of a disgruntled lifelong New York Knicks fan. But that’s not it. Am I a bitter Knicks fan? Without a doubt. Is it difficult to sleep at night knowing that the Knicks were cursed by unknown powers and that they may never be great again in my lifetime? Yes. Does it stick me like a chubby pig before he says good-bye to Earth that the team I love could lose to a high-level college team? Yeah. It hurts. It all hurts. The orange and blue that pumps through my basketball veins is cold, distorted, and angry and ready to have me cancel my NBA package altogether, but hear ye, hear ye, court is in session: Bill Russell is simply fucking overrated.

  Listen, I sleep well at night knowing that the first team to beat the Celtics in a game 7 at the original Boston Garden was my 1973 Knicks. I feel good that in the Eastern Conference Finals my childhood heroes went on to win our last NBA title with the most talented team ever assembled. So, don’t worry about me. And I’m not denying that Bill Russell dominated his era. I’m just saying you must look at the big picture. You have to look at the kindergarteners he was playing against and rethink whether he was actually great at basketball or whether everyone around him just sucked.

  It’s true that Bill Russell is the winningest athlete in basketball history. This is something I found out while fact-checking against my will. He was also an eleven-time NBA champion. But it all happened at a time when everyone else was slow and broken. He was shattering records against men who went on to become butchers and orthodontists, who played basketball for side money and all looked like my uncles. Bill’s stats don’t match the world he was living in. Sorry.

  Bill Russell was a five-time NBA MVP. Very impressive. A stat that can’t be debated, debunked, or denied. But what can be brought up is the fact that the guy with the next highest vote total was Morrie Fienberg, my dad’s foot doctor, who went on to become “the Corned Beef Distribution King of New York,” not a Hall of Fame inductee. RIP to Morrie and everyone who died from sodium in the Sixties. Sorry, Bill Russell, it was the era, not the skills.

  Bill Russell was also a twelve-time NBA All-Star. That’s nothing to scoff at. That’s not an easy feat. For twelve years to be one of the best in the NBA is very real and extremely difficult. You have to be at the top of your game every night in every city, and he did that at the highest level. But you know what’s more impressive to me? Bruce Jenner won the decathlon, then went home and put on a dress when everyone else was in an ice bath! Why are we not talking about that greatness? That’s a feat, too.

  Bill Russell was named to the first-ever NBA All-Defensive First Team in 1969. The historical Russell was known as a game-changing defensive player, as depicted in this photograph.

  Jesus H. Christ, Russ, why don’t you pick on somebody your own size? This is nothing to be proud of. The Stevenson Collection/Getty Images

  Bill Russell was the NBA rebounding champion in ’57, ’58, ’59, ’64, and ’65. He was crashing boards and breaking records and doing things no one had seen before him. He could jump higher than everyone he battled in the paint. No one even came close. You know why? Because they weren’t full-grown yet. You want to break rebounding records, play against guys before they hit puberty.

  Come see me play against my teenage son’s friends. I do it every week. It makes me feel good. I get a kick out of it, and it gets my confidence in a perfect place to go on with my difficult week. Every man should play against people he can dominate. It’s like the HBO show Westworld! I can go in there and do whatever the hell I want. Bill did the same thing. He was playing in a fantasy league.

  Number 15 for the Warriors looks like he’s five
foot ten, 162 pounds, and watching a solar eclipse in sheer awe. Warriors number 17 is running for his life, away from the scene of this unjust crime. The Stevenson Collection/Getty Images

  Russell never lost a game 7 or a title game during his career, which means that when the money was on the line in high school, college, the Olympics, or pro, Bill never lost. “Fantastic” and “holy shit,” but by game 7, everyone else he was playing against was fucking tired from working their second jobs. You try playing defense against Bill Russell after a full day of selling life insurance door-to-door.

  In his rookie season, Russell led the Celtics to the first of eleven NBA titles, an untouchable record that doesn’t even sound possible. Something for the ages. A record that to this day shocks fans and statisticians. Also, a record achieved while playing against slow, white, bad-kneed men in a nonintegrated league where each team had only two black players. Come on, Bill, was it that tough?

  Mr. Russell led his Celtics to the promised land by conquering the Syracuse Nationals in the Eastern Conference Finals.

  The Nats’ scorer was Hall of Famer Dolph Schayes. There are no weak Dolphs in the world. That’s a fact. Just look at Dolph Lundgren. He fought Rocky and ran around the gym shredded with no fat while on steroids and racism, ready to take on America.

  If Dolph Schayes was guarding Bill, then Bill was going to score a lot of points. Dolph was six foot seven, full of gorgeous, thick hair, and he was Jewish. Bill Russell was six foot ten and 220 pounds of solid rock, lean, mean athlete. Dolph was 195 pounds of matzah ball soup. You don’t cover Bill Russell well when every Sunday you’re knee-deep in bagels and smoked salmon. It’s too much.

  Of course Russell is gonna pull down 31 rebounds a game against this Giant Jew. Bill moved him out of the way while Dolph thought about going to med school or working in the garment district. Either was fine with him. He knew the deal. It wasn’t a fair matchup at all.

  Bill Russell led the Celtics in his rookie season to a championship, and the entire thing culminated in a tough game 7 with “the Coleman Play,” a play that defined Bill Russell as the “dominating defensive center of his era”—an era rarely caught on tape, which helps with the mythmaking. In fact, many of the NBA’s greatest moments weren’t preserved on film, TV, or even snapshots. Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game? I believe it happened, but it has crossed my mind that the whole fucking thing was made up, since no one can seem to find it.

  During game 7 of those Finals, and I quote, “Russell ran down Hawks guard Jack Coleman, who received an outlet pass at midcourt, and Russell blocked his shot despite the fact that Russell had been standing at his own baseline when the ball was thrown to Coleman. The block preserved Boston’s slim 103–102 lead with forty-odd seconds left to play in regulation, saving the game for the Celtics.”

  Sounds outstanding, right? Sounds amazing. Sounds like someone made a fucking mistake! How the hell do you get from the baseline to center court on the inbound? Are you a superhero? Are you the fastest man on the planet? Or are you a figment of a sportswriter’s imagination? They’re making it sound like LeBron’s block against Iguodala in game 7 of the 2016 NBA Finals, and it doesn’t make any sense in reality! Plus, please take a look at Jack-Fucking-Coleman! Look him up online right now.

  Does he look anything like Andre fucking Iguodala? Iguodala was in the 2006 Dunk Contest and has a highlight reel that would make the Late Great Darryl Dawkins blush from the Planet Love Tron. Jack Coleman looked like he wanted to get home for cheesecake and television. Stop making these guys out to be gods!

  Bill Russell wasn’t the greatest player of all time. He just happened to be the greatest player of his time.

  The iconic Dolph Schayes, in 1959, was a hero in the Jewish community and was once really nice to me when nobody else was. The Stevenson Collection/Getty Images

  Dolph Schayes and the Athletic Jews of Yesteryear

  If you think I was hating on Jewish athletes in the Bill Russell piece, you could not be more wrong. First off, Dolph Schayes was a Hall of Fame player and one of the many great Jewish athletes from back in the day. There ain’t no hate here; I love my people. The Jews made some great accomplishments in sports as athletes. You think I don’t know about the Sandy Koufaxes of the world, and the Hank Greenbergs in baseball? You think I don’t know there were amazing Jewish boxers in the Thirties, Forties, Fifties, and Sixties who fought for World Championships like Barney Ross and Benny Leonard? I know all about it. We had our day. But it’s over. I’m sure one day there will be some Jewish freak of nature who will come along and shock the community and even the world. I know that’s a possibility. But please just accept the way things are now. It’s over for us in pro sports. I will die in peace having never seen a Jewish tight end starting in the NFL, and that is okay.

  Why did it stop? Because as scrappy and determined as my people are, we just ain’t built for high-level competitive sports anymore. That’s a 100 percent unchecked fact. Once sports became fully integrated, things came to an abrupt end for the Hebes, and it’s fine; the “Chosen People” had a good run. But it was just that . . . a run. Now let it go. Look around. When’s the last time you heard: “And the gold medal for the two-hundred-yard sprint goes to Aaron Schwartzberg”?

  The film White Men Can’t Jump should’ve just been called Jewish Men Are Slow as Fuck, Can’t Jump, and Neither Can Gentiles, But They’ve Got a Few Exceptions! That’s too long for a title, but I’m sure they’d consider it if the movie came out today.

  So, I’m not hating on Dolph Schayes. In fact, I know personally that he was a very good man. In 1982, I attended Dolph Schayes’s basketball camp in upstate New York. And even though I was threatened with being thrown out four days into camp for disciplinary reasons, Mr. Schayes took me aside and gave me a very fair talking-to. He suggested I play with the older kids to keep me in line, and he ultimately kept me in the camp for the entire seven days despite my counselor’s constant attempts to throw me out. They also teased me by calling me RapaCrap the entire session. It was an emotional summer, but Mr. Schayes spoke to me like a loving Jewish Giant Grandfather—something I needed at the time.

  “Michael, everything about your behavior this week says you should be thrown out.”

  “Thank you, coach.”

  “Michael, this isn’t a sentence that requires a thank-you. This is me telling you you should be out of here, and your behavior needs to change.”

  “Oh, well, then, no thanks?”

  “It just means you need to straighten up and fly right. You’re not paying any attention at the camp, and you’re running into other people’s cabins yelling random things like a meshuggener.”

  “I’ll stop. I promise. I love basketball.”

  “No one cares about that. Just take a breath.”

  “Okay.”

  “Get it together, Michael. You’ve got great potential.”

  “That means a lot. Basketball is everything to me.”

  “I don’t mean in basketball. Basketball is not in your future.”

  “It’s not?”

  “No. You’re heavy-footed and you don’t have the patience to learn the game.”

  “Well, what am I supposed to do?”

  “Let’s start with paying attention to the counselors when they talk.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I do. Trust me. I see the good in you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Even if I’m the only one who sees it here.”

  “Shit, man.”

  No bullshit, Dolph Schayes had my back in ’82 when no one else did, and I always appreciated it.

  Allen Iverson and the Weeping Woman

  Watching my man Allen Iverson play hoops was like watching Jackson Pollock paint. Crazy energy, flailing all over the fucking room, knocking shit over, falling down, half bleeding, sweating, and putting every ounce of his soul on the line every night. And when it was over, you had just witnessed a thing of fucking beauty and you were emotionally exhau
sted. This is what a real artist does: moves the shit out of you. Of course, there were stronger, faster, bigger, more-skilled players, better shooters, sharper passers, all-around more talented players, and all that other bullshit, but he was the motherfucking king of self-expression! I’m talking about laying it on the line every time he hit the floor and painting the picture that was running through his veins. Leaving everything he had on the court. The same way an artist leaves it on the canvas or a great rapper like 2Pac left it on the track.

  I don’t get moved by much these days, but when my lady forced me to go to the Museum of Modern Art against my will for a Picasso exhibit called The Weeping Women, my first thought while checking out Pablo’s work was fucking Iverson is the Picasso of his shit! He was all AI all day! His heart and soul were all over the court, all over every single game he played.

  AI wasn’t concerned with what you thought. Real artists aren’t. John Coltrane didn’t ask you what note he was supposed to play when crafting A Love Supreme. He played what he felt, and then you came along. AI played his game, lived his way, and you either came along or you didn’t. He gave no fucks what you thought, and he still played great.

  Iverson played in eleven straight All-Star Games, was the ’96 Rookie of the Year, number one in steals two years in a row, and averaged the most points per game in four seasons all while standing six feet tall and weighing 160 pounds fully clothed with three pounds of jewelry and a do-rag.