A Brief History of the Charlotte Hornets

Economists have done countless studies that show the economic impact of major league sports -- and especially the impact of building new arenas and stadiums -- are pretty negligible, often even painful for individual cities. I believe that. But it’s still hard to explain just what it meant to Charlotte to get the Hornets.

We moved from Cleveland to Charlotte when I was in high school, and the culture shock for an awkward and perpetually nervous teenaged boy who lived for professional sports was, well, pretty overwhelming. Charlotte had nothing then. Nothing. Well, that’s not precisely right -- Charlotte had its own insular sports culture which revolved around ACC basketball, NASCAR and professional wrestling, not necessarily in that order. I became a North Carolina basketball fan because that seemed the easiest way to fit in. I learned the 10 names that mattered in NASCAR by osmosis -- Petty, Wallace, Labonte, Elliot, Yarborough, Allison, Gant, Richmond, Rudd and, of course, Earnhardt. And I could hold my own when the conversation turned to the sheer absurdity of of Jimmy the Boogie Woogie Man Valiant.*

New Links Page

NBC Sports is in the process of adding an archive page for my work … and a few other pretty cool bells and whistles that are pretty exciting. In the meantime, if you look at the top you will notice that I put up an NBC Links page, which doesn’t include all the writing I do for NBC, but I think has most of it. I’ll do my best to keep that updated.

Links for May 20

A couple of links while I put together posts on the Farmers Only service, this new hair curler bucket, my burgeoning tennis career and Miguel Cabrera.

-- Albert Pujols at-bats used to be events. If you were a baseball fan, you would basically build your entire game-watching experience around it. I know that’s how I felt watching the guy hit. Now? I watched Pujols Sunday. The overpowering feeling was nothingness.

-- Doc Emrick isn’t only a joy as a hockey announcer. He has a pretty great story.

Jeff Francoeur and ANT

“I know you care about him. I’ve never seen you like this about anyone … so please don’t take it wrong when I tell you that I believe that Tom, while a very nice guy, is the Devil.”

-- Albert Brooks character, Broadcast News

* * *

The other day, I was watching the visiting announcing crew call a Kansas City Royals game, when Jeff Francoeur came to the plate. Before it even began, I knew what was coming. The announcers started to praise Francoeur. You know, it was all the usual stuff -- great leader, plays terrific defense, bat coming around, wonderful guy. And, suddenly, a question came to mind.

What player in baseball do you think has the most ANT -- Announcer Nonsense Talk -- spoken about them?

By ANT, I’m not just referring to stuff announcers say. I’m referring to a sort of universal praise that does not tie to logic or anything tangible but instead to a sort of whimsical hope and powerful narratives. I remember in a playoff game against the Cleveland Browns, John Elway once dropped back, almost fell down, ran into his own offensive lineman, almost fell down again, flipped a short little pass to Mark Jackson who broke and avoided like 49 tackles on his way to a long and ridiculous touchdown catch. As soon as it ended, the announcer shouted: “John Elway did it again!”

That’s ANT.

RIP Dick Trickle

Ten years ago, I wrote one of my favorite ever stories … about the late, great Larry Phillips. Larry was, as I wrote in the piece, “the roughest, toughest, meanest, craziest and grouchiest son of a gun who ever climbed into a race car.” Only, Larry told me later, he wasn’t really all that.

No sir, he said. That was Dick Trickle.

The Office: An Appreciation

Nobody cares -- or should care -- what a sportswriter has to say about The Office. But the show has dominated my life for nine years and it goes off the air today. So, here are a few thoughts on why I think The Office is one of the best shows ever on television, and how the second-last show perfectly summed it all up for me.

* * *

In sports, people talk all the time about team chemistry. I’ve written about this hundreds of times and, yet, I still can’t quite put my finger on what team chemistry means. Sure, there is some obvious stuff. Some teams have players who like each other a lot. Some teams have a sweet blend of vocal leaders and loyal followers. Some teams have diverse talents that mesh into a greater whole. Some teams just have a lot of fun together, and because of that maybe they play with energy and enthusiasm even in the low ebbs.

Some people believe team chemistry is overrated and perhaps even nonexistent as a factor in winning. Others think it’s the most important thing in sports. And team chemistry -- to those who believe in it -- has a bit of a mystical quality, an ineffable value that players and managers and general managers and coaches and owners and fans stutter around. “When it came down to it,” the Hall of Famer George Brett said of the 1985 Kansas City Royals, “we knew we weren’t going to lose. We’d had better teams. But there was something about that team that just … we knew someone was going to come through. We didn’t know who it would be. But we knew it would be someone.”

The Office has great chemistry. That is my best explanation. I have watched every single episode for the last nine years -- most of them two or three times. I am obsessive about the show. This is strange because, as I’ve written here before, I watch almost no other television. I don’t feel good about that. I wish I did watch more television. I find myself constantly in awkward conversations explaining that I have never seen a single episode of “Mad Men” or “Breaking Bad” or “Game of Thrones,” or, well, just about any other show. I can’t tell you how many times I was in lost in conversations about “Lost.” But for now, anyway, my life just doesn’t make room for those shows.

I never missed The Office, though, not once, not when traveling, not when on deadline, not ever. I have built my schedule entirely around it. Why? It had to be the chemistry.

RIP Fred White

Some people, well, you think they will live forever. That’s how I always felt about Fred White. He was just always there to bridge the years, to stand for the small towns, to tell a story, to talk about the weather. He was always there to point out something joyful. There’s a story I think of now … it was during a basketball tournament, the Big 12 Tournament it must have been, and Fred was calling some of the games and he sought me out.

“When you get a minute I really want to show you something,” he said, and he was so excited. I got caught up doing something else, but a little while later, he grabbed me again and said, “you really have to see this.”

Then, he took me back to press row where he was announcing the game. “This,” he said gleefully, “is what we use to pass notes.” And there was one of those old fashioned toy magic drawing boards, you know, the kind with the plastic pencil and the waxy paper that you would pull up to make the words disappear. It is a toy right out of childhood. And it is impossible for me to communicate just how much of a kick Fred got out of that. But, you know, Fred got a kick out of a lot of things.