Sports Poets Society

di CHRISTIAN GIORDANO  © American Superbasket n. 5/anno 17 - 6/19 marzo 2008 Strano a dirsi, una delle più importanti partite nella storia della NBA fu una delle più noiose. Il 22 novembre 1950 a Minneapolis, Minnesota, i locali Lakers delle star George Mikan, Jim Pollard, Vern Mikkelsen e Slater Martin le presero dai Fort Wayne Pistons per - udite udite - 19-18, il più basso punteggio di sempre. Quella (si fa per dire) partita fu il nadir dello slow-down game, il gioco rallentato così comune nella lega all’epoca, quando le squadre, una volta in vantaggio, si affidavano al ballhandling delle proprie guardie per far scorrere il tempo, mentre sugli spalti il pubblico cominciava a sbadigliare o rivolgeva la propria attenzione… al programma della partita. Che a quel punto era già finita. Quella, storica, che fu l’epitome del  Frozen game , il gioco congelato, difficilmente i Pistons l’avrebbero potuta vincere praticando un running game. Così coach Murray Mendenhall o...

Her life raising 9 children was told in 1989 film January 15, 2010 | By Trevor Jensen, TRIBUNE REPORTER Mary Thomas' schooling ended with the third grade, but she always reminded her nine children that she had something she called the "mother wit." Whatever that was, it proved equal to the task of raising seven boys and two girls on Chicago's West Side. Mrs. Thomas was determined her children would get the education that escaped her in the segregated South. She worked at a Catholic Church so they could attend the parish school, and she rode herd over their daily assignments. "I realize now, she looked at our homework, and she probably didn't even understand it," said her daughter Ruby Carlsen. The mother of NBA Hall of Famer Isiah Thomas, Mrs. Thomas' story was told in a 1989 made-for-TV movie starring Alfre Woodard. By then, she had left the poorer section of the city behind. But she never forgot where she'd been, and every Thanksgiving and Chri...

https://www.nba.com/pistons/news/maskin_070411.html April 11, 2007 - 2:11 PM EDT There are many ways to measure the remarkable growth the NBA has experienced in the 50 years since the Pistons relocated to Detroit from Fort Wayne, Ind., but perhaps none more dramatic than the role of a team’s public relations director then and now. Where today’s public relations directors must filter dozens of media requests a day and do their best to permit access to players without overwhelming their schedules, their predecessors were more salesmen trying to generate interest in a league that barely penetrated the public’s consciousness. George Maskin, the first public relations director the Pistons hired upon moving to Detroit, was the perfect man for the job. Maskin, who died at age 90 last week after a brief illness, is remembered as a man of great warmth and kindness who cared deeply about athletics of all kinds and at all levels. “He was just a kind, caring man dedicated to athletics and everyth...

https://digital.bentley.umich.edu/djnews/djn.2007.04.12.001/73 Obituaries are updated and archived on JNonline.us . Whether wielding a referee's whistle or a reporter's notebook, George Maskin was a legendary figure in Detroit athletics for more than six decades. "There wasn't a part of the local sports scene that George wasn't involved in," said Rabbi David Castiglione of Temple Beth El in Bloomfield Township, who spoke at the funeral. Mr. Maskin, 90, of Novi, died April 6, 2007. George officiated at sporting events in eight decades — the 1930s-2000s — at every level including middle school, high school and college and in several sports including football, basketball, baseball, softball and volleyball. His lifetime's work won him a place in the Michigan High School Sports Hall of Fame and the Catholic League Sports Hall of Fame. In 2003, he was inducted into the Michigan Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. As a reporter, he was elected to the Baseball Writers of ...

https://www.vintagedetroit.com/when-the-pistons-played-at-olympia-stadium/ by SCOTT FERKOVICH on JANUARY 12, 2016 When Fred Zollner made the decision to move his Ft. Wayne Pistons to the Motor City in 1957 , there was a lot of head scratching among his fellow NBA owners. It wasn’t that Detroit wasn’t considered a great sports town. After all, the Tigers, despite being a second-division club for nearly a decade, continued to be a huge summertime draw. The powerhouse Lions had set attendance records at Briggs Stadium. As for the Red Wings, they had a devoted following, and played to packed houses at Olympia Stadium on a consistent basis. The problem was that the National Basketball Association was still the ugly stepchild of sports . Never highly promoted, it was considered a niche entertainment, not yet worthy of a bigger stage . Sure, there were the Knicks in New York, the Celtics in Boston, and the Warriors in Philadelphia . But the NBA was also struggling along in less-populated out...

https://vault.si.com/.amp/vault/1967/12/18/the-big-z-and-his-misfiring-pistons SINCE 1949 FRED ZOLLNER, OWNER OF THE DETROIT PISTONS , HAS JUGGLED PLAYERS, COACHES AND GENERAL MANAGERS IN SEARCH OF A WINNING TEAM. THIS YEAR HE MAY BE CLOSE TO THE RIGHT COMBINATION BY MYRON COPE Sports Illustrated - DEC 18, 1967 It is somehow fitting that the name of the Detroit Pistons' coach is Butcher . During 18 years in the NBA the Pistons have yet to win the league championship , and they have not won even a divisional title since 1956, when their home was Fort Wayne . Since moving to Detroit the following year, the team has never had a .500 season, and in the past four years it has finished last , last, next to last and last again in the Western Division. It is not as if the Pistons' management had not tried harder. Owned by millionaire Fred Zollner, who is known around town as the Big Z , the Pistons are generous to players, honorable in their dealings, classy in grabbing a tab, dying ...

https://www.vintagedetroit.com/the-birth-of-the-detroit-pistons/ by  BILL DOW  on  MARCH 5, 2011 Whenever the Davidson family finally gets around to selling the Detroit Pistons, which could be any day now based upon the negotiations with billionaire Tom Gores, the new owner would only be the third in the history of the franchise. Just how the Pistons were originally created is fascinating. The Detroit Pistons in action at Olympia Stadium in 1958, one year after they arrived in Detroit from Fort Wayne, Indiana. As a means to further employee relations and promote the Zollner Machine Works in Fort Wayne Indiana, a company that eventually supplied seventy percent of the world’s heavy duty aluminum alloy pistons for internal combustion engines, in the late ‘30s Fred Zollner sponsored a company basketball team in the local YMCA Industrial League. In February of 1941 the Zollner Pistons beat another local YMCA team the International Harvesters in overtime and earned the right t...

https://www.nba.com/pistons/news/ftwayne_071023.html The Detroit Pistons’ first game was played downtown at Olympia on Oct. 23, 1957. The result, a 105-94 loss to the Boston Celtics, was the first of eight losses to the powerhouse Celtics that season. The Pistons would go 33-39, and Eckman was relieved as head coach. There were highlights, however. The Pistons had three All-Stars in 1958 - George Yardley, Gene Shue and Dick McGuire. Yardley became the first truly Detroit Pistons star, becoming the first NBA player to break the 2,000-point mark in a season. "They had one real good player," said the Pistons official game scorer in the 1950s, Morrie Moorawnick, referring to Yardley. "But other teams had three or four good players." Shue and center Walter Dukes started the 1960 All-Star game, the only time two Pistons have done so together. Their individual excellence, however, was no match for the brilliant Lakers, who didn’t let a move from Minneapolis to Los Angeles ...

https://www.nba.com/pistons/news/ftwayne_071016.html The Pistons' proud history began in Indiana  by Ryan Pretzer You won’t find a place in the United States with more tradition and reverence for the sport of basketball than Indiana. It makes a most fitting birthplace for the Detroit Pistons franchise. This is purely coincidental, of course. The real reason the Pistons started in Fort Wayne, Ind. - and left it, 50 years ago this summer - is Fred Zollner. For a man who made his fortune selling automobile parts, Zollner’s legacy was founded, quite unintentionally, in basketball. Zollner seemed to have a knack for seeing things for what they could become, not as they were. Aspects of the professional game that are standard today - namely a specialized bench coach and private air travel between games - were innovations that only the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons enjoyed in the pro game’s infancy. The signature works of Zollner’s clairvoyance were the modern day NBA and his team’s landmark...

http://www.bigbluehistory.net/bb/Statistics/Officials/Charles_Eckman.html He was 'certified Baltimore character' Obituary - Baltimore Sun (July 4, 1995) by Fred Rasmussen Charley Eckman has called his last cab. The former sportscaster, referee, National Basketball Association coach and raconteur whose trademark "call a cab" and tell-it-like-it-is views endeared him to Baltimore sports fans for 40 years, died yesterday of cancer at his Glen Burnie home. He was 73. Mr. Eckman was known for his rubbery-faced, cigar-waving, iconoclastic antics delivered in a raspy-voiced style that sometimes was short on correct grammatical usage. He was credited with using an expression so often that it quickly became a cliche. He coined his "call a cab" line to dismiss subjects he thought should be dismissed. If he found them really unworthy, he would bellow, "No, make that two cabs." After his cancer surgery some years ago, he declared: "I had the...

https://www.nba.com/pistons/news/charley_eckman_080108.html Former ref led Pistons to new heights as team’s first head coachCharley in Charge by John Maxwell nba.com - January 8, 2008 It would seem more than a little strange if a referee traded in his whistle for a clipboard in today’s NBA. But that was the case more than 50 years ago, when Charley Eckman made just such a transition, accepting the job as head coach of the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons. Eckman was a three-sport star as a youngster, excelling in baseball, basketball and track . His father died in World War I when he was 12 years old, and he and his mother struggled to make ends meet. Among the odd jobs Eckman did to raise extra money, he officiated basketball games . Baseball was Eckman’s primary sport, however. In those days, it was the only professional team sport of any note. He was drafted by the Washington Senators after graduating from Baltimore City College and played in their farm system, but never made it to th...