The 30 Greatest Sports Conspiracy Theories of All-Time - Elliott Kalb [74]
He’s covered everything in basketball from Rucker league tournaments to the ABA to international Olympic competitions to the NBA. He’s usually given a complimentary team of editors or producers that allows him to get his information across, but occasionally there were gaps when he did not have that luxury. Remember when Pete took his “Hoop du Jour” column to USA Today? Neither does anyone from USA Today. Pete without column inches is like having LeBron James on your team and limiting his minutes and shots. What’s the point? But in this age of the Internet, Vecsey’s columns are now available to everyone. He operates in a much more competitive environment than the one in which he started out. Pete now competes not just against print reporters, but online reporters, national twenty-four-hour NBA television and radio networks, and a steady stream of all-knowing bloggers.
Vecsey has served as a mouthpiece for many, an ardent supporter for some, a vocal critic of others. Say what you will about the acerbic Pete, he doesn’t just take on small fries. He’ll attack the best players (like Charles Barkley), and is not afraid to bite the hand that feeds him. He’s attacked his employers, especially when working for the league’s television network or one of its broadcast partners.
Detractors love to claim that Vecsey doesn’t get much correct, that he throws a lot against the wall and sometimes something sticks. Yet I defy anyone to show me where he got it wrong regarding a trade or firing. He has broken hundreds of stories through the years. He broke the story that Julius Erving was about to be sold to the 76ers in October of 1976. More than three decades later, he broke the story when Sixers great Allen Iverson demanded a trade and the team decided it was time to move him to Denver.
Although he prides himself on his record of breaking stories, he’s at least as well known for his one-liners. Even critics find themselves laughing at his many jabs. In the spirit of full disclosure, I must admit to being a “column castigator,” contributing one-liners on occasion. Seeing my lines in his column gives me a sensation probably not unlike a young Woody Allen, who wrote jokes for the great Sid Caeser in the early 1950s.
Vecsey’s a tough guy with a set of steel balls, and he’s also loyal as hell. He’s loyal to his friends and he’s loyal to his readers. Not once has he taken one-third of a superstar’s book advance to write a “tell-all.” Never has he left to join the establishment. In the mid-1990s, he was tempted by some offers to become a general manager, but he never stopped serving hoop fans. Vecsey, a Brooklyn Dodgers fan growing up, didn’t even waste his time, or his employers’ or his fans’, covering other sports.
If he was called by the Hall, it wouldn’t be a ceremonial honor given to him because of his years of service. There aren’t many guys who can write like Pete. Some days he’ll write a stream-of-consciousness column remembering everyone from the 1960s and 1970s and make it come off like poetry to basketball fans. Other times, he might write about spending a few days in Phoenix with a dying Cotton Fitzsimmons. He has a “six degrees of separation” connection with just about everyone vital in the history of the NBA. Lewin and Goldaper and Koppett have all passed away. Pete is the elder statesman of the league. He knew all the playground legends and corporate movers and shakers who made basketball what it is. And not only did he know them, but through his columns, he allowed all of us to know them as well.
MY OPINION
At first thought, Vecsey is the victim of a New York bias. But there have been three aforementioned New York print media members to win with the Curt Gowdy award. My second thought is that Vecsey has attacked (in print) some of the most influential members of the Basketball Hall of Fame. It’s hard to say whether there is a conspiracy or just an abject loathing of the man. People