When the Game Was Ours - Larry Bird [112]
"You don't have a lot of time to think about it, because everything is happening so fast," Magic said. "But at some point I was wondering, 'What will Larry think? What will Michael think?'"
The unpleasant task of informing them fell to Rosen. He called Celtics public relations director Jeff Twiss and asked him to contact Larry with an urgent message. Twiss dialed Bird's number at his Brookline, Massachusetts, home shortly after one o'clock in the afternoon East Coast time with no expectation that Bird would pick up.
He didn't. After the Celtics were throttled the night before by Jordan and the Chicago Bulls, Bird had come home from practice that morning cranky, tired, and hurting. His Airness had scored 44 on Boston, and while Bird (30 points, 9 assists) had acquitted himself admirably, his chronically injured back had flared up, preventing him from sleeping most of the night. In fact, many nights the only way Bird could alleviate the searing pain was to sleep on the floor. When Dinah answered the phone call from Twiss, Bird was napping.
Dinah poked her head in to wake him.
"You need to call Lon Rosen," she said. "It sounds important."
Bird pulled himself up and dialed the number.
"Hey, Lon, what's going on?" Bird asked.
"Larry, I'm just going to tell you, because we don't have a lot of time," Rosen said. "Magic has the HIV virus. He's going to announce his retirement this afternoon. He wanted you to know before the news hit."
Bird grabbed on to the wall to steady himself. He wasn't sure what he was expecting—an endorsement opportunity perhaps?—but this revelation literally took his breath away.
"I felt like someone had sucked the air out of my lungs," Bird said. "I had this terrible empty feeling, like how I felt when my dad took his own life."
Rosen waited on the other line for a response. He was already growing accustomed to the chilling effect his phone calls were having on some of the biggest stars in the game. Moments earlier, he had elicited a similar, shocked reaction from Jordan.
"What can I do? What does he need?" Bird asked Rosen, struggling to control his voice.
"He's doing okay," Rosen answered. "You'll hear from him in a couple of days."
"I need to talk to him now," Bird said. "Can I call him?"
Magic was at his Beverly Hills home attempting to pick out a tasteful suit and an "upbeat tie" for his press conference when Bird reached him.
"Magic, I'm so sorry," Bird said.
"No, it's going to be all right," Magic said. "I have to take some medication and do some different stuff, but I'm going to fight this thing."
The two superstars talked briefly. If Johnson was reeling from his diagnosis, he adeptly concealed it.
"So," Magic said, "how are the Celtics looking?"
Bird was momentarily speechless.
"Ah, hell," he replied. "We'll probably kick your ass."
When Bird hung up the phone, he turned to Dinah and reported, "He was trying to cheer me up."
For the next three hours, Bird lay on the bed in his room, ruminating on his complex relationship with his lifelong rival—and, in recent years, his friend. Their journey had elicited a range of emotions: jealousy over Magic's NCAA championship in '79, euphoria over beating him head-to-head in '84, determination in '85 after the Lakers stole back the title, and grudging respect in '87 when it became clear that Magic had truly reached his peak.
Bird had devoted his entire career to establishing the upper hand over Earvin Johnson and the Los Angeles Lakers, and suddenly none of it mattered.
"My God," Bird said to Dinah, "Magic's gonna die."
The official word was that Magic Johnson caught the flu. In reality, the life of the Lakers star began unraveling shortly after he took a blood test for a team life insurance policy in early October 1991. The team was about to leave for Paris to play in the McDonald's Open when Rosen was notified by the Lakers that there was a problem with Magic's results. The insurance company needed Johnson to sign a document to release his medical file to the team and his physician, Dr.