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He was just what Boston
needed
By Gerry Callahan, Sports
Illustrated
Posted: Wed September 30,
1998
He still looked like an old black-and-white yearbook
picture when he arrived in Boston in the summer of '79, all
mismatched Kmart clothes and mounds of messy milk-white
hair. He talked like an attendant at the
last-chance-for-gas station and led many
people in Boston to believe that he was some dim-witted rube, a
raw-boned Hick from French Lick who would surely fall down
dizzy at the first sight of the Prudential Building. It was
all an act, of course, the first great game Larry Bird
played as a member
of the Boston
Celtics.
The truth was, there was no room for clothes or books or
jewelry in Bird's bag because when he came to Boston he was
lugging all that attitude. Fortunately for the sports fans
of New England, he brought enough for all of us. He joined
the Celtics less
than a year after Bucky Dent's windblown popup reached the
screen and broke the hearts of Red Sox fans, and a few
weeks after a thoroughly unlikeable Celtics team won just
29 games and finished the 1978-79 season in last place. A
dark cloud moved in over
the Hub as Boston sports fans drooped at the shoulders and
did what they do
best: felt sorry for
themselves.
Larry Joe Bird changed all that. He brought an edge, an
attitude, a collective confidence that, as long as No. 33
wiped the soles of his sneakers and stepped on the court,
we could do you one better. He was the big guy in our gang
and we threw back our
shoulders and followed him into the street brawls. A lot of
athletes are competitive, cocky and driven to succeed, but
rarely does that attitude spread like a rumor through an
entire
region.
In 1979-80, Bird started every game and won Rookie of the
Year. The Celtics won 61 games, at the time an NBA record
for a one-season improvement. A year later, with some help
from Kevin McHale and Robert Parish, Bird won his first
title, and the Legend
of Larry was
born.
One moment that probably won't be immortalized in
Springfield: On a warm day in late June 1981, 100,000 fans descended
upon City Hall Plaza to celebrate the Celtics' first title
since 1976. The TV stations treated the occasion like a
presidential
inauguration and politicians tried to steal a piece of the
goodwill.
After a few forgettable remarks to the crowd, Bird spotted
an X-rated sign that made light of rival Moses Malone's
dining habits. "Moses
does eat [expletive deleted]," he announced. As the
blow-dried TV types gasped, the mob erupted in laughter and
applause.
The biggest star in the city always knew how to talk to the
little people,
his people. Bird was usually the last one to leave the locker
room at the end of the night, but he often found time to
stop and play liar's poker with the security guard. Of
course, more often than not, he bluffed the poor guard out
of a buck, plucking the
bill from his victim's hand as he headed for his
car.
Bird grew up dirt poor in Indiana and once worked on the
back of a garbage truck, and he clung to his blue-collar
ways as fiercely as he fought for a rebound. He wouldn't
cross a picket line or buy Japanese. He would engage
writers or equipment guys in
$5 shooting contests and celebrate those victories with the
same glee that came from winning his three $10,000
three-point shooting titles.
He loved his beer, but not enough to pay $7 a bottle for
it. Can't let a bartender beat you like that. While his
high-rolling Dream Teammates dropped tens of thousands at
the tables in Monte Carlo casinos as they prepared for the
1992 Barcelona
Olympics, Bird stopped by the hotel bar for a cold one. When the
bartender passed Bird a bottle and informed him of the
price, Larry Legend walked away, still thirsty but proud.
"You can keep your $7
beer," he
said.
Years earlier, in a less pricey pub in Dallas, Bird looked
up from his beverage to see waves of young people roaming
the neighborhood. He asked
Boston
Globe scribe Dan Shaughnessy what was going on and was told that
Bruce Springsteen was playing
nearby.
"Who's he?" asked
Bird.
"Who's he?!?" said Shaughnessy, stunned.
"Larry, he's the you of
rock-and-roll."
Bird shrugged and returned to his
beer.
"He must be pretty good
then," he
said.
Sports Illustrated senior writer Gerry Callahan is a Massachusetts native who
worked for The (Lowell) Sun and Boston Herald before joining the magazine in 1994.
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