Mister Prime Time

Just now Vitale is tooling in the Caddy under the hot Florida sun, on the way to his new home-in-progress outside Bradenton. He is also doing color commentary on the superpower summit in Iceland: "Ronnie, the Big P, the Prez, posts Gorby down low in the paint. It looks like a little pin and spin move. The P is sayin' take that red spread post defense outta here. Wait! Yeah, it's a pick and stick from Prez and you can count it! Ronnie is sayin' goodbye Gorby, you're history!"

Vitale interrupts himself, as he is wont to do in alternate seconds. "Imagine all this after getting the Ziggy," he says, the Ziggy being the end, the finish, the last waltz, the final curtain, his being fired by the Pistons. "Imagine a bald-headed, one-eyed Italian from Jersey with no jump shot coming back O-O-O against the Ziggy. Imagine all this from ball!"

And imagine what a ride it has been from near Lodi, N-J, to near Lido Beach, F-L-A, just down the coast from Braden-ton where the girls could go legally topless, which rendered the newly arrived Jersey guy speechless for the first time in his life. Of course, Vitale quickly recovered. But then what did Lloyd, his old boss at Rutgers, say about our new Mr. Basketball? "He can't box himself into a corner because he travels in circles. Dick always finds some way to wind up on top."

Or to put it another way, the Vitale way: When it's S-T, Stretch Time, com-in'-down-to-the-wire time, and you got to get the job done...Dickie baby, Dialin' Dick Vitale, a P-T-P, Prime Time Performahhh if there ever was one, is sayin' I feel it in my stomach, I got a feeeeelin'! Forget this one because all you got is Mo-Po, Mostly Potential, while I am a certified, bona fide, sanctified M-D-S-A, Multi-Dimensional Stud Animal, and I am takin' the rock to the glass and deliverin' an I-T-A-T-R-J-D, an In The Air Terse Reverse Junk Dunk, that you, you S-S, you Sorry Suckah, will have to swallow whoooooole. Get the picture? It was an M-and-M-er all the way. The Ziggy never had a shot.