The Sonic Boom In Seattle

Now, is Seattle ready for the mind that created this episode? Richman himself is not sure. The Northwest has a California complex. It is jealous of the Golden State; suspicious, too. Yet it is impressed by California, and the natives like to boast that they are on the way to emulating California. " Seattle is where Los Angeles was 15 years ago," goes the accepted ballyhoo line. Richman, recognizing these ambivalent emotions, decided he better come on low key for a change. A mod little fellow, who looks like a seraphic Peter Lorre, he still wears his hair brushed down in front and can't stop snapping off the one-liners ("We have two seasons in Seattle—rainy and the Fourth of July"). "But you see," he says, fingering a dark rep tie, "I am wearing very sincere clothes."

Bianchi, too, appears pleasantly out of place. He moves about in deep open-neck shirts, tight cuffless pastel blue pants and tennis—not basketball, but tennis—shoes. Last year, in Oakland, where he was appearing as assistant coach with the Chicago Bulls, a brassy female voice called out to him: "Hey, Bianchi, how come you wear such tight pants?"

"Hey, didn't you come to watch the game?" Al replied.

Bianchi was never a big name in the pros. One St. Patrick's Day in Los Angeles the Lakers had green nets up, and Bianchi went for 25 points. The story is he went the rest of his time in the league just waiting for some more green nets. His career average was 8.1. Bianchi was asked to explain this at his first Seattle press conference. "It was very difficult to score," he replied, "from my position on the bench." For opening night, Richman is going to get Bianchi to join the black-tie crowd and sit on the bench in his tuxedo.

Is Seattle ready for this? Some sophisticates hold that it is home for the world's square. Richman had a reception for the team—Tonics With The Sonics, it was called—but in the Space Needle the drinks they push are frothy rum meringues that come with sipping straws, one with a candle on top. There is the Cloud Buster, the Milky Way and the Hay Stack, so that you can find a haystack in the—aw, you guessed it. The Sonic players were reading a front-page story the other day that described the travails of Miss Susan Braley, 22, who was pictured in a modest outfit, the hemline falling to just above her knees. Miss Braley had been sent home from her job at the Seattle post office because this "miniskirt" was "too distracting." The paper said "a respected and trusted woman" had been called in to render this decision. The players were aghast. They just stared at the picture and read the story, over and over, shaking their heads.

Seattle is really more like the Midwest than California. It is an honest home town. About 90% of the people came from somewhere else, and now that they have found a home they are loathe to leave it except to go to work at Boeing. There are, it is estimated, 250,000 out-door barbecues in King County, which may be why, during this past uncommonly hot summer, a smog often hung over the city, obliterating the magnificent view of Mt. Rainier. On a clear day, Rainier appears like a bottomless snow-capped shroud above the city, though it is 55 miles away. Tommy Kron, a guard with the Sonics, rented an apartment on Queen Anne Hill, with a view of the city and the mountain to the south. But the Krons were in Seattle for two weeks before the air cleared. Tommy walked out on the balcony one day and there was this monstrous mountain. "Honey," he called to his wife Diane, "you won't believe this, but all of a sudden there's this mountain right outside the window." Diane called back for him to stop playing jokes.

"Everybody here keeps telling me that they are so sorry we are having so much haze," says Mrs. Pat Hazzard. "I tell them, look, I lived in Los Angeles for seven years, and this isn't haze. It is good old smog. But they really don't want to hear that."

Seattle was settled in the 1850s, incorporated in 1869 and burned to the ground in 1889, a week after Johnstown had its flood. Rebuilt, it had its first boom, non-sonic, during the Alaskan gold rush. The port, and the longshoremen who battled there, kept the city growing. It is still a big union town. Then came the aircraft industry, and Boeing. The newspapers eschew most world developments to headline each Boeing sale of a 707. Seattle is a boomtown for real now. Unemployment is low; the workers come from California. Sonic Forward Bud Olsen was amazed to discover that prices were as high as they are in San Francisco. The Olsens and their two little girls had to settle for a house 18 miles outside of town.

The team has already sold 1,500 season tickets, with a total advance nearing $250,000, respectable figures for most established clubs. Atlantic Richfield bought TV-radio rights for the next five years for $1 million, and the local NBC outlet plans to preempt 11 nights of prime time for Sonic games. The Sonics are aware, of course, that the outpouring of love and support for them is not altogether altruistic. Seattleites feel that if they do well by the Sonics, pro baseball and football are more likely to show up next. The Cleveland Indians almost came a couple years ago, and Charlie Finley would probably love to come to the Northwest and its frontier TV territory—if Seattle had a stadium. The voters turned down a stadium bond issue two years ago, but a new and more attractive proposition for a $40 million domed stadium will be on the February ballot. It is a good bet to win.

The Sonic players, if somewhat bemused by the gee-whiz attitude of their new fans, are enjoying it and glad of the chance the fresh territory offers them. They also like their new management and are impressed with Bianchi, who has succeeded in enhancing the good reputation he came with. Hazzard calls him a "budding genius." Meschery says, "There is a chance for greatness there." In manner and strategy, Bianchi has patterned himself after Alex Hannum, who was his coach at Syracuse. Last year, with John Kerr in Chicago, Bianchi helped teach the same basic system, and the Bulls became the most successful expansion team in history. "If any more coaches come in the league copying Hannum," Hazzard says, "Alex can get residuals." While he was with Kerr, Bianchi put the finishing touches on his own style. "Alex's manner is to stand back, look at you, examine, and then act decisively as if there could not be any other way," Meschery says. " Johnny Kerr succeeds with joking. And Al does it just as well his own way, too. He manages quietly, softly. You find yourself hanging on his words, just about mesmerized by his few simple hand motions."