19th Hole: The Readers Take Over

MILWAUKEE AND MONCRIEF
Sir:
Thanks for the great article by Anthony Cotton on Milwaukee Guard Sidney Moncrief and the rest of the team (There's No Stopping the Bucks, Feb. 22). They are an excellent team and definitely "ripe and ready." They're my pick for the title.
DAVID HESS
Deerbrook, Wis.

Sir:
It was just four years ago, almost to the day, that Sidney Moncrief, your Feb. 22 cover subject, last graced your cover. On the cover of the Feb. 13, 1978 issue you pictured Moncrief, then playing for the University of Arkansas Razorbacks, soaring toward the rim for a slam dunk. With due apologies to Carol Alt (Feb. 8), that was truly the most awe-inspiring cover photograph SI has ever run.

As for Moncrief, any basketball writer who fails to acknowledge him as the league's MVP should be stripped of his NBA media pass and relegated to covering high school lacrosse.
TIM O'CONNOR
Dallas

UNUSUAL UMP
Sir:
I'm a charter subscriber to SI, and I've now read more than 1,400 issues from cover to cover. Bang! Bang! You're Out (Feb. 22) by former major league umpire Ron Luciano and David Fisher is the alltime funniest, most interesting, most thoroughly enjoyable article that you've ever published.
DAVE GOWANS
Redding, Calif.

Sir:
Thanks to Ron Luciano and David Fisher for Bang! Bang! You're Out. Luciano's sense of humor should get him into the Hall of Fame if his umpiring doesn't. My family wondered why I was giggling intermittently as I read the article. Trying to explain it to my wife, I finally dissolved into incoherent helplessness amid tears of laughter.
WILLIAM A. HERR
Bluffton, Ohio

Sir:
I was very fond of Ron Luciano's style of umpiring, and your article brought back many colorful moments. Nobody did it better, and nobody will!
JEFF FORZLEY
Lemont, Ill.

Sir:
The article absolutely confirms my opinion that Ron Luciano was an incompetent buffoon as an umpire. He jokes about calling a pitch that was "right down the heart of the plate" a ball, and he brags about missing plays while gabbing with coaches. It was a disgrace that a fool like Luciano was allowed to pollute the major leagues for as long as he did.
RICH O'BRIEN
St. Davids, Pa.

Sir:
The best thing that has happened to baseball in years is that Ron Luciano got out of it.
DICK GARCIA
Chicago

RALPH SAMPSON & CO.
Sir:
I'm not sure if I should congratulate you or curse you for Curry Kirkpatrick's article Not Alone at the Top (Feb. 22). While he did an excellent job of telling those outside ACC country what Virginia fans—and the opponents they've beaten—have known for a long time, you may also have taken away what could have been one of the "other" Cavaliers' best weapons in the NCAA tournament—their anonymity!
MICHAEL F. HUSSEY
St. Louis

Sir:
Curry Kirkpatrick, who had a following in my hometown of Chapel Hill, N.C. until his Feb. 22 article came out, mentioned that Carolina and Virginia are carbon copies of one another. Virginia Coach Terry Holland may have been able to copy Dean Smith's presses, traps, subs and foul-line huddles, but duplicating that 1982 NCAA championship trophy will be tough.
PETE DALLDORF
Ithaca, N.Y.