They’re a Pair of Country Boys

In the summer of 1985, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird got together to do a shoe commercial and thereby began a friendship.

“Before that, we had never talked, we had never said anything,” Johnson told Jim Armstrong of the Denver Post. “He thought I was Hollywood, egotistical and stuck on myself, things of that nature. I thought he was this country guy who couldn’t relate to me and other guys. So we just stayed away. You know, ‘Get away from me. I just want to kill you on the court.’

“It never got into a racial thing because then you don’t respect the person. I respected his ability because you knew he could beat you. So it never came to that tension thing where I want to fight you or something like that. It was just that the media had created us--us against each other.”

Then came the commercial, which was shot near Bird’s home in French Lick, Ind.

“We finally got a chance to say something without anybody else around,” Johnson said. “We were just sitting there talking, and we found out we had a lot in common.

“We’re just two country boys from the Midwest. We both have strong family ties. We both like our music. He likes country western, I like my kind of music.

“It was really nice. It was like we had known each other for a long time. We were laughing and it was just happening. What do you like to do? Yeeeeah. What do you like to do? Yeeeeah.”

From Julius Erving, as he goes around the league for the last time: “As Connie Hawkins once said, ‘They’d better raise the floor or lower the basket, because you don’t see some of those dunks I used to do anymore.’ ”

Now-it-can-be-told Dept.: Ten years ago today, the Texas Rangers signed Kurt Bevacqua, and therein lies a story.

Bevacqua had gone to spring training with the expansion Seattle Mariners, who were partly owned by entertainer Danny Kaye.

Henry Genzale, clubhouse attendant for the Mariners, recalled this incident in the Seattle Times: “We were on a bus going to a game somewhere and Bevacqua was doing some cussing on the bus ride. Mr. Kaye asked who that was and was told Bevacqua’s name. He was also told Kurt was hitting .450 and having a good spring.

“Mr. Kaye said, ‘I don’t like that language, get him out of camp.’ So Kurt went.”

Ten days later, Bevacqua became a Ranger.

Trivia Time: What player had more than 3,000 hits and won three batting titles but never had 200 hits in a season and wound up with a career average under .300? (Answer below.)

The fastest man in baseball? According to a formula devised by Bill James in his “Baseball Abstract,” it’s Vince Coleman. Then come Rickey Henderson, Eric Davis, Gary Redus, Juan Samuel, Gary Pettis and Tim Raines, Len Dykstra, Barry Bonds and Mookie Wilson.

The slowest are Alan Ashby, Steve Garvey, Bob Horner, Ron Hassey, Terry Harper, Cecil Cooper, Carlton Fisk, Ozzie Virgil, Greg Brock and Steve Balboni.

Incidentally, Garvey has collected 200 hits five times but never has scored 100 runs.

Would-you-believe-it Dept.: In round-by-round scoring, the Associated Press had Marvelous Marvin Hagler beating Sugar Ray Leonard, 8-3-1.

Trivia Answer: Carl Yastrzemski. He had a career average of .285.

Quotebook

Hubert Green, former U.S. Open and PGA champion, on the driving of Greg Norman: “He’s so pure it’s gross. He can drive the ball 280 yards in the air. He can hit it higher than Superman can fly.”