A Brilliant Shade of Kelly Green

Larry Bird was not a pigment of our imagination. As a basketball player, was he pretty fair for a white boy? Yes, he was. Was he pretty fair for whatever color flesh? Yes, he was. Was he as good as, say, Earvin Johnson or Michael Jordan? As good as Oscar Robertson or Elgin Baylor? As good as Earl Monroe or Julius Erving? No, not in my book. But could he play? Damn right he could play.

Color him gone.

He entered basketball’s scrapbook as a physically skillful and socially awkward Hoosier with a fuzzy yellow lip, who once spent his summers working on a garbage truck. He closes it as a physically malfunctioning but socially reborn American returning from abroad with a golden medal around his neck and with a sense of humor as wry as any Bostonian bon vivant’s.

Was his skin color relevant? Oh, I don’t know. I suppose so. Was it relevant in Spike Lee’s provocative film, “Do the Right Thing,” when actor John Savage was costumed in a green No. 33 Celtic jersey as the only Caucasian present during a neighborhood disagreement? Was it relevant to so many basketball fans from New England who often wondered (or knew) why so many Celtics were as white as their socks?

It had to have been relevant to whichever colleagues of Bird’s were brave or foolhardy enough to take their sentiments public, as well as to those unwilling or unprepared to do the same. It must have mattered to the distinguished university professor whose 1987-published diatribe I made sure to clip and save so that I could reread it at a later date, as I did the very morning when Bird announced his decision to retire.

The phone startled me at 7 in the morning, five years ago this summer: “Mike?” A soft and familiar voice identified itself: “Isiah.”

Isiah Thomas has been a basketball player of my acquaintance since he was a high schooler and is someone I certainly would be pleased to call a friend. But I get wake-up calls from Isiah at home about as often as I get calls from Jesse or Janet Jackson.

“I need your advice,” he said.

Bird and the Boston Celtics had just eliminated Thomas and the Detroit Pistons from the NBA playoffs. The Celtics already were in Inglewood for Game 1 of a championship engagement with the Lakers, but the controversy du jour was still a comment made by one Detroit player and seconded by Thomas that had to do with the makeup of Larry Bird’s game--the cosmetic makeup.

Isiah was backpedaling furiously. “You know me,” he said. “Am I racist? I think a lot of Larry Bird.”

Yes, he did. But two facts remained unalterable. One was that Dennis Rodman and Thomas said exactly what they were quoted to have said; I was there and heard every word. The other fact was that a white backlash had begun in Michigan and was likely to spread. Piston season ticket-holders were calling to cancel. Some claimed to be as outraged by reverse racism as they would have been by any other form of racism. Others were plain old complainers.

Bird wound up face-to-face with others and myself on May 30, 1987, in a pantry-small Boston Garden locker room. Game 7 of a ferocious Eastern Conference playoff was over, two Pistons had concussions and two others were yelling their heads off. Bird had the MVP trophy and heard us repeat Rodman’s words: “He’s white--that’s the only reason he gets it. I think he’s very overrated.”

Larry listened.

“He’s not God. He ain’t the best player in the NBA, not to me,” Rodman had raved on. “He’s slow. He can’t run. And tell Larry that when you go over there.”

Larry nodded.

He said of Rodman: “He’s a rookie. He’ll learn.”

He was smiling. He didn’t mind. It was just gamesmanship. He could dish it and he could be dissed. No problem. Rodman was a sore loser, maybe. Or just sore. Bird had burned him for 37 points, nine rebounds and nine assists.

Then I told him the rest.

“And Isiah said: ‘Larry is a very, very good basketball player. He’s an exceptional talent.’ ”

Larry listened.

“ ‘But I have to agree with Rodman,’ ” I continued quoting Thomas. “ ‘If he were black, he’d be just another good guy.’ ”

Larry winced.

This was no rookie talking. This was Isiah Thomas, a serious player, an NBA equal.

Bird sighed and said: “It’s a free world. We’re not in Russia. You can say what you want to say.”

Kevin McHale, same team, same nationality, same skin tone, disagreed somewhat.

“Somebody ought to slap the . . . out of (Rodman),” McHale said.

And so a sad debate began. Thomas recanted. He apologized. He even asked how he should go about it. He even insisted that it was all a put-on, that he was joking about Bird when he said what he said. Funny, I don’t remember many players telling jokes after losing a Game 7 by three points.

An essay by William Sampson, sociology professor at Northwestern, dated June 6, 1987, appeared on a Chicago editorial page. Thomas “shuffled,” the professor wrote, using the word twice. (Sampson is black.) Thomas was “induced or intimidated, probably both” into changing his story. “It’s all part of the plan. The plan to have a Great White Hope.” Bird cannot jump, cannot play defense and is permitted by biased referees to travel three steps without dribbling, the professor pontificated.

It being a free world, he, too, was entitled to an opinion. Why it was necessary, alas, I have no idea. Nor do I now, not really. I saw a number of basketball players more able than Larry Bird. I saw a far greater number less able. He was a pro. To many, he was a pro’s pro. Let’s remember him as that. Remember him as a player who could really, really play.