Confident and Complex, That Was Chamberlain

Like the tall woman who wears high heels, Wilt Chamberlain seemed as if he were proud of his height. He certainly wore it well. . . .

But Stuart Zanville, the Lakers’ public relations director during the 1971-72 season, saw another side of Chamberlain, a more self-conscious side. . . .

Zanville, now in charge of public relations at Santa Anita Park, said Chamberlain was easily offended by references to his size, even if they were made with the amiable humor of someone like the late Times columnist Jim Murray. . . .

The first line of one of Murray’s columns after Chamberlain built his giant-sized house in Bel-Air was, “Fe-Fi-Fo-Fum.” . . .

Chamberlain, Zanville said, boycotted the party to celebrate the ’72 championship because Laker owner Jack Kent Cooke invited Murray. . . .

Although he liked his nickname, “the Big Dipper,” Chamberlain couldn’t stand to be called Wilt the Stilt. . . .

The only thing he hated worse was when someone called him “Mr. Russell,” which happened more often than you might think. Those were in the days before NBA games were on television every night or even every month, and people knew the players’ names better than their faces. . . .

Yet, even though Chamberlain vs. Bill Russell is one of the great rivalries in sports history, they weren’t the enemies off the court that some imagined. . . .

Russell regularly spent Thanksgiving Day with Chamberlain’s family in Philadelphia. . . .

Chamberlain had another nickname that he might not have known about. Laker teammate Elgin Baylor called him “the Big Musty.” . . .

That’s because Chamberlain didn’t often shower in the locker room after games, preferring to wait until he returned home or to his hotel room. You wouldn’t think that a man who claimed to have slept with 20,000 women could be called shy, but that’s another example of his complexity. . . .

Chamberlain wanted to be recognized for his greatness, even to the point of keeping his own statistics in his head during games to assure that he wouldn’t be shortchanged. . . .

“He would call to the press box after games and ask how many rebounds he’d gotten,” Zanville said. “He’d say, ‘Twenty-three. Check it.’ We’d check the play-by-play sheet and invariably he’d be right.” . . .

But Chamberlain didn’t like being the center of attention off the court. . . .

Zanville recalled Chamberlain telling him, “Jerry West can go out to dinner any time he wants, put on a pair of sunglasses and not be recognized. I can never do that.”

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Someone wrote a book not long ago called “The End of History.” Fortunately, it didn’t apply to baseball. . . .

There is not a more historic rivalry in the American League than the Yankees vs. the Red Sox. . . .

The Curse of the Bambino. Yankee Stadium. Fenway Park. Bucky Dent. . . .

The Braves and Mets have less history against each other, yet have managed to pack considerable friction into it. . . .

Bud Selig must have made a pact with the devil. In the last two seasons, he has overseen a sport that produced the Great Home Run Race of 1998, the winningest team of all time and now the most intriguing playoff matchups possible. . . .

Is baseball back or what? . . .

Or what is the right answer. Baseball is still not close to regaining its status as the national pastime. . . .

The most recent edition of “Monday Night Football” had one of its least attractive games in years. I thought I couldn’t have been less interested in the Jacksonville Jaguars vs. the New York Jets until I watched a few plays and discovered how wrong I was. I was less interested. . . .

Accordingly, the Nielsen ratings were the second lowest in “Monday Night Football” history. . . .

Still, more people watched the football game than the dramatic Game 5 that night between the Red Sox and Indians. . . .

The “Good Answer Award” goes to Bob Russell, chairman of the board for the new Alltel Arena in Little Rock, Ark. . . .

When asked if he could imagine a worse grand opening than the one for his building that was canceled Tuesday night, along with a Laker-Wizard exhibition game, because of cracks in the upper deck, he said: “Sure I can--people sitting up there and it falls in.”

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While wondering how it feels to be bored with so many baseball playoff games in your city in one decade like in Atlanta, I was thinking: Home-ice advantage for the Kings would be if the Staples Center scoreboard registered only the first two periods, Wilt Chamberlain’s stats would have been more amazing if blocked shots had been recorded when he played, the Pac-10 has never been so thrilled about the start of basketball practice.

Randy Harvey can be reached at his e-mail address: randy.harvey@latimes.com