{"id":4097,"date":"2005-12-28T10:40:14","date_gmt":"2005-12-28T15:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=4097"},"modified":"2005-12-28T10:40:14","modified_gmt":"2005-12-28T15:40:14","slug":"larrys-taking-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=4097","title":{"rendered":"Larry’s taking over."},"content":{"rendered":"

Catching up on my Sports Guy. Just read his piece on Larry Bird<\/a>, and I’m all verklempt. I grew up in a household where sports really meant something. Not EVERYTHING, mind you – I knew families where sports were EVERYTHING and they kind of freaked me out … But I grew up in a family where sports, and the teams we rooted for, really meant something to us. They were a part of our blood, a part of our experience as a family. If you didn’t grow up with that, it’s kind of hard to describe – but I think Bill Simmons does, as always, a great job putting it all into words.<\/p>\n

When the Bird Era crested with that remarkable 67-win season in the 1986 season, it was the ultimate marriage of the perfect crowd and the perfect team. Remember the scene in “Hoosiers” right after Jimmy Chitwood joined the team, the inspiring “This team’s coming together” montage? That’s what every game felt like that year. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That’s what I’m talkin’ about.<\/p>\n

And:<\/p>\n

Did these things make Larry Bird a hero? Probably not. But there were heroic qualities about him, mainly stemming from the fact that everyone in New England believed he was invincible. He just came through too many times for us. After awhile, we started expecting him to come through, and when he still came through, that’s when we were hooked for good. Out of all the dramatic Bird moments over the years, I’ll always remember a game-winning shot that he missed … not just because he missed it, but because nobody believed he could miss it. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If you come from a sports-loving family, then these words will most definitely resonate!!<\/p>\n

Go read the whole beautiful thing.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Catching up on my Sports Guy. Just read his piece on Larry Bird, and I’m all verklempt. I grew up in a household where sports really meant something. Not EVERYTHING, mind you – I knew families where sports were EVERYTHING … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4097"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4097\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}