09-13-2015, 10:07 AM
Weird to read about Moses Malone this morning.. And sad, of course.
I was a regular for Trailblazers games for several years, inlcluding the summer they landed Moses in the ABA dispersal draft. He was that raw kid, maybe 18, and Bill Walton campaigned hard to get Portland to keep him after just the first team pratice, too no avail and likely because of too little money to pay Moses. It didnt matter immediately; that season, with Walton and Maurice Lucas down low, backed by Lloyd Neal when they needed breaks, they would win the title.Â
30 years later and ten years ago, I was in Miami at one of those many fundraising events that draw current and future B or B+ list athletesmy date had a thing for the Dolphins then-QB, who was too B list for me to rememberand Moses was among them. I remember thinking these guys had no careers now other than making appearances, eating the free food, and being told how good they once were at something, these fellows whose lives, in Fitzgerald's apt words, now savored of anticlimax.
And I remember thinking that Moses seemed sadmore than the othersalthough the man's regular expression always was hang dog.Â
Perhaps I was seeing what I expected, not what was there, but that image has always been with me; I can still picture the brobdingnagian room and where he was standing when I first noticed him.
Sad. Much too young. I hope his looks deceived me.
I was a regular for Trailblazers games for several years, inlcluding the summer they landed Moses in the ABA dispersal draft. He was that raw kid, maybe 18, and Bill Walton campaigned hard to get Portland to keep him after just the first team pratice, too no avail and likely because of too little money to pay Moses. It didnt matter immediately; that season, with Walton and Maurice Lucas down low, backed by Lloyd Neal when they needed breaks, they would win the title.Â
30 years later and ten years ago, I was in Miami at one of those many fundraising events that draw current and future B or B+ list athletesmy date had a thing for the Dolphins then-QB, who was too B list for me to rememberand Moses was among them. I remember thinking these guys had no careers now other than making appearances, eating the free food, and being told how good they once were at something, these fellows whose lives, in Fitzgerald's apt words, now savored of anticlimax.
And I remember thinking that Moses seemed sadmore than the othersalthough the man's regular expression always was hang dog.Â
Perhaps I was seeing what I expected, not what was there, but that image has always been with me; I can still picture the brobdingnagian room and where he was standing when I first noticed him.
Sad. Much too young. I hope his looks deceived me.
