George Plimpton and the 1980 Moscow Olympics

George Plimpton Obituary Mail Art (front)

Gratitude to Grantland.com for posting George Plimpton's report from the 1980 Moscow games. The United States boycotted those games in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December, 1979.

Moscow Games by George Plimpton

Plimpton was the perfect journalist for the event. A participatory journalist first and foremost, Plimpton was a sports enthusiast of the highest order. An intelligent and witty observer, fearless in his own inimitable way, Plimpton's observations and commentary eschew the normal re-hash of events and instead pick out the quirky, the humorous, the incongruous from those games.

Ah, the Cold War, what a time it was. And to think of the events that transpired either directly or indirectly from that Soviet incursion. In no time we had the CIA arming the mujahideen (the Islamic anti-Soviet resistance). Of course, some eight years later, once the Soviets had cut their losses and fled that unconquerable country, the "freedom fighters" (thanks, Mr. Reagan) turned their sights on other targets. And voila, Al Queda emerges from the smoking ruins, still armed with stinger missiles and various kinds of destructive hardware courtesy of the USA.

Fast forward to today. Sadly, Mr. Plimpton has departed this corporeal world. Not so sadly, so has Mr. Reagan. But Al Queda remains.

And now we have the 2014 Sochi Winter Games, another bizarre Russian fiasco. Whose idea was it to hold the winter Olympics at a summer resort on the Black Sea? A classic Russian farce. Mikhail Bulgakov would have something to say, no doubt.

George Plimpton Obituary Mail Art (rear)

Series Tied

I overcame my previous game's wardrobe faux pas by donning an All Star green mesh tanktop with the number 33 on the back (a leftover souvenir from younger days playing on a men's rec basketbal team). It seems that Plimpton may have been looking on from the architectural ghost of the old Boston Garden, I sensed him nodding in approval at my retro attire. Whatever, the shirt change seemed to work.

The Celtics overcame horrid first half shooting to rally in the second half behind the brawny determination of Shrek, otherwise known as Glen Davis. He bulled and lunged and ran and finally, after one particularly aggressive foray to the basket during which he was fouled, bellowed like an enraged hippopotamus. Quite a prodigious, not to say inelegant, sight to behold. Especially the drool and the fact that Nate Robinson, the diminutive back-up point guard, was piggybacking him at the time. His game was truly amazing, it was like driving in a car that would never break down because there was an unending stream of Miles Davis cool jazz playing, every cut from Kind of Blue, and the car itself performed with elan and hugged the corners and eased over rough tarmac and exuded an irie calm in the midst of rush hour angst and congestion, and there was nothing smoother, the steering wheel responding like, well, a well-oiled cog, the horse power humming a cat's purr aria and every motion imbued with certainty and trust. The result? This series is wide open once again, Shrek's heroic spittle hanging over all.

Sports Jinx

The sports jinx is a debatable proposition but belief in it, among sports fans, is widespread and inescapable. For example, I take partial blame for the Celtics' unfortunate defeat in Game 3 of the NBA Finals last night. Why? Because at half time I was horrified to realize that I was wearing a Watts Tower T shirt that I bought in Los Angeles four years ago. Wearing a T shirt from LA while watching the Celtics battle the Lakers in Boston?! Heresy.

How to better explain Ray Allen's curious debacle of a night? One game after setting an NBA Finals record for most three pointers in a game, Allen goes 0-13 from the field and scores only 2 points in the Celtics 91-84 defeat. Even though I took the shirt off and buried it at the bottom of the dirty clothes hamper at half time, the damage was done. The Celtics dug themselves a 17 point hole in the first half while I was wearing it. Shame on me!

Interestingly, last night the Lakers narrowly avoided one of the dependable 'scoring' jinxes, the dreaded 10-4 score early on. Nine times out of ten, the team that finds itself down 10-4 goes on to lose the game. It's almost science. It was 8-4 at one point last night but the Celtics were unable to score the all important basket that would have made it 10-4. Would that have been enough to overcome my LA T shirt folly? We'll never know.

Game 4 now looms like a nuclear power plant cooling tower. Any cracks in the structure and New England is looking at an environmental sports disaster. Proper anti-sports-jinx measures WILL be taken. We may have to summon the spirit of George Plimpton for advice in the matter.