It's been a weird few weeks. I guess I've spent most of my time gathering up and pouring over as many old newspapers with articles on Pete as I could get my hands on. It's funny. When I was growing up I thought I knew a lot about him, but compared to then I'm a by-god authority on the man now. Like his lifetime NBA field goal percentage. 44.1%. I had no idea it was that low. But then you got to realize how many wild, off-balance, crowd-pleasing shots he had to throw up there, just to stir up the fans because that's what management was paying him for, and the other players on the team expected him to usually take the shot anyway, he was always that guy, and so his percentage was bound to be a little lower than it should've been. To prove my point, his free-throw percentage was over 82%, which is excellent; to just calmly stand there, flat-footed, and take all the time in the world, with nobody even guarding you, and then just push up a normal little fifteen-foot rainbow was nothing for a guy like Pete. I bet free-throws bored him. They bored me. And another thing, they didn't have the 3-point goal when Pete played, which is just about the crappiest case of bad luck or bad timing for any athlete in the history of American sports. God, so friggin' many of his shots were beyond the 22-to-23-foot range! What a rip-off. When I think of how many more points he would've scored....And like when he tore up his knee in '78. I'd practically forgotten about it. Guess I was pretty wrapped up in my own "budding career" back then. But I do remember he was never the same player after that, and retired a couple years later....Pete Maravich Retires From Basketball....I remember it like it was yesterday. It was not too long after I heard about the Olympic boycott. The boycott was a bad scene, no doubt, but hearing about Pete's hanging up the old Converses was worse. I remember. It made me sick to my stomach.
But the wildest, weirdest, flat-out worst thing about this whole thing, I believe, was discovering exactly what caused his death. I've been reading as much as I can about it. I don't understand much about medicine or anatomy or anything like that, but the way it looks to the L.A. County Coroner's Office is that Pete got shortchanged, physically speaking, right from the start. Right from the cradle. It seems that all normal human beings are given two separate and "equally necessary" coronary artery systems (a right coronary artery complex and a left coronary artery complex), which supply the heart itself with fresh blood. We all get two.
Pete got one.
Can you believe that? He was born with it! Only one lousy system of arteries feeding the heart with freshly-oxygenated blood, for 40 years, instead of the normal two. What a gyp. In fact, the one coronary artery complex he didn't get, the left, is considered the most important one. Not that it makes much difference. The point is that Pete died, literally, of a broken heart....The Coroner's Office goes on to say that this particular heart defect, oft-termed the "rarest of the rare", a condition not even mentioned in most cardiology texts, so rare that no exact statistics even exist on just how often it occurs, this stupid defect usually kills its victims before they reach 20 years old (And of course its victims are not ordinarily basketball players, much less All-Americans or All-Pros.). The explanation of why he died between games, as opposed to actually during strenuous physical activity, is simple. For people afflicted with this stupid condition, the sudden change of blood pressure during the "warming down" period immediately after exercise is just too much (at least too much the time they actually die) and death is often instantaneous. No warning. It's like a bloody technical foul.
Furthermore, they say this quirk of Pete's heart is virtually undetectable. Until you die you don't ever even know you've got it. Totally undiagnosable.
So in other words, God let Pete play out his whole friggin' life against a stacked deck. Christ. I mean come on....
Y'know something, I figure God has to take a little responsibility for this thing if it's going to make any sense at all. I'm serious. He gives Pete the rarest, most deadly physical anomaly nobody ever heard of, and as if to make up for it decides to endow him with athletic gifts far above and beyond mortal man's power to even comprehend them, never mind approach them, then graciously allows him to live a full, magnificent life; but won't let him live into middle age. Who does He think we are, puppets? It's as if He intentionally picked a terminal disease as unique as the poor sap he stuck with it. And the exact moment of death? Do you people really believe in this kind of coincidence? He friggin' died while playing basketball! My god! Maravich/dead/basketball! Who are we trying to kid? Who'se He think he's trying to kid? But think of it. Just think of it. How many athletes get to die playing the game they loved? Shouldn't Ty Cobb've died while stealing second base? Wouldn't it be great if Willie Mays winds up dying of heart failure in some friggin' old-timers game, chasing down a fly ball in center field? Can't you just picture The Giffer being cut down by a press-box sniper---maybe the late great deranged Fred Exley himself---just as he's cruising into the end zone to win an NFL Championship? As for the current crop of basketball players, I can't help picture the press's new fair-haired boy, this kid Jordan, going limp from the delayed effects of some mysterious childhood disease, just as he soars three feet above the rim. And as for me, I always thought it would be great to kick off from sheer excitement the very moment my desperation 3-point bomb splits the nets at the buzzer to win the 7th game of the NBA Finals. So much for that....but I'd settle for having it happen in a cheesy little pick-up game. Like Pete. He was lucky.
And get this. I was down at the L.A. Times the other day, going through their morgue, combing through every story in the last twenty years where the name Pete Maravich is mentioned. There was this reference to a little story from 1974 that I swear left me as cold as a mackerel. In '74 Pete was playing for Atlanta, and things weren't going too well for him. It was a time in his career when the fans, resentful of his high salary and the team's low winning percentage, were getting on him a little bit for "hot-dogging", showing off, etc., which is pretty hard not to do when you're as good as Pete. Anyway, my man Pistol was being interviewed by some small-time newspaper in Pennsylvania, which is where he grew up. Seems that in trying to communicate his unhappiness with all the negative fan reaction, and that how he felt---under such adverse conditions---that he didn't absolutely need basketball and could just as easily do something else, he was quoted as saying: "I don't want to play 10 years in the NBA and die of a heart attack at age 40.". Pete played from 1970 to 1980 and died at 40. Heart attack.
Yeah, don't tell me the big fella's not behind this. He's friggin' trifling with us.
In a way, though, Pete's death was the best thing that could've happened to me. In a real gross way, I mean. Think of it; I was actually getting sort've comfortable in that stupid grungy hotel. I'd even recently wired home for another three or four months of money. I mean I was dug in. If something didn't happen to break the spell I might've stayed cooped up in that smelly little room forever, and since there was no maid service they wouldn't've come to get me until I'd croaked myself, and the smell of my rotting corpse had seeped into the other rooms. I can just imagine the kind of clever title for this sad tale that my opportunistic editor/publisher would've come up with then!
But seriously, I hope it's obvious to everybody that I'm not the least bit happy with my all-time-main-man passing on. God damn, I really loved the guy. I loved his floppy socks and his shaggy hair and his unbelievable talent for the game. And I'll tell you this---if all this drivel someday leads to the making of a movie on Pete's life, as sort've a fitting, permanent memorial to a truly unique piece of work, well, then it will've all been worth it.
Because it sure hasn't been any picnic. Writing is hard, man. I would never've believed it. And you wanna hear something funny? In the beginning I thought getting this whole thing off my chest would make me feel better. Yeah. I really did. But you know what's weird, I don't feel better. I don't feel better at all. I really don't.
But somebody had to do it. Somebody has to accept responsibility for putting Pete's place in sports history into proper perspective. Since I used to play basketball
, and since he picked my home town to die in, and since fate had me doing a piece on basketball at the time anyway, I guess I'm the logical choice. I don't believe in coincidences. As for me personally, I suppose I'll always look back on that date---January 5, 1988---as something special. The date Pete Maravich died, and the day that maybe, just maybe, I gave my friggin' lousy life a chance to be reborn.
But I'm back in the good old U.S. of A. for good. For better or for worse. I am sorry to report that the place hasn't changed much in my brief absence....Porn stars dying of AIDS, more T.V. evangelists getting caught with their pants down, evangelists and everybody else who shouldn't even be trying, trying like mad to be President. Same old same old. I see where Hart pulled out of the race the other day. Again. I guess when you rack up 3% of the vote in half a dozen primaries it's tough for even the most optimistic dumb-ass to ignore the obvious. Mr. Bush, on the other hand, is hanging in there like a terrier. What an optimist. I sort've feel sorry for him, though; even if he does somehow manage to secure his party's nomination, he's going to look awful foolish later on trying to explain to the media every single damn day why it's okay to sell tanks and bazookas to a bunch of terrorists so they'll let go of our people and just so we can funnel some illegal aid under the table to a bunch of questionable third-world guerrillas nobody knows or cares anything about without bothering to tell Congress. Like I say, Americans traditionally have long memories. And it's not like it's a big secret or anything. In fact---and I don't know if this is significant or not---I noticed that on the front page of The Times the two stories, amazingly, are sitting there side-by-side! No lie! The one on Pete's death right next to the one where that cluck Poindexter, the former so-called "National Security Advisor", comes right out and says that Bush both "knew about" and "solidly supported" the arms-for-hostages deal with those jerks in Iran. Side by side. You can look it up.
I have no friggin' idea who I'm going to vote for. I was taught to vote no matter what, and I will, but it's sure going to be hard to come up with somebody I can feel good about. The problem is that all've of the guys running now will probably be gone by the time it's time to punch the ballot. I had a funny thought the other day, though. What about this guy Jackson? Takes a lot of guts to go up against what he's going up against. Even for a preacher. Naturally in this country it's hopeless, since he's black, but it'd sure be fun to give him a chance to see what he could do. He sure couldn't do any bloody worse than the ones we've had. If you wanna hear something funny, LeSoul asked me if I'd like to actually help him campaign for the man!
Oh, that reminds me. When I got back in town the guys on the team actually threw a little coming-home party for me. Could've knocked me over with a feather. My man Soul organized the whole thing. He even managed to supply the festivities with this big cake, with a funny milk chocolate figurine on top, of a uniformed basketball player wearing a white chocolate cast on his leg. Cracked everybody up. Practically everybody was there too, except a couple of this year's stuck-up rookies and that honky pussy Andrews, who never liked me much anyway. It sure felt good to hang out with the old gang again. And I had a whole bunch of good talks with Soul. He was practically as choked up about Pete's passing as I was. He's a good guy. He even wanted me to come with him that night and head out on the town, chase the chicks around a little bit, but naturally I told him I wasn't in the mood. We all managed to clear a lot of things up, though, me and my old teammates. I guess if I'd taken the initiative to talk it out in the beginning there might not've been any trouble, but I can be a stubborn s.o.b. sometimes.
And that's one last thing I want to get straight. It's about my injury. If my friend and editor was doing his job, you probably saw an entry or two referring to the minor "arthroscopic" surgery I had done on my knee after the accident. Well I lied. It wasn't a "scope job" at all, it was what they call "major reconstructive" surgery. When we all fell I completely tore what's called the anterior cruciate ligament, and also sustained a partial tear of one of the medial collateral ligaments. We, in the game, call it "blowing out the knee". It's just about the worst injury an athlete can have. Especially a basketball player. And even if the athlete makes it back, he's almost never what he once was. Anyway, I just wanted to mention that. As far as I can recall, that's the only time I ever really flat out lied during this entire thing. Sorry about that.
I don't know what to do about Sam. I promised myself I wasn't going to do anything about her right away, but I can't stop thinking about her. I left a few messages on her machine, but she hasn't gotten around to calling me back yet. At least it's given me time to think of a bunch of things to say and work out in my mind exactly what it is I want to do. Speaking of women, I got a letter from England about three weeks ago. Sussex postmark, pictures of little flowers, perfumed and everything, but I don't see a return address. Probably some stupid English custom. Naturally it has to be from Jane. I haven't opened it yet. She'll probably be coming down on me awful hard, and I'm just not ready to deal with any of that baloney. I made myself a deal, though; I'll open the letter just as soon as Sam gets in touch. That way I can get everything out of the way all at once. But the bottom line is that I can be miserable over here just as easily as I could've been miserable over there. And as long as I was over there, there was no chance of hearing anything from Sam. When Sam gets around to sorting out her feelings and calling me, everything should fall right into place.
But the problem is that while I'm waiting around for her I'm temporarily fresh out of local women. I could kill myself for not getting that girl on the flight over's name. She was cool. Smart, too. I've been thinking, and I'm fairly sure she was one of my 50. Funny how it's so much easier to figure these things out after it's all over....Put it this way: I know that if I ever personally meet up with that guy Northgate or whatever his name is (You know, that short-story writer that the vacationing American professor told me about in Salisbury that I told you about?), like at a writer's conference or something, I guarantee you he'll read me the riot act when I tell him I let one of my 50 allotted chicks just slip through my fingers like that! Wouldn't blame him if he did, either. It was a stupid thing to do.
Well, I guess that's about it. I'm all talked out. Sorry I went on a little longer than I thought I would. But it's not exactly War and Peace, you should be thankful. Like I said, if it took any longer I would've had someone else tell it. But now it's time to get on with my lousy life and start looking for another line of work. My money's actually running a bit low, I found out the other day. But I'm only 28, being broke's hardly the end of the world. Of course the first option, now that this thing's finally in print and available in stores, is to go ahead and continue to pursue a career as a "professional writer", whatever that is. I mean that was the original idea. Hell, I could at least be a "professional sports journalist", right? I mean how hard is that! I mean if all of you reading this will just do me a favor, talk a few of your friends into buying this riveting piece sports journalism, and then have them tell their friends to do the same, everything'll be cool. I'll just back the truck right on up to the bank door. That's the way it's supposed to work, right? This is America, right? America: the land of opportunists. With liberty and justice for all.
But if it doesn't fly, no big thing. Really. I mean I won't miss the effort that goes into churning one of these things out. Makes me tired just thinking about it. Besides, I could always teach school, maybe even go into coaching. Maybe coaching's the answer....'be downright easy. Not that you can teach somebody to shoot the jumper, of course, but you can always show a young kid the fundamentals. I've got plenty of energy for something like that. Hell, I'm getting stronger every day.
In fact, not counting this friggin' annoying dull ache that's trapped somewhere between my chest and stomach again, I feel great.
THE END
P.S. [no date]
By the way, I guess I should probably mention for the record that I've decided to go ahead and vote for Bush. I know, I know what you're thinking, b
ut don't blame me--- judging by the polls it looks like all the rest of you saps are voting for him too, amazing. And I don't even know when I acshully decided. The feeling just kind've snuck up on me. But don't ask me why. It's weird. I really can't explain it.
[ editor's appendix January 11th, 1989
The young man whose story you have just read took his own life last week. The method he employed to accomplish the task is unimportant. Obviously the date he selected to carry it through was of some significance, being precisely one year to the day after his hero's life was taken from him.
His mother had the body shipped back to Chicago for the funeral, at the written request of the decedent. Services took place this morning, at a little Catholic church on the South Side, not too many blocks from where he was born. His father was there, along with several of the old man's cronies who knew the young man when he was a young boy. His mother flew in last night. She had to fly back right after the ceremony, unable to secure more than one day off from her employer. Her expenses were paid in full by the Los Angeles Clippers Basketball Club. She did not speak to the young man's father. Speaking of the Clippers, several of the young man's ex-teammates were also in attendance, including LeSoul Jackson. Samantha Carlisle-Gregg was there too, alone. The congregation was an odd collection, all the satellites of his world sitting together in a universe where clearly nobody liked each other very much. One final note: almost the entire assemblage, including the minister, was black.
The Basketball Expatriate Page 23