KAJ deserves a statue

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar—who played basketball, writes books, coaches basketball, and advocates for worthy public causes—has leukemia. Although Mr. Abdul-Jabbar has known he has chronic myeloid leukemia since December of 2008, he only revealed it publicly 9 November 2009. The diagnosis has apparently been confirmed by checking for the Philadelphia chromosome abnormality.

As a long-time admirer of Mr. Abdul-Jabbar (I remember going to see him play on the UCLA freshman team when they played a game at Pasadena City College), I am saddened by the news. To be sure, it’s oddly good news for those who have or who study chromosome-positive chronic myeloid leukemia, as the disease suddenly has a much larger public profile. As my brother Frank noted, it will probably do for this form of leukemia what Magic Johnson’s and Lou Gerhig’s inflictions did for AIDS and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, respectively.

Apparently, I’m not alone in my admiration for Mr. Abdul-Jabbar. Broderick Turner, the reporter for the Los Angeles Times who reported about Mr. Abdul-Jabbar’s revelation that he has the disease, followed up that earlier story with a note about others’ expression of concerns.

Hire an expert

If one makes, say, the average salary of a player in major league sports (say, between $1 and $5 million in the NBA, MLB, NHL, or NFL), couldn’t you pay some one a few $10K a year to review every prescribed and over-the-counter drug, supplement, or alternative medicine you considered taking so that you would know whether it would violate your league’s drug rules? I’m sorry to see that Rashard Lewis is yet another of the fallen.

Marvin Gaye’s anthem

For the 1983 all-star game of the National Basketball Association, Marvin Gaye sang the US national anthem, the “Star Spangled Banner.” At that time, the anthem had rarely been sung in any way but quite straightly, one exception being the rendition by Jose Feliciano. Mr. Gaye, an artist with a repretoire that included songs about peace, brotherhood, ecology, as well as love and loss, put his spin on the performance. I suspect many readers will agree with me about that it’s an inspirational performance.

Lakes’ base

Over at the Los Angeles Times, Bill Dwyre covered the ceremony about installation of a plaque honoring Elgin Baylor and Jerry West of the Los Angeles Lakers. In an interesting twist, the plaque is at at the Los Angeles Coliseum, a location that was chosen because it was at the neighboring Sports Arena that Mr. Baylor and Mr. West played. That’s one of the places I went to watch them play basketball when I was just discovering the game. Read Mr. Dwyre’s column under the headline “Jerry West and Elgin Baylor are together again: The two players who put the Los Angeles Lakers on the map are honored at the Coliseum.” It’s laced with good stories.

On the Shoulders of Giants

Although the title of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s book, On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance, allows one to think of the very high shoulders of the author, the focus of the book is on how contemporary people benefit from the extraordinary accomplishments in the arts—literature, social criticism, and, especially, music—and sports of people associated with the Harlem neighborhood of New York City during earlier times. In this semi-autobiographical book, Mr. Abdul-Jabbar and his co-author Raymond Obstfeld take readers through the slice of history that centered around Harlem in the first half of the 20th century, examining roots that go back into the 19th century and consequences that will echo long into the 21st century.

As he develops it, much of the book is predicated on Mr. Abdul-Jabbar’s passions. He writes that the book draws on his personals passions: his concern about improving the prospects of others in the black community, the camaraderie and purpose he found in basketball, his love for jazz, and his urge to communicate with others.

Middle East peace play

Over on Pacifist Posse I just dropped an entry about Jordan Farmar, a professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers, planning to conduct basketball clinics for children from Israel and Palestine. Mr. Farmar is collaborating with the Peres Peace Center, founded by Israeli President Shimon Peres, which promotes social programs, cooperation, and interaction among Israelis and Palestinians.

Link to the post on PP. File this under Shameless Self-Promotion of my other blog, if you wish.

KAJ and ALA

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, one of the all-time greats in basketball (many would say the all-time greatest and I’d have a hard time disagreeing with them) as well as a remarkably accomplished writer, has been named honorary chair of the American Library Association’s (ALA) “Library Card Sign-up Month” for September 2008. The ALA conducts this campaign to promote local library membership among children and youth. See the press announcement on the ALA site.

Elgin is a jewel

As noted elsewhere in this mini-mass of entries, I had great admiration for Elgin Baylor during my 1960s adolescence. As consequence, it’s with a certain self-serving pleasure that I point to an article called “Baylor, Seattle U scoring machine, was toast of town in 1950s” by Dan Raley in the Seattle (WA, US) Post-Intelligencer.

Mr. Raley had the apparently rare chance to interview Mr. Baylor, and the result is a glimpse at some history of basketball with which I was unfamiliar. I’m glad to have had the chance to read it. In addition to some new info, it’s full of memories for me.

I may have written this before. I came to be a Lakers fan by a set of serendipitous events (my family’s move to LA in 1959; my father’s interest in just about anything having to do with sports; my burgeoning interest in basketball; the Lakers arrival about the same time; the press coverage of Jerry West’s Olympic accomplishments, etc.).

As a guy without the physical size of NBA players and no outside shot, I really admired Jerry West’s play for the Lakers. I was ~6-2 and he was only a bit taller, but he could play. Still, as a 13-14 year-old, guard-sized, white kid in the 1960s…I wanted to be Elgin Baylor.

Thanks for the story, Mr. Raley. And, thanks, Mr. Baylor.