Author: Frank Murtaugh

Frank Murtaugh is the managing editor of Memphis magazine. He's covered sports for the Flyer for two decades. "From My Seat" debuted on the Flyer site in 2002 and "Tiger Blue" in 2009.

Categories
News News Feature

FROM MY SEAT

OFF TO SEE THE WIZARD

It’s been a gut-wrenching baseball season for St. Louis Cardinal fans. The passing of broadcaster Jack Buck on June 18th took the wind out of Cardinal Nation, then the tragic death of 33-year old pitcher Darryl Kile four days later brought this massive red-clad army of loyalists to its collective knees. The fact that the club has remained in contention in arguably baseball’s worst division — the NL Central — is a credit to the fortitude of the players . . . and hardly seems to matter in the larger scheme of things.

Some golden sunshine, however, should break through the clouds this

Sunday when Cardinal legend Ozzie Smith — all by himself — will

represent the 2002 class at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown,

New York. Only the 37th player in history to be elected to the Hall in

his first year of eligibility, Ozzie’s credentials speak for themselves:

13 Gold Gloves, more than 2,400 hits, almost 600 stolen bases, a member

of four division champs, three National League champs, and the 1982

world champion Cardinals. As Whitey Herzog — his manager for eight years

in St. Louis — argued so vehemently, Ozzie saved a lot more runs than

many of his contemporary sluggers drove in. Even if his numbers didn’t

punch his ticket, Ozzie belongs in Cooperstown for his nickname alone.

You keep the Yankee Clipper, Georgia Peach, Say Hey Kid, and Splendid

Splinter. Considering what Ozzie Smith did with his wand, er, glove, no

nickname in baseball history has been more appropriate than the Wizard

of Oz.

I’m traveling to upstate New York to see Ozzie’s induction ceremony

Sunday, and I’m going with my dad. My wife and daughter will be staying

in Memphis, my mom at home in central Vermont. The person who passed

along my beloved Cardinal gene is going to accompany me to see my hero

receive baseball’s ultimate honor.

This is where it would be easy to drop some sentimental clichés about

fathers and sons and America’s great national pastime, having a catch on

Saturday afternoon, and watching Kevin Costner movies till you choke up.

But it occurred to me as I plan this trip with my dad that, aside from

our unending devotion to all things Cardinal, we have more than a few

differences.

Dad is a college professor, has made a living standing in front of

students not quite sure they want to hear what he has to say. I, on the

other hand, get anxious speaking in front of a staff meeting of, oh,

five. Dad loves to golf, maybe not quite as much as he loves to

fly-fish. I’m an atrocity on the links — I’ve never even made contact

with a driver — and I don’t so much as own a fishing rod. Dad was a

rather solid halfback for the Central High football team here in Memphis

during the late Fifties. Still not having cracked 150 pounds, I was a

mediocre shooting guard and a good-glove-no-hit outfielder for a tiny

high school in the Vermont hamlet of Northfield (where my folks still

live).

Whatever our surface differences may be, though, the values around which

my father and I shape our lives are all but identical, and that most

certainly includes our love for Cardinal baseball. And don’t doubt that

this storied franchise is a part of our DNA. On our first visit to Busch

Stadium together, we witnessed the unveiling of a statue honoring the

first great Cardinal, Rogers Hornsby. Happened to be my paternal

grandmother’s birthday. Speaking of birthdays, Dad was born in 1942, the

year Hornsby was inducted into the Hall of Fame. I was born in 1969, the

year the greatest Cardinal of them all — Stan Musial — was inducted into

the Hall. And here in 2002, as Ozzie joins the pantheon, you guessed it.

My wife is due in September.

Since Kile’s death a month ago, I’ve been somewhat of a wandering fan.

Wins haven’t felt quite as nice, losses certainly haven’t ached the way

they once did. And a part of me needs to regain the emotional volatility

passionate fans of any team come to understand and accept as an element

of unconditional loyalty. My guess is a trip to the Hall of Fame — with

my dad, no less — is going to be a major stride in that direction. After

all, we fall in love with baseball — with baseball teams — as part of

that lifelong search for heroes. How delightful that I get to see one of

my heroes crowned in his glory . . . with another hero at my side.

Categories
Music Music Features

SOUL COOKIE

Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape

Me’Shell NdegéOcello (Maverick)

On her fourth release, Me’Shell NdegéOcello embarks on an intimate musical odyssey, taking the old axiom “The personal is political” to new heights of awareness. Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape is all about how NdegéOcello came to be the person she is today — a bisexual black female and mother as well as a musician with outspoken views on some rather taboo subjects. In particular, she addresses the way traditional roles and beliefs regarding race, sex, and religion have warped our self-images.

Daughter of jazz saxophonist Jacques Johnson (she adopted her Swahili surname, which means “free like a bird,” as a teen), NdegéOcello earned her chops on the D.C. go-go circuit in the ’80s. She’s done session work with everyone from the Stones to Herbie Hancock to Madonna and is the first female to grace the cover of Bass Guitar Magazine. She describes her music as “improvisational hip-hop-based R&B,” but soul, blues, and rock-and-roll feature in her mixtape as well.

True to form, Cookie contains some controversial material. She rants about everything from the complacency and materialism of some African Americans (she lists “priorities 1 through 6” as “gaudy jewelry; sneakers made for $1.08 but bought for $150; wasted weed, wasted high; the belief that we are legendary underworld figures being chased; sex like in the movies; a mate to pay bills, bills, and automobills”) to Christianity and its links to corporate sponsorship (“If Jesus Christ was alive today, he’d be incarcerated like the rest of the brothers, while the Devil would have a great apartment on the Upper East Side and be a guest VJ on Total Request Live”). She also celebrates loving women in sexually explicit detail framed by sweet soul music.

NdegéOcello has put together a hypnotic musical collage interspersed with words of wisdom from black activists and poets. “Akel Dama (Field Of Blood)” is a beautiful piece — sheer poetry set to a pulsating heartbeat rhythm. “Earth” is a dreamy paean to Mother Earth with a signature Stevie Wonder harmonica riff, while the remix of “Pocketbook” by Missy Elliott and Rockwilder features a guest rap by Redman and background vocals by newcomer Tweet for some seriously righteous in-ya-face funk.

In a sense, the music here is more a soundtrack to NdegéOcello’s search for selfhood than a cohesive musical statement. Her last two albums flowed better musically than this work. Yet Cookie is still a mesmerizing glimpse into the psyche of a woman struggling to break through the artificial boundaries of race, sex, politics, and religion. As she sums it up so beautifully in her liner notes, “No longer do I search for a messiah. I believe salvation and truth will come in the form of Spirit, not in flesh, not with melanin, not man or woman, from east or west, neither great nor powerful. Freedom is not given or taken, it is realized.” Amen!

Grade: B+

Categories
Politics Politics Beat Blog

THE ROCK ISLAND LINE ON HENRY TURLEY

The Rock Island Dispatch-Argus:

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Standing in a street in Harbor Town, Henry Turley points to the development he envisioned for Mud Island, once a silt pile off the Memphis shoreline.

The real-estate developer’s vision has changed and grown since he first dreamed of building a housing development on the island. The ”new urbanism” development offers various types of housing, from luxury homes and townhouses to condominiums and apartments.

As he takes a group of officials from Rock Island to another development, he passes through a poorer downtown neighborhood that’s on his ”to-do” list and points out where a pond will be someday — still just a vision.

The Rock Island group, including Mayor Mark Schwiebert and Ald. John Bauersfeld, city staffers and representatives of Renaissance Rock Island, Rock Island Economic Growth Corp. and The District, saw how a vision can come to life and felt reassured that what they envision can work in the Quad-Cities.

”This is a particular niche that the city of Rock Island is well-poised to develop,” Mayor Schwiebert said of a ”new urbanism” development like Mr. Turley’s. ”We are well-positioned to make that happen.”

Mr. Turley, a native Memphian, had a new vision for his city while others still were doing the same old thing. As suburban growth slowed on the outskirts of Memphis, he looked toward the city’s decaying downtown, and Mud Island.

”With Henry Turley, you have vision meeting passion meeting deep pockets, and there is the ability to execute a vision that we may struggle with at times,” said Dan Carmody, executive director of Renaissance Rock Island.

When he proposed a planned, mixed-income housing development for Mud Island, the city didn’t get in his way but it didn’t offer much help either.

(To read entire story, click here. Or go to http://www.qconline.com/more/main.html)

Categories
News News Feature

FROM MY SEAT

IF I HAD A GENIE

A few wishes (dreams? fantasies?) from a sports fan who cares:

  • In the wake of Diamondback manager Bob Brenly’s ludicrous selection of six of his own players for the All-Star Game — including immortals amian Miller, Junior Spivey, and Byung-Hyun Kim –Major League Baseball announces a new format for the mid-summer classic. Following Brenly’s lead (and there have been others like him), the All-Star game will now pit the defending world champions (the entire club, not just six members) against a team selected by fans and — this is important — a blind poll of the other 29 managers. Still an exhibition, this is an All-Star format with some bite. The champs will have something to prove,and their star-studded opponent plenty of motivation. Sit back and watch the TV ratings go to the moon.

  • A precocious hoops talent skips college and is drafted in the middle of the first round by an eternally mediocre NBA franchise. After sitting on the pine for two seasons in the overhyped, ego-driven world of professional basketball, the kid tears up his contract, gives his sneakers to the next autograph-seeking 12-year-old he sees, and announces, “I’m going to med school!”

  • Recognizing its men’s field for the faceless, lifeless, talent-starved collection it is, the U.S. Open announces the winner of a Venus-vs.-Serena Williams play-in match will be a part of the men’s draw. (The “loser” would play in the ladies field.) The distaff dynamo will be allowed a pair of handicaps: she can hit into the doubles court and her male opponent is not allowed a second serve. If this were to happen, my money says you’d have two Williams champs in Flushing Meadows. Richard would be king of the world.

  • Led by quarterback Danny Wimprine and tailback Dante Brown, the University of Memphis fields a team with an offense that sets the pace for the defense . . . in other words, pigs are seen flying over the Liberty Bowl during the Tigers’ season-opening whipping of Murray State August 31. After narrow upsets of Ole Miss and Southern Miss, the U of M (3-0) is greeted by a crowd in excess of 50,000 for the Tulane game September 21.

  • The Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, announces that a new wing of the museum will be opened in, of all places, the Gran Canyon. Seems that the facility in New York could not find a room big enough to house the plaque needed to fit Barry Bonds’ bronze noggin.

    Directions to the new facility will be distributed to visitors at the 2010 induction ceremonies. Barry’s speech will be presented on pay-per-view only.

  • NBA commissioner David Stern’s office uncovers a technical error in the paperwork that completed the trade of Mike Bibby from the Grizzlies to Sacramento for Jason Williams. The players are forced to return to their original teams. The Grizzlies send Dick Versace to Sacramento as consolation.

  • On the eve of the union-declared strike date, with baseball commissioner Bud Selig and union rep Don Fehr at loggerheads, the Baseball Hall of Fame presents each party with a video tribute to Ted Williams. The video closes with a reminder to the millionaires and billionaires quarreling over salary caps and franchise contraction that there was once a player — quite good, actually — who risked his life for his country, flying combat planes in not one, but two wars instead of camping out in leftfield at Fenway Park. This player’s salary was a fraction of the 2002 Tampa Bay Devil Rays’ backup catcher’s. Thirty major league baseball teams take the field the next day.

  • Tiger Woods finds something besides major golf victories to pump his fist about.

  • In the spring of 2019, the St. Louis Cardinals select Kannon Kile with their first pick in the amateur draft. Having completed a fine college career at UCLA, the 22-year-old Kile makes his big-league debut on June 22nd, and shuts out the Cubs. Wearing number 57, the big righty displays a curveball not seen in eastern Missouri for many a year.

    • Categories
    News News Feature

    FROM MY SEAT

    THROWN A CURVE

    It’s been just over a week, now, since St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Darryl Kile was found dead in his Chicago hotel room, the victim, apparently, of cardiac arrest. And I just can’t seem to get over it.

    Time for sportswriter’s confession: I’m a third generation Cardinals fan. A devoted member of Cardinal Nation who bleeds the Cardinals, sweats the Cardinals . . . and cries the Cardinals. Twelve months a year. I was born into this affection and have proudly carried it inside my chest for as long as I can remember. And I simply can’t seem to get over Darryl Kile’s death.

    I’ve tried to find a rational explanation for a 33-year-old athlete expiring in his sleep. Say all you want about hardening of the arteries, coronary blockage, whatever. This was a man who — irony of ironies — never went on the disabled list in 12 years as a big-league pitcher.

    He seized his starts like a hungry lion would a lamb. Took the mound with a Bob Gibson-sized chip on his shoulder . . . probably with half the God-given talent with which Gibson was blessed. The only thing that made him angrier than giving up a hit was having the ball taken from him by his manager. A competitor, a warrior, a fighter. Dead at 33?

    I’ve tried to measure my relationship to Darryl in rational terms. After all, this was no member of my family, no personal friend. Trouble is, the more I think about Darryl now, the more he seems like both. The fact Is, for two-and-a-half years –during baseball season — Darryl Kile and I had a date every fifth day. Same time, via my radio. Same place, via our hearts. I’ve got personal friends I’ve known 20 years with whom I spend less time over the course of a baseball season.

    From their bright uniforms to their glossy bubble gum cards, major league baseball players are the closest example of living, breathing super-heroes we are apt to find before shuffling off this mortal coil. They perform feats the rest of us cannot. Their victories are epic, their defeats agonizing. They do not all become champions. But they are not supposed to die. Not as active super-heroes.

    When Cardinals broadcaster Jack Buck died after a long illness June 18th, I felt like I had lost an uncle, an old friend whose voice had been my companion through countless innings of Cardinals baseball. I took some solace the next day in knowing the Cardinals had won the last game Buck heard — against the Angels, no less — to move into first place in the National League’s Central Division. Darryl Kile pitched St. Louis to victory that night. If Buck’s passing was the loss of an uncle, Kile’s, I suppose, feels like the death of a cousin. My extended family, to say the least, is far from whole these days.

    I’m determined to find a way of remembering number 57 with a smile instead of tears. I’m determined to find a place in my mind where I can care about baseball standings again. Haven’t found that destination,yet, but I’m determined. I had the pleasure of seeing Kile pitch his second game as a Cardinal — April 8, 2000 — at Busch Stadium on a bright Saturday afternoon, the day before St. Louis honored an old hero on Willie McGee Day. Kile beat Milwaukee that afternoon and, until June 22nd, my fondest memory of that game was Mark McGwire hitting a home run in front of my 11-month-old daughter on her very first visit to Busch. Now I can brag to Sofia that she got to see Darryl Kile pitch.

    I drove up to St. Louis for Kile’s memorial service last Wednesday, and being in Busch Stadium was at least a reminder of why Darryl meant so much to me, why I’m so devoted to Cardinals baseball. The best curveball in the major leagues died with Kile in that Chicago hotel room. How sad that the last curve Darryl threw us . . . will be the hardest to handle of them all.

    Categories
    News News Feature

    CRIME REPORTING GETS UPDATE

    Next month, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) will release 2001 crime statistics reported by all law-enforcement agencies in the state. It will use an incident-based system instead of the traditional summary system.

    The new Tennessee Incident Based Reporting System (TIBRS) is drastically different from the old Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) system used by the FBI to publish its annual crime statistics. The UCR system applies a hierarchical rule to offenses and only collects information on the most serious offense connected with an incident and drops any others. Such a system only reports information on eight types of crimes, and only arrest information is reported on other offenses, including drug possession, forgery, and fraud.

    TIBRS collects information on up to 10 offenses attached to an incident, including 22 Group A offenses made up of 47 specific crimes. Arrests are reported for 11 Group B offense categories. The new system views a crime and all of its components as an “incident.” Information is collected on the circumstances, victims, offenders, property, and arrestees. There is no felony and misdemeanor classification in the TIBRS system. As another important addition to the new system, TIBRS will include juvenile cases.

    The TIBRS report will also provide information on domestic violence, gang crime, the time and location of an incident, and any victim/offender relationships.

    Offenses will be counted according to the FBI’s practices and standards and will be classified into three categories — crimes against persons, crimes against society, and crimes against property. Each victim in the crimes-against-persons category — including homicide, assault, sex offenses, and kidnapping — will equal one offense. For example, an aggravated assault that involves two victims will be counted as two aggravated assaults.

    In the case of crimes against society, mostly drug violations, each offense counts as one occurrence, as do crimes against property. Motor-vehicle thefts are the exception. If two automobiles are stolen in one incident, two thefts will be reported.

    TBI staff attorney Jeanne Broadwell warns citizens not to compare 2000’s UCR numbers with the 2001 TIBRS report. “The numbers will look different and be much higher,” says Broadwell. “Don’t panic. New crime rates cannot be compared to old data. Trend information will not be available until the 2002 publication.”

    In the 2001 publication, each of the 409 law-enforcement agencies that report to the TBI will be represented. The document will list reported offenses, and the agency’s success will be determined by the number of those offenses that have been cleared. Clearance means an arrest has been made or an arrest cannot be made but the offender has been identified.

    While Tennessee law-enforcement agencies have been recording crimes based on the TIBRS format for more than five years, the 2001 Crime in Tennessee report will be the first to depict the statistics in TIBRS format. The report will be available on the TBI Web site, www.tbi.state.tn.us.

    Shelby County district attorney Bill Gibbons’ annual report, released last week for 2001, used TIBRS data. The report listed a decrease in domestic violence cases and DUI charges but showed an increase in weapons charges, crimes against property, and the truancy rate.

    Categories
    Sports Sports Feature

    GRIZZLIES COACH REFLECTS ON NBA DRAFT

    Flyer: Talk to me about the draft workout process when you were coming into the league and compare it with today’s era of the NBA?

    Roth: I think the biggest difference now is just everything is more scientific and more detail-minded as the years have progressed. With the Internet, and cable television there are no undiscovered players nowadays. Everybody knows everybody. When I was coming up, teams would just focus on two or three guys maybe and try to work them out. When I was coming out there were seven rounds. Now we have two. So the homework is much more involved in picking these guys in the first two rounds.

    Flyer: A week before the draft how tough is it for clubs to scout guys and finally get that last look at them before the selections are made?

    Roth: As coaches we don’t have a great opportunity to really meet them and see them so we have to rely on our scouts, Toni Barone, Grizzlies Director of Player Personnel and then Jerry West, President of Basketball Operations expertise to go in there and make the right choice for us. So for us it’s just a chance to familiarize ourselves with the players.

    Flyer: Are you impressed with some of the guys you’ve seen work out?

    Roth: For me it’s just seeing their personalities on the floor and how they react with the coaches. And how they react with people on the court. You see certain players during the course of the year on television but you don’t get a feel for them because you don’t have a chance to meet them so this is our chance to do that.

    Flyer: Take me back to when you were drafted — what that feeling was like and the workouts you went through.

    Roth: It was an exciting day for me. I knew I had a lot of work ahead of me. I knew I was probably going to go to Europe and then try and get back into the NBA. And that’s exactly what happened for me. Back then I was a 4th round pick (San Antonio Spurs). I was able to go through the whole procedure, go to Europe, the CBA, and get back in the NBA so I had a lot of fortitude to stay with it and make a team.

    Flyer: Tell me about some of the superstars and some of the guys you played with and some of the clubs you were on?

    Roth: I was with the Utah Jazz, My first game was actually in the Forum. I guarded Magic Johnson that year. That was my first NBA game ever. Playing with John Stockton and Karl Malone and now to be coaching and see them still playing is just a tremendous credit to them as great players. Going in the expansion draft playing in Minnesota with Sidney (Lowe) where we had the best expansion record in NBA history. In San Antonio being coached by Larry Brown was a great experience. I had a short career but it was good, I learned quit a bit. I was very fortunate to be around good coaches.

    Flyer: What kind of players and NBA season do you see in Memphis for 2002-2003?

    Roth: We’re going to get a good player at number 4. I think there has already been a change since Jerry West has been here throughout the organization. I think it’s going to be nothing but a positive situation from this point on.

    Flyer: What about selections number 32 and 46 in the second round of this years NBA draft?

    Roth: The 32nd pick is gonna be a very important pick for us, I think there’s going to be a player there that can make our roster and feel a need for us. At 46 I think we’re also going to find another good player there that we will probably bring to summer league with us and then see how he does.

    Categories
    News News Feature

    WHAT’S NEXT FOR SHELBY FARMS?

    Political miscalculations have put the fate of the proposed Shelby Park Conservancy in doubt.

    The Shelby County Commission voted 6-4 Monday against turning Shelby Farms over to a privately funded conservancy, reversing its 9-2 approval of the concept in May.

    “We’re down but far from out,” said Ron Terry, mastermind of the conservancy plan. “Normally, you should be able to count votes before you have a vote taken, but in this case, some of the votes were pretty well obscured.”

    An impassioned last-gasp appeal from Shelby County mayor Jim Rout on behalf of the conservancy failed.

    “This is not a political football,” Rout said. “I urge you to think about this. Do not defeat this item. Defer it, but don’t kill it today.”

    A majority of the commissioners, however, was not moved by the lame-duck mayor, although retiring commissioner Buck Wellford, a conservancy supporter, switched his vote to the majority to keep his options open.

    In some ways, Shelby Farms has become a political football. Joe Cooper, the Democratic candidate for Wellford’s seat, attended the meeting and spoke in favor of allowing commercial development in part of the 4,450-acre park. His Republican opponent, Bruce Thompson, has ridiculed that position. On Monday, Cooper scaled down his proposal from 2,000 or more acres to a modest 25 to 30 acres of development suggested by Commissioner Michael Hooks.

    Cooper sat next to developer Jackie Welch, who is both a political kingpin and a supporter of developing some of Shelby Farms. But Welch downplayed his involvement and said he was at the meeting only because his daughter was being appointed to the Land Use Control Board and he had a zoning case before the commission.

    “I’m not involved, and I’m not going to get crosswise with Rout or anyone else,” Welch said. “My opinion is that you could take 30 to 40 acres of frontage along Germantown Road and lease it and produce some income. [The county] could have had Wal-Mart there.”

    Welch said Hooks called him to verify some property values along Germantown Parkway because Welch sold some adjoining land to Storage U.S.A. Welch has supported Hooks politically and raised money for his campaigns in the past.

    But the political football analysis shortchanges some philosophical objections made previously by some opponents of the proposed conservancy. Commissioner Walter Bailey in particular has questioned the wisdom of turning over a huge public asset to a private board, even one willing to invest $20 million in park improvements and maintenance. He has noted that proponents brought the proposal to the commission scarcely a month ago as pretty much of a done deal and urged commission ratification by July 1st.

    “The Shelby County government is not for sale,” Bailey said. “If you got money, you got control. I will not vote for this project.”

    Marilyn Loeffel, who also voted against the conservancy, is a member of a conservative faction of the Republican Party that has some problems with Rout, but her objections also were grounded on principles. She thinks the elected commission is giving away too much power to appointed authorities.

    Even though he is in the thick of the political campaign for his commission seat and has bad blood with Welch, Wellford was willing to grant opponents of the conservancy some good-faith motives. “I think a combination of issues is going on,” he said. “You’ve got some people who legitimately think this is an elitist project, and they are sort of reacting in a populist, anti-elitist attitude. I think Walter personifies that. Second, I have no doubt there are developers looking to carve out a substantial part of the park. Third, some Democrats are trying to give some credibility to Joe Cooper.”

    Wellford said any opposition to the conservancy, even in the form of a request for a study of land values, is tantamount to killing it.

    “Momentum is everything in politics,” he said. “Ron Terry may not have the energy or desire to put it back together in six months or a year from now, but the new mayor could make it a priority.”

    A day after the meeting, Terry sounded like he still has plenty of fight left in him.

    “You still have the same question of whether we can give additional information to the commission that would be persuasive enough to make them reconsider their action and whether we can continue with the progress in the state legislative delegation concerning the Agricenter bill over there,” he said.

    That bill would dissolve the Agricenter in favor of the conservancy.

    Categories
    News News Feature

    FROM MY SEAT

    TYSON’S LAST STAND…BRAVO!

    Whew. Exhale . . . and smile. Lewis-Tyson, after all, is off. And with a clean, dominant whipping applied by the champ, it appears Iron Mike has punched his one-way ticket to palookaville.

    Meanwhile, Lennox Lewis — now with notches for both Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson on his belt — has solidified his position in heavyweight history. Maybe not next to Dempsey, Marciano, and Ali . . . but right alongside Patterson, Frazier, and Holmes.

    I have to confess, last week — Fight Week as we’ll remember it — was energizing. From the sightings of each principal, to the celebrity rumors and confirmations, to the dramatically over-hyped press conferences and weigh-ins . . . it was a special week in Memphis history, let alone Memphis sports history. I had all kinds of doubts back in March when the River Bout was confirmed for June 8th in The Pyramid. Most of these had to do with Tyson’s role in the affair, and the element attracted to his profane, destructive presence. All this city needed was a violent exchange outside the boxing ring to further damage Memphis’ image in the eyes of those who refuse to see this town as anything other than the endpoint for an over-the-hill rock star and the spiritual leader of an entire race. Again, exhale . . . and smile.

    Among the most repeated expressions I heard around my office and neighborhood last week was a high pitched confirmation/inquiry: “You’re going to the fight?! How’d you get a ticket?!” Never has a country club known to man been more exclusive than the set of individuals who were able to answer “yes” to this question last week. And you know what? That’s precisely part of the Fight Week magic. Lewis and Tyson engaged each other for just under 24 minutes . . . but to say you were there for all eight rounds places you firmly on a rather large dot in the Memphis historical timeline.

    As for me, my role in The Week was vicarious. I hosted a journalist covering the fight for AP radio, a gentleman from Kansas City who makes his living being in the places the rest of us want to be . . . and graciously telling us about them as they unfold. And I didn’t charge him a dime. (Call me a sucker if you choose, but I maintain there still exists the courtesy of a professional favor.) My guest delivered first-hand reviews of the events, merely hours after they unfolded. Did

    I wish to be alongside for the fun? Sure. Did I wish to share in the over-stuffed media rooms, security checks, and media shuttles? Put it

    this way: I relished seeing the Belmont Stakes live (a gallant run, War Emblem), and you only have so many Saturdays with a three-year-old

    daughter. (I was actually convinced the Belmont would take longer than the fight. Again, happily incorrect.)

    So here’s a tip of the cap to the movers and shakers who put this epic sports happening together. And happening it was. When radio chatter, store-front signage, local television, and water-cooler chit-chat all target the same subject . . . you’ve got a happening. And, particularly since last September, how pleasing that the happening merely involved a pair of prize fighters. I’d like to think a large part of the Memphis boxing legacy will now be as the venue where Mike Tyson made his last stand, where he was summarily beaten by a superior pugilist, and packed on his way to B-list bouts, if not even further off the sports world’s radar of pertinence. The daily newspaper’s front-page image Sunday of Tyson supine on the ring floor belongs in the category of “good over evil” . . . once again. Right here in the Bluff City.

    A colleague shared with me what I consider the corniest, most over-the-top celebrity remark from Fight Week. Said this high-profile Memphian, “You know who will win the Lewis-Tyson fight? Memphis!” Corny, maybe. Seems to be right on the mark, too.

    Categories
    Sports Sports Feature

    ONE DAY UNTIL WAKE-UP CALL

    Lennox Lewis and Mike Tyson got weighed in separately Thursday for their Saturday night title fight here, as they have done everything separately so far, and that suits the two fighters’ camps and all the other interested parties just fine.

    The first time heavyweight boxing champion Lewis and ex-champ Tyson will actually encounter each other in this week of their long-awaited showdown, will be at approximately 10:15 p.m., Central Standard Time, Saturday night — when they start flailing away in earnest and one of them first feels the, er, bite of the other’s leather.

    They’ won’t even do the ceremonial pre-fight touching of gloves, and they will have already received their instructions from the referee separately — each fighter in his own dressing room at The Pyramid, the ten-year-old facility which is doomed to be replaced as the prime local sports arena by the new one about to be created expressly for the city’s newly acquired NBA Grizzlies.

    No one responsible for this second-chance Bout of the Century (alternately — depending on which flack or writer is doing the describing – “of the Millennium”) is taking his chances in this second-chance venue — not after the riot that broke out in January at the New York press conference that was supposed to be announcing the fight in one of the familiar Las Vegas watering holes.

    On the heels of that debacle, in which the two fighters and their handlers became involved in a brawl and Tyson allegedly sank his infamously errant teeth into Lewis’ leg, Nevada canceled out of the fight, and the other two major boxing states, New York and California, refused to license it.

    Memphis, which, as HBO analyst Larry Merchant sees it, went after the fight “the way it would go after a new automobile plant,” won out for the rights when even the District of Columbia, where pro-Tyson sentiment is strong, could not or would not put the right deal together.

    Merchant stood back shaking his head after Tyson’s 3 o’clock weigh-in, which the former champ, whom Merchant sees as a “psycopath,” had played to the crowd, flexing his muscles and generating by his mere presence the kind of whoops from the attendees that Lewis, whose weigh-in three hours earlier had been a brief and quiet affair by contrast, could never have hoped to generate.

    “Boxing will lose if Tyson wins,” pronounced Merchant, whose HBO network is collaborating with Showtime in producing the pay-per-view version of the fight. “He’s convincing people that you don’t have the obey the rules, that boxing has no rules. And it does!”

    As Merchant expounded on that theme (a somewhat self-serving one in that Lewis is contractually bound to HBO, just as Tyson has been to arch-rival Showtime), he referenced as cases in point such boxing misadventures as the notorious ear-biting incident in Tyson’s second loss to Evander Holyfield, and his evident attempts to break the arm of another opponent, South African heavyweight Frans Botha, as well as the disturbance caused in the hosting Vegas casino by Tyson backers after the earbite fight with Holyfield.

    All of that is on the record, and a scenario of Good vs. Evil, with the dull-normal Lewis playing the good guy and a maniacally grinning Tyson portraying the villain, is just as clearly a part of the buildup to this fight as it is in most World Wrestling Federation ventures.

    Yet there is another sense to the notion that Tyson is breaking the rules. Outside the Convention Center where the weigh-ins were taking place Wednesday were Lesbian activists holding signs which read, “THANKS MIKE FOR SAYING BEING GAY IS OK.” This was in the wake of Iron Mike’s leaving the Cordova gym where he works out the other day and making a point of embracing gay demonstrator Jim Maynard, whose sign had been protesting what he then presumed to be Tyson’s homophobia. In random remarks caught by reporters or TV crews Tyson has been at some pains to sound agreeable and professing himself more at peace with himself than ever before – though many of the monologue snatches captured on videotape have still needed to be bleeped a little before being played on the local air.

    There were no few defenders of Tyson among the journalists inside the Convention Center – people ike Tony Datcher of BOSS Magazine , an inner-city magazine published in Washington, D.C. Datcher, who had been among those cheering the challenger, defended Tyson as “the people’s champ, who comes from the grass roots. The streets. You know? He’s no worse than Elvis, who got his cousin pregnant and married her at 14. He’s not perfect.” That this account scrambled the histories of two local music avatars, Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis, didn’t matter so much as the proletarian sympathies it bespoke.

    For better or for worse, the two fighters were certainly leaving different imprints on the event and on the consciousness of those checking it out.. Both fighters are domiciling in Memphis and working out here, as well. But each has allowed a different establishment in the nearby casino town of Tunica, Mississippi, to claim itself as the fighter’s “official” headquarters. In practice, this has meant that each of the two pugilists held a press conference-cum-workout this week at the place in question.

    Tyson’s Tunica media op, – at Fitzgerald’s on Tuesday – eschewed elegance and featured a savagely brief speed-bag session involving Tyson, followed by profanity-laced tirades directed at Lewis and his posterity by Iron Mike’s handlers – one of whom, unofficially, was “Panama” Lewis, banned from the sport for life for doctoring one of his pugilist’s gloves so as to permanently maim an opponent.

    By contrast, the fastidious Lewis, who upon his arrival in Memphis last week was the subject of a motorcade parade through Beale Street and proclaimed aloud (despite later confessed misgivings about the humidity) “I Love Memphis,” spoke to reporters at length at his media-op at Sam’s Town, across the lot from Fitzgerald’s, then played ten minutes of chess with a local high school student before gallantly conceding. He finished by climbing into a ring and going through an extended workout routine, showing off his fast combinations and hip-hop footwork to an amplified reggae soundtrack. At one point, trainer Emmanuel Steward seemed to tip a bit of his fight plan when he affected a head-on bobbing and weaving style like Tyson and kept coaxing an obliging Lewis to attack his ribs.

    Whatever its dimensions as a morality play, the Big Fight represents the potential coming of age for Memphis. The city is on something of a roll, sportswise, having not only having coaxed the Grizzlies away from Vancouver last season but attracted as team president and brand-new resident the NBA legend Jerry West, ex-of the LA Lakers as player and official.

    Larry Merchant probably has it right. Tyson-Lewis may have been unacceptable to most places on the established landscape of professional boxing, but it is pure opportunity for an up-by-the-bootstraps place like our own. At the head of the effort to land the fight was Memphis’ African-American mayor of the last decade, Willie Herenton, a polished former schools superintendent who went after the fight once it got chased out of Vegas (abetted by such durable local figures as pol Joe Cooper, who kept on being an unofficial spokesman for efforts even after seasoned promoters had cut him out of the action).

    His Honor will no doubt find in the consummation of his efforts Saturday night personal as well as civic satisfaction. At 6′ 5″, which would put him eye-to-eye with Lewis, the lanky 60-year-old Herenton is a former amateur boxing champion who has always believed he got sidetracked from his real destiny – which was to be a pro champion himself, a headliner..

    “I never got beat once I got my growth,” says Herenton. He’s got two champions on his hands right now, and one of them, depending on how things get resolved Saturday night, may end up a champion for the ages. The loser may be compelled — WWF-style — to slink out of town. And out of boxing. A lot of people will be watching, both at home, via pay-per-view and in The Pyramid – at ticket prices which, to start with, ranged from $500 to $2400 but have been dropping at the street level as advance scalpers got stuck with too much inventory.

    Meanwhile, the world won’t come to an end no matter what happens — not even the boxing world. As even Larry Merchant reluctantly concedes, “A big fight is good for boxing. Even if it’s boring.” Nobody imagines that this one will be.

    One of the host of boxing characters who have descended on Memphis in this last week is a man named Steve Fitch, a.k.a. “The Motivator,” a member of Tyson’s entourage who seems to play the same exhortatory role with Iron Mike that Drew “Bundini”Brown used to with Muhammad Ali. All week the Motivator has been going around doing general trash talk and loudly counting down the days to the fight.

    “Four days and a wake-up call,” he said on Tuesday, and he’s kept up the refrain all week, dropping the number a notch on each succeeding day. After Tyson’s weigh-in Thursday, which was two days and some-odd hours away from the promised wake-up call, he discovered HBO’s Merchant holding forth about the ill fate awaiting the boxing world if his man, Iron Mike, should win.

    “Remember that man right there when you become champ of the world,” Fitch said to his two-year-old Malik, whom he’s been hoisting about on his shoulder, sometimes prompting him, parrot-like, to repeat the “wake-up call” line. “As long as you’re a winner, he likes you,” said the Motivator to his child… “But when you lose he don’t like you no more. Remember that guy right there.”

    Merchant shook his head. “When you lose I’m going to say you lost. I’m not going to say you won.”

    Then the Motivator began to dip back into some incident from their shared past.when, as he reminded Merchant, he was in the camp of another boxer, Lonnie Smith. “Remember it was dark one night in Santa Monica. It was a long time agoÉ.”

    Whatever this was about, Merchant interrupted it with a quick, dismissive “All right” and waved Fitch off.

    “See you fight night,” said the Motivator, evenly, and he and Malik took their leave.

    They like Mike.