Umpire (baseball)
In baseball, the umpire is the person charged with officiating the game, including beginning and ending the game, enforcing the rules of the game and the grounds, making judgment calls on plays, handling the disciplinary actions. The term is shortened to the colloquial form ump, they are sometimes addressed as blue at lower levels due to the common color of the uniform worn by umpires. In professional baseball, the term blue is used by players or managers, who instead call the umpire by name. Although games were officiated by a sole umpire in the formative years of the sport, since the turn of the 20th century, officiating has been divided among several umpires, who form the umpiring crew; the position is analogous to that of a referee in many other sports. In a game officiated by two or more umpires, the umpire in chief is the umpire, in charge of the entire game; this umpire calls balls and strikes, calls fair balls, foul balls short of first/third base, makes most calls concerning the batter or concerning baserunners near home plate.
To avoid injury, the home plate umpire wears similar equipment to the catcher, including mask, chest protector, leg guards and shoes with extra protection added over the laces. If another umpire leaves the infield to cover a potential play in foul ground or in the outfield the plate umpire may move to cover a potential play near second or third base. In the event that an umpire is injured and only three remain, the second base position will be left vacant. In nearly all levels of organized baseball, including the majors, an umpiring crew rotates so that each umpire in the crew works each position, including plate umpire, an equal number of games. In the earliest days of baseball, many senior umpires always worked the plate, with Hall of Fame umpire Bill Klem being the last umpire to do so. Klem did so for the first 16 years of his career. On the Major League level, an umpiring crew rotates positions clockwise each game. For example, the plate umpire in one game would umpire third base in the next.
Other umpires are called base umpires and are stationed near the bases. When two umpires are used, the second umpire is the base umpire; this umpire will make most calls concerning runners on the bases and nearby plays, as well as in the middle of the outfield. When three umpires are used, the second umpire is called the first-base umpire and the third umpire is called the third-base umpire though they may move to different positions on the field as the play demands; these two umpires call checked swings, if asked by the plate umpire: the first base umpire for right-handed batters, the third base umpire for left-handed batters. To indicate a full swing, he will clench his fist; when four umpires are used, each umpire is named for the base. Sometimes a league will provide six umpires. Outfield umpires are used in major events, such as the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, depending on the level, at parts of post-season playoffs. For Major League Baseball, all playoff levels use six umpires, while at lower levels, six umpires are used at the championship games.
Rulings on catches of batted balls are made by the umpire closest to the play. The term umpire-in-chief is not to be confused with the crew chief, the most experienced umpire in a crew. At the major-league and high minor-league levels, the crew chief acts as a liaison between the league office and the crew and has a supervisory role over other members of the crew. For example, on the Major League level, "The Crew Chief shall coordinate and direct his crew's compliance with the Office of the Commissioner's rules and policies. Other Crew Chief responsibilities include: leading periodic discussions and reviews of situations and rules with his crew. Thus, on the professional level, some of the duties assigned to the umpire-in-chief in the Official Baseball Rules have been reassigned to the crew chief, regardless of the crew chief's umpiring position during a specific game. An umpire's judgment call used to be final, unless the umpire making the call chose to ask his partner for help and decided to reverse it after the discussion.
Since 2014, the MLB allows managers to challenge plays during the game. If the manager has a call overturned, they are rewarded with another challenge. If an umpire seems to make an error in rule interpretation, his call, in some leagues, can be protested as is the case in MLB. If the umpire is persistent in his or her interpretation, the matter will be settled at a time by a league official. An independent study of umpire accuracy suggests. In the early years of profession
Allentown, Pennsylvania
Allentown is a city located in Lehigh County, United States. It is the 231st largest city in the United States; as of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 118,032 and is the fastest growing city in all of Pennsylvania. It is the largest city in the metropolitan area known as the Lehigh Valley, which had a population of 821,623 residents as of 2010. Allentown constitutes a portion of the New York City Combined Statistical Area and is the county seat of Lehigh County. In 2012, the city celebrated the 250th anniversary of its founding in 1762. Located on the Lehigh River, Allentown is the largest of three adjacent cities, in Northampton and Lehigh counties, that make up a region of eastern Pennsylvania known as the Lehigh Valley, the other two cities being Bethlehem and Easton, Pennsylvania. Allentown is 50 miles north-northwest of Philadelphia, the sixth most populous city in the United States, 90 miles east-northeast of Harrisburg, the state capital, 90 miles west of New York City, the nation's largest city.
The Norfolk Southern Railway's Lehigh Line, runs through Allentown heading east across the Delaware River. The Norfolk Southern Railway's Reading Line runs through Allentown heading west to Reading, Pennsylvania. Allentown was cited as a "national success story" in April 2016 by the Urban Land Institute for its downtown redevelopment and transformation, one of only six communities in the country to have been named as such. In the early 1700s, the land now occupied by the city of Allentown and Lehigh County was a wilderness of scrub oak where neighboring tribes of Native Americans fished for trout and hunted for deer and other game. In 1736, a large area to the north of Philadelphia, embracing the present site of Allentown and what is now Lehigh County, was deeded by 23 chiefs of the five great Native American nations to John and Richard Penn, sons of William Penn; the price for this tract included shoes and buckles, shirts, scissors, needles, looking glasses and pipes. The land, to become Allentown was part of a 5,000-acre plot William Allen purchased on September 10, 1735 from his business partner Joseph Turner, assigned the warrant to the land by Thomas Penn, son of William Penn, on May 18, 1732.
The land was surveyed on November 23, 1736. A subsequent survey done in 1753 by David Schultz for a road from Easton to Reading, of which present-day Union and Jackson streets were links, shows the location of a log house owned by Allen, situated near the western bank of Jordan Creek, believed to have been built around 1740. Used as a hunting and fishing lodge, here Allen entertained prominent guests including his brother-in-law, James Hamilton, colonial Pennsylvania governor John Penn; the area, today the center of Allentown was laid out as Northampton Town in 1762 by William Allen, a wealthy shipping merchant, former mayor of the city of Philadelphia and then-Chief Justice of the Province of Pennsylvania. It is that a certain amount of rivalry with the Penns prompted Judge Allen to decide to start a town of his own in 1762. Ten years before, in 1752, Northampton and Berks counties had been formed, each with a county seat and Reading, respectively, it is recorded that, in 1763, the year after the founding of Allentown, an effort was made to have the county seat moved from Easton to the new town.
To this effort William Allen lent all his influence as Chief Justice and as the son-in-law of Andrew Hamilton. The influence of the Penns, however and Easton was retained as the county seat of all that vast area which the notorious "Walking Purchase" had opened up; the original plan for the town, now in the archives of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, comprised forty-two city blocks and consisted of 756 lots 60 feet in width and 230 feet in depth. The town was located between present-day Fourth and Tenth Streets, Union and Liberty Streets. Many streets on the original plan were named for Allen's children: Margaret, James and John. Allen Street was named for Allen himself, was the main thoroughfare. Hamilton Street was named for James Hamilton. Gordon Street was named for Sir Patrick Gordon, Deputy Governor of Colonial Pennsylvania from 1726–1736. Chew Street was named for Benjamin Chew, Turner Street was named for Allen's business partner, Joseph Turner. Allen hoped that Northampton Town would displace Easton as the seat of Northampton County and become a commercial center due to its location along the Lehigh River and its proximity to Philadelphia.
Allen gave the property to his son James in 1767. Three years in 1770, James built a summer residence, Trout Hall, in the new town, near the site of his father's former hunting lodge. On March 18, 1811, the town was formally incorporated as the borough of Northampton Town. On March 6, 1812, Lehigh County was formed from the western half of Northampton County, Northampton Town was selected as the county seat; the town was renamed "Allentown" on April 16, 1838, after years of popular usage. Allentown was formally incorporated as a city on March 12, 1867; the beginnings of the American Revolutionary War began in Northampton County on December 21, 1774 when a Committee of Observation for Northampton County was formed by American patriots. At the time, there were 54 homes in Northampton, the number of inhabitants was around 330. With the Decla
Professional golfer
In the sport of golf, the distinction between amateurs and professionals is rigorously maintained. An amateur who breaches the rules of amateur status may lose their amateur status. A golfer who has lost their amateur status may not play in amateur competitions until amateur status has been reinstated, it is difficult for a professional to regain their amateur status. A player must apply to the governing body of the sport to have amateur status reinstated; the distinction between amateur and professional golfers had much to do with social class. In 18th and 19th century Britain, golf was played for pleasure; the early professionals were working class men who made a living from the game in a variety of ways: caddying, greenkeeping and playing challenge matches. When golf arrived in America at the end of the 19th century, it was an elite sport there, too. Early American golf clubs imported their professionals from Britain, it was not possible to make a living from playing tournament golf until some way into the 20th century.
In the developed world, the class distinction is now entirely irrelevant. Golf is affordable at public courses to a large portion of the population, most golf professionals are from middle-class backgrounds, which are the same sort of backgrounds as the members of the clubs where they work or the people they teach the game, educated to university level. Leading tournament golfers are wealthy. S. usage of the term. However, in some developing countries, there is still a class distinction. Golf is restricted to a much smaller and more elite section of society than is the case in countries like the United States and the United Kingdom. Professional golfers from these countries are quite from poor backgrounds and start their careers as caddies, for example, Ángel Cabrera of Argentina, Zhang Lian-wei, the first significant tournament professional from the People's Republic of China. In various countries, Professional Golfers' Associations serve either or both of these categories of professionals. There are separate LPGAs for women.
Under the rules of golf and amateur status of the R&A, the maximum an amateur can win is £500. Under the rules of golf and amateur status of the USGA the maximum an amateur can win is $750. If an amateur accepts a prize of greater than this they forfeit their amateur status, are therefore by definition a professional golfer. Professional golfers are divided into two main groups, with a limited amount of overlap between them: The great majority of professional golfers make their living from teaching the game, running golf clubs and courses, dealing in golf equipment. In golf pro refers to individuals involved in the service of other golfers; the senior professional golfer at a golf club is referred to as the club professional, but at a large golf club or resort with several courses his job title is to be director of golf. If they have assistants who are registered professional golfers, they are known as assistant professionals. A golfer who concentrates wholly or nearly so on giving golf lessons is a teaching professional, golf instructor or golf coach.
Most of these people will enter a few tournaments against their peers each year, they may qualify to play in important tournaments with the other group of professional golfers mentioned below. Many club and teaching professionals working in the golf industry start as caddies, or a general interest in the game, finding employment at golf courses and moving on to certifications in their chosen profession; these programs include independent institutions and universities, those that lead to a Class A golf professional certification. Note that the USGA defines "instruction" as teaching the physical aspects of golf. Instruction in the psychological aspects of the game is explicitly excluded from this definition. A much smaller but higher profile group of professional golfers earn a living from playing in golf tournaments, or aspire to do so, their income comes from prize money, sometimes endorsements. These individuals are referred to as tour professionals, or pro golfers. In the United States, the PGA of America has 31 distinct member classifications for professionals.
Many of the classifications have corresponding apprenticeship positions. Lists of golfers - lists of professional golfers PGA Tour PGA of America
Earl Strom
Earl "Yogi" Strom was an American professional basketball referee for 29 years in the National Basketball Association and for three years in the American Basketball Association. Strom is credited as one of the greatest referees in the history of the NBA and was known for his flamboyant style and ability to control the game. Nicknamed "The Pied Piper", the assertive Strom made foul calls with his whistle by using a "tweet-pause-tweet-tweet" tune and pointing at the offending player. In addition to calling fouls with flair, he was known for ejecting players from games with style and he sometimes supported his rulings with physical force. Over the course of his career, he officiated 2,400 professional basketball regular season games, 295 playoff games, 7 All-Star games, 29 NBA and ABA Finals. For his extensive contributions to the game, Strom was posthumously elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1995. Strom was born December 1927 in Pottstown, Pennsylvania to Max and Bessie Strom.
Earl's father, was a foreman at a bakery, Earl grew up in the household as the youngest of seven children comprising five boys and two girls. As a child, he became interested in athletics and competing in sports, this interest lasted throughout his childhood and into high school. At Pottstown High School, Strom played football and basketball. After finishing high school in 1945, he joined the United States Coast Guard towards the end of World War II. Returning from service, Strom attended Pierce Junior College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where he graduated in 1951. Following school, the young Strom continued participating in sports and played for a local semi-professional basketball team in his early 20s. During a basketball game, he had an argument with a referee and the referee said "Look, you're not much of a player, you've got a pretty good mouth on you, so why don't you think about taking up refereeing?" Following the advice of the referee, Strom decided to get into officiating. He officiated high school games for nine years as well as college games in the East Coast Athletic Conference for three years.
In 1952, he married Yvonne Trollinger, the couple went on to have five children. Outside of officiating, Strom worked at General Electric in customer relations starting in 1956 and continued in this role through his first stint in the NBA, he felt this "day job" provided security to his family since officiating in the NBA did not at the time. Strom became an NBA referee with the start of the 1957–58 NBA season after accepting an invitation to join the league from Jocko Collins, supervisor of officials, he further developed his skills in the league by learning from other officials such as Mendy Rudolph, Norm Drucker, Sid Borgia. Strom ascended to the top of the officiating ladder by the end of his third season in the league as he was assigned playoff games, uncommon for lesser experienced referees at the time; the following year and Rudolph made NBA history when they officiated the 1961 NBA Finals between the Boston Celtics and St. Louis Hawks; this was the only time in NBA history that the same two officials worked an entire series, the result of the two teams not agreeing on any other officials to use in the series.
Six years into his NBA career, Strom had worked every playoff game in the semi-finals and finals along with Rudolph. In fact, the former was assigned to any deciding game in a series during this time, he was involved in one of the most memorable moments in NBA history during the 1965 Eastern Conference finals between the Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers. In the seventh and final game, the 76ers trailed the Celtics 110–109 with five seconds left; the 76ers had possession of the ball and attempted to inbound the pass as the Celtics' John Havlicek tipped the pass thrown by Hal Greer and preserved the Celtics victory. Celtics' radio announcer Johnny Most made his most fabled call: "Havlicek stole the ball! Havlicek stole the ball!" And all this while, Strom had officiated the game in a cast as he had broken his hand while punching a fan during an altercation at a game the previous night. In another significant moment in his officiating career, Strom was saved from an angry mob by legendary center Wilt Chamberlain during a game played in Memphis, Tennessee in the mid-1960s.
Strom had made a call that went against the St. Louis Hawks and at halftime was called a "gutless bastard" by Hawks general manager Irv Gack at the scorer's table; the fiery official asked Gack to repeat the comment as he reached across the table and grabbed Gack by the shirt. Fans started coming down from the seats while Chamberlain, playing for the Philadelphia 76ers at the time, saw what was going on, he picked Strom up and said, "C'mon Earl. Let's get the hell out of here." More controversies surrounded Strom when he was again involved in a historical NBA moment during the 1967 NBA All-Star Game. As one of the referees in the game, Strom was responsible for the ejection of Red Auerbach, head coach of the East All-Stars. Auerbach remains the only coach to be ejected in an All-Star Game. Strom was subsequently designated crew chief in 1967 and 1968 when the league hired Dolph Schayes as supervisor of officials for the NBA, he was put in charge of scouting crews, rating referees, developing the skills of lesser experienced referees as well as working a schedule of games.
After more than a decade's experience in the game, Strom was offered a salary contract over 82 games for $16,000 for the first time by Commissioner Walter Kennedy in August 1969. It was at this time that Strom became interested in listening to what the ABA, which started in 1967, had to offer in the bidding war that ensued between the two leagues over talent. T
Spectrum (arena)
The Spectrum was an indoor arena in Philadelphia, United States. Opened in the fall of 1967 as part of what is now known as the South Philadelphia Sports Complex, after several expansions of its seating capacity it accommodated 18,168 for basketball and 17,380 for ice hockey, arena football, indoor soccer, box lacrosse; the last event at the Spectrum was a Pearl Jam concert on October 31, 2009. The arena was demolished between November 2010 and May 2011. Opened as the Spectrum in fall 1967, Philadelphia's first modern indoor sports arena was built to be the home of the expansion Philadelphia Flyers of the NHL, to accommodate the existing Philadelphia 76ers of the NBA; the building was the second major sports facility built at the south end of Broad Street in an area known as East League Island Park and now referred to as the South Philadelphia Sports Complex. Ground was broken on the arena on June 1, 1966, by Jerry Wolman and then-Philadelphia Mayor James Tate as the home of the NHL's expansion Philadelphia Flyers.
The first event at the arena was the Quaker City Jazz Festival on September 30, 1967, produced by Larry Magid. The first sporting event at the arena was an October 17, 1967 boxing match featuring Joe Frazier vs. Tony Doyle. From 1967 through 1972, fifteen fight cards were held at the Spectrum; the NBA's 76ers moved there from Convention Hall as a second major league sports tenant. Lou Scheinfeld, former President of the Spectrum, explained that the name "Spectrum" was selected to evoke the broad range of events to be held there. "The'SP' for'sports' and'South Philadelphia,"E' for'entertainment,"C' for'circuses,"T' for'theatricals,"R' for'recreation,' and'UM' as'um, what a nice building!" Scheinfeld said that a seat in the city's first superbox cost $1,000 a year: "For every Flyers game, Sixers game, you name it, you got 250 events for $1,000." The Flyers won their first home game in this arena by defeating the Pittsburgh Penguins, 1–0. Bill Sutherland scored the arena's first goal. On March 1, 1968, wind blew part of the covering off the Spectrum's roof during a performance of the Ice Capades, forcing the building to close for a month while Mayor Tate fought with then-Philadelphia County District Attorney Arlen Specter over responsibility for the construction of the roof, the damage was repaired.
The 76ers moved their home games to Convention Hall and to the Palestra, but neither of those arenas had ice rinks at the time, there were no other NHL-quality sites in the Philadelphia area. Thus the Flyers hurriedly moved their next home game to Madison Square Garden in New York followed by a meeting with the Boston Bruins played at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto before establishing a base at Le Colisée in Quebec City, home of their top minor league team, the AHL Quebec Aces, for the remainder of their regular season, marking the first NHL games in Quebec City in over four decades, years before the Quebec Nordiques joined the NHL. In 1993, the Flyers played a day game against the Los Angeles Kings during a blizzard. A piece of flying debris smashed out one of the concourse windows, cancelling the game just after the first period. In the 1970s, the venue's location on Broad Street and the reputation for fisticuffs that the Flyers had developed led to the nickname "Broad Street Bullies." A plaque inside The Spectrum stated that it held the world record for the fastest conversion from Hockey to Basketball.
The Spectrum, along with the Met Center and The Forum, was one of the first sports arenas to have a scoreboard with a messageboard. Furthermore, the messageboards on the Spectrum scoreboard were the first dot matrix screens in pro hockey or basketball, capable of photos and replays as well as messages; this was replaced in 1986 with ArenaVision, which consisted of six 9-by-12-foot rear-projection videoscreens at the top and a four-sided American Sign and Indicator scoreboard at the bottom. Inside the videoscreens were General Electric projectors located 15 feet away from each screen; the Flyers won their first Stanley Cup at the Spectrum on May 19, 1974, defeating the Boston Bruins, 1–0, in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals in front of a then-capacity crowd of 17,007. The most important and emotional hockey game—or sporting event of any kind—ever held there, came at the height of the Cold War on January 11, 1976, when the Flyers became the first NHL team to defeat the vaunted hockey team of the Soviet Central Red Army.
Two games in the inaugural Canada Cup hockey tournament were held at the Spectrum in September of that year, as the U. S. took on Czechoslovakia and the USSR. Ten NHL or NBA playoff championship series were hosted at the Spectrum; the Flyers competed in the Stanley Cup Finals in 1974, 1975, 1976, 1980, 1985, 1987. The 76ers played in the NBA Finals in 1977, 1980, 1982, 1983; the 1976 and 1992 NHL, 1970 and 1976 NBA All-Star Games were held here. The AHL Phantoms won their first Calder Cup title on Spectrum ice before a sellout crowd of 17,380 on June 10, 1998, by defeating the Saint John Flames, 6–1; the Spectrum is the only venue to host the NBA and NHL All-Star Games in the same season, doing so in 1976, when it hosted that year's Final Four. It is one of a handful of venues to host the Stanley Cup and NBA Finals at the same time, doing so in 1980 (all four major Philadelphia teams would reach the championship r
Hubie Brown
Hubert Jude Brown is an American retired basketball coach and player and a current television analyst. Brown is a two-time NBA Coach of the honors being separated by 26 years. Brown was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2005; when asked in 1988 how long he will remain involved with the game of basketball, Hubie responded "I will stay involved in some capacity until the day Verne Lundquist dies." Born in Hazleton, Brown moved to Elizabeth, New Jersey at age three and was raised there, living in a small apartment building without a telephone. Brown, an only child, has said that his father, who worked at the shipyards, was a "demanding man."He graduated from St. Mary of the Assumption High School in 1951. While in high school, St. Mary won state championships in football and baseball. Hubie Brown played college basketball and baseball at Niagara University, graduating in 1955 with a degree in education. While at Niagara, Brown was a teammate of former Utah Jazz coach Frank Layden, as well as Larry Costello and Charlie Hoxie, who would go on to star for the Harlem Globetrotters.
After leaving Niagara, Brown joined the U. S. Army where he joined the Army's basketball team. After being honorably discharged in 1958, Brown played for the Rochester Colonels of the Eastern Professional Basketball League before they folded after just eight games, he averaged 13.8 points per game in his brief stint as a pro and was an excellent defender as a player. He returned to Niagara to earn a master's degree in education. Brown's defensive mentality would carry on into his coaching career, which began in 1955 at St. Mary Academy in Little Falls, New York where he coached both basketball and baseball, he spent nine years at the high school level, including Cranford High School in Cranford, New Jersey and Fair Lawn High School in Fair Lawn, New Jersey before becoming an assistant coach for one season at the College of William and Mary in 1968. The following season, Brown joined Duke University as an assistant coach. Brown coached at Duke until 1972, when he joined the NBA as an assistant coach for the Milwaukee Bucks under Larry Costello.
Milwaukee made the NBA Finals in 1974 with future Hall of Famers Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Robertson, but fell in seven games to the Boston Celtics, who were led by their own superstars: Dave Cowens, John Havlicek, Jo Jo White and future Bucks coach Don Nelson. After two seasons in the NBA, Brown was given his first professional-level head coaching opportunity – the head coach position with the Kentucky Colonels of the American Basketball Association. Brown led the Colonels to the 1975 ABA Championship. Brown continued as the Colonels' coach until the ABA-NBA merger in 1976 when the Colonels franchise folded, one of two ABA teams that did not join the NBA. Brown rejoined the NBA as head coach of the Atlanta Hawks, going 31-51 in his first season with the Hawks, but by the 1977-78 season, the Hawks had rebounded into a.500 team, finishing 41-41 and earning Coach of the Year honors for Brown. Two years in 1979-80, they won only their second division title since moving to Atlanta. However, after they tumbled to a 31-win season in 1980-81, Brown was fired with just three games remaining in the season.
Brown continued to coach the Hawks, leading them to a Central Division Title in the 1979-80 season, before joining the New York Knicks in 1982, succeeding long-time coach Red Holzman. He stayed with the Knicks until he was fired in 1986 after starting the season 4-12. After reaching the playoffs in each of Brown's first two seasons, the Knicks plummeted to 24-58 in 1984-85 and 23-59 in 1985-86, but there were circumstances. Star forward Bernard King suffered a devastating knee injury in March 1985 in a game against the Kansas City Kings, not recovering for two seasons, while Patrick Ewing, the top overall pick in the 1985 NBA Draft, missed 32 games in an injury-plagued rookie season. Brown left the Knicks at the beginning of the 1986-87 season, succeeded by Bob Hill. Sixteen years removed from his previous NBA coaching job, Brown was again tapped to be a head coach in the NBA 2002-03 season by Jerry West of the Memphis Grizzlies, who fired coach Sidney Lowe after an 0-8 start; the Grizzlies' choice of Brown was quite controversial at the time.
Brown finished the season with a 28-46 record with the team, at the time the team's record for wins. However, the team underwent a complete turnaround for the 2003-04 season, finishing 50-32 and making the playoffs for the first time in team history. Brown was again named the NBA's Coach of the Year. However, by the 2004-05 season, there were again concerns about Brown's age. Brown was given medical clearance to start the season, but was forced to delegate much work to his assistant coaches, including his son, Brendan Brown; this led to an incident between Brendan Brown and Jason Williams when Williams snapped at Brown during the fourth quarter of a game early on in the season. Williams apologized, but the Grizzlies were beginning to struggle during the season, starting 5-7. Brown unexpectedly resigned from the Grizzlies on Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 2004. In a statement, he cited "unexpected health-related issues... nonexistent at the beginning of the season." Details of the specific "health-related issues" were not announced.
Shortly afterward Mike Fratello was announced as the new Grizzlies coach, marking the second time in his career that he had succeeded Brown at an NBA head coaching position. Soon after Brown's unexpec
Rick Barry
Richard Francis Dennis Barry III is an American retired professional basketball player who played in both the American Basketball Association and National Basketball Association. Named one of the 50 Greatest Players in history by the NBA in 1996, Barry is the only player to lead the National Collegiate Athletic Association, ABA, NBA in scoring for an individual season, he was known for his unorthodox but effective underhand free throw shooting technique, at the time of his retirement in 1980 his.900 free throw percentage ranked first in NBA history. In 1987, Barry was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, he is the father of former NBA players Brent Barry, Jon Barry, Drew Barry and current professional player Canyon Barry. Barry grew up in Roselle Park, New Jersey, graduating from Roselle Park High School in 1962. Barry was an All-American basketball player for the University of Miami, where he starred for three seasons. While at Miami, Barry met his wife Pamela, the daughter of Hurricanes head coach Bruce Hale.
As a senior in the 1964–65 campaign, Barry led the NCAA with a 37.4 points-per-game average. Barry and the Hurricanes did not take part in the NCAA Tournament, because the basketball program was on probation at the time. Barry is one of just two basketball players to have his number retired by the school. Barry was drafted by the San Francisco Warriors with the second pick of the 1965 NBA draft. In Barry's first season in the NBA with the Warriors, the team improved from 17 to 35 victories. In the All-Star Game one season Barry erupted for 38 points as the West team stunned the East team, which featured Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson, Bill Russell and head coach Red Auerbach among other all-time greats; that season and company extended the mighty Philadelphia 76ers to six competitive games in the NBA Finals, something that Russell and the Boston Celtics could not do in the Eastern Conference playoffs. That 76ers team is considered to be one of the greatest in basketball history. Nicknamed the "Miami Greyhound" by longtime San Francisco-area broadcaster Bill King because of his slender physical build and remarkable quickness and instincts, the 6'7" Barry won the NBA Rookie of the Year Award after averaging 25.7 points and 10.6 rebounds per game in the 1965–66 season.
The following year, he won the 1967 NBA All-Star Game MVP award with a 38-point outburst and led the NBA in scoring with a 35.6 point per game average — which still ranks as the eighth- highest output in league annals. Teamed with star center Nate Thurmond in San Francisco, Barry helped take the Warriors to the 1967 NBA Finals, which they lost to the Philadelphia 76ers in six games. Including a 55-point outburst in Game 3, Barry averaged 40.8 points per game in the series, an NBA Finals record that stood for three decades. Upset that he was not paid incentive monies that he believed due from Warriors owner Franklin Mieuli, Barry jumped to the ABA's Oakland Oaks, who offered him a lucrative contract and the chance to play for Bruce Hale, his then-father-in-law; the three-year contract offer from Pat Boone, the singer and team owner, was estimated to be worth $500,000, with Barry saying "the offer Oakland made me was one I couldn't turn down" and that it would make him one of basketball's highest-paid players.
The courts ordered Barry to sit out the 1967–68 season before he starred in the ABA, upholding the validity of the reserve clause in his contract. He preceded St. Louis Cardinals' outfielder Curt Flood, whose better-known challenge to the reserve clause went all the way to the U. S. Supreme Court, by two years as the first American major-league professional athlete to bring a court action against it; the ensuing negative publicity cast Barry in a negative light, portraying him as selfish and money-hungry. However, many NBA players at the time were looking at jumping to the ABA for more lucrative contracts. Barry would star in the ABA, twice averaging more than 30 points per game. After the 1966–67 season, Barry became one of the first NBA players to jump to the American Basketball Association when he signed with the Oakland Oaks. In the ABA's first season, the Oaks were the only ABA team located in the same market as an NBA team; the Warriors prevented Barry from playing for the Oaks during the 1967 -- 68 season.
Barry instead worked on Oaks radio broadcasts during the ABA's first season. During the 1968 -- 69 season, Barry averaged 34 points per game, he led the ABA in free-throw percentage for the season. However, on December 27, 1968, late in a game against the New York Nets and Kenny Wilburn collided and Barry tore ligaments in his knee, he tried to play again in January but only aggravated the injury and sat out the rest of the season, only appearing in 35 games as a result. Despite the injury Barry was named to the ABA All-Star team; the Oaks finished with a record of 60-18, winning the Western Division by 14 games over the second place New Orleans Buccaneers. In the 1969 ABA Playoffs the Oaks defeated the Denver Rockets in a seven-game series and defeated New Orleans in the Western Division finals. In the finals the Oaks defeated the Indiana Pacers 4 games to 1 to win the 1969 ABA Championship; the Oaks' on-court success had not translated into solid attendance. The team averaged 2,800 fans per game.
Instead of remaining in Oakland for another season to see if the championship would draw fans, the team was sold by owner Pat Boone and relocated to Washington, D. C. for the 1969–70 season. Barry played the 1969–70 season with the ABA's Washington Caps. Barry did not like the move and refused to report to the team, at one point commenting, "If I wanted to go to Washin
