Tuesday, November 23, 2004

Artest and All That

Soxblog has best perspective on Ron Artest's Devil's Night.

Aside from being overly kind about my much-diminished hoop skills, he has a great story about a pack of Boston Bruin players taking into the stands in Madison Square Garden 25 years ago. There, they proceeded to beat down a bunch of rowdy New Yorkers, going so far as to bludgeon one putz with his own shoe. This story is not to be missed.

1 comment:

miklos rosza said...

Artest has been a great player partially because he is a) mean; b) crazy -- a much improved Dennis Rodman without the red or green hair who can also score. I was watching, without much attention, the Det-Ind game as it wound down last Friday night.

Artest's foul looked like no big deal. Ben Wallace seemed to overreact, and I thought he'd get a technical. But Artest was smiling -- a mean smile, sure, but if he's on your team that's just fine.

Then when he got beer thrown into his face and went up into the stands trying to get the guy, everyone in the city of Detroit seemed to go completely insane. The reaction since then has seemed hyperbolic, though it's hard to generate much sympathy for anyone involved.

One writer has proposed kicking Artest out of the NBA permanently. Well, if it happens I'm not gonna shed any tears. I only wish it was Rasheed Wallace before he got to win a ring.