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Archive for April, 2014

R.I.P. Dr. Jack Ramsay

29 Apr

Buffalo Braves vs. Boston Celtics

Jack Ramsay coaching the Buffalo Braves in the 1970s

I was saddened to hear of the recent death of former NBA coach Jack Ramsay, one of the league’s classiest people who had a Hall of Fame coaching career, and was a tremendous ambassador for the game as a game analyst for ESPN after his coaching days were over. After coaching in college at St. Joseph’s, Ramsay was hired as general manager of the Philadelphia 76ers in 1967, and the team won the NBA title in his first year in the front office. Ramsay moved down to the bench to coach the team in 1968, and led them to the playoffs in 3 of the 4 years he served in that capacity. He made some unpopular moves as GM, however, trading away stars Wilt Chamberlain and Chet Walker. When the team had a major collapse in 1971/72 and missed the playoffs for the first time in franchise history, Ramsay was let go. He landed on his feet, however, taking over as coach of the Buffalo Braves, who were entering their third year of existence. It’s the four years he spent as Braves’ coach that are my most fond memories of Ramsay, prowling the sideline decked out in his loud, typical ’70s outfits. He developed young stars like Bob McAdoo, Randy Smith, Kenny Charles and Ernie DiGregorio, and blended them together with savvy veterans like Jim McMillian, Garfield Heard and Jack Marin and turned out an exciting, fast-paced club that qualified as playoff contenders by that third year. The Braves were one of the NBA’s most dynamic teams for a short period of time, but when owner Paul Snyder decided to sell the team to former ABA owner John Y. Brown, the bottom quickly fell out and the  franchise was eventually relocated to San Diego and renamed the Clippers. Although the Braves’ final days were messy – they traded away stars and fan favorites like McAdoo and Adrian Dantley, then threatened to move if fans didn’t support the shell of a team that was left – one positive thing did come out of the wreckage. Ramsay moved on to Portland, where he put together a championship team built around superstar Bill Walton, that played unselfish basketball and played the game the way it’s supposed to be played. In fact, Ramsay’s teams in both Buffalo and Portland played an exciting, fast break brand of basketball that emphasized defense, passing and hitting the open man, a style that you rarely see in today’s three point shot, clear the floor for the superstar, dunkfest brand of basketball.

Ramsay, even well into his 80s, had a reputation for being physically fit and enthusiastic about life. He was always very insightful and fun to listen to as an analyst, but in May of 2013 was forced to leave that job in order to begin treatment for cancer, which eventually took his life on Sunday.

 

Classic Team Logo of The Day

29 Apr

blazers7090

Logo of the National Basketball Association’s Portland Trailblazers, a franchise that came into existence when the league expanded in 1970. This logo was used from 1970 until 1990. The club won the NBA championship in 1977, under the direction of Hall of Fame coach Jack Ramsay, and led by star players like Bill Walton, Maurice Lucas and Lionel Hollins. Four Blazer players have been named Rookie of The Year over the years, and six former players are in the Hall of Fame, including Walton, Clyde Drexler, Scottie Pippen and Lenny Wilkens, who also coached the team at one point.

 

Classic Sports Card of The Day

29 Apr

77toppslucas

1977 Topps basketball card of a former player who excelled in both the American and National Basketball Associations, Maurice Lucas. He was a preeminent power forward in his time, starting in the ABA with the Spirits of St. Louis franchise, then with the NBA’s Portland Trailblazers, where he was part of that franchise’s 1977 championship team. He played a total of 14 seasons of professional basketball, 12 of them in the NBA. Lucas was a five-time NBA All Star, and his physical play as a power forward earned him the nickname “The Enforcer”. He served as a Portland assistant coach after retiring, but health concerns forced him to resign from that position in 2010, the same year he passed away from cancer.

 

Rayonsports.com’s Fifth Anniversary

28 Apr

On April 28, 2010, I wrote the first few posts on this blog, which, as my “about” page explains, is my family’s idea of a place for me to vent on the world of sports instead of yelling obscenities at the television. I was unemployed when I first started the blog, so there were many more posts in the early days. In fact, I posted regularly almost every day back then. Nowadays most of the new posts come during football season, or when there’s a sports story worth noting. In going back over the five years of writing, I noticed that when I had more time to write I commented a lot more on national sports news, while recently most of my thoughts have centered on the local pro teams here in Buffalo, the Bills and Sabres.

Since I was an avid sports card collector as a child, the “Classic Sports Card of The Day” features were a natural to be a regular part of the blog, and it’s been fun tracking down old cards of sports heroes from the past. I remember owning a lot of the cards that I’ve featured here. The most unique card that I featured has to be the card of Triple Crown winning horse Secretariat. Being an “old school” sports fan, the other daily feature – the “Classic Team Logo of The Day” – has always been interesting for me. There are a lot of websites out there that are dedicated to old sports cards and sports team logos, and I really haven’t given enough credit to them for helping me research and find plenty of the material I’ve used on my site. They include www.CheckOutMyCards.com , www.VintageCardPrices.com , www.Logoserver.com  and Chris Creamer’s www.sportslogos.net .

Going back over the “feature” stories I’ve written over the years, I’ve obviously had a lot to say about a lot of subjects, including the plight of black athletes in the 1960s, the coddling of modern day pitchers in baseball, the relocation of pro franchises, remembering legendary sports figures who’ve passed away, concussions in sports, the old American Basketball Association and weeklong posts during Super Bowl week chronicling Super Bowl moments of the past. There’ve been many others also, but one of my favorite themes have been my “list” posts, where I pick my five “greatest” in different categories, such as greatest goaltenders, players who changed the game, favorite sports movies, top point guards, best coaches, etc. I haven’t done any of those in awhile, and reading some of the ones I’ve posted in the past has motivated me to try to continue doing them in the future. Another favorite of mine is something new I started during the 2013 football season. After four years of predicting the results of NFL games each week (and not doing badly, I must say), I decided instead to start a weekly feature I called “Throwback Thursday”, in which I picked a matchup scheduled that particular week in the NFL, and wrote an article about a game from the past between those two franchises. It was challenging to come up with a memorable matchup each week but I really enjoyed that challenge, and plan to continue the feature in the 2014 season.

In the comments section of my site, I have to thank family members who have supported it and sent comments, since a majority of the replies sent on each story are from them. The blog is actually just a hobby and I don’t promote it at all so I don’t expect a lot of reaction, but there have been some interesting and unexpected replies, and shares, at times. For instance, Bills’ linebacker Manny Lawson shared a portion of a Bills’ game review, in which I praised his play, on his site. In a “classic logo” post I did on the old ABA Dallas Chaparrals, I mentioned one of their star players, Glen Combs, and he later linked that post to his site. The website Bleacher Report, a sports site associated with Time Warner and Turner Broadcasting, has used many photos from my site and actually given me photo credits (even though the photos are usually stock pictures from the internet). It’s kind of cool that somebody over at that site must have Rayonsports on their radar as a source for material for their own site. One of the most satisfying replies I’ve received over the years came after I posted a story prior to the start of the NFL season about the 1946 NFL season, one in which a lot of historic changes took place, including the integration of the league when the Los Angeles Rams signed two black players – Kenny Washington and Woody Strode – a year earlier than Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball. The post included an old picture of Washington and Strode posing during their college days at UCLA with teammate Robinson. Washington’s grandson sent me a reply, saying he’d never seen that picture of the three of them together, and thanking me for remembering his grandfather’s legacy.

It’s been fun to have this outlet for five years now, and I plan on continuing to write my opinions on the sporting world for hopefully at least another five years.

 

 

Classic Team Logo of The Day

28 Apr

sdsails7576

The very first “Classic Team Logo of The Day” that I posted five years ago,  back in April of 2009, was that of the old American Basketball Association’s San Diego Conquistadors. So it seemed fitting, on the fifth anniversary of the beginning of this blog, to post the logo of the team the Conquistadors morphed into – the San Diego Sails. The “Qs”, as they were known, existed from 1972 until 1975, then were sold to Frank Goldberg, who renamed them the Sails. Unfortunately, the Sails lasted only 11 games in that season before folding for financial reasons, finishing 3-8.

 

Classic Sports Card of The Day

28 Apr

65toppsartpowellerror65toppsclemdaniels

When I first started this blog five years ago, a regular feature of the early “Sports Card of The Day” posts were “error” cards – sports cards in which the card company erred in producing the cards. In honor of Rayonsports’ fifth anniversary, today’s featured card is a 1965 Topps football card of Oakland Raider split end Art Powell, who was an American Football League star in the early ’60s. The card, shown above on the left, has a photo that is actually Raider halfback Clem Daniels, who was also a pretty good player for Oakland. Daniels’ actual 1965 card is shown on the right. Powell was one of the AFL’s first marquee players, and was named to the All-AFL team chosen when the league merged with the NFL.

 

Reviewing The Buffalo Sabres’ 2013-2014 Season

21 Apr

The Buffalo Sabres franchise bottomed out in the 2013-14 season, in practically every sense of the term. They finished last among all 30 NHL teams, scored the least amount of goals since the league added the “Additional Six” teams in 1967, lost the draft lottery for the top pick in the amateur draft and, in what was actually a positive move, cleaned house in the front office.  Here is an assessment of the 2013-14 season with thoughts about what the team needs to do to improve for next year:

Front Office / Coaching

It took a lot of crazy turns but the Sabres’ front office situation seems fairly settled now, more or less. On the negative side, the situation involving Pat Lafontaine’s abrupt departure was never fully explained, and the man he brought in to mentor him, veteran hockey man Craig Patrick, seems to have disappeared into the woodwork. Does he still work for the Sabres or not? On the positive side, the man Lafontaine hired as general manager, Tim Murray, has slid comfortably into his position and slowly began the work of trying to rebuild the team. He made some bold, creative moves at the trade deadline to stockpile young prospects and draft picks, and completed his most important task – removing the “interim” tag from coach Ted Nolan’s title. Nolan didn’t win a whole lot of games in the time he had coaching the club this year and it’s obvious better players will be required, but he deserved the chance to help improve the team over the long haul just with the improvement he managed to coax out of players like Drew Stafford, Tyler Myers and Tyler Ennis in his short tenure. Nolan’s strength as a coach is in motivating and molding young players, a trait that fits what the team will need in the next few seasons. He should be able to do an even better job next season, once he rounds out his assistant staff with coaches he’s comfortable with.

Goaltenders

nathanlieuwen

Goaltender Nathan Lieuwen

Buffalo’s goaltending situation went from solid at the start of the year, with one of the game’s best, Ryan Miller, to a state of flux by season’s end. The team went through an NHL record nine different goalies, including Miller and Harbor Center employee Ryan Vinz, who dressed as a backup the night Miller was traded. Jhonas Enroth, apparently, will enter next season as the incumbent starter, since that’s the spot he held after Miller left and until he was injured and out for the season. Matt Hackett, Michal Neuvirth, Nathan Lieuwen and Connor Knapp all took turns in net toward the end of the season. It looks like Enroth, Hackett and Neuvirth would be the prime candidates to battle for the two open goaltending spots on the Sabre roster next year, although the others could help their chances with a decent playoff showing in net in the AHL playoffs for Rochester. Buffalo also has young Swedish prospect Linus Ullmark in their system. He’ll be 21 in July but doesn’t appear to be on the team’s radar yet.

Forwards

nicdeslaurier

Nic Deslauriers

After scoring the least amount of goals of any NHL team in the post-expansion era, the Sabres’ biggest glaring need is for some forwards with offensive talent and scoring ability. The forward ranks are loaded with players who would be third and fourth line players in the league’s better organizations. There are some potentially good players in their system, but they’re all teenagers who likely won’t be ready to help the team in 2014/15, like William Carrier, Nicholas Baptiste, J.T. Compher, Hudson Fasching and local products Sean Malone and Justin Bailey. Johan Larsson could emerge, although he didn’t show much in the way of a scoring touch in the short stint he had with the Sabres this year. It would help if a couple of Darcy Regier’s top draft picks, Joel Armia and Mikhaill Grigorenko, would develop into something. Armia is playing in his native Finland and not exactly putting up great numbers, while Grigorenko has talent but hasn’t shown much maturity. As for the current roster, the “keepers” appear to be young Zemgus Girgensons, Cody Hodgson, Stafford, Ennis, Nic Deslauriers and maybe Chris Stewart, who seems to be the type of player Nolan likes, and who has shown some ability to score. Deslauriers’ physical style surely endeared him to Nolan also. Players like Brian Flynn and Torey Mitchell are worth keeping as role players. It’s almost certain Ville Leino, a big free agent signing a couple years ago who has produced next to nothing, will be gone. Then there’s Marcus Foligno, who you would hope would develop into a scoring power forward but has been wildly inconsistent. It’ll be interesting to see how Nolan uses Pat Kaleta when he returns from injury. In any event, other than Girgensons there probably isn’t one forward on the roster that Murray wouldn’t consider trading at this point if he thought he could improve the team.

Defensemen

Jake+McCabe+Buffalo+Sabres

Jake McCabe

Defense is a position Buffalo seems to be well-stocked in going into the future, to the point where Murray felt comfortable trading a pretty good prospect away in Brayden McNabb at the deadline. Tyler Myers has been mostly a disappointment so far but his play improved a lot under Nolan before he got hurt. Christian Ehrhoff  was signed as a free agent the same year as Leino, and has at least given the team some return on their investment. Jamie McBain and Mike Weber play differing styles but seem to be serviceable players. The future of two other veteran defensemen – Alexander Sulzer and Henrik Tallinder, are in question if the team plans to rebuild with youth. Three of Regier’s draft picks, Jake McCabe, Rasmus Ristolainen and Nikita Zadorov, appear to have bright futures but it’s uncertain if they’re quite ready for prime time yet. However, management may decide to take their lumps with the younger players next season on the back end. If that’s the case, players who’ve been up and down between the big club and Rochester, like Chad Ruhwedel, Mark Pysyk, Ristolainen and Zadorov could claim roster spots instead of the crusty veterans.

 
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Posted in Hockey

 

Classic Team Logo of The Day

21 Apr

londonknights7481

Logo of a Canadian major junior hockey team, the London Knights. The team has existed since 1965, and were known as the Nationals until 1968. They used this logo from 1974 until 1981. The Knights play in the Ontario Hockey League and are coached by former NHL player and coach Dale Hunter. Former Knight players who went on to play in the NHL include Dino Ciccarelli, Brad Marsh, Rob Ramage and current NHLers Corey Perry, Rick Nash, Patrick Kane and John Tavares.

 

Classic Sports Card of The Day

21 Apr

88toppsjohntucker (2)

1988 Topps hockey card of former NHL player John Tucker. He played 12 seasons in the NHL for 4 different teams, most notably  the Buffalo Sabres. He finished his playing career overseas, playing several seasons in Italy and Japan. Tucker once scored four goals in a single Stanley Cup playoff game for Buffalo against the Boston Bruins. He was recently named head coach of the Buffalo Junior Sabres of the Ontario Junior Hockey League.

 

NFL – Passing of Ralph Wilson and Other Thoughts

19 Apr

ralph

Ralph Wilson, Jr. (photo credit – Sports Illustrated)

The recent passing of Buffalo Bills’ owner Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. was covered in depth by the local Buffalo media, and local sports fans showed a genuine outpouring of positive emotions for the man, with a very appropriate tailgate party in his memory, and a good showing at a team-sponsored memorial event at the Bills’ field house. At one time, Wilson’s local image was that of an old tightwad curmudgeon who refused to spend the money it took to make the team a winner, and who at one time threatened to relocate to Seattle if he didn’t get a new stadium. Over time, however, fans came to appreciate the fact that Wilson kept the franchise here, despite being in a small market that seems to get smaller as time goes on. After his death, stories surfaced about what the real man was like – his service in the Navy on a mine-sweeper in World War II, his tremendous generosity in the Buffalo community and beyond, much of which was not publicized. The lease he negotiated with Erie County was a final gift to the community. It includes a huge penalty for any prospective buyers who might want to move the team, and although there are no guarantees, it gives local politicians time to plan the club’s future here without undue pressure. That shouldn’t really be a surprise considering Wilson voted against every relocation of a franchise since he’s been an owner, and always put the betterment of the league ahead of personal goals, going back to the AFL days when he loaned the Oakland franchise owners money to stay afloat when they would have folded. He was a throwback to the days when sports team owners were true sportsmen, and the NFL will surely miss him.

Other thoughts on the NFL off-season:

Following a third consecutive 6-10 season that didn’t show much improvement or development from the Chan Gailey era, I’m still not completely sold on Bills’ coach Doug Marrone, but I’ll give him credit for having guts. After some late season problems with Marcell Dareus, Marrone spoke of having to instill more discipline in the club in 2014. After adding Brandon Spikes through free agency and Mike Williams through trade in the off-season, that challenge will be even greater. Both of those players arrive with baggage that not only makes them appear to be discipline problems, but is pretty disturbing. After acquiring Williams, if the Bills can keep him out of jail, they’ve managed to plug in new players at every position of need from last year, which puts them in a position for the draft where they can pick the best player available when their turn comes.

The NFL has, indeed, announced that they will make an effort to put some sportsmanship back into the game starting next season. Originally, it was announced that the league will instruct referees to penalize a team 15 yards for unsportsmanlike conduct if any player uses the “N” word on the field, but it appears now that a “point of emphasis” (something the league does every year regarding certain rules) will be put on enforcing an existing rule regarding use of offensive language during games. I’d personally like to see that rule tweaked to include offensive actions, or any language, actions or gyrations meant to taunt or disrespect the opponent. The NFL is slowly deteriorating into the WWE, with selfish, self-promoting players blowing their own horns and attempting to push their own personal agendas ahead of the team. I realize my opinion on this is old-fashioned and very old school, but I really wish there were a few coaches left in the game who had the kahunas to sit their teams down in training camp and lay down some rules that were required to be followed, involving sportsmanship,  decorum on the field and how they represent the team. In general, just get these players, who whether they like it or not are role models, to act like grown-up adults. It’s unfortunate there are no Paul Browns, Vince Lombardis or even Bill Parcells left in the coaching ranks.

 
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Posted in Football