Audio By Carbonatix
I have touched the highest point
of my greatness;
I haste now to my setting. I shall fall
Like a Bright exhalation
in the evening,
And no man see me more.
Shakespeare, Henry VIII
For great professional athletes, the last act is the most difficult to perform with grace. It requires not only magnificent skills and consummate artistry but perfect timing. Luck is essential.
Few great athletes succeed in making a dramatic and memorable farewell. Pete Rose’s finale ended in distasteful scandal. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar went from city to city collecting gifts in a series of joyless and ever more embarrassing farewell ceremonies.
To my mind, only Ted Williams and, now, Magic Johnson, said goodbye with style and grace. Each succeeded in exiting the stage following an exciting performance that demonstrated their skills and encapsulated the personal styles that marked their entire professional careers.
It is more than 30 years since Williams, the Splendid Splinter, played his final game for the Boston Red Sox. In his last at-bat, Williams, arguably the greatest hitter of all time, stroked a home run. The man and this final act have become legend.
Here is how John Updike described those final moments on September 28, 1960, in Fenway Park for the New
Yorker magazine, in a piece called “Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu.” The ball climbed on a diagonal line into the vast volume of air over center field. … The ball seemed less an object in flight than the tip of a towering, motionless construct like the Eiffel Tower or the Tappan Zee Bridge. It was in the books while it was still in the sky.
Like a feather caught in a vortex, Williams ran around the square of bases at the center of our beseeching screaming. He ran as he always ran out home runs-hurriedly, unsmiling, head down, as if our praise were a storm of rain to get out of. He didn’t tip his cap. Though we thumped, wept and chanted, “We Want Ted” for minutes after he hid in the dugout, he did not come back.
Our noise for some seconds passed beyond excitement into a kind of immense open anguish, a wailing, a cry to be saved. But immortality is nontransferable.
The papers said that the other players, and even the umpires, begged him to come out and acknowledge us in some way, but he refused. Gods do not answer letters.
This past Sunday, Earvin Johnson, better known to basketball fans around the world as “Magic,” gave what we assume was his final curtain call as an NBA player.
Cheers swept the arena during the pregame ceremonies in Orlando, Florida, at the annual All-Star Game. Fittingly, Magic was the last player to be introduced.
There was that familiar Magic smile-seen so often during his years with the Los Angeles Lakers-with the warm, bright eyes and the big mouth full of strong white teeth. At first, he looked up at the crowd as if expecting the cheering to stop quickly.
But it didn’t. The sound rolled on. Magic was clearly moved by it. Swallowing hard, he went down the line of his teammates, shaking hands.
Then, while the crowd continued to roar its admiration and farewell, something unpredictable happened.
Isiah Thomas, a longtime friend and rival from the Detroit Pistons, stepped from the opposing, East All-Star line. First, Thomas, almost a foot shorter, kissed Magic on the cheek and then hugged him. It was a repeat of a ceremony Thomas had performed many times when the two met to play in crucial games over their careers.
The other players from the East team stepped forward to hug Magic, too.
The importance of this symbolic act by Thomas and the East players should not be minimized. There had been talk that many of the players were afraid to touch Magic for fear they might contract AIDS. This was their way of showing that they had no such fears.
There is so much hype in professional sports these days that we’ve become jaded. But this spontaneous greeting for Magic by the rest of the NBA All-Stars was real. An onlooker would have to be made of stone not to feel a shiver down his spine as he watched this genuine outpouring of emotion.
During the first week of the season, Magic announced in a nationally televised press conference that he had tested positive for the HIV virus. Magic pointed out that he didn’t have AIDS yet. But his doctors had advised him against trying to play professional basketball anymore.
“Sometimes we think only gay people can get it,” he said that day. “Here I am, saying that it can happen to anybody. Even me, Magic Johnson.”
But Magic’s name remained on the fans’ ballot for the All-Star Game. In a sentimental gesture, he was voted as a member of the West team for the annual game.
So this was to be his farewell performance. Television cameras were there to beam the game into homes all over the world. For Magic, the risks were great. He hadn’t played a regular game all season. He might look uncoordinated and out of shape. He might not be the same Magic Johnson who, along with Larry Bird of the Boston Celtics, has made the game the great fan favorite it has become.
Before the game, an interview with Magic filmed the day before was shown.
“Life doesn’t stop because something dramatic happens to you,” Magic said. “You know there are roadblocks. You keep on fighting…keep on smiling.”
Magic smiled.
“I’ll be all right,” he said.
Magic had been training. He had been running four miles a day and playing full-court games in an athletic club in Los Angeles for months. He wanted to be certain he was ready for this challenge.
In the first 11 minutes of the game, Magic made six of seven shots from the field and four free throws for 16 points. Magic’s West All-Star teammates shot the ball unbelievably well. They were turning the game into a runaway.
Players like Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley and Patrick Ewing of the East team were turned into mere members of the supporting cast.
To appreciate Magic’s performance, you had to remember him from his days as a collegiate player with Michigan State University. That was when he and Larry Bird, then of Indiana State University, took part in the greatest “mano a mano” in the history of the collegiate Final Four.
You had to remember Magic going into the pivot for the Los Angeles Lakers when Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was injured in the NBA playoffs.
And you had to remember all those fast breaks, the improbable shots, the incredible passes to open players under the basket…all those nights of triple-doubles when he dominated entire teams with his shooting, passing and rebounding.
Everyone watching this final game knew it wasn’t going to be like that anymore. No one wanted to see him embarrassed because his skills had eroded.
But Magic still has the skills. Caught up in the spirit of the moment, he put on an unforgettable exhibition. And as good as it was, Magic’s fans will probably grow to exaggerate his performance as their memories enlarge and expand upon it over the years.
Quinn Buckner, once a fine point guard in the league, was a television commentator for the broadcast.
“For Magic,” Buckner said at one point, “it’s important that he play well. That’s why he went against Dennis Rodman, the best defensive forward, to score on a hook shot. That’s why he took on Isiah Thomas, the best defensive backcourt man. He beat them both early in the game.
“He wanted to prove he could play with the guys. He wanted to show people he could still do what nobody thought he could do any longer.”
Magic came out of the game for a breather. Almost at once, a sideline reporter interviewed him.
“Are you okay?” the reporter asked.
“You don’t have to worry about that,” Magic said.
He laughed.
“I’m dying out there. But I’m out there with the fellas and everything is great.” There was no way for Magic to comprehend the double meaning of that first sentence and the effect it had on those listening.
It was easy to understand how much Magic enjoyed the camaraderie. Most players think more of basketball and its associations than they do of their first wives.
Don Nelson, Magic’s coach on the West squad, admitted this in a pregame interview.
“I’m consumed by basketball,” he said. “Obviously, I’m divorced. I’m not very proud of that. And coaching Magic in this game is very important to me.” The risks Magic took in entering this competition were enormous. All athletes are playing against time. At 32 years of age, Magic was in his 12th All-Star Game. Time was running out.
On the night before, they had held a game for old-timers who had retired. David Thompson, who was Michael Jordan’s idol as a boy, came to play.
Thompson was once one of the league’s highest scorers. He fell afoul of drugs and then hurt his knee. His career ended. Thompson, trying to recapture the joy of past glory, fell during the game and suffered a serious knee injury.
Think what everyone would be writing if Magic had been removed on a stretcher to the hospital.
But Magic emerged unscathed. During the second half, he contented himself with making assists and setting up his teammates for baskets.
Then, in the final minutes, it was showtime. Magic got the ball in the left backcourt in the three-point zone. He sent up a high, arching shot that fell through the net without hitting the rim.
He got the ball in the three-point zone again. Again, he shot. He hit another basket without hitting the rim.
Then, as the final seconds ran down, Magic dribbled the ball back from the circle, guarded by Thomas. Once again, he was in three-point territory.
Magic turned and fired. The ball fell through cleanly. Magic scored nine points on his last three possessions. The game ended. Magic had finished with 25 points to lead all scorers. His team won the game by an incredible margin, 153-113.
They gave Magic the trophy as the Most Valuable Player. The great part about it was that he probably deserved it.
Whenever basketball fans sit around to discuss great basketball games, this one will come up. Every basketball fan will remember Magic’s final game.
They will remember it as the time he came back to show them that the HIV virus could not take away his skills. This was Magic Johnson’s game.
These closing lines are fitting. The man who wrote them dominated the field of literature as completely as Magic has the game of basketball.
Goodnight, Sweet Prince,
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!
TONGUE-TIED AT LAST… v2-12-92
