NBA-TV: 'The History of the Lakers vs Celtics Rivalry

Source:NBA-TV- Larry Legend vs. Magic Johnson: the two NBA players of the 1980s.

"A brief video which talks about the Lakers vs Celtics rivalry that began in the early 1960s and continues today." 

From Arch 91 Reborn

To say the Los Angeles Lakers Boston Celtics rivalry is great is a huge understatement. (What's next: water is still wet?) As former Oakland Raiders head coach John Madden said, for a rivalry to be great, two teams have to be good at the same time. The games that the two teams play against each other have to mean something. Championships and playoff positioning has to be at stake. 

The two worst teams in a league or two of the worst teams in the league may hate each others guts but so what. And they may play very close games against each other but so what. Bad teams tend to play close games against each other. And one reason for that, is a lot of times when they play each other, neither team is good enough to actually win the game. It's the team that makes the most mistakes that loses the game, which is different from actually winning the game. And I know that looks different in record books but thats how it is. 

What separates the Lakers-Celtics from everyone else in the NBA, as well as most rivalries in the pro sports, including the long 45 year rivalry between the Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers, is their history that goes back to the early 1960s. 

The Lakers-Celtics rivalry in the 1980s represented the best of the NBA, with the two best head coaches in the NBA in Pat Riley and K.C. Jones, the three best players in Kareem, Magic, and Larry Legend, and the two best franchises of that decade as well. 

When the Lakers played the Celtics and vice-versa, it wasn't about just winning that particular game or NBA Finals, but about beating the best and remaining the best in NBA basketball. Knowing that the other team was always in their way when they played each other. 

When the Lakers beat the Celtics and vice-versa, they knew that they were the best, because they just beat the best. That's why this was the best rivalry in all of pro sports in the 1980s, because they were always playing each other to be the best that the NBA had to offer. 

Don Mattlingly: Career Highlights

Source:Sports Productions- Donnie Baseball in New York City.

"All rights go to Major League Baseball

Follow me on Twitter @justin__stewart... 

From Sports Productions 

What a lot of people I don't believe understand about the 1980s New York Yankees is that they weren't losing and they weren't losers. They won 2 AL East titles, they won the American League in 1981, they had 8 winning seasons, including 6 straight from 1983-88. 

If the wild card was around in the 1980s, especially with two wild cards for both leagues, the Yankees would've made the AL Playoffs at least 2-3 more times. They won more games in 1985 than the AL West champion Kansas City Royals. The same thing in 1984. They won more games than in 1987 than the AL West champion Minnesota Twins. 

The Yankees were still very good, at least offensively in 1980s and Don Mattingly was their best all around player in that decade. Certainly was their best hitter on  teams that included Rickey Henderson, Dave Winfield, Ken Griffey, Reggie Jackson, Don Baylor, and others. From 1984-88, the Yankees were about as good as anyone else in the American League offensively and Don Mattlingly was their leader. 

The reason why I believe Don Mattlingly doesn't get the respect that he deserves as one of the best all around 1B ever, is because the back injury in 1989 not just shortened his career, but robbed him of his bat speed and power. And he didn't play of a playoff team in New York until 1995 the first season of wildcard baseball in MLB. 

But without the back injury, I think there's no question that Donnie Baseball is in the Hall of Fame today. And even with the shortened career and numbers that are not as good as they would've been had he stayed healthy in what should've been the prime of his career in the early 1990s, I think he should still get serious consideration as a Hall of Famer today. Because there's no question that he's one of the 3 best all around 1B certainly in the 1980s to go along with Eddie Murray and Keith Hernandez. And one of the best all around players from that decade.

ABC News: Good Morning America- 'Rodney King Dead at 47: Cause of Death From Accidental Drowning?'

Source:ABC News- Rodney King dead at 47.

"Police suggest cause of death after face of 1991's L.A. riots died in a pool." 

From ABC News

I was fifteen and a freshmen in high school, in March of 1991 when the Rodney King police brutality story broke. And I saw it on CNN with my family as we were eating dinner that night and saw the video of those LAPD patrol officers ops, beating a man lying on the ground, after they pulled him over for a Traffic Violation. 

It seemed like a strange story for me from the beginning. I heard about police brutality in the past but I don't remember ever seeing it even on TV, the other interesting thing about this story to me, was that even though Rodney King was pulled over for a traffic violation, there were like four Cops there. To just one person, King being the driver, they felt the need to pullover one man with four cops, over a traffic violation. 

Hearing stories about Caucasian cops beating and abusing African-Americans is not new, perhaps especially in Los Angeles. But four cops to pull over a motorist for a traffic violation and of course these cops getting off, my words for this incident, as far as not having to do time for it. Even though they are caught on video, beating this man on the ground with knife sticks, pulling someone over for speeding.

From what I know about Rodney King, I'll be the first person to say the man wasn't a Saint. He had incidents with law, before and after this incident. But to his credit, in response to the LA riots, Rodney King asked the country or at least Los Angeles, a simple very fundamental but important question: "Can we all get along?" That this is not the way to handle in justices, that these riots are only hurting the people who live in these communities. Not LAPD or the cops that should've been punished for these crimes. 

Rodney King is a man who suffered a brutal beating at the expense of law enforcement officers, who must of been as mad as hell about that. And yet he takes the high road and asks the question: "Can we all get along?" Not accusing all cops of being thugs or all Caucasian cops of being racists. Or throwing racial slurs at them. But he wanted to know if LA could move past this and move forward as a city.

Rodney King had a rough 47 years, everything from having a drug addiction, a criminal record, blowing a lot of the money he made from the lawsuit he won against LAPD. But he did seem at least at one point, be getting his life turned around and moving forward from this. I'm not shocked to hear that King has died today, even at the young age of 47, but I'm just a little disappointed by it, because he could've done a lot more with his life, then what he did.