NBA Tip-Off Special

It's the most wonderful time of the year, folks: the NBA season will finally get underway tonight, as the defending champions, the Miami Heat, face the Chicago Bulls. Derrick Rose's return to regular season action promises to be an exciting one, despite the collective cringe that Bulls fans will perform each time he falls to the floor. 

Between Miami's pursuit of a three-peat, an accomplishment that would arguably thrust Lebron James into the Michael Jordan/Kobe Bryant echelon of the NBA Pantheon, and #The(LongAwaited)Return, 

the 2013-14 Season Opener has been hyped since the matchup was announced in August. From a historical perspective, though, it is just the next in a long line of highly anticipated NBA Tip-Off contests. 

Over the past sixty-seven years, the National Basketball Association has transformed itself from a small amalgamation of teams known as the Basketball Association of America (BAA) to a multi-billion-dollar display of dazzling sports entertainment. Each season has been accompanied by new story lines, new faces, 

old faces in new places, and, above all, the intrigue of a new year.

The first-ever NBA game took place on November 1, 1946- in Canada, of all places. The New York Knickerbockers defeated Toronto Huskies 68-66 in a game that hardly resembled that of the modern era ("The First Game"). The shot clock had not yet come into existence, the jump shot was a less-popular alternative to the set shot, and tickets prices didn't exceed the GDP per capita of a developing nation.

In its awkward teenage years, the NBA would gain one of its all-time greats. Having already achieved national recognition for his dominance as a Kansas Jayhawk and a Harlem Globetrotter, twenty-three year old Wilt Chamberlain made his NBA debut on October 24, 1959. "The Big Dipper" gave a glimpse of his record-setting career to come, scoring 43 points while gathering an absurd 28 rebounds ("Philadelphia Warriors at New York Knicks"). Three years later, Wilt would become the only player to ever score 100 points in a single game. 

Ever the scoring threat, Chamberlain would
later claim to have slept with 20,000 women.
According to MentalFloss.com, that'd be about
500 women per year...

Over the next few decades, the NBA competed with the American Basketball Association (ABA) for basketball hegemony. That changed on August 5, 1976, when the NBA-ABA merger resulted in the addition of four new teams for the 1976-77 season. On October 21, 1976, the Indiana Pacers became the first former ABA team to compete in a regular season NBA game, falling to the John Havlicek-led Boston Celtics, 129-122 ("Boston Celtics at Indiana Pacers"). Interestingly, no former ABA team would win an NBA title until 1999, when the San Antonio Spurs won their first of four championships. 

Less than a decade after the merger, Michael Jordan made his debut in the NBA. By the 1984-85 season, the NBA had asserted itself among the major sports leagues in North America- due in large part to the marketability of superstars such as Ervin "Magic" Johnson and Larry "The Hick from French Lick" Bird. Michael Jordan took the term "superstar" to an entirely new level during his illustrious career with the Chicago Bulls. That all started on October 26, 1984, when he gave the 13,913 in attendance at Chicago Stadium a glimpse of what was to come over the next decade and a half (6 championships, 6 Finals MVP Awards, 5 Regular Season MVP Awards, 10 Scoring Titles, and 14 All Star Appearances, to be exact).

After Jordan’s retirement, no player’s NBA debut was as highly anticipated Lebron James's first appearance with the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2003. Since that time, though, James's name has become more associated with “The Decision,” in which he left Cleveland for Miami in July 2010. Arguably the most impactful free agent decision since Shaquille O’Neal left Orlando for Los Angeles in 1996, it came as no surprise that Miami’s 2010-11 season opener against the Boston Celtics delivered record-setting ratings, reaching a total of 7,433,000 viewers ("TNT Has Record-Setting Ratings for NBA Season Opener"). Hell hath no fury like a Cleveland sports fan scorned, though, and much to their delight, James committed 8 turnovers in Miami’s 88-80 defeat.

Since that time, the Heat have made three straight Finals appearances—winning the last two. Tonight, they begin their journey towards a fourth straight Finals appearance, a feat which has only occurred three times in the history of the NBA (Boston Celtics, 1959-66; Los Angeles Lakers, 1982-85; Boston Celtics, 1984-87). Meanwhile, the Bulls seek to live up to the high expectations surrounding Derrick Rose’s return to action after an 18-month recovery from his ACL tear in the 2012 NBA Playoffs. At 8 PM ET on TNT, the journey will begin for the Bulls, Heat, and twenty-eight other teams across the league. 

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"Boston Celtics at Indiana Pacers." Basketball-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC, n.d. Web. 28 Oct. 2013. <http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/197610210IND.html>.
Goldaper, Sam. "The First Game." NBA.com. National Basketball Association. Web. 28 Oct. 2013 <http://www.nba.com/history/firstgame_feature.html>.

"Philadelphia Warriors at New York Knicks." Basketball-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC, n.d. Web. 28 Oct. 2013. <http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/195910240NYK.html>.
"TNT Has Record-setting Ratings for NBA Season Opener." NBA.com. National Basketball Association, n.d. Web. 29 Oct. 2013. <http://www.nba.com/2010/news/10/27/tnt-ratings/>.

Great Moments in Mustaches

The development of aesthetic trends throughout history has proven to be a curious, rather bizarre process. After some careful consideration, one thing becomes increasingly evident: the prominent role of the mustache (and cloaks. Never forget cloaks.).

So, without further ado, this installment of The Hopeless Historian will serve as tribute to some of history’s finest mustaches, the men who sported them, and their greatest achievements—facilitated, of course, by their distinguished nose neighbors.

William Howard Taft

Starting off with a bang, and a big one at that. Checking in at 335 lbs (Sotos, "Taft and Pickwick"), Taft served not only as the 27th President of the United States (1909-13), but also as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (1921-30). As if his ascension to the top of the Executive & Legislative Branches wasn’t enough on its own, Taft was also the last president to sport a ‘stache—or any form of facial hair, for that matter (I’m looking at you, Obama).

Joshua Chamberlain

Chamberlain was literally a walrus—and a valiant one, at that. Having enlisted in the Union Army with no prior military training in 1862, Chamberlain achieved acclaim the very next year at the Battle of Gettysburg. He led the 20th Maine Regiment’s critical defense of Little Round Top—preserving the union’s left flank against repeated Confederate assaults with nothing to hide behind but his mustache (Simpson, "Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain").

Owen K. Garriott

Twelve long years after Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human being to venture into outer space, Owen K. Garriott became the first human being to wear a mustache in outer space. On July 28, 1973, Garriott and two other astronauts began their 59-day flight (Grinter, "Skylab 3"). Termed Skylab 3, the mission was more than twice as long as the previous record holder, and 59 days longer than any previous mustache-clad mission.

Honorable Mention: Leonid Brezhnev’s Eyebrow

Dishonorable Mention: Michael Jordan’s Hitler ‘Stache

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Grinter, Kay. "Skylab 3." Kennedy Space Center. NASA, n.d. Web. <http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/history/skylab/skylab-3.htm>.

Simpson, Brooks D. "Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain." American National Biography Online. Oxford University Press, n.d. Web. <http://www.anb.org/articles/04/04-00218.html?a=1>.

Sotos, John G. "Taft and Pickwick: Sleep Apnea in the White House." CHEST Journal 124.3 (2003):  ChestNet. American College of Chest Physicians. Web. <http://journal.publications.chestnet.org/article.aspx?articleid=1081865>.

Hopeless History 101: Intro to Blogging

To commemorate the dawning of my senior year at The Ohio State University, I’ve decided to launch a blatant resume-boosting initiative: This blog. A few admirably optimistic individuals have told me that the job prospects for a History major are “hopeless,” so I decided to carve out this little niche for my hopeless musings on various happenings throughout human history.

The assumption that this undertaking will be of any benefit beyond my own entertainment and historical curiosity rests on my hopeless expectation that someone is reading all of this. Regardless of readership, I’ll write about several quirky, hopefully-entertaining bits of history; ranging from politics, to sports, to music, to Teddy Roosevelt.

In the typical catch-all fashion of a twenty-one year old who chose a liberal arts degree with an undefined career path, I may choose to cover a singular, fascinating historical event one day (Christmas Truce of 1914, anyone?) and then explain in my next post why your tenth grade neighbor’s assertion that Lebron James is the greatest basketball player of all time is unequivocally incorrect.

Wilt to Michael: "So my neighbor came up to me the other day..."

Sometimes I’ll simply post a few thought-provoking historical photographs—after all, a picture is worth a thousand words and I am getting paid by the character… Just kidding, I don’t make jack. Maybe someday, but for now I’m just a Hopeless History Major.