25 years since the Bronco
Game 5, OJ & Me
I lived in Israel from 1993 to 1994. The internet did not exist in my world. TV barely existed in my world. My sum total of international news was brought to me through letters and occasionally finding a copy of USA Today International or the International Herald Tribune. On the rare occasion I found myself in a hotel room or near a TV I enjoyed the glory of CNN International. My parents and friends sent me tapes of Howard Stern. I also regularly received sports clippings about the Yankees, Jets, Temple University basketball, and my beloved New York Knickerbockers.
Back then I knew everything about the Knicks and most of the NBA. I studied statistics like an actuary and knew every player from every team. To say I was a basketball fanatic would be an understatement. Even in my early 20's I cut out pictures of the players I admired and turned them into collages on my walls like a little boy. I hoped to be a basketball coach, announcer or general manager. Before Champion made replica jerseys I had a custom Dan Majerle Phoenix Suns jersey made. Basketball was a significant part of my existence.
I was in Israel and my Knicks made the finals after years of futility against the Chicago Bulls. This was a HUGE deal for me. I was as thrilled as I had ever been as a sports fan. The evil Michael Jordan had retired. The Knicks beat the Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals. Patrick Ewing, John Starks and the rest of the gang were taking on Hakeem and the Rockets for the NBA title.
In the interest of full transparency I don’t remember the first four games of the finals. I didn’t watch them. I don’t remember if I even knew the outcomes. I don’t remember anything aside from game 5. Looking back now it was an amazing series with the Knicks stealing game 2 in Houston and then the Rockets reclaiming home court by sheer force of Hakeem’s will in game 3. (He led the team in points, rebounds and assists while shutting Ewing down)
I remember game 5 because I was at a conference in Jerusalem and that meant access to the news. I was staying in a youth hostel or conference center that didn’t have TVs so I tried to organize a group to go to a hotel and watch in the hotel bar. The game was slated to start at 4:00 AM Israel time on June 18th. Nothing I knew of was open, much less showing the game.
I was extremely short of cash as doing community service in Israel for a year pays just north of nothing. I decided that missing this pivotal game 5, just because I couldn’t really afford the hotel room, was not something I was willing to do. I counted my shekels, found a hotel I could afford that also had cable TV in the rooms, and checked in.
It is important to understand at this moment that I didn’t know. The only thing I knew about O.J. was he was an ex football player who did TV commercials and movies. I didn’t know Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman had been murdered (or who they were). I didn’t know O.J. Simpson was the prime suspect. I didn’t know who Al Cowlings and Kato Kaelin were or that the entire tragic affair swept the country so sensationally. I did not know.
I picked up some food and brought it into the hotel, set a wake up call for 3:30 AM and went to sleep. I spent the better part of a year sleeping on cots or in bunks so I remember being in an actual bed was kind of nice.
The wake up call came. I found the appropriate channel on the TV and waited for the game to start. After being in Israel for 10 months or so I spoke Hebrew pretty well. I could hold a conversation, had a pretty strong vocabulary and a decent accent. My fluency however, did not extend to sports announcer speed. Sports announcers, as it happens, talk with extreme speed.
The game started. The first quarter was a really good back and forth and the quarter ended with Knicks up by 1. During the second quarter however the Knicks really started to pull away and I was getting really into it. Then, something strange started to happen. At first a little picture in picture box appeared with a white truck driving on a highway. If the Israeli announcers knew it was there they were talking way too fast for me to grasp the explanation. It was mildly annoying because it wasn’t like hotel had big screen TVs and the box covered part of the score when they flashed it, but it wasn’t a huge deal so I basically ignored it. A few more minutes went by and the Knicks were playing very well and then, for reasons I did not understand, the broadcast went to a split screen. Half NBA finals. Half truck.
I believe my exact words were, “What the F*** is this bull-***?!?”
I said it out loud. I was not quiet. It was about 4:30 AM
The longer it went on, the more upset I got.
When the screen got to this configuration I lost my mind!
The stream of curses I unleashed would curdle a trucker’s blood. I was also stomping around the hotel room. I was loud. I was profane. I was, at 22 years old, on the verge of a stroke. The phone rang.
“Sir we’ve had a number of noise complaints. If you cannot be quiet, you will be asked to leave the hotel.”
“Yes, yes, of course. Sorry”
I hung up the phone, picked up the pillow and screamed into it while rocking back and forth on the bed like a traumatized child.
The screen went completely to the car chase and I nearly blacked out. I realized at some point that the game reached halftime. I found CNN International and learned why my beloved Knicks were relegated to a 4 inch square in the corner of the television.
The Knicks won the game and I got one of those stories that you tell forever. I’ve told it so many times, so passionately that every year, someone reminds me what day it is.
