This is a review of Real Sports for April 15, 2008. I’m reviewing this while watching the program as it airs at 10 p.m. ET. The program has its usual four segments.
Segment #1 – The Love of the Game
Reported by Bryant Gumbel, this segment focuses on Democratic Presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (IL) and his love of sports. Two weeks ago on the campaign trail, Senator Obama showed that he could not bowl and the political pundits quickly jumped all over it. But while Obama did not win over the bowling community, past Presidents have shown their interests in athletics. Presidents Kennedy, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Bush elder and junior have all been seen playing one sport or another, whether it be football, bowling, running, golf or baseball. Senator Obama’s interests go to another sport, basketball. So a month before Senator Obama’s exploits on the bowling lanes, Real Sports talked to him about hoops.
Gumbel asked him what was so special about basketball and the Senator said he can’t imagine more fun than playing in a pick up game, hitting shots. He also enjoys watching the game. Born to a Kenyan father and a white Kansan mother, Barack grew up without a father starting from age 2. On his only visit to Hawaii, Barack, Sr. gave his 10 year old son a basketball and it would stay with him as he was growing up, coping with how to be a black man in America.
Gumbel then asked him what was it about basketball that helped him cope. Obama said basketball was a sport where blacks were not a minority. That on the court, being black gave him a level playing field. And he felt all those factors gave him a special feeling when he played. And basketball was a refuge for him. Obama mentioned that in the 1970’s, there were very cool players in the NBA such as George Gervin and his favorite, Julius Erving, Dr. J, whose poster Obama put up on his bedroom wall.
Obama immersed himself in the sport on the playgrounds of Hawaii and his school where he was only part of a handful of black students. Chris McLaughlin was the varsity basketball coach at Punahou School where Obama attended in Hawaii. Obama played on the varsity squad during his senior year in 1979 and it was the season that it won the State High School Championship. Coach McLaughlin called “Barry” Obama, a zonebuster, a player who could shoot from the outside.
Obama said his strength was not his jump shot, but his first step to the basket. He said he had speed to the basket. The Senator described himself as the 7th or 8th man off the bench. Obama said he and the coach had a difference of philosophy, but the coach’s philosophy, the Senator said, led the team to the championship. And Obama said it left him on the bench. Gumbel then stated that Obama was vocal about not getting playing time. As Obama reflected on that time, the Senator said the fact that he did not have a father to advise him, left him a bit out of control on the court. He was a playground player trying to fit in on the team and it led to conflict.
After high school, Obama went to college on the mainland where he lost touch with basketball and would not reclaim until he went to Harvard Law School. It was there he got to play pick up basketball and it was also where he started to court a young lawyer named Michelle Robinson who wanted her new man to pass a test. Craig Robinson, the newly named coach at Oregon, is Michelle’s brother. Craig, now Obama’s brother-in-law, said Michelle asked him to take him on the basketball court to see how good of a player Obama was. Craig said he could not let on that Obama was being tested and he worried that if Obama was a selfish player throwing elbows, he would have to report that to his sister. But instead, he was a team player, making passes at the right time, Craig said he understood the game and he was happy to report back to his sister. Obama joked that he passed the ball enough to Craig to prove he was a good guy.
While Obama says you cannot truly tell a person’s character from playing basketball, you can find out a few things. People who keep shooting despite not being able to shoot have a self-delusion about themselves.
Real Sports asked him to play a game of pick up basketball and he agreed to do so on March 19 (the 5th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq as it so happened) at Fort Bragg, North Carolina where he played with several troops.
Asked to assess his game now, Obama said he’s quick for a 46 year old. He could go past someone guarding him one-on-one, but he advised that it would be best to guard his jumper which he says has gotten worse since high school. And indeed, he showed the Real Sports cameras flashes of his youth by quickly driving to the basket. He also made several assists for baskets showing that he was a team player. Obama also showed some toughness defending the goal. And on game point, he drove to his left and scored the winning basket. Gumbel quickly told the Senator that he had four points, five assists, three rebounds, two turnovers, one steal and one block. Obama said that’s a well-rounded style. And he did admit that he cannot drive to his right.
Obama said there is something about basketball that connects the African American community in the same way that Jazz music connects with Black culture, an improvisation within a discipline that he finds very powerful.
But Craig Robinson, the former coach at Brown University, says his brother-in-law plays less of a so-called black game. He says Obama is a black man playing more “white” so not to get hurt. But Robinson admits after 35, everyone plays “white”.
The politics of basketball came into his campaign where Robinson went into New Hampshire, organizing 3-on-3 basketball games to recruit and register voters. Obama will do something similar in Indiana just before that state’s primary.
Gumbel asked Obama that his campaign is all about transcending race to the extent that the game is viewed as a black game. Is that counter to his message? Obama responded that they could have talked about football, but he joked that he was too skinny to play it. But football is linked to older Presidents. If Obama does get elected, he would be the first basketball player in the White House.
Asked if he would like to play George W. Bush one-on-one, Obama said he felt he could take him. He was not aware that there was a basketball court on the White House South Lawn. But if he did elected, he would put an indoor half court in the White House.
Grade – B
This segment is about the tragic death of Mike Coolbaugh, the first base coach of the Tulsa Drillers, the Double A farm team of the Colorado Rockies. Reported by Frank Deford, it happened on July 22, 2007 in Little Rock, AK as the Drillers played the Arkansas Travelers. It was a beautiful summer night, but it would turn tragic as something that had never occured in baseball would happen on that night. What happened was a one in a million occurrence.
Mandy Coolbaugh’s husband, Mike, was manning the First Base coach’s box when he was struck and killed by a line drive. The incident left behind his wife and two sons, Joey and Jake. At the time, Mandy was pregnant with their third child. Mike was respected by his teammates and loved the game of baseball. And he loved his wife and sons even more, leaving behind letters to Mandy every time he left for the season. He left them behind under her pillow, in her car, anywhere she would access. Mandy says he was very much a family man and he loved his sons.
Coolbaugh played 16 years for 15 minor league teams. His teammates joked that he was the real life Crash Davis from the movie “Bull Durham”, a career minor leaguer. He hit 256 home runs in the minors. Mandy was his
number one fan even though she didn’t understand the game. But that endeared him to her even more. One day in the 2001 season, the Milwaukee Brewers called Coolbaugh up to the Show. Mike called her and left a message on her phone that he got called up. Mandy rushed to Milwaukee in his major league debut. And he got a hit in his first at-bat. The next day, he hit his first Major League home run. He was sent back down later in the year. Coolbaugh got one more cup of coffee with the St. Louis Cardinals, but last year at the age of 35, he knew it was time to hang up his spikes and retired. In July, he got a job as the the First Base Coach and hitting instructor for the Colorado Rockies Double A minor league team.
He called Mandy to tell her that he had found his job. He liked talking to the players and giving back to the game. Tino Sanchez, a player on the team, quickly became Mike’s best friend on the team. Sanchez was another career minor leaguer. He had served as the fill-in hitting instructor before Mike joined the team and brought him up to speed. Grateful, Mike took Tino out for lunch and as they got to know each other, Tino told him that his wife was having their first baby. And Mike then told Tino that his life would change and then he told Tino about his family. Mike, of course, then told Tino that his wife was pregnant with their third child.
The next day, July 22, Mike offered to study Tino’s hitting to give him some pointers. It was at Little Rock. Tino was up in the 9th inning, hitting left handed as the designated hitter and worked the count to 3 and 2. Mike told the first base runner that if was going to third, he had to be sure. Then Tino turned on an inside fastball and it struck Mike. And there was a tragic death on the diamond.
Phil Elson and Bill Valetine were calling the game on radio that night. Valentine says after Tino hit Coolbaugh, he threw his hands up in the air, then put them on his head and quickly ran over to Mike. Coincidentally, Valentine was the umpire behind the plate in 1967 when Boston Red Sox outfielder Tony Conigliaro was hit in the face by a pitch from Los Angeles Angels pitcher Jack Hamilton.
Tino got emotional when the doctor tried to bring Mike back. But he could not. And back in San Antonio, Mandy Coolbaugh got a phone call saying her husband was unconscious and she should get to Little Rock as fast as possible. She went there and brought a black maternity dress with her hoping she would not have to wear it. And as she was packing the car, she got the call that Mike didn’t make it. As she stated, her world was just shattered.
Doctors came out of the stands and rushed to Mike, but there was nothing that could be done. The ball was traveling at over 100 miles an hour and crushed an artery in Mike’s neck. His death was instantaneous. The Drillers did their best to console a distraught Sanchez.
He went to Puerto Rico to get away, but after 17 days, his wife still had not given birth so he went back to the team. Tino could not imagine the first person he would meet.
Mike’s brother, Scott, was also a First Base Coach. He was a coach in the Texas Rangers system and he had helped with the funeral arrangements for his brother. His first game back was against the Tulsa Drillers, Mike’s old team. Tino Sanchez was a replacement at first base and Scott was standing in the first base coach’s box. Tino didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t look at Scott. Scott did talk to him the following day and said there was no blame involved.
Tino thought about Mandy and wrote her a letter telling her how lovingly he had spoken about her and their boys the day before he was killed. Mandy says Tino is a victim in this too. And he’s not playing baseball, but he’s become a coach in Puerto Rico like his friend, Mike. He says he thinks about Mike often and he wants to do good things in baseball as Mike was heading to do.
As for Mandy, MLB and the Colorado Rockies invited her and her boys to throw out the first pitch before a playoff game last October. The Rockies players voted Mike a full World Series share of $230,000. Mandy has used that to set up a trust fund for her sons and new daughter, Ann Michael Coolbaugh. A few weeks ago, sons Joey and Jake and Ann Michael visited the Rockies spring training camp in Tuscon, AZ.
Mandy says the sons don’t understand the concept of where’s daddy. She says they feel close to their daddy when they’re around baseball.
Frank says a helmet would not have been able to save Coolbaugh. He was hit in a place where a helmet could not have saved him. And his friend, Tino Sanchez is still haunted by what happened. Frank said the fact that he talked to Real Sports showed a lot of courage. Bryant asked what the financial situation was and while the Colorado Rockies gave Mandy a full World Series share, she will have to go back to work to support the kids.
A heartwrenching story. Grade – A+
Reported by James Brown, this is a profile of the outfielder of the Anaheim Angels, who had previously played for the Minnesota Twins for nine seasons. The perennial Gold Glover is now playing in Southern California, being paid a handsome sum. But for Hunter, he sees something very troubling in the ballparks across America. Hunter was quoted as saying ten years from now, there will be no blacks in baseball. Hunter admits to JB that he might have been exaggerating, but 20 years from now, there will be a big decrease in African Americans in baseball. Right now, there is an all-time low of African American playing baseball, 8.2%. He says it could be 4%. He wants to know why black children are not playing baseball.
He says there’s nothing hip-hop about baseball. Girls don’t like it. The perception is that baseball is not cool. Hunter says it is cool. He plays it. He is hip-hop. But his plea may be falling on deaf ears.
In a league of 30 teams and 1,100 players, less than 100 are African American. Last season, neither the Atlanta Braves or the Houston Astros had any on their Opening Day rosters. The vanishing act is also in the stands. It hadn’t always been that way.
In the 1970’s, African Americans comprised 27% of Major League rosters. For years, these statistics have irked players like Hunter. Last November, Commissioner Bud Selig summoned some of the more influential African Americans to his office to talk about the problem. Hunter wanted to know what baseball would do to bring blacks back to the game.
Hunter says Jackie Robinson’s participation in baseball was an American event, not just an African American event. And MLB’s RBI program, an outreach to the inner cities began operating in 1989 and in 2006, it opened an Urban Youth Academy in Compton, CA. However, as RBI enters its 20th year, it has not stemmed the decrease in African American players.
Hunter sees social forces beyond MLB’s control. He says 60% of inner city homes are single parent families, many missing a father to play catch with their sons. While baseball has missed the boat in the inner city, football and basketball have caught on. Hunter is not giving up on inner city youth because it was baseball that took him out of Pine Bluff, AK.
It was a town ripe with drugs, gangs and poverty that it was deemed as the nation’s worst city in a survey of 300 communities. Hunter said his childhood’s goal was not to get shot or killed. He said in urban areas, that was the goal of many kids. Hunter said he had a gun to protect himself.
His mother, Shirley, kept Torii and his three brothers involved in sports while his father, Theotis was an inconsistent presence battling demons from Vietnam. Theotis did kick a heroin habit, but he got other addictions after getting a facial injury. Torii found a crack pipe in the pocket of his coat that his father had borrowed from him when he was 13. But in the
same year, 1989, Torii’s Babe Ruth League team traveled to New Mexico taking him out of Pine Bluff for the first time. It changed his life. He realized he wanted to get out of Pine Bluff. He worked harder on baseball. His grades got better. Torii wanted to get out and he used baseball to do it.
In 1993, Minnesota Twins General Manager Andy McPhail called Torii to tell him he was drafted 20th in the first round. Part of his signing bonus was used to buy a new car, but his father drove off with it and was missing for a week. So Torii called his friend and prospect for the St. Louis Cardinals, Basil Shabazz. They found his father and the car, then drove to a local college to visit a friend.
Torii then tells JB that Basil decided to take a nap in the car. A policeman then saw Basil, thought he was either sleeping or dead. Basil pulled a gun on the cop thinking he was being carjacked. The car was searched and they found Theotis’ drugs. Theotis then said the drugs could have been his. He didn’t know for sure. Both Shabazz and Torii took the rap. Management did not look kindly on either prospect. Shabazz ended up being released. But Hunter was given a second chance.
After four years, he was called up to the big club, then won 7 consecutive Gold Gloves and became one of the most popular players with the Twins. In the 2002 All Star Game, Hunter took a home run away from Barry Bonds. Thanks to his salary, Hunter was able to move his brothers out Pine Bluff, but his father stayed behind.
Torii said that during games, he would be thinking about his father, if he was dead, then he would go out make a catch in the outfield then go back to thinking about his father.
Powerless to help his father, Hunter started the Torii Hunter Project, to get inner city kids to start playing baseball and do something different with their lives. JB says Torii wants to do something for the kids that he got back in 1989. If he touches 150 kids and they touch 50, he feels he’s doing his job.
But Torii’s wife, Katrina, convinced him he had some unfinished business with his father. Making peace with Theotis. And five years ago, he reached out to his father and made up with him. Theotis says he wishes he could have taken back the past, but what’s important is that they’re back together again.
Torii has given back so much that he has won the Marvin Miller Award for his Community Service. And Torii wants to help the game keep on giving.
JB says Torii wants to market the game to urban areas with commercials, but Bryant says kids aren’t watching the game. And inner city kids know they can become stars in football and basketball quicker than they can in baseball.
Grade – A
Reported by Bernard Goldberg, this is an update of a story done six years ago. It’s about Lee Benson, a 6 foot 11 inch basketball player with a dream of playing in the NBA. Since college, Benson has played all over the world, Israel, Saudi Arabia, China and Puerto Rico. But those venues don’t compare with the one in a High Security prison in Ohio where he was ordered to throw a game over cigarettes. Benson says the lights went out and someone tried to cut him. With a knife.
But in 2002 when Real Sports first met him, Benson was playing for a junior college in Salinas, KS, located in a strip mall. He was considered to be one of the best college freshman in the country, but it was doubtful any NBA scouts could find him playing for Brown Mackie Junior College. At the time, he was 28.
His journey began in Dayton, OH. There, he developed into one of the best players in the country. Ben Price, a director of youth basketball in Ohio said Benson had amazing speed for a player, 6’8″ or 6’9″. Price said he was the top player in the city. He said Benson was a dominating player.
Benson received numerous recruiting letters, but never opened them because he had other interests, like dealing crack. After his junior year, he dropped out of school and amassed 11 arrests on various charges. Ben Price, who counseled youths, tried to straighten Benson out. He told him if he didn’t get out of the mess, he would head straight to prison.
Sure enough, in 1992, Benson got into a dispute with a crack addict and one of Benson’s posse shot and killed another client. Benson avoided a murder charge and got a 25 year prison sentence. But Benson said he wasn’t bad, he just wanted to be like everyone else in the ‘hood. He said he acted stupid and it cost him almost all of his 20’s.
But in prison, Benson met Price in prison. It seems Price was moonlighting as a major cocaine dealer himself. And Price was in jail for 15 to life so Price decided to help Benson survive prison. Price explained basketball in prison was a whole new game. Price says it was called Commando Ball because it was so physical. Benson says driving to the basket meant people would start jumping on his back. So Benson developed a jump shot.
Price encouraged Benson to stay clean. But then Benson found out a man who killed his younger brother was coming to jail. Benson did not retaliate because he wanted to get out. But Benson might still be in jail if not for Brown Mackie’s basketball coach, Francis Flax. Eight years ago, Flax was recruiting players when he heard about Benson. He went to prison and met Benson.
Flax was expecting a smart-ass person, but instead, found a different person. And Flax read his prison record when he found something that glared at him. That Benson was eligible for parole in 1998 and it was 2000 when Flax was reading his record. While Benson was hoping for parole, Flax was lobbying the Salinas community that Benson was good. If something went wrong, Flax knew that he was going to get run out of town. But Benson said he would not let him down.
A lot of people expected Benson to be drafted in the NBA, but it never happened. Benson says he knows his criminal record kept him out of the league. With help from coach Flax, Benson played overseas on four continents. With the money he made from playing basketball, Benson was able to buy the vending machine company that his mother worked for and now runs. And he bought a house in Dayton where he raises his 3 year old son. And he still says thanks to coach Flax by sending money to help buy shoes for the Brown Mackie program.
Benson also played on coach Flax’s minor league team in Kansas to help him win a championship. Coach Flax says it was a nice ending to something that started in 2001.
Benson plans to go back to school, get his degree and helped troubled youth.
Grade – A.
Final Words – Jackie Robinson
Bryant talked about this being the anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s breaking the color barrier in baseball.
Grade – B.
Overall grade for tonight, A-. Another stellar effort by the Real Sports team.
