NR TOP 10 MAY - History - Sports Make a Clean Sweep

As strange as it may seem, when I met John Wooden I thought I was talking to GOD. Then I realized that I was in the presence of a SCHOOL TEACHER who personified dignity and panache.

Bill Walton played through pain and injuries. He was rewarded late in his career being a member of the 1986 NBA championship Boston Celtics team. It was his second NBA title - (Steve Lipofsky photo)

To Piazza, winning the game, hitting a home run and scoring the winning run... none of that was his most memorable moment of the game - (Screen shot - photo)

According to Bob Pettit he has never seen and power forward IN ANY EARA as skilled as the former Minneapolis/Los Angeles Lakers Elgin Baylor - (Screen shot - photo)

Chuck Finley

Jim Murray the Michael Jordan of sports journalism - (Jim Murray Foundation photo)

Marshal Faulk the ramming Ram

Marshal Faulk rhe man

Although the Lakers Died Nasty, Kobe Bryant was involved in that era but eventually the Black Mamba and the team got it together to win NBA titles - (Keith Allison - photo)

BUT… THERE'S A CATCH. A reminder… the history column is published quarterly. It depicts our most popular stories since our radio broadcast and Internet production inception in 1989 and 1997 respectively. The stories are not necessarily in order of being published or broadcast but as it gained popularity over time on all platforms, radio, text and Internet. Our first history column went missing due to our being off line from our host company for two weeks therefore this is a replacement of our first TOP 10 most popular stories. This is a long ugly account that we will go into detail at a later date. It represents a consumer reports story regarding the abortion of Internet ownership and quality of service. The US government played a part in its degradation

Saturday May 31, 2025

REPAIRING THE DAMAGE

Believe it or not the US government had it right when they were in charge of Internet registrations. Since that time when we first signed on they were honest and receipts were sent out noting receiving our payment. Then... the government cut it loose to the public and things have gotten out of hand.

This month's History TOP 10 is a repeat of our initial 1 through 10 TOP 10 HISTORY column that was technically trashed by a mystery ISP (Internet Service Provider) company.

Apparently, the company we signed up with was sold. We were unable to upload for two weeks. One column went up in a POOF right before our eyes it was gone as we uploaded it. When we asked WHO ARE YOU… they failed to reply.

For service we can't talk to a rep as we have for the past 10 years. It now takes a ticket and we'll get back to you via text in their new way of doing business. It's a long sad story but this is the tip of the iceberg and we'll go into detail at another time.

This 1 thru 10 HISTORY has slightly changed given a recall of stories that went big as radio features that we omitted in the previous edition.

What is as solid as a rock is former UCLA basketball coach John Wooden commands the No. 1 spot. He was on three radio networks as well as being published in print in the English and French language columns. Finally, we uploaded his story to out Internet outlet. His story continues to rank in the top 20 of our listings for over 30 years including the radio feature interest.

Ranked 2nd is NFL Hall of Fame player Marshall Faulk. This is the story that was our greatest accomplishment given the odds that were stacked against us if he would talk. We found that out after driving 125 miles the San Diego State University SID (Sports Information Director) said Faulk was shy and we believe that he never did an interview up to that time. It was understandable since he was a few weeks out of high school and not yet accumulated to being in college.

The story was intended for the NCAA show College Sports USA. My immediate contact at the network said the NCAA frowned on doing stories on freshman. They preferred stories on upper classman, All American Academics or hardship stories. The bottom line is I didn't want to drive round-trip 250 miles and not get my story.

The interview came about a week after he set an NCAA record of rushing 37 times for 386 yards and scoring 7 TDs (touchdowns) in a game. It was only his second college game. To understand how we finally achieved our goal well…. Simply read the story.

Things changed since that day; Faulk has talked so much he was a football game analyst on TV. He gives motivational speeches to college athletes. As the saying goes…. My how times have changed.

NBA legend Bill Walton takes the 3rd position. This is one of the changes. We forgot that his story aired on the NCAA show and another feature on an NCAA Tournament game with a radio feature during half time.

Since his death in May 2024 our story on him and our experience has remained in the NR TOP 20.

NFL Hall of Fame player Walter Payton notched 4th place. He has been on the charts AGAIN since we revisited the story leading up to the Super Bowl. His story was a Super Bowl story and an attempt to have a franchise granted too him and his partners to be based in St. Louis.

Augghhhh… our story on RACIST RADIO takes slot No. 5. This story is one of the most visited articles since we published it in 1998. This tale joins a group of the most popular NR articles of all time along with John Wooden, Jim Murray and Dr. Beat Richner. The racist man has maintained a frequent presence in the NR TOP 10 since 1889 only as a text entry.

For what it's worth one of his minions has surfaced on the RT News channel. Apparently, his racist ways have earned him a position as a university associate professor. We'll delve into that later.

The summer of 1998 was a hot streak for sports stories. There were four top stories in a row beginning with the aforementioned Racist Radio. Angels With Dirty Faces followed taking the 6th spot. This was one game I will never forget. On Sunday June 2, 1998 Angels Stadium, the California Angel and Kansas City Royal players were on fire as they battled each other during the game. It got so heated they began an ensemble boxing match. This was a real donnybrook. There wasn't this touching each other and then running away it was all about making serious contact and taking one another to the ground UFC style.

The Angels didn't spread their wings and fly away, NO… they tucked them in, whipped out their muscles and started to pound away at their attackers rolling around in the dirt and getting their squeaky clean red, white and blue uniforms all soiled up and… WHA-LA… they became the Anaheim Avengers.

The Angels then injury list would make the medical unit form MASH proud and hope that the bleeding would stop then having six on the list. Despite what happened the Angles seemed to be on top of overcoming adversity and as a result, have developed a strong inner strength.

The moral of this story was don't mess with the Angels with DIRTY FACES or they might [as the Beatles once sang] Come Together.'

Jim Murray was a Pulitzer Prize columnist and cofounder of Sports Illustrated Magazine. The strange thing was I didn't know much about him except that he was a great columnist that I read and considered one of the best in the business. I talked to Murray in the Press Box prior to a football game at the Rose Bowl. He was really interested in me since I was a newcomer in the business.

But I really found out who he was following a Super Bowl game in Minneapolis when I sat down on the last seat available on the bus returning to the media hotel. Amazingly I was sitting next to his wife. She was very friendly and since I admitted my experience with her husband, she filled me in on who he really was. Remember… there was no Wikipedia at the time and information on what was the internet in 1992 was none to nil.

The Murray story is one of our TOP 4 OF ALL TIME. During the early 2000's it was firmly on our charts alternating the top spot with Dr. Beat Richner. This History month it takes 7th place.

THE PI[a]ZZA MAN RETURNS TO LA, AND... HE DELIVERS from August 1998 ranks 8th. Oddly enough this is a story of events that surprisingly returned to the charts at the beginning of the baseball season.

It is one of our favorite articles since we really felt the emotion of that game. Piazza was one of my favorite players. I was shocked that the Dodgers traded him, after all he was the godson on the Dodgers then manager Tommy LaSorda.

Piazza fitted Dodger Stadium like a hot dog in a roll. He seemed to thrive in the Chavez Ravine environment like a fox in the hills. When his name was announced before the game the crowd cheered with intense enthusiasm. It was the return of the Pi[a]zza Man. Piazza had a tremendous game.

The crowd was aroused to his every move. In Piazza's second trip to the plate, he led off the fourth inning with his team still trailing 3-0. He smashed the first pitch, a hot bullet of a line drive, back to pitcher CARLOS PEREZ. Perez amazingly caught the ball. More so, out of self-defense. It was such an outstanding play the crowd cheered for.... PEREZ. The ball was hit so hard that if Perez were the Angels much battered pitcher CHUCK FINLEY, he would have been carried off on a stretcher or... IN A COFFIN. Piazza agreed.

In the story the takes the 9th position we questioned Better Than Jordan? ELGIN BAYLOR!!!

For those that don't know and whose NBA knowledge starts wit Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant don't have a clue who we are talking about. The reality is those that played against Baylor don't dispute the rationale.

I saw Baylor play during his rookie year until the end of his career. After five season he had knee problems that he says was from calcium on the knees. He told me that but I never wrote it. I've always felt he was injured by a dirty hit from an opponent of a playoff game I was listening to on the radio. The team was owned by a known racist. I didn't write these thoughts in this text story; I'm simply relating to this now after the radio feature was broadcast. The text story came much later.

The 10th spot is owned by our four-part series on the LA Lakers titled Lakers Die Nasty. Yes… a play on words. Quite honestly, we nave though about this story since we published it. It was popular for about five years during the early 2000's. I truth… we have to read it again to recall what we wrote and thought about the Hollyweird Lakers at that time.

Cheers…