Chas,

That Kevin Harlan comment about the Big Aristotle had me ruminating on my favorite genuinely spontaneous sportscaster utterances of all time. Al Michaels supposedly ad-libbed his "Do you believe in miracles?" line after the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team won its gold medal, but I've long been suspicious that it was prefabricated and trotted out, so it doesn't make my list.

Long as we're talking Barkley, one item on my list involved him, moments after he and the Sixers has been eliminated from the playoffs 10 years or so ago, whereupon Charles sat—and sat—stunned on the floor. Marv Albert produced the perfect precedent, alluding to that South Korean boxer at the Seoul Olympics who, peeved at having been judged the loser, sat for what seemed like hours in the ring, even after they'd turned out the lights (you've got to add the Albertian emphasis here for full effect): "Reminiscent of Byun Jong Il at the Chamshil Students Gymnasium!"

My other favorite requires you to put on your cricket cap (which I know you have stashed deep in some closet, behind your Bingo's of Milwaukee and Hoodoo Bar-B-Q caps). Seems that a while back England had a batsman named Peter Willey, and the Windies had a fast bowler named Michael Holding—and some BBC commentator, utterly innocently, merely setting the scene, actually said, "The bowler's Holding, the batsman's Willey." It just hung in the dead air, as cricket commentary tends to do.

Thanks for that Slam-style outcue. At Sports Illustrated, as you might imagine, the mail doesn't often bring letters from readers that go, "Wassup Illustrated. Ya mag is phatter than Oliver Miller."

Later,
Alex