An Amazing Evening In Springfield!

I have never watched a Hall of Fame induction ceremony for any sport. This coming from the guy who grew up watching Larry Bird and Joe Montana like they were mythical beings. Nope, never watched any of them be inducted into their respective Hall of Fame's. To be honest, I wasn't going to watch this one either. I was a little interested in it due to the magnitude of the induction class. I mean, Michael Jordan, David Robinson, John Stockton, Vivian Stringer and Jerry Sloan are probably as good as it gets, but still, I was more interested in watching Colorado get smoked by Toledo. Then I got a text message from a friend.

The text came in after I had sent over a lovely remark about my Buffalo's getting murdered in Ohio. Thankfully, he was kind and said that their play was unexpected. I love when friends are nice to you. Like if you were a girl trying on dresses and you asked someone how it looks on you. Yea, you are always nice to your friends even when the news is bad. But I digress. My buddy asked me if I had a chance to see the HOF induction ceremony and how unbelievable it was. I told him that I was turning off a horror movie (I get to bag on my team if I want!) and I was looking for something to watch. As luck would have it, I flipped up to NBATV and they were showing a re-broadcast of it and David Robinson was walking up to the podium.

You know, I knew David Robinson was a nice guy and that he was heavily involved in church activities and other charitable endeavours. However, after watching his induction speech I was left pondering a few questions. First, how has this guy never ran for Governor of Texas. Is it just me or would he win by a landslide? And secondly, why can't NBA commissioner David Stern have Robinson meet with all rookies before they report to their first training camp and just speak to them about respect and values? Wouldn't the league be a better place if that happened? I'm just saying.

Next up was John Stockton. Something about watching grown men cry during retirement ceremonies always bugged me. I know they are sad that they are leaving their sport that they love....blah blah blah. But when Stockton was talking about his mom and that she should have been there and that he tries to mirror his dad every day of his life, I almost started to ball. I was this close to calling my mom and dad to tell them how much I loved them. All joking aside, the way that Stockton spoke about his hometown and also about how the city of Salt Lake took him in, it was inspiring. Also, when his speech began I was wondering who invited Chewbacca to the ceremony and then it dawned on me. Holy crap, that's Mark Eaton. Anyway, Stockton was just as humble as Robinson had been and I was impressed with the first two inductees of the night.

Alright, the next two people were Vivan Stringer and Jerry Sloan....I hit the fast forward button on the dvr and moved right on to his airness. I know, I suck and I probably should have listened to them because they deserve the right to be heard. Yea, but it was MJ time. You would have done the same thing if you had taped it too. You know if you watched it live you were like, "Dude is she done yet? And, come on already Sloan, we know you love Stockton and Malone."

No was MJ time. After watching an awesome video with some career highlights (although my favorite dunk was missing, the one where MJ goes baseline and dunks on Patrick Ewing) and having my second holy crap is that who I think it is (this time it was Toni Kukoc) they panned in on Jordan. My first thought was wow MJ looks good, man I'm such a liar. Actually, my first thought was who is the girl sitting next to him? Is that his girlfriend, wife or hooker? I mean hired escort for the evening. Next was his speech.

Of course I expected this to be the highlight of the evening. It was....sort of. I mean I expected the speech to be along the same lines as Robinson's and Stockton's. They were humble, appreciative and inspiring. It started off like that with Jordan saying that he never won a championship without Scottie Pippen as his teammate. But then, after some other thank yous, he starts to bag on former Bulls GM Jerry Krause, who he never got along with anyway. Then he starts talking about how great he was, at one point he is talking to his kids and telling them that he wouldn't want to be in their shoes with the kind of pressure they are going to have to endure.

He continues on to thank more people, none of who is the mysterious girl by his side. He then gives a nice story about a time that he and Pat Riley met up in Hawaii. Riley was staying in a suite at a hotel and Jordan was coming in the day that Riley was supposed to leave. Jordan convinces him to stay, but Riley was in Jordan's room and as Jordan put it, "Oh yea, he left my suite." Finally he says he wasn't going to say anything about this person, but he starts to talk about Bryon Russell and how Russell had talked trash to him when he was retired the first time and how Jordan was going to retaliate.

My first HOF induction ceremony was a good one. It was cool to see all the HOFers up on stage and to see the individual speeches. I enjoyed the highlight reels and the jokes and stories. Robinson and Stockton were my favorite speakers of the night. Jordan wasn't bad, but he wasn't great. I guess I expected something different from him. Well, he still is the best player to ever play the game, just not the best at giving speeches!

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