Museum pieces together a winner
Tevye and his friends in Anatevka are not the only folks with a healthy respect for tradition.
Rusty Sullivan and Dick Johnson of The Sports Museum annually serve up healthy doses of their own "Tradition" when they put together a program to honor the best of our best when it comes to New England athletes who have distinguished themselves.
This year's festivities will take place at TD Banknorth Garden June 24. We all know these are not exactly robust economic times, but if there's a birthday or, say, Father's Day coming up for the dedicated sports fan in your family, this superb evening would be worth the $250 for preferred seating or the $150 for a general admission ticket. You get a full reception gala for your money.
We have been, of course, absurdly blessed in the matter of athletic greatness in these parts. The Red Sox got things rolling by winning championships in 1903, 1912, 1915, 1916, and 1918. In 1926, Eddie Shore showed up to inaugurate an amazing run of no-questions-asked, first-ballot Hall of Famers in residence in at least one of our four major professional teams. What I'm saying is that there never has been a time in the past 83 years when we have not been graced by the presence of that type of player, save for the middle of World War II, when our resident demigods were too busy serving their respective countries (Ted Williams the United States, Milt Schmidt, Canada).
The Sports Museum annually inducts various New England greats into its Hall of Fame, and this year it is offering us a truly distinguished class of seven, touching each of the four major pro teams in addition to college hockey and figure skating.
Here is the 2009 lineup:
Sam Jones, presented by his son, Aubrey, and Bill Russell.
Curt Schilling, presented by Dr. Bill Morgan.
Nancy Kerrigan, presented by her husband and agent, Jerry Solomon.
Ken Hodge, presented by the aforementioned Milt Schmidt.
Troy Brown, presented by Bill Belichick.
Jack Parker and Jerry York, presented by Mike Lynch.
Pretty good, huh?
In case you're a young'un, here's what we're talking about:
SAM JONES
A scouting report might have gone like this: "A 6-4 guard with an extraordinary first step . . . superb midrange jump shooter who favors the glass . . . Very sound defender . . . Tremendous clutch shooter." You also could have added, "tremendously team-oriented." Sam sat around for three years waiting for Bill Sharman to get old, earning major minutes in 1960-61 and then elevating himself into one of the NBA's elite guards when he got his chance. Averaged as high as 25 points per game. Retired with 10 championship rings and had an appropriate understated Sam farewell with 24 in Game 7 of the 1969 Finals.
Sam's a Hall of Famer, but he has sort of fallen through the cracks of history. So let it be said right here and now that once you get beyond Kobe Bryant there really wasn't a pure 2 guard playing in the 2008-09 season who was any better than Sam was when he hung 'em up 40 years ago.
CURT SCHILLING
I guess this means he's officially retired. And that's part of the reason why he's in this particular class. "Because of the way he went out," points out Johnson, the Museum curator, "there never really was a full-throated farewell."
Well, he deserved one. Whatever his, um, eccentricities, he came here with a purpose in mind and he got the job done - twice. Throughout his career, a healthy Schilling was always a high-level pitcher, and, as we all saw in 2001, 2004, and 2007, no one craving the spotlight ever delivered any better. The Bloody Sock Game 6 thing added to the résumé, but there was plenty to boast about without it.
NANCY KERRIGAN
She was the unwilling party of the second part in a bizarre incident that wound up transfixing a nation. It is not the way she wants to be remembered.
But it's there, and it never will go away. But the lady from Stoneham should be remembered for just how amazingly well she skated under enormous pressure in those 1994 Olympics in Lillehammer. The idiotic attack on her at the nationals meant she had to be given a spot on the Olympic team on good faith, and she rewarded that faith with a gold medal-worthy performance in the finals. I'm no figure skating guru, but I was there and it sure seemed to me that she outskated Oksana Baiul that night, and many experts agreed. To us, she wuz robbed.
With a bronze in 2002 in Albertville and that silver that should have been a gold in Lillehammer, she has plenty to tell her three children about.
KEN HODGE
How wonderful that Hodge will be presented by the 91-year-old Schmidt, for he is the man who brought Hodge to Boston. With Bobby Orr and Johnny Bucyk already on board, the Bruins general manager set the forces in motion to create the two-time champion Big, Bad Bruins with the hockey heist of the 20th century, a trade that sent Gilles Marotte, Jack Norris, and Pit Martin to Chicago for Phil Esposito, Fred Stanfield, and, yes, Ken Hodge.
Hodge was an integral part of that team. It was hard for him to grab a headline, what with Orr, Espo, The Chief, Cheesie, Turk, Pie, and Co. as teammates, but he was a right wing with a deft scoring touch. In both 1970-71 and 1973-74 he amassed 105 points.
More important, he has been a man known far and wide as someone who can't say no if asked to participate in a charitable endeavor.
TROY BROWN
I'm upfront about this. Troy Brown is my all-time favorite Patriot.
Tell me something not to like. He could catch passes, return punts, return kickoffs, play a more than acceptable role in the defensive secondary, and I'm sure he would have parked cars if someone had asked. After Brown caught a key third-down pass while on his back one Sunday in the Meadowlands, Drew Bledsoe famously observed that he'd "throw to Troy Brown, anytime." Tom Brady was similarly smitten, as Brown caught 101 passes in 2001.
What it all comes down to, and what I'm sure Coach Belichick will be telling us, is that Brown was a football player's football player.
JACK PARKER and JERRY YORK
This could be the Sports Museum's finest hour.
What a great story. Boston University hockey coach Jack Parker from Somerville and Boston College hockey coach Jerry York from Watertown have been fierce competitors and great friends for more than 45 years. They played against each other in both high school and college, and they have coached against each other forever. Now they are coming off back-to-back NCAA titles, with BC winning in 2008 and BU winning in 2009. Each has won three national titles (York's first coming at Bowling Green in 1984), and neither is close to the end.
"This is everything a rivalry should be," said Sullivan, the Museum director. "It has class, competitiveness, and a healthy respect."
No other city could produce this pairing.
Keep in mind that in addition to providing us with its outstanding day-to-day presence, the Sports Museum also serves Charlestown and Chelsea with a program known as "Stand Strong," which uses sports as a teaching platform for various educational programs.
No one has been luckier than we are when it comes to sports greatness. June 24 is the night to shout about it.
Bob Ryan is a Globe columnist and host of the Globe's 10.0 on Boston.com. He can be reached at ryan@globe.com. 