Author: David Shama

For those of us who loved the Minneapolis Lakers, there’s a little hurt in our souls this week.  The Los Angeles Lakers are in town tomorrow night to play the Timberwolves, and Laker players are wearing a logo this season to commemorate the 60^th anniversary of the franchise.  The logo includes the words Minneapolis, Los Angeles and Lakers.

The franchise moved to Los Angeles in 1960.  In the survival guide of what’s important in life—health, family and security—the departure of the Lakers from Minneapolis is trivial.  But those who care about sports do so because it arouses our passions and loyalties.  The more invested emotionally, the greater the highs, the lower the lows.

The Dodgers vacated Brooklyn for Los Angeles in 1958.  Fifty years next year, the pain, anger and disappointment will still linger for older generations of Dodger fans.  No doubt the Dodger fans in Brooklyn have us outnumbered, but our regret over losing the Lakers is no less heartfelt.  Not for those of us who care about the franchise that relocated here in 1947 as the Detroit Gems and left Minneapolis in 1960 after winning five pro basketball championships.

As a kid, I was too young to see the title teams, the last championship coming in 1954. My time was the franchise’s last couple of years when the Lakers had fallen on hard seasons at the box office and sometimes on the court.  The franchise was rebuilding mostly around a young acrobatic forward named Elgin Baylor who hung in the air as if time stopped, habitually twitched his head while dribbling the ball and just as routinely put up 25 to 30 points per game.

Baylor was a deserving replacement to the team’s star of the championship years, George Mikan.  The Lakers’ great center was known as Mr. Basketball and recognized by the Associated Press as the best player in America for the first half of the 20^th century.  Fittingly, his statue is located in the lobby of Target Center, only a few blocks from the old Minneapolis Auditorium where the Lakers played most of their games.

The Lakers have always had great players and teams.  Mikan, teammate Jim Pollard, Baylor, Jerry West (his likeness is the NBA logo), Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant span seven decades of NBA basketball. The Boston Celtics have won the most pro basketball titles, 16.  The Lakers have won 14, but it’s the storied franchise that started here that has won world championships in each decade except one since the 1940’s.  Even the Celtics can’t match that success. (Note: the NBA recognizes the Lakers 1948-49 championship in the Basketball Association of America as an NBA title even though the NBA began in 1949-50. The Lakers won the NBA championship in 1949-50 and three more after that in Minneapolis).

The decade without a title was the 1960’s when six times the Lakers lost to the Celtics in the NBA finals.  In one of sports’ greatest rivalries, the magnificent twosome of West and Baylor created a soap opera in which no matter the finals series, regardless of their lead in the series, and despite home court advantage, the Celtics would somehow find a hero, or get a lucky bounce of the ball on the rim, or find a lucky leprechaun to help them win again.

Those of us following our transplanted heroes watched with both admiration and envy.  We were grateful to see many of the playoff games.  Some of the series finals were on national TV.  Earlier in the playoffs, Laker owner Bob Short, the Minneapolis businessman who had moved the team to Los Angeles in 1960, arranged for games to be televised here.

Short took the Lakers to Los Angeles because the franchise was losing money and often had to scramble for a playing site.  The auditorium sometimes had other events, forcing the Lakers to play at the Minneapolis Armory or St. Paul Auditorium.

The Lakers were pretty much nothing starting out at the box office in Los Angeles, drawing crowds of around 4,000.  Although that raised my curiosity as a kid as to why the Lakers ever left Minneapolis, in time the franchise became among the most popular in all of sports.  The franchise that came to Minneapolis costing $15,000 now is worth $568 million, according to a forbes.com article in January.

In big market Los Angeles, the Lakers have undeniably prospered and acquired high price talent they never could have afforded in Minneapolis.  The Lakers legacy in L.A. is far greater than our city of lakes could have provided.

Still, there aren’t any lakes in southern California and forever more some of us will prefer Minneapolis Lakers to Los Angeles Lakers.  Happy 60^th!

The Vikings’ have won four of their last five games and those opponents have a combined record of 35 wins, 25 losses.  Remove Green Bay’s 10-2 record and the totals are 25 and 23.  The Vikings have four games remaining and those teams are a combined 18-30.  Winning three games in a row and four of the last five are both bests for coach Brad Childress since he took over as Vikings coach last season.

A Sports Illustrated poll of NFL players had Randy Moss of New England ranked third among  receivers who can be most easily intimidated.  Terrell Owens of Dallas was first, followed by Chad Johnson of Cincinnati and then Moss.

Some Wolves fans aren’t bothered a bit by the team’s 2-13 record, poorest in the NBA.  They want the team to finish with the worst record in the NBA, enhancing chances of winning the draft lottery.  College basketball’s stellar freshman class is deep and talented.  Included is Memphis star Derrick Rose who could be a difference maker for the Wolves at point guard.

Delmon Young’s much publicized temper may benefit from the leadership and calm of the Twins clubhouse.  The 22-year-old former Tampa Bay outfielder will find good role models among his new team.

The educated guess here is it’s not likely former Gopher coach Glen Mason will draw interest from schools in major conferences like the Pac 10 or Southeastern Conference.  Sooner or later an offer might come from a school in a league like the Mid-American Conference or Mountain West Conference.

Goaltenders Roberto Luongo of the Vancouver Canucks, Martin Brodeur of the New Jersey Devils and Niklas Backstrom of the Minnesota Wild have been named respectively as the NHL’s first, second and third stars for the week ending December 2.  Backstrom won the Third Star award after a 3-0-0 record, 1.32 goals-against average and.939 save percentage as the Wild (15-9-2, 32 points) moved into first place in the Northwest Division.

Wild president and general manager Doug Risebrough and coach Jacques Lemaire announced that forward Mark Parrish will serve as team captain during December.  Brian Rolston and Nick Schultz will serve as alternate captains throughout the month. The Wild rotate team captaincy on a monthly basis based on the player who has shown the greatest leadership qualities.

Concordia University, St. Paul won its first national championship in any sport on Saturday when the No. 2 ranked volleyball team defeated No. 15 Western Washington in four games, 30-26, 23-30, 30-19, 31-29 in Topeka, Kansas. It is the first NCAA volleyball championship for the Northern Sun Conference and the league’s second team championship (Winona State, men’s basketball, 2005-06). Junior Maria Steinhagen (Alexandria, Minn.) and sophomore Maggie McNamara (Zumbrota, Minn.) were impressive Saturday night. Steinhagen had 26 kills and hit .500 in 46 attempts while McNamara registered a double-double with 71 assists and 17 digs.