Bird Watching (5 page)

We really did have a lot of laughs. The best part about it was nobody tried to pull any star treatment. If you needed to be taped, it was first come, first served. No egos involved. I remember one day in San Diego, Charles Barkley was carrying coolers out to the truck for the medical staff. It was that kind of atmosphere. Michael Jordan was treated the same as all the rest of us, and he didn’t mind, either.

It’s funny, because I’ve gotten to know Michael so well in the last few years, but I never did any of my commercials with him until after I retired, so I didn’t know him all that well in Barcelona. Michael played golf every day. We hardly ever had practice, so he’d be gone first thing in the morning to play eighteen or thirty-six holes. He’d play on game days too. He’d finish up like an hour and a half before it was time to get on the bus and go to the arena. I did play golf with him a couple of times. Me, Michael, and Magic got together one night too. They had a room downstairs from our hotel with everything in it, and the three of us went down there with Michael’s buddy Ahmad Rashad, drank a few beers, and talked. It was a nice change, to be all on the same side like that, something I’m sure none of us ever dreamed would be possible. We talked a lot about basketball, and the times we played against one another. As usual, Michael and I were cracking on Magic. At one point Ahmad asked us who we thought was the best basketball player ever. After a lot of discussion, we all came to the conclusion that Michael was the best—not every night, though.

One of the things that was really disappointing to me was I wasn’t able to march in the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. The problem was that the whole thing, from start to finish, was going to take around four hours, and my back wouldn’t have made it. I couldn’t stand for more than a half hour without stiffness and pain. Dave Gavitt tried to arrange it so I could slip in and out of the march, but they wouldn’t let us do that, for all sorts of security reasons. I wish I could have done it. Magic and Charles and David Robinson and some of the others marched, and they said it was a great experience. But I knew the fact that I was in Barcelona at all was stretching it, so I had to take what I could get.

One night, the people of the city of Barcelona arranged to have a restaurant closed down, and the whole team went there for dinner. That was one of my favorite nights. Everybody showed up, and we had a lot of laughs, and nobody could get to us because they had police stationed all over the place, inside and outside the restaurant. It was always fun to be around that team, because the guys always had something going. I can remember Scottie and Clyde going at each other. One little joke could turn into one big hoot on somebody, and everybody would put in their two cents worth. It reminded me a little bit of our 1986 Celtics championship team. We had a lot of big personalities—Kevin McHale, Bill Walton—and it seemed like somebody was always getting it.

For all the fun I had, the basketball was very, very tough. I really shouldn’t have been playing. I was hoping the rest I had since May, which is when the Celtics were eliminated from the playoffs that year, would help, and it did for a while. When we had that training camp in San Diego I was surprised at how good I felt. I even actually worked out a little bit. I couldn’t go out and practice for two or three hours, but I could go out there for forty-five minutes and do some things. We played our first game, and I felt great. I was talking to the press about how exciting it all was, and then I felt it. It was that awful burning pain again, shooting right down my leg. I was devastated. Right away, I went to Dave and said, “Look, you might as well replace me. I can’t do this.”

He said, “Look, Larry, I know you’re hurting. You don’t have to practice to be on this team. You’ve come this far. Try to hang in there. Think of all you’ve been through to get here.”

That much was true. I was really in bad shape finishing up the season with the Celtics. I needed a lot of treatment, and a lot of anti-inflammatory drugs and painkillers to make it through. One of the things we had to be really careful about was monitoring the medication they were giving me. The Olympic committee had very strict rules about what kind of drugs were allowed in an athlete’s system. One of the drugs that was banned was steroids. When my back got really unstable and my nerves got extremely inflamed, one of the treatments we resorted to was a steroid injection in my back. Once I decided to play in the Olympics, we had to be careful about using that as a method of treatment, because we were concerned residues of it could show up in a drug test. Everyone kept telling me it would probably be fine, but the truth was we couldn’t be 100 percent sure, so a lot of times I didn’t take the shot, even though I really could have used it.

By the time we went to Portland for what they called the Tournament of the Americas, I was in agony. I didn’t think I could keep it together much longer. I flew home to Boston from that tournament in my back brace. As soon as I got home, I got in my car and drove to Massachusetts General Hospital to see Dan Dyrek. When he saw me walking down the hall toward him, I know he was shocked, because I never, ever saw him without an appointment. I barely said hello. I told him, “I need to talk to you.” We went into his office, and I said, “Dan, I’m not going to the Olympics. I tried to fight through this, and I can’t.” He knew I wasn’t exaggerating. If I couldn’t even get out of bed, it was a waste of time for me and the Olympic committee to go all the way over there. Dan was quiet, because he knew how important it was for me to be part of that Dream Team. I finally said, “There’s only one way I can do it. You have to come with me.” It was a really big thing for me to ask him, I knew that. We were leaving for Monte Carlo in a few days for our last leg of training, and Dan was a busy guy. Aside from his patients, he was teaching a graduate school course. But I wasn’t going to the Olympics unless Dan Dyrek came with me. Simple as that.

Dan really didn’t know what to say. I could tell his mind was going a mile a minute, trying to figure out how he could make this happen. He finally said, “Okay, listen. I’m going to have to change a few things around. Let me see what I can do.” He smiled, and then he said, laughing, “You better send my secretary about two hundred red roses, for all the work she’s going to have to do in the next twenty-four hours.”

The next day, when Dan Dyrek’s secretary showed up for work there were two hundred red roses waiting for her in the office. Dan called me up and said, “Hey Larry, about the roses. I was only kidding.” I told him, “I know that, Dan, but I also know how much work it took to get this done.”

Dan ended up coming with me to Barcelona, and I think it must have been a great experience for him. Of course, once the guys all got to know him, he was helping them out with their little problems too. In the meantime we were falling like flies. I had back problems, Patrick dislocated his thumb, then John Stockton broke his leg. I guess at one point there was a meeting among USA Basketball and NBA officials, and some people wanted us injured people replaced on the roster. But Dave Gavitt and some others got up and reminded everyone that it wasn’t like the gold medal was in jeopardy. The truth was, and everyone knew it, we were much better than any of the other teams, whether Patrick, John, and I played or not. To Dave it would have been suicide to alter the Dream Team at that point. Dave told the committee, “These players are the ones our fans want in Barcelona.” And that was the end of that.

According to Olympic regulations, the numbers on our jerseys had to go from 4 to 15. I wore number 7. The protocol for drug testing there was kind of old-fashioned. We’d be in the middle of a game, and this drug official would walk down to our bench and have Eddie Lacerte pull three numbers out of a box. If one of the numbers matched your uniform, then you were the one tested, whether you played that day or not. It was a random test, but for some reason the first two times it was done, my number came up. I remember the first time, the game had ended, and I was running off the court, and this guy came up and grabbed me. Another guy grabbed Chris Mullin, and they took us in the bathroom and stood there with us while we gave them a urine sample. I remember standing there thinking, “First time out. Just my luck.” I was a little nervous taking that first test, but it came up clean. When it happened the second time, and my number got picked again, I said to Eddie, “What are you trying to do to me?”

The funny part of it was that I wasn’t really worth testing. A lot of games, I spent most of my time on my stomach on the floor in front of the bench, trying to get comfortable watching while everyone else kicked butt out there. There were some games I didn’t play in at all during the Tournament of the Americas in Portland, my back was so bad. In one of those games, I was at my usual spot on the floor when this Latin American official ran by our bench. I hadn’t played at all, and as he ran by he said, “Mr. Bird, Mr. Bird, please, you must come in the game.” I was looking at him, wondering what he was talking about. He said, “I must be able to tell my family I refereed a game in which the great Larry Bird was playing.” Of course, it was my luck Magic and Michael were sitting on the bench with me at the time. Next thing I know, they’re pulling off my warm-up jersey and telling Chuck Daly to get me in there.

Being part of that Olympic team was one of the best times I’ve had in my life. The guys were always up for a good time, and somebody was always busting on somebody else. We lived in this building that had really small hotel-style rooms, and it was protected by a whole bunch of security guards. There was always a huge crowd of people waiting for us to come out the front door. Day or night, it didn’t matter. Everybody wanted to see the Dream Team.

The whole time I was in Barcelona, the one thing I wanted to do was go watch the United States play baseball. So one morning I got up and I told Dinah, “I’m not going to lay in bed today. I don’t care how bad my back is feeling, I’m gonna go out and watch a baseball game.” It was hotter than hell, but I didn’t care. I told Dinah, “I’m going by myself and people aren’t going to bother me. I’m just going to do this.” No matter what happened, I was determined to see the baseball game. So I grab my things and I go down to the lobby, and sure enough, there are thousands of people just standing there, waiting. They were mostly roped off by police, but it was a certified mob scene and I didn’t want any part of it. I was starting to get upset, because I needed to get a break. I go to the back, and I find this security guy, and I say, “How can I get out of here? I know there must be another way out. If I go out that front door I’m going to have people all over me, and I really don’t want that. Please. I know you must know a different way.” The guy looks at me, and says, “Just go out this door right here, walk up one block, take a right, and hop on the subway. That’s the best way to get to the baseball stadium.” I couldn’t believe it. I said to the guy, “You’re kidding! You mean all this time I could have just walked out that door?” He said, “Sí, señor.” So I said, “Adios!” and grabbed my bag and I was off. Once I got on the subway, I knew people would recognize me, but they were great about it. They said, “Hey Larry, where you going?” and I told them I wanted to see some baseball. Everyone was really nice. They even showed me which stop to get off at. So I’m walking toward the baseball game, and somehow I get caught up with this big group of people. They’re all from the United States, and they’re shouting, “USA! USA!” I get right in the middle of them, because I’m figuring I won’t stand out so much, and they start yelling, “We’re gonna kick ass!” We get up to the field, this crowd of Americans, and some official tells us they’ve switched the venue.

By now I’d say there’s around three hundred people milling around, looking for baseball, so I ask the official where we have to go. He pulls out a map, and it’s about twenty-five miles away, and the game is starting in forty-five minutes. Me and this group of people run out to catch a bus, but there’s a huge crowd and a line, so we get back on the subway, and it takes us about forty-five minutes to get to the right baseball field. We had to walk a mile from the subway to get there, and my back started hurting, but I didn’t care. I was having fun. The U.S. was playing Japan that day, and it was absolutely fantastic. It was a beautiful day, and me and my new friends I met on the subway took turns going to the concession stands to get beers. I hadn’t enjoyed myself like that in a long time. The truth is, I’ve always loved baseball. When I played for the Celtics I went to Fenway Park a couple of times to watch the Red Sox, but I stopped going, because I spent the whole time signing autographs, and I didn’t get to watch any of the games. I always felt that was too bad, because our house in Brookline was so close to Fenway.

Anyhow, I had such a great time at that baseball game, when I left the guys asked me if I’d be back, and I said, “Sure. See you tomorrow.” The Dream Team never had any practice, because we really didn’t need it, and the next game didn’t start until midnight the next night, so the next morning I got up and said to Dinah, “C’mon, you’ve got to go with me to this game. It’s absolutely wild. You’ll love it.” So off we go, through the side door, and when we get to the baseball stadium the same group of guys I hung out with the day before are there, taking turns with the beers. I went to more games, and every time I went I brought more and more people with me. By then the U.S. team had found out I was watching all their games, so one of the team officials asked if I would go down on the field after the game and say hello. I said I’d be glad to do that. I went down there and met some of the players, and found out later the U.S. was fined because someone other than a team official or player had been on the field.

I loved those baseball games, and I loved the freedom that side door had given me. One time when I was in the lobby I watched Magic getting ready to go out. I was thinking about telling him about the side door, and then I realized he wasn’t interested in that. Magic would never go out a side door. The whole time in Barcelona, every time he went somewhere he’d bring along four guys with machine guns and walk right out front. That draws even more attention, but that’s how Magic liked it. That’s the difference between him and me. He would march out there and people would go crazy, and he would love it. Me? I was just happy nobody found out my little secret escape.