Jeffrey Epstein on Sports

His first taste of professional basketball was a pre-season game between the Lakers and the Blazers featuring Bill Walton against Kareem. Minutes into the first quarter Kareem cold-cocked Walton and was ejected. After that, the game was boring.

One of his earliest memories was seeing Peter Snell run in person. Fresh off his double at the 1964 Olympics, Mr. Snell was hoping to run the first sub 4 minute mile in Hawaiian history. Alas, it did not happen, but what amazed me was the size of Peter's legs. They had muscles on top of muscles on top of muscles. I've never seen anything like it.

Jeffrey Epstein is nothing if not contrarian. At various times he has shown up at the Boston Garden, wearing his New York Knicks colors and rooting for Clyde, Earl the Pearl, Dave D., Bill Bradley and Willis Reed against the Celtics and at the Staple Center in his Celtic gear as they pasted the Lakers in the playoffs. Remarkably, he lived through his attendance at both venues.

Years earlier, he happened to have access to Laker season tickets at the Forum and supplemented his income by selling his extra tickets before entering the arena. What he found remarkable was that by this measurement Charles Barkley was the biggest draw. Jeffrey got $20 over face value for each ticket for Barkley's game and not quite face value when Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls were in town.

While living in Boston for eight years, outside of two Knick--Celtic games, Jeffery Epstein can accurately state that not once did he attend a game at Fenway Park, nor did he waste time on a Patriots game in person-hey, it's cold in Massachusetts in the winter time. Somehow, absence makes the heart grow fonder, for now that he lives in Los Angeles, Mr. Epstein loves the Celtics and the Patriots - go figure.

Jeffrey Epstein has been covering sports since the early 1960's, mainly for his own pleasure. He calls them as he sees them, consequently, there are a few venues where he is persona non gratis.Jeffrey Epstein is an old-school sports romantic. He hates the new venue parks. The Staple Center is fan friendly in the sense that the lines at the refreshment counters and bathrooms are short, but as a venue to watch a sporting event it sucks. Thirteen rows from the court and you might as well be watching mimes. The arena design just sucks the sound right out of the building where normally there should be the sounds of sneakers squeaking on the court, refs whistles blowing, and players barking out defensive assignments there is nothing but a vast silence.

Jeffrey Epstein is also not a fan of the taming of sports in general. The can't touch the quarterback in football, the death of bump and run coverage of receivers, the absence of hand checking in basketball and the assessment of flagrant fouls have made the games virtually unwatchable. In many ways, television has ruined sports: first because it has jacked players' salaries to the point where the league had to invent rules to protect the owners' investments and second because of the additional TV timeouts making the games unwatchable in person. Not to mention ticket prices that are simply ridiculous. It's a sad day, when watching a sporting event on television is a far superior product than watching in person, but then again, as reality programming goes, sporting events sure do beat Dancing with the Stars.

As a kid, Jeffrey Epstein kept hoping to grow taller, he didn't. To his dismay he suffered from "no hops" the white man disease. In one of the last competitive basketball games he played he gave up 6 inches and 80 pounds (Jeffrey is quite skinny) to the opposing teams center. Their center quit the league after the game because he got demoralized by his defense. Jeffrey Epstein has heart, so feels he's entitled to write about exhibitions of heart in sports.

I first saw Kevin Garnett and the Fabulous Forum, then the home of the Los Angeles Lakers. This was back when KG was still young and in the middle of a ten year deal guaranteeing him the biggest paycheck in the league for its duration. He was stuck on the Minnesota Timberwolves, a dog of a team. In this day and age, he would have been excused for mailing in some games. He never did. On the night I saw him the Lakers dominated from the opening tip. The game was over before half-time. KG played his ass off the entire night, virtually every minute of the game. The guy has heart.

Jeffrey Epstein is an old school sports fan. He writes periodically on his impressions on the NBA, NFL and other sports whenever he notices something new school that irks him.Heart is a strange animal. If it's involved, one is capable of things they never dreamed of. It's powerful stuff, but temperamental and fragile. Dennis Rodman comes to mind. I saw him in one of the very early games of the season he played on the Lakers as coached by Kurt Rambis. I had great seats and I witnessed something truly special. From the opening tip, Dennis dominated the entire game and not once did he even take a shot. It was an amazing sight. A few weeks later, I went to another Laker game. It was not a good year, even at that early juncture for the Lakers and Dennis obviously was not impressed with Kurt's coaching abilities. You could see the heart just melt away. From then on Dennis was merely mortal.

But back to Kevin Garnet. I could not fathom why KG didn't win the MVP award for his first year at Boston. He put heart and toughness and work ethic and defense into the Celtics. He transformed the culture and the locker room of the franchise. That's a one-in-a-decade player. The following year he suffers his first major injury of his career and is left waiting for the next year. He looked terrible that next year. But my belief is that if it had been any other player, they would have taken the year off for more rehab. You could tell KG was frustrated at his body for letting him down. He was pissed that sheer determination was not enough to overcome his physical limitations. And here we are, the start of a new season and he has the hops and the range of movement and the speed and quickness that were absent all last year. Jeffrey Epstein thinks it will be fun to watch and see how far heart take him this year.