Elgin Baylor by Bijan C. Bayne

Author:Bijan C. Bayne
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2012-03-18T16:00:00+00:00

He was no more comfortable with or enthralled by the limelight than when he was a high school kid, embarrassed by the attention he drew when he made Washington’s All-Met team. Of stardom, he says to Gross in SPORT, “[A]fter a while it comes to a point where you get tired of it and you just want to get away from it. It’s just the same questions all the time.” People would ask Baylor the difference between college and pro ball, who the best player was in the league, and how a player goes about checking Chamberlain—although Wilt was a 7'1" center and Baylor a 6'5" forward. Others wanted to know how many points he was going to score that night. As with Chamberlain, who tired of being asked how tall he was, for Baylor the questions got old fast. Bill Russell didn’t give autographs—not even to teammates and trainers whose relatives asked for them.

Baylor did what he needed to do to market himself and be a successful businessman, however. By 1963, he was making $60,000 a year. By the mid-1960s, he owned a sporty Jaguar automobile. He told the media he owned “only” 15 suits and “only” eight pairs of custom-made English shoes. Baylor also owned part of a shopping center in Falls Church, Virginia, as well as the duplex apartment near Wilshire Boulevard where he, Ruby, and little Alan lived. Ruby Baylor appeared in an Ebony magazine ad for Virtue Bros. Furniture of Los Angeles. The ad encouraged women to “Follow the example of the charming Mrs. Elgin Baylor” by purchasing a modernistic gold inlaid Micalite dining table. Its tagline read, “The Smart Set Selects.”

Baylor had other local real estate, too. After working two years in the escrow department of Great Western Savings & Loan, he knew something about property values and construction expenses. Baylor said to SPORT magazine in 1963, “I’m always looking to the future. Ruby is expecting a baby next spring, and probably there’ll be other children coming along. I don’t con myself that I can go on playing real good basketball for more than four more years or so. Mister, I’m making sure I don’t wind up driving a truck.”

Baylor took a stand during the 1966 NBA All-Star Game. While Coach Fred Schaus was in Cincinnati at the All-Star Game, which was played at Ben Kerner’s outdated and undersized Kiel Auditorium, Baylor was in a hotel room in Boston, coaching the Lakers. It was the first time he had not been chosen to play in the game. In Cincinnati, Schaus and GM Lou Mohs discussed Baylor’s exclusion. Schaus called Baylor to tell him it had been decided he should sit on the bench as an honorary All-Star. Baylor told Schaus he would consider it and call him back.

As he weighed the offer, Baylor thought about Dick Barnett. His teammate hadn’t been voted an All-Star, even though he was the third-leading scorer in the NBA. Bullets coach Paul Seymour called Barnett’s jump shot the “best in the league.

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