Wish It Lasted Forever by Dan Shaughnessy

Author:Dan Shaughnessy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 2021-11-16T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9 “THAT GUY IS GONNA BE THE GREATEST PLAYER OF ALL TIME”

Professional ballplayers love routine. There’s comfort in doing the same things at the same time every workday.

In the mid-1980s, on nights when the Celtics played games at the Boston Garden, Larry Bird would get to the gym early to work on his shooting. His game-night partner was assistant equipment manager Joe Qatato, also known as Joe Q or Corky. A public relations intern from Emerson College who started with the team in 1979, Joe Q was an everyday employee by 1985, handling equipment, driving vans, giving an occasional backrub, and rebounding for Bird. He didn’t ask anything of Bird, which made him a Larry favorite. Bird kept in his locker Joe Q’s high school football photo—a grainy image in which the balding Qatato had a full head of hair. Joe Q wound up being one of a handful of folks who attended Bird’s wedding to Dinah Mattingly in 1989, and Larry brought Qatato with him to Indiana when Bird became head coach of the Pacers in 1997.

Hours before every game at the Garden, Bird and Joe Q could be found on the parquet for twenty minutes of perimeter shooting. There were no fans, and early-arriving media members knew to leave them alone. Anybody watching could log Bird making fifteen or twenty consecutive medium-range shots. If Bird missed, he’d blame the Garden’s Bull Gang.

“If the basket was straight, that shot would have been nothing but net,” Bird would tease after a rare miss.

Buckner and Bird occasionally played a shooting game called Knockout, and Buckner explained Bird’s Knockout prowess to Sports Illustrated’s Jack McCallum:

“You’d be ready to win, and all of a sudden Larry would throw up a shot that would not only knock your ball away from the basket but would also go in itself. The man could play pool and basketball at the same time.”

I was early to the Garden for every home game and knew enough to leave Larry and Joe Q alone. My press row seat was about ten chairs down from the Celtics bench. During his late-afternoon routine, Bird occasionally wandered toward my workplace to gossip or break chops.

When he was approaching an NBA record for consecutive free throws made, he came over to me and asked, “What you working on tonight, Scoop?”

“I’m working on your free throw streak for our early edition. Don’t make me look bad by missing one. My story will look dated and stupid if you miss.”

“Don’t worry about that, Scoop.” He went back to his pregame drill.

In the first half of that night’s game, Bird went to the line for two free throws. After he drained the first attempt, he turned to his right and winked at me before making the second.

We were getting along well during these golden days of his three-year MVP reign. Still, he called me out when I reported that Maxwell ate a steady diet of McDonald’s before home games.

“Scoop, I eat just as bad,” said

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