The Language of Sports Transcends Boundaries

“Laddie, can we buy you a drink?” It was a very unlikely invitation.

I had just checked into an old musty inn on a windswept, seemingly godforsaken and barren plain. The front desk manager quickly sized up my haggard look. He pointed first toward my room and then toward what looked like a pub just off the lobby. Traveling through the Scottish Highlands, I had stopped that night in the Spey Valley, the spiritual Eden for those who worship single-malt scotch. As I scrubbed off the caked detritus of a long day’s journey, the pub called my name.

The grizzled but affable barkeep nodded toward a table next to the fireplace. I couldn’t help but notice a multi-generational gathering of local Scotsmen, all huddled around a table, staring at a small black-and-white TV.  It was 1987. Noisy chatter, clinking glasses, and largely indecipherable trash talking were in high gear.

Must be a European football match, I surmised. Peering more closely, I saw it wasn’t soccer at all. It was a basketball game. And not just any game. It was the sixth game of the NBA Finals that year, early in the first quarter.

I was a huge fan. I had wanted to see the game so badly. How lucky was I?  I loved basketball. Had played since I was little. Had devoured the sports pages and box scores daily. Even lettered in the 7th grade; the coach rewarded determination over talent, knowing that height would soon be a disqualifier.

Later, when I joined an L.A. law firm,  the managing partner invited me to join him for a Lakers game.  Walking into the Forum for the first time, I was stunned. The moment the giants took the floor, NBA basketball became a lifelong passion. During the nine years since that awestruck moment, I had been lucky enough to see some of the most famous basketball games ever played.

So I shot out of my cozy, fireside seat and literally ran over to get a closer look. “Wow, this is the NBA Finals,” I shouted, completely spontaneously, to no one — and everyone — in particular.

Thirteen heads pivoted around in unison. Their jovial turmoil instantly turned into deafening silence. Suddenly I was unsure of my place. Maybe I was intruding where I wasn’t welcome.

But the ancient one — with lean, chiseled features hewn by decades of harsh highlands heath — took the floor. All others immediately deferred.

“Laddie, do you know about this?” he asked, pointing to the TV. I didn’t immediately follow his question, but then it hit me. This was the first NBA game they had ever seen.

Today the NBA is an international juggernaut, known worldwide. But in the 1980s, the sport was in the relative dark ages, before cable connected every American home, before satellite dishes and internet, before ESPN became a behemoth, before Nike turned stars into megastars, before Gatorade urged us to Be Like Mike. Overseas? Fugetaboutit.

“Oh my God, this is the Lakers versus the Celtics,” I gushed, realizing only later the mention of something “celtic” had particularly snagged their attention. This is West Coast Los Angeles versus East Coast Boston. This is Larry Bird versus Magic Johnson, two of the greatest players ever. The Lakers’ unstoppable weapon of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s skyhook. The Celtic’s all-star backcourt of Danny Ainge and Dennis Johnson.

I quickly explained the stakes. The Lakers were ahead 3-2 in a best-of-seven series. For the Celtics, it was win or go home. For the Lakers, it was a win for all the marbles. This was the equivalent of a Champions League finals match between Real Madrid and Manchester United. “You are about to see a righteous game for the ages,” I announced.

In the thickest of Gaelic inflection, the ancient solemnly repeated: “Laddie, can we buy you that drink?”

Before I could answer, the Scots had pulled me up a chair, and the barkeep fueled the pandemonium. Plates of fish and chips arrived, as well as — of greater note — flight after flight of single-malt scotch, something I had never tasted. Aged much more slowly than tequila, and even most bourbon, I began to savor flavors of smoke, seaweed, brine, and apple, to inhale aromas of caramel and peat.

The Scotsmen were eager students, and their questions came fast and furious. Unknowingly, unwittingly, and ironically, I had been training for this moment all my life. To the mysteries unfolding before them, I felt like the Oracle of Delphi.

And to my surprise, they quickly picked up not only basics, but nuance as well. Sport surely is a language that transcends boundaries.

As I shared my passion for roundball; they tutored me in their love of single-malt scotch.  Whiskey and basketball, it turns out, were meant for each other.

It didn’t take long before the Scots wanted to ramp up the excitement. Nothing sharpens the attention of sports fans everywhere like betting. And Scottish football culture thrives on it.

So at their entreaties, I set them up. Not just on the outcome of the game. They wanted proposition bets as well — who would win each quarter, the point spread at halftime, whether Robert Parish would make his free throws.

Things were moving fast. And the cash on the table really began to pile up, the ancient having designated a treasurer to keep track of who was in, who was up, who was down.

Of course, their accidental sensei had no choice but to bet alongside. How could I say no?

As the fourth quarter ratcheted up the intensity even further, let’s just say I had learned a lot about the local whiskey for which the valley was so deservedly famous, my new mates had quickly become trusting friends, and the stack of pound notes had kept growing. The event was turning into a larger and larger financial commitment for everyone concerned. And it had not gone without notice that the ledger was heavily lopsided in my favor.

When the final whistle blew, the game would prove to be a global tipping point. Yes, the Lakers had beaten the Celtics 106-93, winning the trophy in a moment of many throughout an epic rivalry. But something much more profound had occurred. The athletic magnetism of Magic, Larry, Kareem, and their teammates had for the first time been broadcast widely, not only to that small Scottish pub but around the western world.

Five years later a Beatlemania-like madness would surround the U.S.A. Dream Team in the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, with Magic Johnson and Larry Bird teaming then as co-captains.

But back in the pub,  a long day’s summer sun was finally setting. It was time to settle up. The ancient and the appointed treasurer had made neat piles of currency on the table — all insignificant — save one. The one for the American.

Showing not a whit of remorse for my new friends’ losses, I dramatically reached for the cash with a grand sweep of my arms, quoting Gordon Gekko, the anti-hero in that year’s hit movie Wall Street, for all to hear — “Greed is good!” 

It is hard to be an uglier American than that.

Yet my compatriots bore me no rancor. They had understood on the front end that I had a distinct advantage. Maybe they had gotten caught up in the moment, but at least they would have a good tale to tell the missus when they went home a bit short on pay day.

Then, just as dramatically, I reversed course and ceremoniously pushed my winnings back into the center.

I guess it’s time to make an admission, I announced. The game we just saw? It wasn’t live. It was a replay. It happened two days ago. I read all about it in the International Herald Tribune. And, just as I had done since childhood, I had studied the box score and memorized almost every detail. Sure I know the NBA, but I am no psychic — and I’m certainly no hustler.

At first there was stone-cold silence. But after a couple of seconds, relief flowed over them — they had been pranked. And they loved it. The pub erupted in uproarious laughter, and my back was slapped so hard, so many times, it would be sore for days.

To celebrate this turn of fortune, our now fully bonded table of characters pivoted. The evening was young again. A new round of drinks was ordered, and an uncertain number followed thereafter in a dizzying haze.

Unaccustomed as I was to drinking their fine spirits, I may have paid the biggest price the next morning. But I had learned a valuable lesson — betting on single-malt scotch is always a sure thing, at least until the rooster crows.