Jim Murray, March 21, 1961

March 21, 1961:  Every time I pull up another Jim Murray column, I am reminded once again of what a breath of fresh air he was for The Times. Today’s installment is a particularly good example. Murray writes about the harrowing 1959 incident in which the Lakers’ plane made an emergency landing in a cornfield. It is Murray at his best.

Jim Murray, March 16, 1961

March 16, 1961: Around the league, Elgin [Baylor] is known as "The Big Hurt." He's a four Band-Aid player. The man assigned to cover him usually stocks up with liniment and aspirin and approaches his task with all the zest of a man asked to defuse a live bomb with a hairpin. At 6 feet, 5 inches, 225 pounds, Baylor is such a powerful, punishing player that his teammates, to a man, are positive he could win the heavyweight championship of the world if he wanted to train for it, Jim Murray says.

Lakers Draw Small Crowd for Celtics Game

Dec. 5, 1960: The Lakers lost to the Boston Celtics, 113-103 at the Sports Arena but the statistic that jumped out was the attendance. The Times' headline noted the presence of 9,224 fans at the Sports Arena, an unthinkably small number by today's Laker standards. Perhaps the game wasn't sold out because the teams were playing the following night again. The Lakers and Celtics in a back-to-back series? I know the league was trying to save teams travel costs but that's just incredible. --Keith Thursby

Lakers Playing to Empty Seats

Nov. 5, 1960: Don Page was worried about the Lakers. No one was watching. "Bigger crowds have watched knitting tournaments than have viewed the Lakers thus far," wrote Page, The Times' radio columnist. He blamed the lack of a consistent radio schedule for part of the team's problem. According to Page, the Lakers sought more for radio rights than did the Rams, then a popular draw in Los Angeles. Page also noted that the Lakers' next game would be on television but not in Los Angeles. It probably didn't help that they were playing a home game at a college gym, at Los Angeles State College. --Keith Thursby

Lakers Sign Jerry West

Sept. 21, 1960: The Lakers signed rookie Jerry West to a two-year contract. West played 14 seasons for the Lakers, winning one championship in a remarkable career that helped make basketball a marquee sport in L.A. He might have had a better career after retiring as a player. He had a short stay as the Lakers' coach but made a lasting mark as the team's general manager. West stole Kobe Bryant in a draft-day trade and signed Shaquille O'Neal as a free agent. The Times speculated that West signed for about $12,000 a year. Meanwhile, tickets were going fast for the Lakers' preseason appearance the following month against the Boston Celtics in Orange County. But this was long before the Pond was built so the game was scheduled for Anaheim High School. The Times ran a short story announcing that more than half of the reserved seats had already been sold. Wonder how long it would take the teams to sell out a high school gym today. --Keith Thursby

‘Once in a Lifetime’ Chance to Coach the Lakers

Aug. 21, 1960: The Lakers of Los Angeles were coming together. West Virginia University Coach Fred Schaus was hired as the team's new coach. "It was an opportunity that comes once in a lifetime," he told UPI. The team already had a great young player in Elgin Baylor, and the Lakers' top draft choice was Jerry West. Schaus coached the Lakers until the 1966-67 season, then become the team's general manager. Earlier in the month, the Lakers turned down $200,000 from the St. Louis Hawks for Baylor and they hoped West would soon join Schaus, his old college coach. "The Cleveland AAU team is bidding for Jerry's services. Naturally I hope he joins me out here," Schaus said. -- Keith Thursby

Why History Must Be Saved, Even When Nobody Wants It

The death of Ernest Fleischmann, former executive director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, offers a nice point of departure for a few musings about how casually we treat the past. About a year ago, I noticed a trash cart full of files next to a freight elevator at The Times. I’m nosy about discarded material and in looking at the folders discovered that they were the old biographical files on classical musicians once used by the Calendar  staff before the Internet made research easy. It was impossible to save everything, but I rescued about seven boxes worth of material that included newspaper and magazine clippings, press releases, programs, printouts, rough drafts and correspondence. My first thought was to donate this material to the Huntington, but after reviewing the files, the library declined my offer. So the boxes have been sitting in my garage. Today, I dug out the Fleischmann file. The first item I found was his controversial commencement address, reproduced above, delivered at the Cleveland Institute of Music on May 16, 1987. Evidently, the speech was reprinted in Musical America because it turns up in a Google search, so perhaps a typescript copy isn’t much of a loss. What follows on the jump are excerpts from a discussion of the speech by a panel that included Fleischmann;  conductor Kurt Masur; Richard C. Clark, head of Affiliate Artists; and Tom Morris, executive director of the Cleveland Orchestra. Summarized online. Next is an anonymous comedy sketch about Fleischmann, Times Publisher Otis Chandler and sports columnist Jim Murray filing a review of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Not online. And finally, there’s a letter from Fleischmann to then-Times music critic Martin Bernheimer replying to a story on the orchestra's 1986-87 season. As you’ll notice, a comment penciled in the margin reads “bullshit.” Definitely not online. I think Daily Mirror readers would agree that this material deserves a better home than my garage. I would happily donate these files to an academic library in Southern California that realizes their merit. You can contact me here. As for the rest of these documents, copying and posting them in their entirety would be rather laborious but I’ll be willing to upload them if there’s enough interest.

Lakers Arrive in L.A.!

June 15, 1960: The Lakers are here! And this is the welcoming committee? Unlike the reception given the Dodgers when they moved west to Los Angeles, the Lakers quietly moved into town in 1960. I loved the silliness of this staged photo as the Lakers' gear "arrived." The photo makes it appear the financially strapped team only had one basketball but a four-paragraph story in The Times noted that the ball was used in the team's first of six world championships. --Keith Thursby

Get Your Lakers Tickets!

June 10, 1960: The Lakers started selling season tickets for their new home in Los Angeles and what a different world it was. Season ticket holders would be assured of at least 25 home games in the new Los Angeles Sports Arena. Back then, the NBA regularly set games in neutral sites and it was unclear how many dates the Lakers would get at home. "If the Lakers are successful in obtaining two or three more home dates, the ticket holders will be billed the additional amounts," a small story in The Times reported. --Keith Thursby

Lakers Moving to L.A.

April 28, 1960: The Lakers became the newest member of Los Angeles' growing collection of sports teams, agreeing to move from Minneapolis in time for the 1960-61 season. Owner Robert Short and the Coliseum Commission agreed on playing dates and rent at the Sports Arena, Mal Florence reported in The Times. This was a very different NBA than the current league. Florence reported that the Lakers would play 28 games in the Sports Arena (capacity 14,500) and a few games in the Los Angeles State gym (capacity all of 5,200). That doesn't sound major league at all by current standards. And the Lakers planned to play a few games in San Francisco to ease travel. The Lakers did play two games in San Francisco, as well as two games in Portland (no, not against the Trail Blazers). And they even played the Celtics away from Boston Garden, at Providence R.I. --Keith Thursby

Magic Johnson Puts Lakers Over the Top

March 6, 1980: Magic Johnson has one of his best rookie nights. “It was the most entertaining garbage-time basketball since Hot Rod Hundley wore a Laker uniform,” Scott Ostler says of the Lakers’ victory over Kansas City, 117-101.  On the jump, Jim Murray on Amy Alcott.

Does L.A. Want the Lakers?

Feb. 23, 1960: Minneapolis Lakers owner Bob Short was ahead of his time. Reading comments made by Short to a group of basketball writers, one could assume he owned a team in 2010 rather than 1960. After all, he was trying to move his team and had a spot all picked out, but he still felt the need to play hard-to-get. Short desperately wanted out of Minnesota and given the Dodgers' success in L.A., the city looked like a sure thing. But among Short's issues were the proposed rent at the Sports Arena was too high, he wasn't sure the league fathers would approve the deal (it was not his decision, poor guy) and he wanted the Lakers to be wanted. Seriously. "It's apparent that he would like some form of an official invitation from the city of Los Angeles," Mal Florence wrote in The Times. I doubt he was holding L.A. hostage, but what silliness. As St. Louis Hawks owner Ben Kerner said, "There shouldn't be any fuss about L.A. being a good sports town. … The NBA should come to Los Angeles." --Keith Thursby