I don’t like the New York Yankees. I could credit that to my place of birth (Western Mass.) or I could credit it to Paul O’Neill’s annoying habit of arguing every… single… call. But even when Aaron Boone’s extra-innings home run brought me to my knees, I have always respected the hell out of Joe Torre, a (seemingly) class act and a true winner.

I never knew Torre is a Boston Celtics fan, though, who learned the importance of team play while watching Bill Russell. (WEEI)

“I was a Boston Celtics fan,” Torre told CBSSports.com. “In fact, I really got my idea of team play from watching the Celtics in the ’50s with those guys, how they shared the ball all the time. Bill Russell, of course, when I met him and told him that story, I think he was a little surprised. I just love that nobody was bigger than the other guy.”

Fifty years later, the Celtics still thrive on the same principles. Damn it, I miss the NBA.

When Bill Russell speaks, as long as you aren’t too busy being blinded by his eleven rings, you listen. And when he says hard-liners are threatening to extend the NBA lockout and further damage the game, he’s right. (CBS Sports)

“As a very interested bystander, I just hope they get a deal,” Russell told CBSSports.com in a phone interview. “And it will not come from the hard-liners on either side. I think they all know that. I have this theory that hard-liners are like true believers. And true believers think that any compromise is a retreat. And moving forward, that doesn’t cut it.”

Russell also shared an old anecdote regarding David Stern’s feelings toward the NBA players union. These days, David Stern is called a plantation owner (by irrational people). He is called a bully (by rational people). He is the head of the NBA owners, and as such, Stern is leading a brigade to take the players’ lunch money, if not their dignity. But Russell remembered a time when Stern called the players his business partners.

Russell’s words carry weight – and not just because he is the most decorated champion in NBA history. The former Celtics’ star was among a group of 20 All-Stars who threatened to boycott the 1964 All-Star Game in Boston unless the NBA recognized the newly formed players’ union.

“Basically I was one of those guys that helped get the players’ association started,” Russell said. “And they’ve done wonderful things. I knew David Stern before he was commissioner, when he was associate attorney for the NBA. And if I remember correctly, he said, ‘I do not consider the players’ association my adversaries. They’re my business partners.’

“That’s where, a lot of the things that David has done — and I’ve known him up close — have been beneficial for both sides,” Russell said.

Russell understands the stances of both sides, but like the rest of us, just wants a resolution.

“The players want their fair share of the business and the small-market owners don’t want to keep losing money,” Russell said.

Russell said he hasn’t kept up with the details of the negotiation, but cautioned both sides that there’s “more to the agreement than just money.”

“I told Billy Hunter a few years ago: Bargain as hard as you can and make a deal,’” Russell said. “I really like and respect David Stern, and I really like and respect Billy Hunter and Derek Fisher. My whole life I’ve had a love affair with the NBA, and we’ve had some tough negotiations over the years. But I don’t think we ever vilified the other side. We just had tough negotiations.”

End this lockout, NBA. The best winner in the history of professional sports implores you to.

I planned to begin this post like this: “When Ed Macauley’s son became ill in 1956, it contributed to the Celtics’ acquisition of Bill Russell.”

Then, I read a CelticsBlog post by Roy Hobbs (who is either The Natural or this guy, preferably the former), who adamantly believes we need to remember Macauley for more than his departure from Boston, which — along with Red Auerbach’s creativity — allowed the team to draft Russell. Macauley’s a Hall of Famer, and Hobbs treats him as such.

Macauley was more than a trading chip.  He was the team’s first superstar.  If I told you there was only one player in Celtics history that had finished in the top ten in the NBA at varying times in his career in points per game, rebounds per game, and assists per game, how many of you would have guessed the answer was Larry Bird or John Havlicek?  Not so; it was Macauley.  Think about that for a minute:  a top ten player in points, rebounds, and assists.  He also finished top ten in FT% once, and led the league in FG% twice.  This is a player who was dominant, which explains why he was three times first-team All-NBA, and made the All-Star team all six years he was in Boston.

Ed Macauley could play. RIP.

Without Red Auerbach, the Boston Celtics would not have become the NBA’s winningest franchise. He drafted Bill Russell. Selected Larry Bird a year before Bird finished college. Traded for Robert Parish and Kevin McHale. Coached the Celtics to nine championships, then won seven more as general manager and team president.

On what would have been Auerbach’s 94th birthday, I include an excerpt from Bill Russell’s book Red and Me: My Coach, My Lifelong Friend to remind you: sometimes, the genius is in fine print.

To set the stage: The year is 1956. The Celtics are thirsty for a big man and Auerbach is desperate to draft Russell, but the Celtics only have the 7th pick. Ed Macauley’s son is sick and Macauley has requested a trade closer to his St. Louis home; Red also wants to use the draft to send Macauley to the St. Louis Hawks. The St. Hawks hold the 2nd pick, so Red needs to devise a plan to A) trade Macauley to St. Louis, B) bring the Hawks’ 2nd pick to Boston, and C) persuade the Rochester Royals, owners of the 1st pick, not to select Russell.

“First, he called Hawks owner Ben Kerner, a man he’d once coached for and despised. If he could maneuver Kerner off [Russell], that would suit Red just fine. So he offered up Macauley, his best shooter, and the Celtics’ seventh pick in the draft in return for St. Louis’s rights to pick second. But Ben Kerner knew he had Red over a barrel. So he demanded more. He wanted to throw in Cliff Hagan, a promising young forward to Kentucky. At that juncture, Celtics owner Walter Brown told Red, ‘You can’t trade Ed Macauley! He’s our best player!’ But then Red had Ed Macauley tell Walter personally, ‘I want you to trade me to St. Louis. You’d be doing me a favor, because then I can take care of my son and still play pro ball.’ That was enough for Walter; he wore his empathy on his sleeve anyway.

“St. Louis was satisfied. Now for the coup de grace: the Rochester Royals. They had first pick, so what could Red possibly do to keep them from saying, ‘Rochester selects Bill Russell’? The Royals already had Maurice Stokes, a great young center who was leading the league in rebounds, so Red figured they didn’t need another big center like me. So he persuaded Walter Brown to call Rochester owner Les Harrison with an unusual proposition. Walter said, ‘Listen, Les. I’m the president of the Ice Capades. If you lay off Russell at Number one, just pick the date and I’ll throw the Ice Capades in your building for two weeks.’ This was Red’s almost compulsively innovative genius working overtime. He knew that in the off-season back then, a lot of those big arenas sat empty. Having the Ice Capades in your building for two weeks was like having the Harlem Globetrotters: guaranteed sellouts every night—and you’ve made a profit for the year! Of course, Harrison bit. He was a businessman, and for him, this was good business.”

And with that, the Celtics secured the draft rights to Bill Russell, set the foundation for the team’s first 11 championships, and marked Red Auerbach as one hombre you don’t want to negotiate with. Even when you win against Red — I’m sure the Ice Capades made Les Harrison a bundle of cash — you lose.

Happy birthday, Red. Smoke a stogey for me.

Thirty-seven years after Boston last hosted an NBA All-Star game, Mayor Thomas Menino stated his desire to bring the NBA’s most worthless exhibition back to Bean Town. (Boston Globe)

The city has not hosted an All-Star game since 1964, when Bill Russell, Sam Jones and Tommy Heinsohn represented the Celtics for the Eastern Conference. The East prevailed by a 111-107 score and the MVP honors went to Oscar Robertson, who, not very surprisingly, posted a near-triple double. The Western Conference All-Stars featured Jerry West, Wilt Chamberlain, Elgin Baylor, and a lesser-known player named Don Ohl who was nicknamed Waxie due to his crew cut. In case you were wondering.

The Celtics will need to complete a formal proposal to bring the game back to Boston. The large financial commitment has been a barrier keeping many teams from hosting the event. The NBA also tends to host All-Star Games in warm climates, and Boston in February doesn’t exactly have beach weather. But according to the Boston Globe, Wyc Grousbeck said the Celtics are interested in joining the rotation.

Even the most diehard Celtics fans have probably never heard the name John Doherty.

He never played a game for the Boston Celtics. He never scored a single NBA point. His jump shot might have been ten times worse than Rajon Rondo’s, his handle might have been twenty times worse than Eddie House’s, and his defense might have been thirty times worse than Gerald Green’s, if Green was drunk, high and just as basketball illiterate as ever. He never owned the Celtics and he never coached alongside Red Auerbach or anybody else. Yet he’s woven into Celtics lore, and his story is certainly worth retelling. (Boston Globe)

While he was a surgeon at Glover Memorial Hospital (now Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital), Dr. Doherty, known as Jack, performed emergency surgery on a fellow Needham resident named Walter Brown, saving his life.

What Dr. Doherty did not know was that Brown was the founder and owner of the Boston Celtics.

Doherty became friends with a number of the players, including Bill Russell and Tom Heinsohn, and performed a surgery that helped prolong Jim Luscotoff’s career. But Doherty’s sons might have been the biggest beneficiaries of their father’s gig. Chris Doherty remembers visiting the Boston Garden, where the Doherty children were allowed to sit courtside, meet the players in the locker room and bug their father to get them autographs.

“I used to sit behind the Celtics bench with my brothers, and my dad brought us to a lot the championship games,’’ said his son Chris. “And after the championship games he would even take us into the Celtics locker room to meet the players. Young kids in giant land, it was just phenomenal, just the best memories I’ve had. I used to bug my dad about getting the signed autographs of the Celtics to bring home and I’d wake up one morning and there on my closet door would be a signed picture of John Havlicek and Bill Russell, who rarely gave autographs.’’

While we’re obsessed with sweating wins and losses, cherishing dunks and no-look passes and fretting about midseason additions, we often miss out on stories like these: the Celtics owner with a heart of gold and the doctor who was lucky enough to save his life.