Indianapolis – Page 15 – Alan E. Hunter

Merrill’s Hi-Decker in Indianapolis.

May 18, 2018June 9, 2018 Alan E. Hunter- Irvington

merrill's high decker — **WIBC radio booth atop Merrill’s Hi-Decker.**

Original publish date: August 6, 2015

Summertime is closing fast and the Indiana State Fair has come and gone for another year. So I figured I’d break out one last gasp of summertime from 38th and Fall Creek that might jog a memory or two for you. Back when Elvis was blonde, the Tee Pee stood tall and Ike was in charge there was a place called Merrill’s Hi- Decker restaurant located right across the street from the Fairgrounds (officially 1155 East 38th Street). The Hi- Decker took over a restaurant known as “The Parkmoor” in 1956 as a curbside drive-in hamburger stand restaurant whose most famous whose most famous “deckhand” never sold as much as one burger or milkshake.

z Dick-Barbsbz — **WIBC Disc Jockey Dick Summer.**

His name was Dick Summer and he manned the coolest DJ booth in Indianapolis in the late 1950s. His glass booth sat on the roof of Merrill’s High Decker. The restaurant was shaped like a stack of records anyway, so the addition of the rectangular booth with the circular roof made the High Decker one of the city’s hottest spots when Summer was in session. The booth was brightly lit with neon lights featuring the “WIBC 1070 On Your Dial” marque sign ablaze like a Rock-N-Roll sun. Indianapolis radio station WIBC was the No. 1 station among teens.
All the “flattop cats” and “dungaree dolls” spent their weekends buzzing Merrill’s and other drive-ins like Laughners at Irvington Plaza on Washington Street, Jack ‘n Jill’s on North Shadeland, Knobby’s at Shadeland & 38th Street and the Blue Ribbon on 10th Street. The Northside Tepee across the street from Merrill’s was Shortridge and Broad Ripple territory and the southside Tepee was for Sacred Heart and Southport. Spencer’s North Pole at Lafayette Road and 16th was for Washington and Ben Davis high schools. And who can forget Al Green’s at Washington and Shadeland and their freebie drive-in movies for restaurant patrons (The joke was that the service was so slow, they had to do something to keep people from leaving). But none of them had Dick Summer.

z dick_summer_wnew_1130_am_new_york-300x226 — **WIBC Disc Jockey Dick Summer.**

Summer, a wildly handsome young Disc Jockey from Brooklyn New York, had a perfectly quaffed pompadour and an act to matched. He had a show called “Summertime, live from the Skyline Studio”. Summer would play the newest rock-and-roll hits from his WIBC radio booth on high. His show included a nightly segment after the 10 PM News he called “make it or break it.” He would spin new “Hot Wax” 45 rpm releases, many from local bands, and ask the cheeseburger chompin’ patrons parked in their cars below to vote on them. Patrons would vote by sounding their car horns. The results would decide whether the record would be played on future shows or if he should break it. Car horns could be clearly heard over the air. If the “No’s” won, Summer would break the record over his microphone. If more people honked for “Make It” that record was played every hour for the next week.
Every Saturday night Summer did a live broadcast featuring a different local band which set up right out on the parking lot. Any time recording artists and bands came to town, Summer interviewed them out in the Merrill’s parking lot. Part of these interviews included an opportunity for the people eating at the restaurant to walk over and ask questions of their own. One of the things fans remember best was the midnight story feature. Every midnight Summer read a short story, most often something by Edgar Allan Poe.
Summer, now retired, recalled a funny story from those years, “The manager of the restaurant was a young guy who was very much into guns. One night as I was doing “Make It Or Break It” he decided that he REALLY didn’t like the record I was playing, so he pulled out his hand gun and shot me. Seriously. I watched him, standing probably 20 feet away, reach into his belt, pull his gun, aim, and squeeze the trigger. The blast was huge, and I thought I was dead. It was a blank. He hit the ground laughing. So the next night I wedged a pound of Limburger cheese right on the engine block of his car. He got the first laugh, but mine lasted longer.”
z merrill's Another Summer gimmick was to slowly bite into a juicy hamburger before he kicked off every commercial during his show. Doesn’t sound like much now, but apparently back in the day it drove customers crazy. Not to mention it sold a lot of hamburgers. The only way into the glass booth studio was up a fire escape ladder leading up to the roof, and then into the tiny studio via a trap door in the floor. Legend claims that George Lucas used Summer’s “Skyline Studio” as the inspiration for Wolfman Jack’s studio in his movie American Graffiti. You’d have to rent the movie and see for yourself because Merrill’s Hi-Decker and the radio booth are long gone now.
Even though Summer’s gig kept the Hi-Decker in the black in the Ike Era up into the John F. Kennedy Camelot Era. But Summer eventually left WIBC and went to WIL-AM, in St. Louis. WIBC kept rolling along nicely, but the Indy radio scene really took the blow hard. The British Invasion pretty much sealed the fate of local radio hijinx. And Merrills was in big trouble. Within a short time after Summer’s departure, the Hi-Decker had to make a deal with an auto dealer up the street to park his used cars in the drive-in parking lot on the weekends to look like it was still doing a bang-up business. It was a far cry from the days of two block long traffic jams of tail-fin and fuzzy dice cars waiting to cruise the Hi-Decker.
Recently Summer waxed poetic about his time in Indy and parts elsewhere as a young DJ: “It is truly hard being an aging young person. Hide and seek, ringalevio, kick the can, double dutch, punch ball, stick ball, box ball, stoop ball, doctor-lawyer-indian chief thoughts keep popping up in my head while I’m trying to be serious doing my day job. Pay checks are poor substitutes for wax lips, candy drops on rolls of paper and chocolate cigarettes. Kid-hood had stresses like “are you going to be the LAST guy picked to play on the stickball team?” (Guys will understand.) Adult-hood has stresses that involve having to override your body’s basic desire to choke the living crap out of some idiot who desperately deserves it…and would probably never even be the last person ever picked for any stickball team. The most wonderful part of the kind of radio I did was as long as I was on the air, it was never too late to have a happy childhood. I don’t ever want to get too old or too angry to do goofy stuff. That’s why I always listen carefully to what my Rice Krispies tell me when I pour milk over them at breakfast…Radio seems awfully grown up now. Talk shows are angry, computers spit out carefully researched music lists, and there’s no time to broadcast local kid bands live from a drive-in while the guy on the air munches his juicy hamburger.”

Indianapolis, Medicine, Politics

First Lady Caroline Harrison. Death in the White House.

May 17, 2018June 9, 2018 Alan E. Hunter- Irvington

death-at-white-house

Original publish date: October 20, 2013

121 years ago this Friday, America lost it’s first lady, Benjamin Harrison lost a wife and two weeks later, he lost the Presidential election. Caroline Scott and Benjamin Harrison were married on October 20, 1853. The newlyweds lived at the Harrison family home at North Bend, Ohio for the first year until Benjamin completed his law studies and they moved to Indianapolis and set up his first practice.
During the first few years of their marriage, the couple rarely spent time together, as Benjamin worked to establish his law practice and became active in fraternal organizations to help build a network. In 1854, their first child Russell Benjamin Harrison was born. Not long after, a fire destroyed the Harrison home and all their belongings. Benjamin took a job handling cases for a local law firm and the family managed to recover financially. In 1858, Caroline gave birth to Mary Scott Harrison. In 1861 she gave birth to a second daughter, who died soon after birth.
While Benjamin Harrison’s star rose rapidly in his profession, Caroline cared for their children and was active in the First Presbyterian Church and Indianapolis orphans’ home. Benjamin’s long hours at the law office and his pursuit of a living drove a wedge between the young couple and although Caroline did not complain, the strain showed.
At the onset of the Civil War, both Harrison’s sought to help in the war effort. Caroline joined Indianapolis groups that raised money for supplies to help care for wounded soldiers. In 1862, when President Abraham Lincoln issued a call for more troops, Benjamin recruited a regiment of over 1,000 men from Indiana. When the regiment left to join the Union Army at Louisville, Kentucky, Harrison was promoted to the rank of colonel, and his regiment was commissioned as the 70th Indiana Infantry.

z 28bacc9d683dd37788f44fa81f0a0736 — **Brigadier General Benjamin Harrison of the XX Corps, 1865**

In May 1864, the 70th Indiana regiment joined General William Tecumseh Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign and moved to the front lines, and Harrison was promoted to command the 1st Brigade of the 1st Division of the XX Corps. Harrison’s brigade participated in the brutal Battle of Nashville in December 1864, considered by historians to be the “Gettysburg of the West”. On March 22, 1865, Harrison earned a promotion to the rank of brigadier general.
The horrors of the Civil War taught General Harrison what was really important in his life and the tone of his letters to Caroline during the war are filled with a deep passionate tone. When he returned home, she would never again reproach him for neglect. His law practice and his fame grew, and he became a political force.
After the war, Benjamin Harrison spent the next decade practicing law and getting involved in politics. He ran for governor of Indiana in 1876, but lost. The Harrison home on North Delaware Street was built in 1874-75, and soon became a center of political activity. Her husband’s election to the Senate in 1880 brought Caroline to Washington, DC, but a serious fall on an icy sidewalk that year undermined her health. In 1883, she had surgery in New York that required a lengthy period of recovery. She had also suffered from respiratory problems since a bout with pneumonia in her youth, and did not participate much in Washington’s winter social season.
In the fall of 1887 Harrison was nominated for President by the Republican Party. In the campaign, Caroline was a definite asset. Her natural charm and open manner offset her husband’s chilly reserve (He often wore gloves to protect him from infection from others, and it bothered him to shake the hands of White House visitors), and the press loved her. In November 1888, Harrison defeated the incumbent Grover Cleveland.

z 2e02ea2673a0692697075334113fab93 — **First Lady Caroline Harrison.**

Caroline Harrison was 56 years old when she became first lady. Historians regard her as one of our most underrated First Ladies who, in contrast to her husband’s conservative policies, was earnestly devoted to women’s rights. She became known for her many “firsts” as First Lady. Caroline was the first first lady to deliver a speech she had written herself after she became the first president of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
Caroline’s sister died in early December 1889 at the executive mansion and Mrs. Harrison decided to have the funeral in the east room of the White House. It would be the first funeral in that room since Abraham Lincoln in 1865. In spite of the family tragedy, Caroline went ahead with her plans to raise the first Christmas tree in the White House that same month. She had John Phillip Sousa and the Marine Band play and, for the first time since Sarah Polk was First Lady, there was dancing in the White House.
Perhaps her biggest first came when she had electricity installed in the White House, even though she was terrified by the new technology. Seems that President Benjamin Harrison received a shock from an Edison dc current light switch, after which his family feared touching the switches. Mrs Harrison rarely operated the light switches herself, choosing instead to sleep with the lights on when neither she nor her husband were willing to touch them for fear of electrocution. Servants were often made to turn the lights on and off for the Harrison family.
The First Lady was noted for her elegant White House receptions and dinners, but she is most remembered for her efforts to refurbish the dilapidated White House. She was horrified at the filth and clutter and thought the White House was beneath the dignity of the Presidency, describing it as “rat-infested and filthy.” She brought in ferrets to eat the rats, and lobbied to have the White House torn down and replaced with a more regal Executive Mansion. Instead the old building was refurbished from basement to attic, including a new heating system and a second bathroom. The old, sagging worn-out floors were replaced.
She hated the crowded living area and the tourists made it impossible to use the first floor. In 1889 Caroline Harrison found fault with the “circus atmosphere” in the mansion when she found visitors wandering uninvited into the family quarters. Harrison complained about the lack of privacy on the White House grounds, saying, “The White House is an office and a home combined. An evil combination.” She was the first to suggest the addition of office space to the Executive Mansion when she made up very detailed plans to add an East and a West Wing so that the original mansion could be used for entertaining and the family’s living area. Caroline Harrison’s plan was the first to move the office spaces out of the house.
As she worked to remodel the White House, Caroline was careful to inventory the contents of every room. She cataloged the mansion’s furniture, pictures and decorative objects, working to preserve those that had historical value. Caroline unearthed the chinaware of former presidential administrations found hidden away in closets and unused attic and basement spaces. She personally cleaned, repaired and identified which pieces belonged to which past President. She used their items to create a popular museum display case that remains in the White House to this day.
Artistically talented, Caroline taught classes in painting to anyone who wanted to learn and became the first First Lady to design her own White House china. She wanted new china that would be “symbolic and meaningful to Americans.” The first lady placed the Coat of Arms of the United States in the center ringed by a goldenrod and corn motif etched in gold around a wide outer band of blue. The corn represents Mrs. Harrison’s home state of Indiana and 44 stars, one for each state in the Union at the time, made up the inner border.
In the winter of 1891-1892 while she tried to fulfill her social obligations, Mrs.Harrison was frequently ill with bouts of bronchial infections. In March of 1892 she developed catarrhal pneumonia, followed by hemorrhaging of the lungs and was moved to a three-bedroom cottage on Loon Lake in the Adirondack Mountains in July. Following a brief rally, her doctors diagnosed her condition as tuberculosis, which at the time had no known cure or treatment other than rest and good nutrition. Although she briefly recovered at the mountain retreat, she suffered a setback in September and asked to be returned to the White House.

z ih156311_1024x1024 — **The Death of First Lady Caroline Harrison in the White House.**

On September 20, she returned to her favorite pale green and silver bedroom in the White House. It was sometimes used as a music room, furnished in pale green plush. One account states that Mrs. Harrison’s bedroom was: “Daintily appointed in pale green and silver, it stands just as Mrs. Harrison left it, and like the rest of the beautified White House, is a memorial to her refined and artistic taste.” Caroline must have been fond of the pale green palate as many of the multi-colored fabric pieces are done in green tones.
Caroline did not live to see her husband’s defeat for a second term as President. On October 25, 1892, Caroline died at the age of sixty of Typhoid fever. It was an election year, and out of respect for the president’s lady, after her death neither Harrison nor Cleveland actively campaigned for the presidency. Two weeks following her death, Harrison lost his bid for reelection. Daughter Mary Harrison McKee was already living at the White House with her family, and she took up the responsibilities of first lady for the last few months of Harrison’s term.
After private services were held in the East Room, the family brought her back to Indianapolis for interment. An official funeral service was held at the First Presbyterian Church. After the service, the cortege proceeded past the Harrison’s Delaware Street home before going on to Crown Hill Cemetery for burial.
Caroline Harrison’s legacy has proved to be historically important. The current architectural plan of the White House, in particular the East and West Wing, reflects the plan suggested by her in 1889, and the White House china room is certainly a testament to her historical sensitivity in rescuing, repairing and identifying artifacts from previous administrations. Caroline Harrison was not able to use the china she had ordered. She died before it was delivered. It arrived at the White House in December of 1892.

z 1200px-Benjamin_Harrison_Home — **Benjamin Harrison home at 1230 North Delaware Street in Indianapolis.**

You can honor Caroline Harrison’s memory with a visit to the Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site at 1230 North Delaware Street. The home offers tours daily. Another option, perhaps more consistent with the season, would be to visit her final resting place at Crown Hill Cemetery at 3402 Boulevard Place. Tour Guide and historian Tom Davis will be reprising his popular “Skeletons in the closet” tours (there are 2 different) on October 24, 25, 26 and November 2. Check their web site for specifics. Although I don’t think Caroline’s gravesite is particularly featured on Tom’s tours, I’m pretty sure he’ll take you there if you were to ask him. After all, Tom knows where all the bodies are buried.

z harrisoncarolin2 — **Benjamin Harrison Grave in Crown Hill Cemetery.**

z harrisoncarolin — **Caroline Harrison Grave in Crown Hill Cemetery.**

ABA-American Basketball Association, Indianapolis

Richard P. Tinkham’s ABA Indiana Pacers. PART II

May 17, 2018June 10, 2018 Alan E. Hunter- Irvington

ABA Irvington-9958 — **Richard P. Tinkham, Robin Miller & Bob Netolicky.**

Original Publish Date: March 26, 2018

Richard P. Tinkham Jr., who visited the Irving Theatre in Irvington last Sunday, is one of the true pioneers of the American Basketball Association, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. Mr. Tinkham was in the Irv, along with co-authors Bob Netolicky & Robin Miller, to sign copies of their new book, “We changed the game.” Mr. Tinkham, co-founder of the ABA and the Indiana Pacers franchise, knows all of the league’s secrets. He was instrumental in the creation of Market Square Arena and co-chaired the ABA merger committee that sent four ABA teams into the NBA and helped lead the ABA/NBA consolidation. As detailed in part one of this series, that road to merger was a long journey. Dick Tinkham was there for every step.

Indianapolis native Oscar Robertson delayed the first merger attempt in 1971 with a court case and subsequent injunction that ultimately doomed the league. Before the 1975–76 season, the Denver Nuggets and New York Nets tried to defect from the ABA to join the NBA. The owners of the Nets and Nuggets had approached John Y. Brown, Jr. (Kentucky Fried Chicken magnate and future Governor of the Blue Grass State) in an attempt to get his Kentucky Colonels to join their attempted defection. Brown refused, saying he would remain loyal to the ABA.
Instead, the two teams were forced by judicial order to play a lame-duck season in the ABA. Ironically, the two would be defector teams had the last laugh as they would end up playing for the championship that final season (The Nets beat the Nuggets 4 games to 2).
This attempted defection exposed the emerging financial weakness of the league’s lesser teams. Soon, the ABA began it’s death throe. Perhaps the best illustration of league instability can be found in the New Orleans / Memphis franchise. The New Orleans Buccaneers were among the original 11 teams. In 1972 the Bucs moved to Memphis and began a 5 year identity crisis. The team left New Orleans and became the Pros, then the Tams and finally the Sounds. That last Memphis team looked an awful lot like the Indiana Pacers.

z sounds2 — **Mike Storen’s team with former Indiana Pacers Rick Mount, Freddie Lewis, Mel Daniels & Roger Brown.**

The team was led by Mike Storen, former vice president and general manager of the Indiana Pacers. Storen stacked the Sounds with former Indiana players Mel Daniels, Freddie Lewis, Roger Brown and Rick Mount along with Hoosier hot shot Billy Shepherd. Prior to the start of the 1975-76 season, the Sounds moved to Baltimore, Maryland. The team was initially named the Baltimore Hustlers, but public pressure forced them to rename it the Claws. The Claws folded in October of 1975 during the preseason after playing just three exhibition games. Mel Daniels, disappointed at the Claws’ demise, retired rather than play for another team. Later Daniels recalled that the Claws’ players were encouraged to take equipment and furniture from the team office in lieu of payment.
Not long after the Claws folded, the San Diego Sails followed suit. The Sails (formerly the Conquistadors) were the ABA’s first and only expansion team. While the departure of those two teams may not have been a surprise, when the Utah Stars, one of the ABA’s most successful teams, folded, the league dropped from 10 teams to 7. The Virginia Squires folded in May following the end of the season.
That left six teams standing: the Kentucky Colonels, Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers, New York Nets, Spirits of St. Louis and San Antonio Spurs. With settlement of the Oscar Robertson suit on February 3, 1976, the final merger negotiations began. Dick Tinkham says “Calling it a merger is a misnomer, the NBA said it was an expansion draft, but in truth, it was a massacre.” During the June 1976 negotiations, the NBA made it clear that it would accept only four ABA teams, not five. In addition “The NBA required that the remaining four ABA teams pay a $ 3.2 million expansion fee by September 15, 1976,” states Tinkham.

z brown — **ABA Kentucky Colonels owner (& future Governor) John Y. Brown,**

On June 17, 1976, Kentucky owner John Y. Brown folded the Colonels for a $3 million payment from the remaining teams. In addition to the $3 million he received for agreeing to stay out of the merger, Brown also sold Gilmore’s rights to the Bulls for $1.1 million. Additionally, the Portland Trail Blazers took Maurice Lucas for $300,000, the Buffalo Braves took Bird Averitt for $125,000, the Pacers took Wil Jones for $50,000, the Nets took Jan van Breda Kolff for $60,000, and the Spurs took Louie Dampier for $20,000. Ironically, with all of those funds, Brown bought the NBA’s Buffalo Braves for $1.5 million, and later parlayed the Braves into ownership of the Boston Celtics.
Lawyer Tinkham points out that although Brown came out smelling like a rose when the ABA folded, it was the owners of the Spirits of St. Louis who struck the best deal with the use of one obscure Latin term inserted at the tail end of their “merger” deal. “As part of the deal, none of the four teams would receive any television money during the first three seasons, on top of having to pay one -seventh of their annual television revenues of the defunct Spirits team in perpetuity.” That term, “In Perpetuity”, would prove most advantageous in the years to come.
z merge

The 1976 ABA-NBA “merger” saw the Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers, New York Nets, and San Antonio Spurs join the NBA. The deal was finally consummated on June 17, 1976, at the NBA league meetings in the Cape Cod Room at Dunfey’s Hyannis Resort in Hyannis, Massachusetts.
Perhaps fittingly, brothers Ozzie and Daniel Silna made their fortune as pioneers in the manufacture of polyester, the fabric that defined the 1970s. After failing to buy the Detroit Pistons, an NBA franchise that began life in Ft. Wayne, the Silnas’ purchased the ABA’s Carolina Cougars. The Cougars began life as the Houston Mavericks in 1967. Just as future North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Jim Gardner had bought the Mavericks and moved them to North Carolina in 1969, the Silna brothers bought the Cougars with the expectation of moving it to St. Louis. In 1974, St. Louis, Missouri was the largest city in the United States without a professional basketball team.
The 1975–76 Spirits season had not gone well in either attendance or wins. In May 1976, due to attendance problems, the Spirits announced that they were going to merge with the Utah Stars. But the Stars folded before the merger could occur and instead, the Spirits wound up with some of Utah’s best players. Then in an effort to be included in the ABA–NBA merger, the Silna brothers proposed selling the Spirits to a Utah group, buying the Kentucky Colonels franchise, and moving them to Buffalo to replace the Buffalo Braves. Seems that the Silna brothers were always looking towards a future in the NBA. That deal didn’t happen either.
The merger included the Spirits of St. Louis players being put into a special dispersal draft. Marvin Barnes went to the Detroit Pistons for $500,000, Moses Malone went to the Portland Trail Blazers for $300,000, Ron Boone went to the Kansas City Kings for $250,000, Randy Denton went to the New York Knicks for $50,000 and Mike Barr went to the Kansas City Kings for $15,000. It must be noted that, in all, twelve players from the final two Spirits of St. Louis rosters (1974–76) played in the NBA during the 1976–77 season and beyond: Maurice Lucas, Ron Boone, Marvin Barnes, Caldwell Jones, Lonnie Shelton, Steve Green, Gus Gerard, Moses Malone, Don Adams, Don Chaney, M. L. Carr and Freddie Lewis.

But that wasn’t the end of the line for the Silna boys. Together, they managed to turn the ABA-NBA merger into one of the greatest deals in the history of professional sports. First, the remaining ABA owners agreed, in return for the Spirits folding, to pay the Silnas’ $2.2 million in cash and that 1/7 share of television revenues in perpetuity. As the NBA’s popularity exploded in the 1980s and 1990s, the league’s television rights were sold to CBS and then NBC, and additional deals were struck with the TNT and TBS cable networks; league television revenue soared into the hundreds of millions of dollars. The Silnas’ continue to receive checks from the NBA on a yearly basis, representing a 4/7 share of the television money that would normally go to any NBA franchise, or about two percent of the entire league’s TV deal.
That deal turned into at least $4.4 million per year through the 1990s. From 1999 through 2002 the deal netted the Silnas’ another $12.50 million per year; from 2003 to 2006 their take was at least $15.6 million per year.The two Silna brothers each get 45% of that television revenue per year and their merger, Donald Schupak, receives the orher 10%. As of 2013, the Silna brothers have received over $300 million in NBA revenue, despite the fact that the Spirits never played a single NBA game.
In 2012, the Silna brothers sued the NBA for “hundreds of millions of dollars more” they felt were owed them for NBA League Pass subscriptions and streaming video revenues that claimed was an extension of television revenues. In January 2014, a conditional settlement agreement between the NBA, the four active former-ABA clubs and the Silnas was announced and the Silnas’ received an estimated $500 million more from the former ABA teams. Ozzie Silna passed in 2014 at the age of 83. Daniel Silva is a successful philanthropist living in New Jersey.
In the first NBA All Star Game after the merger, 10 of the 24 NBA All Stars were former ABA players, five (Julius Erving, Caldwell Jones, George McGinnis, Dave Twardzik and Maurice Lucas) were starters. Of the 84 players in the ABA at the time of the merger, 63 played in the NBA during the 1976–77 season. Additionally, four of the NBA’s top ten scorers were former ABA players (Billy Knight, David Thompson, Dan Issel and George Gervin). The Pacers’ Don Buse led the NBA in both steals and assists during that first post-merger season. The Spirits of St. Louis’ Moses Malone finished third in rebounding, Kentucky Colonels’ Artis Gilmore was fourth. Gilmore and his former Colonels teammate Caldwell Jones were both among the top five in the NBA in blocked shots. Tom Nissalke left the ABA to coach the NBA’s Houston Rockets in the first post-merger season and was named NBA Coach of the Year. Yes, the ABA left its mark on the NBA instantly.
And where was Richard P. Tinkham, the man right in the middle of all of those previous league negotiations when the merger news was announced? “I was driving home from the airport when I heard the news on the radio,” he says, “It was great news, but people have no idea what it took to pull it off.”
ABA 50th_BLF[2] On Saturday, April 7th, Indianapolis will host the 50th reunion celebration of the ABA with an evening banquet at Banker’s Life Fieldhouse and a special daytime public event at Hinkle Fieldhouse from 11:00 to 3:00. The public is invited to attend this once in a lifetime event that will include a special ABA 50th anniversary ring presentation for all the players followed by a Guinness World Book of Records attempt to set the mark for most pro athletes signing autographs in a single session.
Special guest ring presenters for this charity event include Mayor Joe Hogsett, Senator Joe Donnelly, Congresswoman Susan Brooks, City Councillors Mike McQuillen and Vop Osili, WISH-TV personality Dick Wolfsie and Rupert from Survivor. It promises to be a very special event. Dick Tinkham will be there too, watching over his players as they gather for one last collective hurah. Oh, and the man paying for those player rings? None other than Spirits of St.Louis owner Dan Silva. Paying it forward, “In Perpetuity”.

Ron Sanders group photo — Mayor Joe Hogsett, Dick Wolfsie, City Councilman Michael McQuillen, Senator Joe Donnelly, City Councilman Vop Osili, Dr. John Abrams, Scott Tarter, Rupert Boneham, Ted Green & Congresswoman Susan Brooks.
**Photo by Ron Sanders.**

ABA-American Basketball Association, Indianapolis

Richard P. Tinkham’s ABA Indiana Pacers. PART I

May 17, 2018June 10, 2018 Alan E. Hunter- Irvington

Dick Tinkham Part I photo — **Alan E. Hunter & ABA Indiana Pacers legend Richard P. Tinkham.**

Original Publish date: March 19, 2018

This past weekend the Irving Theatre played host to a book signing. Bob Netolicky, Robin Miller and Richard P. Tinkham visited the Irv for the official release party of their new book “We changed the game.” The book tells the story of the Indiana Pacers and the ABA from the very beginning by the men who lived it. Netolicky and Miller shared funny stories about the league that kept the crowd of 150 guests in stitches for the duration. However, even though he spoke in measured tones, sometimes barely above a whisper, it was Mr. Tinkham who kept the crowd on the edge of their seats.
z 914lSM8JoKL Dick Tinkham is the Rosetta Stone of the American Basketball Association. He was there during the embryonic stages of the league forward. Dick explained how the ABA was originally designed to be a six-foot or under player league…gasp! He revealed how the Pacers team almost folded at the close of the 1968-69 season…gulp! And he continued with tales of crucial deals made in airports, hotel rooms, restaurants and bars…wheeze! Yes, Dick Tinkham knows where all the bodies are buried.
Mr. Tinkham talked about early attempts by the ABA to lure Indianapolis native and hall of famer Oscar Robertson away from the NBA Cincinnati Royals. In 1967, Tinkham had hopes that Robertson might jump to the upstart Pacers. Robin Miller pointed out that Oscar had a $100,00 guaranteed contract and that “the Big O wasn’t going anywhere”. Mr. Tinkham then disclosed that it was Robertson who advocated that the Pacers travel to Dayton Ohio and check out a young man named Roger Brown. That signing changed the face of this city and arguably, saved the ABA. Ironically a few shot years later, Oscar Robertson would pop up again, this time as the foil for the ABA.
In June of 1971, only three years after the ABA began play, NBA owners voted 13–4 to work toward joining both leagues. A merger between the NBA and ABA appeared imminent and Dick Tinkham was right in the middle of it. After the 1970–71 season, Basketball Weekly reported: “The American basketball public is clamoring for a merger. So are the NBA and ABA owners, the two commissioners and every college coach. The war is over. The Armistice will be signed soon.” During this short-lived courtship, the two leagues agreed to play pre-season interleague exhibition games for the first time ever.
At last Saturday’s event in the Irving theatre, Dick Tinkham detailed how he met privately with Seattle SuperSonics owner Sam Schulman, a member of the ABA–NBA merger committee in 1971 to work out details for the merger. Schulman asked Tinkham how much it was going to take to get each ABA team (there were 11 at the time) to move into the NBA. Tinkham revealed to the gathered crowd that this was a question he had not anticipated and was totally unprepared to answer. Dick, thinking fast on his feet, replied that it would take $ 1 million for each team. Schulman agreed and phoned NBA Commissioner J. Walter Kennedy to announce that an agreement had been reached for a merger.

z 10aaf9897fcf9141cfc56787e4644a74 — **Seattle Supersonics owner San Schulman with ABA standout Spencer Haywood.**

Schulman told the commissioner that he was so adamant about the merger that if the NBA did not accept the agreement, he would move the SuperSonics from the NBA to the ABA. Not only that, but Schulman threatened to move his soon-to-be ABA team to Los Angeles to compete directly with the Lakers. The owners of the Dallas Chaparrals (now the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs) were so confident of the impending merger that they suggested that the ABA hold off on scheduling and playing a regular season schedule for the 1971–72 season.

z 71champs-1100 — **1971-72 NBA Milwaukee Bucks.**

The first NBA vs. ABA exhibition game was played on September 21, 1971 at Moody Coliseum in Dallas, Texas. The first half was played by NBA rules and the second half by ABA rules, including the red, white and blue basketball and 3-point shot. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s NBA Milwaukee Bucks barely squeaked past John Beasley’s ABA Dallas Chaparrals, 106-103.
Down 12 points with 10 minutes to go, Chaps Gene Phillips hit six straight shots in fourth quarter to rally his team. The Chaps went ahead 103-102 with 24 seconds remaining on a pair of free throws from guard Donnie Freeman. With the Chap’s defense collapsing on Jabbar, McCoy McLemore hit a 15-foot jumper with 11 seconds left to give the Bucks a 104-103 lead. The Chaps’ Steve “Snapper” Jones missed a 10-foot baseline jumper with five seconds on the clock. Bucks Lucius Allen made two free throws for the final score. Bucks’ stars Oscar Robertson and Bob Dandridge missed the game. Dandridge was appearing in a Willamsburg Virginia court settling a traffic ticket and Oscar Robertson was in Washington D.C. fighting the merger.

z Chaps 71-72 Home Team — **1971-72 ABA Dallas Chaparrals.**

Officially, the litigation was known as “Robertson v. National Basketball Association, 556 F.2d 682 (2d Cir. 1977)”, but it became forever known as the Oscar Robertson suit. Robertson, as president of the NBA Players Association, filed a lawsuit in April of 1970 to prevent the merger on antitrust grounds. Robertson, still smarting from his unexpected trade by his college hometown Cincinnati Royals to the Milwaukee Bucks, sought to block any merger of the NBA with the American Basketball Association, to end the option clause that bound a player to a single NBA team in perpetuity, to end the NBA’s college draft binding a player to one team, and to end restrictions on free agent signings. The suit also sought damages for NBA players for past harm caused by the option clause. The court issued an injunction against any merger thus delaying the ABA-NBA merger.
Robertson himself stated that his main gripe was that clubs basically owned their players: players were forbidden to talk to other clubs once their contract was up, because free agency did not exist back then. In 1972, the U.S. Congress came close to enacting legislation to enable a merger despite the Oscar Robertson suit. In September 1972, a merger bill was reported favorably out of a U.S. Senate committee, but the bill was put together to please the owners, and ended up not pleasing the Senators or the players. The bill subsequently died without coming to a floor vote. When Congress reconvened in 1973, another merger bill was presented to the Senate, but never advanced.
Meantime, the ABA-NBA exhibition games continued. In these ABA vs. NBA exhibition games, the ABA’s RWB ball was used for one half, and the NBA’s traditional brown ball was used in the other half, the ABA’s three-point shot (and 30 second shot clock) was used for one half only, in some games, the ABA’s no-foul out rule was in effect for the entire game and the league hosting the game provided its own referees. NBA refs wore the traditional B&W “zebra” shirts while ABA refs wore shorts matching the ball: red, white & blue. Most of the interleague games were played in ABA arenas because the NBA did not want to showcase (and legitimize) the ABA in front of NBA fans. On the flip side, ABA cities were eager to host NBA teams because they attracted extra fans, made more money, and proved both leagues could compete against each other. Results from those first few years were not highly publicized by either league.
Although they didn’t count for anything except pride, ABA / NBA exhibition games were always intense due to the bad blood between the leagues. During these ultra-competitive games players (including future Hall of Famers Rick Barry and Charlie Scott who played for teams in both leagues) were thrown out with multiple technical fouls. Likewise, Hall of Fame coaches like Larry Brown and Slick Leonard (who coached in both leagues) often ended up listening to interleague games in the locker room after being ejected.
After the 1974-75 regular season, the ABA Champion Kentucky Colonels formally challenged the NBA Champion Golden State Warriors to a “World Series of Basketball,” with a winner-take-all $1 Million purse (collected from anticipated TV revenues). The NBA and the Warriors refused the challenge. Again, after the 1975-76 season, the ABA Champion New York Nets offered to play the NBA Champion Boston Celtics in the same fashion, with the proceeds going to benefit the 1976 United States Olympic team. Predictably, the Celtics declined to participate.
In the later years of the rivalry, buoyed by younger players, better talent and the home court advantage, ABA teams began winning most of the games. Over the last three seasons of the rivalry, the ABA steadily pulled ahead: 15-10 (in 1973), 16-7 (in 1974), and 31-17 (in 1975). The ABA won the overall interleague rivalry, 79 games to 76 and in every matchup of reigning champions from the two leagues, the ABA champion won, including in the final pre-merger season when the Kentucky Colonels defeated the Golden State Warriors, sans $ 1 million dollar purse.
The Oscar Robertson suit would eventually seal the fate of the ABA and for the entirety of its pendency it presented an insurmountable obstacle to the desired merger of the two leagues. The worm was beginning to turn.

Next Week- Part II including details of the April 7, 2018 American Basketball Association Reunion in Indianapolis.

Abe Lincoln, Assassinations, Criminals, Indianapolis

John Mathews, Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth and six degrees of separation.

April 24, 2018April 24, 2018 Alan E. Hunter- Irvington

SONY DSC Original publish date: February 19, 2016

Remember the game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” that was so popular a few years back? It was a parlor game based on the concept that any two people on Earth are six or fewer acquaintance links apart. The winner is determined by the person able to use the least links to get to Kevin Bacon. Example: Someone draws the name Elvis Presley. Elvis was in the 1969 film CHANGE OF HABIT with Ed Asner. Asner was in the 1991 movie JFK with Kevin Bacon. Next player gets Will Smith. Smith and Jon Voight starred in ENEMY OF THE STATE… Jon Voight and Burt Reynolds starred in DELIVERANCE… Burt Reynolds and Demi Moore starred in STRIP TEASE…Demi Moore and Kevin Bacon starred in A FEW GOOD MEN . So Elvis wins.
I sometimes find myself playing six degrees with two of my favorite subjects: Abraham Lincoln and Indiana. I also love historical trivia. This article involves both. John Mathews was an actor and childhood friend of Abraham Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth. Mathews grew up with Booth in Baltimore Maryland and remained a close friend right up to that fateful night in April of 1865. They had the same jet black hair and classic features, but Mathew lacked the style and charisma that made Booth the superstar who many considered the most handsome man in America at the time. In fact, Mathews was acting on stage at Ford’s Theatre the night his friend killed the President.
Sometime around 11:00 am on April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth left the National Hotel and went to Ford’s Theatre to pick up his mail. At Ford’s he learns that President Abraham Lincoln would be attending the evening performance of Our American Cousin. Booth paced around the theater in a trance for some time before he decided that this would be the perfect time to assassinate the president.
zjohn-h-mathews-cropped That afternoon, Booth sat down and wrote a letter to the editor of a Washington D.C. newspaper called the National Intelligencer. In it, he explained that his plans had changed from kidnapping Lincoln to assassinating Lincoln. He signed the letter not only with his own name but also three of his co-conspirators: Lewis Powell, George Atzerodt, and David Herold. Then he got up and walked his rented horse down Fourteenth Street.
Around 4:00 pm, Booth runs into his old friend Mathews on the street near Willard’s Hotel. As it happens Mathews was playing the role of Richard Coyle in Our American Cousin that night. Booth greeted his friend with excited handshake, Mathews later recalled that Booth squeezed his hand so tightly that his nails left marks in his flesh. He gave Mathews the letter and asked him to deliver it to the National Intelligencer the next day. Booth got on his horse and rode off, passing General Ulysses S. Grant’s carriage along the way. Mathews, used to his friend’s odd behavior, tucked the letter into his coat pocket and thought no more about it.
Six hours later Booth enters Ford’s Theatre lobby around 10:07 P.M. He walks in the shadows along the curved back wall of the theatre up to the President’s box. Within minutes, Booth mortally wounds the President, jumps from the box 12 feet to the stage (breaking his leg in the process) and vanishes into the night. Inside the theatre, chaos ruled. Mathews and many of his fellow actors decided fairly quickly that the best thing they could do was to get out of there quick. Back then, actors were considered in the same vein as pickpockets, confidence men, rat catchers and prostitutes and they wanted nothing to do with the police. Those few actors who remained were quickly rounded up and jailed by the police. Harry Hawk, the actor who had been on stage at the moment of the shooting, wandered the streets of Washington aimlessly all night too afraid to go home.
In the chaos following the shot, Mathews retreated to his nearby boardinghouse. The streets were choked with people and soldiers guarded the entrance to every building. Mathews climbed the gutter to the open window of his upstairs room totally unaware that Booth’s letter was still secreted away in his overcoat pocket. As he removed his coat, the envelope dropped out with a pop onto the hardwood floor. Time stood still as a terrified Mathews stared at the unopen letter laying at his feet. “Great God,” he surely thought, this could be the instrument of my doom. zjonathan-h-mathews-cropped
30-year-old Mathews picked up the envelope with the care and concern of a surgeon. He slowly turned it over in his hands, unsure of what to do. Finally, he decided to open the letter. While the true contents of the letter are known only by Mathews and Booth, Mathews claimed it was a detailed confession to the assassination. Mathews quickly destroyed the letter by throwing it into the fireplace after reading it. After all, no one wanted the authorities to believe that they were associated with the assassin, childhood friendships notwithstanding.
After watching the fires consume the murderous edict, Mathews climbed back out the window and nervously walked back to the place he knew best; Ford’s Theatre. John Mathews almost got himself hanged twice on assassination night. Two separate crowds tried to hang him based on his resemblance to Booth and because he was in the theatre that night. He escaped the first unscathed. The second time, the rope had already been placed around his neck when some soldiers rescued him. Eventually, Mathews was detained by the authorities; partly for his own safety and partly for interrogation.
In time, Mathews revealed his long association with Booth and the details of the mysterious letter. He tried to reconstruct the letter for authorities but strenuously proclaimed his innocence and complete ignorance of his friend’s murderous intentions. Despite his protestations, he was detained for several days as an accomplice. Luckily for Mathews, Booth read newspaper accounts smuggled to him while hiding in the pine thicket of the southern Maryland woods. He discovered that Mathews had not delivered his manifesto to the newspaper as promised. Booth recreated it for posterity in his diary and it would match, nearly word-for-word, Mathews account of the letter.
After his release, Mathews was so frightened that he thought briefly of changing his name, but relented. Although risky and unpopular, Mathews remained faithful to his friend Booth for the rest of his life. He told friends and fellow actors, his sole reason for burning the letter was to erase any evidence against his friend. Even three decades later, he referred to the country’s first presidential assassination as “the great mistake.”
Interesting to be sure, but what about the trivia and the six degrees? John Mathews lived upstairs at Petersen’s Boardinghouse, the house directly across the street from Ford’s Theatre where President Lincoln was taken after he was shot. Petersen often rented rooms to the stock actors playing at Ford’s. During the 1864-65 season both John Mathews and fellow actor Charles Warwick had previously rented the room Willie Clark was renting on April 14. It was in private Willie Clark’s room where Abraham Lincoln died at 8:22 am on April 15, 1865.
Booth knew both actors well enough that he often stopped and chatted with each of them there. A few accounts go so far as to claim that Booth himself spent the night in the Petersen house, possibly even in the room in which Lincoln died. What historians know for sure is that Mathews was boarding at the Petersen House on March 16th when he returned to find Booth stretched out on the bed, hands clasped behind his head calmly smoking a cigar while waiting for him. It was the very same bed in which Lincoln died less than a month later.
z attachment-image-154bab99-e5ab-487c-82b3-f53b57612c82 Apparently Booth visited Mathews and Warwick at the Petersen house and both rented the Lincoln death room on numerous occasions. Both actors recalled Booth visiting them there, stretching out on the bed, laughing and telling stories, chomping on a cigar or with his pipe hooked in his mouth. There are several unconfirmed claims that Mathews was actually staying in an upstairs room at the Petersen House on the night of Lincoln’s assassination. The accounts are speculative at best but tantalizing to be sure. If that were the case, then Mathews burned Booth’s confessional letter in a fireplace just feet away from the dying President.
As for the six degrees? John Mathews is buried in the Actors Fund plot of Kensico cemetery in Valhalla, New York a few feet away from vaudevillian actor Pat Harrington, Sr. His son Pat, Jr. played handyman Dwayne Schneider in the TV show “One Day at a Time” that also starred Bonnie Franklin, Valerie Bertinelli and MacKenzie Phillips. The sitcom was based in Indianapolis. I win!