Northeastern University - Cauldron Yearbook (Boston, MA)

Page 19 text:

the year the Celtics were going to wipe out the memory of last sea- son ' s drubbing by New York and go on to the NBA championship. But the Knicks were equal to the task and took advantage of a wea- kened Celtic team to win a bitter, hard-fought seven-game series that ranks among the best in NBA his- tory. The Celtics were hurt when Havlicek injured a shoulder in the sixth game of the series and had to watch from the bench as the Cel- tics were outclassed on their own floor in the seventh and final game. Without their leader the Celtics were helpless and dropped a 94-78 decision to the Knicks, who easily went on to the NBA championship that year. The long-awaited championship came the following year, 1973-74, as the Celts put it all together to bring the title back to Boston, where it seemed it had always been. The team finished the regular season at the 56-26, the second best record behind the Milwaukee Bucks. In the playoffs, the Celtics elimi- nated Buffalo in a hard fought six games, got their long awaited re- venge over New York, knocking off the Knicks in five games, and won the title in a memorable seven- game series with Milwaukee. Havlicek was named the MVP in the playoffs but was the first to admit that it was the pride of the Celtics and the way the performed as a team that was the reason for the title. At mid-season in the 1974-75 campaign, the Celtics were well on their way to defending their title. The team had the best record in the league and had four represent- atives on the East All-Star team in Havlicek, Cowens, White, and Silas. Cowens was in the midst of a streak and required serious consid- eration as the league ' s most valu- able player. Celtics pride, the unexplainable phenomenon, and Red Auerbach, the man that built and rebuilt a champion were once again the fac- tors that combined to make Boston the best team in the National Bas- ketball Association. And there is just no end in sight. — Kenneth G. Hughes Red Sox not good enough Things just haven ' t been the same around Fenway Park since 1967. The Red Sox have been stumbling, bumbling, and, for the most part, providing very little ex- citement over the summer and early fall months for the past five years. Despite league-leading totals of 125 runs scored and 335 total bases from Carl Yastrzemski, the Red Sox finished a distant third in the American League East stand- ings in 1970. The Sox compiled an 87-75 record and finished 21 games behind the Baltimore Ori- oles, who won the world champion- ship that season. The Red Sox also belted 203 home runs to lead the American League in ' 70. Yastrzemski had a banner sea- son, leading the club in nearly every statistical category. Yaz bat- ted .329, belted 40 homers, banged out 186 hits, drew 128 walks, and stole 23 bases. Ray Culp was the workhorse of the Sox pitching staff, working 251 innings and compiling a 17-14 record and a 3.04 earned run average. Tony Conigliaro led the team in runs batted in with 116 while Reggie Smith hit 32 doubles and seven triples to pace the team in extra base hits. Things didn ' t get any better the following season as the team slipped to 85-77 to finish 18 games behind Baltimore. Reggie Smith led the American League with 33 doubles and 302 total bases. He was also the Sox triple crown win- ner with figures of .283, 30 home runs, and 96 RBI ' s. The club provided plenty of ex- citement in the strike year, 1972, but came up a half-game short of a divisional championship. Led by Rookie of the Year Carlton Fisk, the Sox battled eventual winner Detroit and the Orioles through as exciting a summer as Boston had ever seen. It wasn ' t until the final day of the season that Detroit was able to take the title, one half- game ahead of Boston ' s 85-70 mark. Luis Tiant returned to the form that made him a 21 -game winner in 1968 for the Cleveland Indians Doug Griffin, Red Sox second baseman, fires the ball to first base to complete a double play against the Oakland A ' s. 15

Page 18 text:

Jo Jo White, a pereninial NBA All- Star, from Kansas. But the following year Auerbach chose the player who has made the Celtics what they are today, the best team in basketball. Dave Cow- ens joined the Celtics from Florida State for the 1970-71 season and immediately his impact was felt. The big redhead was the missing link the Celtics needed to become a champion. It took him a year to learn the NBA, as the Celts finished with a 44-38 record, an improve- ment from the previous season, but still out of the playoffs. Cowens, thought by almost everyone to be too small to play center in the NBA at 6-9, finished seventh among league rebounders with 1216 rebounds for a 15 per-game aver- age. He pitched in 17 points a game and was a landslide choice for Rookie of the Year honors. The Celtics, led by Capt. John Havlicek, finished second in team offense during that season, aver- aging 117. 2 points per game. Only Milwaukee, the world champions that season, scored more than Bos- ton, averaging 115.1 points per contest, finishing 13th among 17 teams. Havlicek finished second among, league scorers, averaging 28.9 points in 81 games. The following year, 1971-72, the Celtics raced to a 52-26 regular season record, the best in the East and the fourth best in the NBA. Back in the playoffs after a two- year absence, the Celtics elimi- nated Atlanta, four games to two, but then ran into a red hot New York Knickerbocker team and were eliminated in five games. The team offense slipped as the club finished third in scoring with a 115.6 per-game average while Hav- licek also fell a notch, finishing third with a 27.5 average. Cowens climbed to fifth among NBA centers in the rebound department, picking off 15.2 a game. His scoring also increased, as the redhead aver- aged 18.8 points per-game. White, in his third year with the team, averaged 23.1 points and joined Havlicek and Cowens on the Eastern All-Star team. It was White ' s second straight All-Star ap- pearance as he was beginning to gain the reputation as one of the game ' s top guards. Who will ever forget the 1972-73 season? The Celtics completely tore up the league and finished with the second best record in NBA history. Their 68-14 record that season was just one game off the Los Angeles Lakers 1971-72 record of 68 wins and 13 losses. One month before that season began, Auerbach made a move to strengthen the team that was raved about in NBA circles, but was just another typical Auerbach move. He obtained Paul Silas from Phoenix for the rights to Charlie Scott, who had signed with the rival American Basketball Association and then jumped to the Phoenix team. Auer- bach owned the NBA rights to Scott and demanded remuneration in the form of Silas when Scott signed to play with the Suns. All Silas did was fit perfectly into the Celtics style of play, just as if he had been a Celtic all his life. He made Cowen ' s job a lot simpler as the tandem immediately became the most feated rebounding duo in the NBA. Cowens finished third among NBA rebounders with 16.2 a game, while Silas backed him up with a 13 per-game and was the ninth best rebounder in the league. Led by Havlicek (23.8), Cowens (20.5), White (19.7), Silas (13.3), Chaney (13.1), and the always steady Don Nelson (10.8), the Cel- tics finished second in NBA scoring with 112.7 points a game, just one- tenth of a point behind Houston. The Green Machine was sixth in points allowed, giving 104.6 up on a game. The Celtics entered the playoffs as heavy favorites and whipped At- lanta four games to two. This was Boston Celtic center Dave Cowens catches an elbow in the head while going up for the basket in a game with the Washington Bullets. 14

Page 20 text:

when he compiled a 15-6 record for the Red Sox and won the American League ERA title with an impres- sive 1 .91 mark. Fisk batted .293, hit 22 homers, and drove in 61 runs. The following year, 1973, be- longed to Tommy Harper as the speed demon rewrote the Boston base stealing books with a league- leading 54 thefts. He topped Tris Speaker ' s old club mark of 52 set in 1912. The team also set a club record of 83 errorless games, led the league in slugging percentage at .401 , and nad the best won-loss pitcher in Rogelio Moret (13-2), but still finished eight games behind Baltimore with an 89-73 record. Tiant became the first Red Sox 20-game winner since Jim Lonborg in 1967 when the crafty Cuban won 20 and lost 13. Bill Lee backed up Tiant with a 17-11 record. The 17 wins was the most by a Red Sox lefty since Mel Parnell won 21 in 1953. Orlando Cepeda also made a contribution, as the new designate- ed hitter rule came into effect in the 1973 season. Cepeda was the top DH in the league, batting .289, v : w Carl Yastrzemski ' s classic stance helped make him a feared hitter. hitting 20 homers, and driving in 86 runs. After leading the league for two and one-half solid months in 1974, the Red Sox died in September and finished in third place with an 84-78 record. Under new manager Darryl Johnson, brought up from the Paw- tucket farm system to replace Ed- die Kasko, the Red Sox played su- per baseball through May, June, July, and August. Then, suddenly, the hitters stopped hitting, the pitchers stopped pitching, and the fielders stopped fielding. The team collapsed into oblivion, nevermore to be heard from that season. Tiant and Yastrzemski had good years, Tiant compiling a 22-13 record and a 2.92 ERA and Yaz batting .301. But the collapse came, much to the dismay of thou- sands who throng to Fenway Park year after year to see the team. Wait till next year. — Kenneth G. Hughes The Cup came to Boston It was 30 long years between Stanley Cup victories for the Bos- ton Bruins, but led by Bobby Orr, perhaps the game ' s greatest de- fenseman, and Phil Esposito, hock- ey ' s most prolific scorer to come along since Bobby Hull, the dar- lings of the Boston Gard en crowd moved into a new era, winning two National Hockey League Cham- pionships in the past six year. Bruins fans had suffered through a few good and a lot of bad years, the worst being the last 1950 ' s and early 60 ' s, but the past ten years have seen a new Bruins team, a championship contender every year, and a source of unending controversy. The Bruins, coming off their first Stanley Cup victory in 30 years, entered the 1970-71 season with a new coach at the helm. Tom John- son, a former Montreal defense- man, took over from Harry Sinden and led his squad to an easy East- ern Division crown. Sinden left the club in a financial dispute after his team had won the 1970 Cup with eight straight wins over the Chicago Black Hawks and the St. Louis Blues in the final two 16 rounds of the playoffs. Johnson, whose easy-going coaching style seemed to agree with the often unmanageable Bruins, was successful in his first season as coach, largely due to the performance of center Phil Espo- sito, whose 76 goals and 76 assists that season were an NHL record. The haughty Bruins were heavily favored to keep the Cup that year, but the Montreal Canadiens and their brilliant goalie Ken Dryden, who had played little during the regular season, had different ideas. The lanky Dryden kept Esposito, Orr and the rest of the Bruins big guns muttering to themselves as he shut the door on numerous occa- sions, with the Montreal team win- ning the quarterfinal round, 4-3. Esposito scored only 66 goals in 1971-72, but Boston again wal- tzed to the Eastern Division title, losing just 13 games. The first two rounds of the Stanley Club were a cakewalk for the Bruins, as the Toronto Maple Leafs fell to Boston 4-1 and the St. Louis Blues succumbed in four straight. That set the stage for the final round against the New York Rangers, who had battled with the Bruins two years before, losing an emotion-filled quarterfinal series to Boston, 4-2. It was no different this time. Bos- ton ' s Ace Bailey scored the tie- breaking goal to win the first game, and the Bruins followed up with another win to move the series to New York with 2-0 Bruins lead. The Rangers won the third game, but newly-acquired defenseman Carol Vadnais led Boston to its third win of the series, and the ac- tion moved back to Boston Garden. New York postponed the Boston celebration, winning the fifth game, 3-2, but Wayne Cashman scored two goals and goalie Gerry Chee- vers shut the Rangers out to win the sixth game and the series — the Bruins ' s second Stanley Cup in three years. The Stanley Cup Champions fell apart during the off-season, though. Ed Westfall, a long-time Garden favorite, was drafted by the expansion New York Islanders, and scrappy right-winger John McKenzie jumped to the fledgling World Hockey Association.