Artificial Intelligence and Sports Illustrated got together for a discrete hook up recently, and the tabloids had a field day.
So did the moral arbiters at our non-profit member station Public Broadcasting Service team.
“Sports Illustrated is the latest media company to see its reputation damaged by being less than forthcoming — if not outright dishonest — about who or what is writing its stories at the dawn of the artificial intelligence age,” PBS reported on Nov. 29, 2023.
“The once-powerful publication said it was firing a company that produced articles for its website written under the byline of authors who apparently don’t exist. But it denied a published report that stories themselves were written by an artificial intelligence tool.”
The truth is, SI’s reputation has been damaged for several years, and this particular misstep had nothing to do with AI converging with Synthetic Intelligence. We were a bit sympathetic to what was really happening.
Since 2018, SI’s content has been leased by the Arena Group, and it was responsible for these third-party product review AI “stories” way down at the bottom of the website. The crime really is that it was ad material disguised as content. The stuff was summarily taken down and perhaps the brand’s reputation was harmed.
It’s not like they were channeling Frank Deford beyond the grave to rewrite some of his most popular Ted Williams pieces. That would be a grave misstep on so many levels.
This was really some superfluous stuff in question.
The humans still left at the Sports Illustrated Union was mortified, and it was a moment to suggest that there’s a chilling effect on all major news corps that had been dabbling in AI software as a way to make up for lost employees. Still, this much ruckus wasn’t really pushed out when The Associated Press started using techbots to assist in its articles about financial earnings reports since 2014, and had also been used to aggregate short sports game stories. Usually there was a tag at the end that explained how that story was produced with a data-driven technology and readers were not in the “Twilight Zone” of their existence.
Our response to today’s story from @futurism reporting that The Arena Group has published AI-written stories by fake people under the Sports Illustrated name: pic.twitter.com/QcR4iGOi5w
The fall guy for all this was CEO Ross Levinsohn, and it’s just as well. Levinsohn, a former HBO exec who also worked at Fox Sports, Yahoo and then a crazy time as publisher of the Los Angeles Times despite its internal union outcry of his incompetency, had latched onto SI’s parent company, then known as Maven, Inc., which then sold off its soul to Authentic Brands Group and became part of a NIL scam to make people believe it was worthy of its name. Like, Chuck Taylor Converse. SI still had a magazine, cut back to once a month, and this suspect website with just a small portion of what used to be on the staff.
For those who remember, SI, which launched 70 years ago in August of 1954 as the first magazine to have more than one million subscribers, and in 1983 was the first full-color news weekly magazine highlighting fantastic photography — aside from its Swimsuit issue — has been though all sorts of self-inflicted wounding for a few decades.
A six-part series airing on Turner Classic Movies channel rolled out earlier this year called “The Power of Film,” and it led off with an episode that explained the dynamics of what makes a movie both popular and memorable. They are definitely not the same.
Howard Suber, an esteemed UCLA film professor who wrote a book about this topic with the same title in 2006 after teaching this course in Westwood for many years to thousands of students, agreed to do this series. It not only is trying to enlighten those aspiring to be directors, producers or screen writers, but it is really for movie lovers — like TMC viewers — to better understand why they’ve had these connections to certain films over the years, how it is they’re able to watch them over and over again, and what leads them back for reinforcement.
Common themes that resonate in our soul and we see that portrayed on the screen are often about family. Or power. Or the fragility of life. These themes go back 2,500 years in our course of historical storytelling.
Film clips come up during this hour-long series opener, and Suber shows the ties that bind “The Godfather,” “Casablanca,” “Citizen Kane,” “A Star is Born,” “Do The Right Thing” or “The Exorcist.”
At one point during a montage, there is a quick flash of a scene from the 1992 “A League of their Own” — Geena Davis, as Dottie Hinson, bare-hand catches a ball thrown at her without showing any emotion. Awe inspiring. And powerful.
But in this TCM series context, “A League of their Own” explained how this is about a family, of baseball players. It was about overcoming odds, from the perspective of women just looking for a chance. It involved power — empowering them to show their worth. It checked off so many boxes that baseball was just a convenient entry point to another version of storytelling as old as time.
Now, we can take that movie, and more, to the next level.
That post season journey included witnessing the Nats dissemble the 106-win Dodgers, going the distance in a best-of-five National League Divisional Series. The last win was executed at Dodger Stadium. There was heck to pay.
That NL East wild-card team had the “Baby Shark” power. And Anthony Rendon’s idiotic stats (34 HRs, 126 RBIs, 117 runs, .319 average). And rookie Juan Soto’s muscle. And Trea Turner’s speed. And veteran Howie Kendrick’s grand-slam gumption. And veteran Kurt Suzkuki’s intelligence. And the arms of Stephen Stasburg and Max Scherzer and do-nothing Sean Doolittle. And a year removed from Bryce Harper.
“You have a great year, and you can run into a buzz saw,” Strasburg told Dougherty after the team advanced to the World Series. “Maybe this year we’re the buzz saw.”
These weren’t your recycled Montreal Expo who started 19-31 and ended up with the District’s first title in 95 years. We enjoyed the book as something that needed to be reassembled for our disbelief.
Because, in a way, even if we watch today’s Washington Nationals play at the Dodger Stadium, we’re still a bit history challenged.
At our last count, 17 major professional baseball franchises have called Washington D.C. their home. Many shared the same nickname. Or switched midway.
The place better known for housing the Bill of Rights may have had the right idea, but often a wrong outcome.
Before going forward, play this in the background and enjoy the tribute:
Now, we look back at history.
The reviews in 90 feet or less
So where were you when Henry Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s all-time home-run record on April 8, 1974?
I was sitting in the third-base dugout of my Hawthorne American Pony League Dodgers’ team (and we wore green and white for some reason). It’s about 6 o’clock and the sun is in our eyes as usual. Lots of squinting to see what was going on in front of us. Amidst the glare, everyone on my team — and around the park — knew the Dodgers were in Atlanta playing the Braves. A few of our parents brought their transistor radios with them, listing to Vin Scully’s call. It was also a nationally televised game on NBC, with Curt Gowdy doing it. But we had Vin.
At this exact moment 50 years ago (April 8, 1974, 9:07 pm ET), Hank Aaron made history. pic.twitter.com/IPCM7H3QFQ
There was a buzz was in the stands as Aaron hit his 715th homer in the fourth inning off the Dodgers’ Al Downing.
I knew I was going to the Dodgers-Braves game at Dodger Stadium a few weeks later. The Dodgers gave away a special poster commemorating the feat. On May 17, 1974, it was “Hank Aaron Poster Day” at Dodger Stadium — a Friday night, the first trip the Atlanta Braves came to L.A. that season. Downing actually started this game and went the first eight innings in a 5-4 loss to the Braves that went into the 11th inning (as Aaron went 0-for-3 against Downing this time.)
The beauty of this poster is that it was a chart so kids could document Aaron’s home runs in 1974 — and we dutifully logged in the information. We participated. We were invested in recording history.
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Aaron’s accomplishment, so many things were going on April 8, 2024.
The Baseball Hall of Fame announced it was erecting a new statue in Aaron’s honor. An MLB Network remembrance narrated by Bob Costas. A new set of U.S. postage stamps for those who still use letters. At a ceremony before the Braves’ game, baseball commissioner Rob Manfred announced a $100,000 endowment of a scholarship at Tuskegee University, a historically Black university in Aaron’s home state of Alabama.
The obituary of Glenn Burke as it appeared in the San Francisco Examiner on June 1, 1995
In parts of three Major League Baseball seasons in Los Angeles, Glenn Burke showed flashes of his abilities while wearing No. 3 as a center fielder for the Dodgers in the 1970s. He had put in three seasons, some overlapping, in the Dodgers’ minor league system, hitting a combined .303. Three times he led the league in stolen bases, at the Single-A, Double-A and Triple-A level.
Burke’s highest point at Dodger Stadium reached his impromptu creation of the high-five celebration. It then went as low as the realization that his personal lifestyle didn’t fit in with the team’s ethos and he would be banished.
Consider it symbiotic. Those in the literary book world who have wanted to tell the essence of Burke’s story have been able to operate through three entry points.
= The autobiography:
In 1995, as Burke was experiencing his final days, Erik Sherman had spent months with him and figured out a way to self-publish a manuscript that gave the Oakland native a platform by which to explain what he had been through.
As explained in the obituary above, Sherman released parts of his book to the Associated Press so it had the more accurate material to include.
“You take a great risk when you self-publish,” Sherman said, explaining that he feared a lawsuit might be filed by someone in the Dodgers’ family who took offense to what Burke said was done to him. That didn’t happen.
“It’s a somber day, but also a day of relief because his family and friends know he’s at peace with himself,” Sherman said at the time. “The doctors didn’t give him past Christmas. He’s been hanging on for months.”
Sherman could later add as context: “The thing that kept going through my mind was how unfair it was for him because he loved baseball. If there is a legacy for this book, it is, if you can play at the major league level, then your teammates don’t care if you are gay.”
Twenty years later, Penguin Publishing reissued “Out at Home” at a time when there was more open discussion about athletes and the LBGTQ community. The publishers explained in their book synopsis: “Before Jason Collins, before Michael Sam, there was Glenn Burke. By becoming the first—and only—openly gay player in Major League Baseball, Glenn would become a pioneer in his own way, nearly thirty years after another black Dodger rookie, Jackie Robinson, broke the league’s color barrier. This is Glenn’s story, in his own words .”
A new book on Glenn Burke, baseball's first openly gay player, will be published tomorrow, but you can read an excerpt of it in today's @NYTSports print edition.
In using the YA format, Maraniss still captured a mature telling of Burke’s story.
“I interviewed dozens of people for this book and did essentially the same type of research that I would have done for an ‘adult’ book,” Maraniss told me. “I feel that there is room for more good narrative non-fiction aimed at teens, particularly that involve sports. I love visiting schools and telling these stories about sports and social justice. It means a ton to me when a teacher or librarian comes up and says ‘this student doesn’t ordinarily read much, but he or she loved your book.’ I feel that given the state of the world right now it’s important to reach young people with stories that shine a light on injustice and encourage them to use their voices to make change. My hope is that the audience for this book is actually expanded, rather than limited, by aiming it at both high school students and adults.”
Maraniss said his takeaway from the story is a passage he uses toward the end of the book, when the pastor speaks at Burke’s funeral and says that Glenn “died in truth. He told the truth. He didn’t live a lie, and I believe the truth sets people free.”
“And then I write: ‘In that proclamation resides the paradox of Glenn Burke’s life, and the lesson to us all. Allowed to be his authentic self, Glenn embodied achievement, innovation, love, humor, friendship, freedom, and compassion. But when powerful elements of society told him that was unacceptable, that he must somehow instead deny a fundamental aspect of his being, his life devolved into one of confusion, lies, ambivalence, anxiety, seclusion, and self-destruction. What clearer evidence do we need that homophobia, like other hatreds, not only deprives individuals the ability to become their very best selves, but also robs the world of their gifts?’ ”
“It recognizes the challenges Burke faced while celebrating how his bravery and his now-famous handshake helped pave the way for others to live openly and free,” according to the publisher’s press release.
In 2020, Bilder also wrote “A High Five For Glenn Burke” as a piece of fiction. It crossed our radar for a review, telling the story of a kid who was questioning his own true self in the setting of his Little League team. It was intended for ages 10-13/Grades 5-7. In the acknowledgements, Bildner, a former New York City public school teacher, gave a shout out to “Kevin, my husband. My husband. Words a previous, self-hating version of me would’ve never been able to process, comprehend or accept.”
In each format, honesty is at the foundation of the storytelling. It’s no different than how authors have taken to explain the life and times of Abraham Lincoln, Jackie Robinson or St. Francis of Assisi.
In the end, Burke may not have been the most well-known No. 3 in Southern California sports history. Or even in Los Angeles Dodgers history.
But he could honestly have the most enduring legacy of a Southern California person who happened to be an athlete.
Glenn Burke was known more his basketball skills than his baseball IQ at Berkeley High in Oakland. The Dodgers were convinced by a local scout they could give him an opportunity for the later in 1971, as well as let him play some college baseball. \
As a 17th round pick out of Merritt College in 1972, the Dodgers gave him a modest a $5,000 signing bonus and let him play in the offseason for the University of Nevada (basketball, since he wasn’t eligible to play baseball now as a professional). He scored 35 points in a 106-101 win over Stephen F. Austin in his first game and would average 16 points a game in the first half dozen games of the 1974-75 season. He then twisted a knee and would be dismissed from the team.
“Glenn Burke leaves Reno, criticizes both Padgetts,” read the headline in the Reno Evening Gazette when Burke was dismissed shortly before Christmas 1974. They were 4-2 with him and finished 6-14 without him.
“I think the problem is that Burke couldn’t adjust to the college way of life and way of playing college basketball,” then-Nevada coach Jim Padgett told the paper. “He lacks the discipline. … He hasn’t been on a coached team since high school and I stress a team effort. He just hasn’t matured.”
He made his debut in the first and last month of the 1976 season, as a spare outfielder playing behind Rick Monday, Reggie Smith and Dusty Baker. Burke had trouble with the curveball and hit .239 in 51 plate appearances.
“Unlimited potential,” said second baseman Davey Lopes.
“Once we get him cooled down a little bit,” said the late Junior Gilliam, then Dodger coach, “frankly, we think he’s going to be another Willie Mays.”
After 85 games with the Dodgers in 1977, batting .254 with 13 stolen bases, he made the post-season roster and found himself in the starting lineup and hitting seventh in Game 1 of the World Series against the New York Yankees. He went 1-for-3 with a sixth-inning single, a play that ended with Steve Garvey thrown out at home plate trying to score from first. In the top of the ninth of a 3-3 tie, Manny Mota pinch hit for him. Burke got in to play in Games 2 and 5 as a defensive replacement to help protect the Dodgers’ leads in both eventual wins.
By the middle of the ’78 season, the Dodgers front office people weren’t comfortable with the way he led his life. Burke was offered $75,000 toward a honeymoon if he would just get married. “To a woman?” Burke replied.
By this point, few in the Dodgers were comfortable with the relationship Burke had with manager Tommy Lasorda’s openly gay son, Spunky.
The Dodgers swapped him out for Oakland Athletics center Bill North in a sudden traded in May of ’78. It was not popular with Burke’s teammates.
“He was the life of the team,” said Lopes. “No one cared about his lifestyle.”
“There was no justification for it,” Burke’s agent Abdul-Jalil al-Hakim told ESPN. “You could’t have found one player in the locker room who felt good about it, so why now and what for?”
Added Baker: “I don’t know what people are going to say why he was traded, but we knew the reason he was traded was because he was gay. You couldn’t be more blunt than that.”
Burke’s season and a half with the Athletics and manager Billy Martin wasn’t pretty. Martin, in the twilight of his career, ostracized Burke, calling him a “faggot” among other slurs, which also came from fans in the stands.
“They knew I was gay and were worried about how the average father would feel about taking his son to a baseball game to see some fag shagging fly balls in center field,” Burke wrote in his autobiography. “Martin never called me a faggot to my face. He may have known I would’ve kicked that ass.”
He was back in Triple A in 1980 for 25 games, another knee injury, then out of baseball at 27.
Three years after his MLB career was over, Burke officially come out as a gay man to the world in a 1982 story that ran in Inside Sports titled “The Dodger Who Was Gay.”
When that issue landed, there was a subsequent media-made coming-out party. A somewhat less-than-revealing Burke sit-down interview with Bryant Gumbel on NBC’s “Today” show (which apparently made Gumbel nervous, we now read). There was also an L.A. Times piece Randy Harvey did on Burke headlined “Tired of Torment, Burke Searches for Inner Peace.”
By that point, Burke had been ostracized from baseball and started using drugs to cope. His leg and foot were crushed after being hit by a car in 1987. He was arrested on drugs charges and lived on the San Francisco streets for several years. He would never really recover.
The high five
History lesson! Did you know the first high-five ever was most likely at Dodger Stadium? Isn't that cool?? Makes you wanna love the team more.
The ref photo was kinda murky and in B&W, so it was fun imagining the colors and details. pic.twitter.com/qlsar6vGU2
On Oct. 2, 1977, Glenn Burke created one of the most endearing celebrations in sports.
It was the last game of the regular season, as the Dodgers already clinched the NL West. With two out in the bottom of the sixth, Dusty Baker hit a home run of Houston’s JR Richard, giving him 30 to lift him into a group with Steve Garvey, Ron Cey and Reggie Smith as the first team to have four players hit 30-or-more homers.
Burke, in the on-deck circle, greeted Baker not with the usual hand slap, but held both his hands high for embrace. Baker bought into it.
Burke then went up hit his first and only home run as a Dodger.
A week later in the National League Championship Series Game 2, Baker hit a homer against the Phillies, and there was Burke — hat on backward and wearing Davey Lopes’ blue jacket — doing this “high-five” again.
It became a thing.
“No, I didn’t invent the high five,” Baker said. “All I did was respond to Glenn. That’s all I did.”
In 1995, I published a book with #GlennBurke about his life as a gay man with the @Dodgers and @Athletics. Despite tremendous talent, he was ultimately blackballed from baseball because of his sexual orientation. Tonight, remarkably, he will be honored at Dodger Stadium. pic.twitter.com/VRiVe7NtfA
Major League Baseball used its 2014 All-Star Game as a time to recognize Glenn Burke as a “gay pioneer” and launch its own department of inclusion, eventually headed up by another former Dodgers outfielder, Billy Bean.
“He could take any moment in time and make it fun,” former teammate Rick Monday told the L.A. Times in 2013. “There was no better guy in the clubhouse, I’ll tell you that. There was no one who didn’t love having Glenn around.”
Seven years later, the Dodgers got their act together and did it during a 2022 Pride Night event at Dodger Stadium. Burke’s brother, Sidney, threw out the first pitch wearing a Dodgers jersey with the number “03.”
“Glenn probably would have said, ‘Dang, about time!’” Burke’s sister, Lutha Burke Davis, told Miller. “He’d be grinning from ear to ear. He would be thrilled that he was thought about that much, really.”
More about Burke’s life and times can be found in OutSports.com, a 2010 documentary, “OUT: The Glenn Burke Story” produced by Doug Harris. The Legacy Project Chicago also put up a plaque honoring Burke, sponsored by the Chicago Cubs.
Pride Spotlight:
Today we’d like to recognize Glenn Burke, the first Major League Baseball player to come out as gay when he did so in 1982 after his retirement. Burke played for the Los Angeles Dodgers from 1976-1978 and the Oakland Athletics from 1978-1979. pic.twitter.com/xvIITMSxOB
— The Word on Pop Culture (@thewordwebzine) June 2, 2023
Today in 1952, Glenn Burke is born in Oakland. As kid, Glenn would sing on Limeliters album; as teen lead HS🏀team to undefeated season; as adult, invent high-5, become 1st MLB player to wear @Nike, start in Gm 1 of '77 World Series, & come out as 1st openly gay @MLB player (1/2) pic.twitter.com/qmKWTP4Afw
When Burke was voted into the Pasadena-based Baseball Reliquary’s Shrine of the Eternals in 2015, his bio read in part:
Glenn Burke (1952-1995) was a fleet, capable outfielder for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Oakland Athletics during a four-year major league career …. He was the first big league ballplayer to publicly acknowledge he was gay. Although his public disclosure came after he had retired, Burke’s sexual preference was well known during his playing days, and he encountered widespread homophobia from locker rooms to board rooms. … Having appeared in just over 100 games for Los Angeles during parts of three seasons, Burke was sent packing to Oakland. Returning to his hometown didn’t make Burke’s life any easier. … He became active in amateur athletic competition after baseball, competing in the 1982 and 1986 Gay Games in basketball and track. Burke’s life then went into a tailspin. Cocaine addiction and an accident that crushed his leg and foot led to years of physical misery, bouts with the law, and homelessness. … A documentary, “Out: The Glenn Burke Story,” was released in 2010. “They can’t ever say now that a gay man can’t play in the majors,” Burke stated, “because I’m a gay man and I made it.”
Who else wore No. 3 in SoCal sports history? Make a case for:
At Tailback U., where USC’s first four Heisman Trophy winners were guys known for running the ball, the 6-foot-5 strong arm out of Santa Margarita Catholic High in Rancho Santa Margarita (wearing No. 3) who set 27 school records became the Trojans’ first quarterback so honored and the first from the West Coast in more than 20 years. The clinching weeks of his senior campaign, as he established himself as the school’s all-time passing leader with a 448-yard, 5 TD game against No. 14 Oregon, was a win in Week 11 over No. 25 UCLA (19 of 32 passing, 254 yards, 4 TDs, where he became the conference career leader in passing) and a Week 12 win over rival Notre Dame (425 yards passing, the most ever against the Irish in its history), and 4 TDs. He threw for 3,942 yards and 33 TDs against 10 picks as a senior, led USC to a win in the Orange Bowl over No. 3 Iowa as the game MVP.
It led to him becoming the No. 1 overall choice of the Cincinnati Bengals in the 2003 NFL Draft. As a four-year starter at USC, he set or tied 33 Pac-10 and USC records. He was also able to pile up a little more than four seasons worth of stats for the Trojans — he was allowed a redshirt in ’99 after playing three games — which pushed him to 11,388 yards passing and 71 touchdowns in his career for a quarterback rating of 131.2. Palmer also made some news when he allowed transfer wide receiver Jordan Addison wear the retired No. 3 jersey in 2022, the same number he had at Pitt for two seasons. “He promised to work his tail off and represent all that it means to be a Trojan, and that he’d be incredibly humbled to wear No. 3,” Palmer said. This was the same Palmer who arrived at USC under coach Paul Hackett and had wanted to wear No. 3 so bad he switched to it after his freshman season when it became available.
His two seasons at USC saw the former L.A. Dorsey High and West L.A. College standout pull in just 12 touchdowns total. But it was the 90 receptions as a senior for 1,218 yards (and a seventh-place finish in the Heisman race) that dazzled enough scouts to make him the No. 1 overall pick of the New York Jets in the 1995 NFL Draft. Add to that his performance in big games: The two-time All American was named MVP of the 1995 Cotton Bowl as a junior and the 1996 Rose Bowl as a senior. In the later, he caught 12 passes for a Rose Bowl record 216 yards and a TD in USC’s 41-32 win over Northwestern. He was inducted into the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame in 2008.
Three seasons were plenty good for Joshua Ballinger Lippincott Rosen, aka the “Chosen Rosen” who was a five-star recruit out of St. John Bosco in Bellflower. He became the Pac-12 Freshman Offensive Player of the Year as the first true freshman to start a season opener (28 of 35 passing for 351 yards and three TDs in a 34-16 win over Virginia) also set a school record with 199 consecutive passes without an interception. The highlight of a sophomore year where he missed time with a shoulder injury was a career-high 400 yards passing in a loss to Arizona State. As a junior, he opened the season with a 45-44 win over Texas A&M by throwing for 491 yards and four touchdowns to overcome a 34-point deficit. After five games, he led the nation in passing (2,135 yards) and touchdowns (17). He ended up eclipsing Bred Hundley’s single-season school record with 3,740 yards and then jumped to the NFL Draft, the 10th overall pick by Arizona. He said those drafted ahead of him were “nine mistakes.” That included USC quarterback Sam Darnold, taken at No. 3 by the New York Jets.
Willie Davis, Los Angeles Dodgers center fielder (1960 to 1973):
The “Three Dog” out of L.A.’s Roosevelt High — a nickname that his ability for wearing No. 3 and letting hits into the gap for three-base triples — became more appropriate after he shed wearing the No. 26 originally given to him after a September call up in 1960 when he was about to replace Duke Snider as the team’s center field. Davis, a three-sport standout in high school who once ran a 9.5-second 100-yard dash and set a city record in the long jump, twice led the NL in triples — 10 in 1962 and a career-best 16 in 1970, and finished with 138 in his career next to 182 home runs, 395 doubles and 1,053 RBIs. The three-time Gold Glove winner in his last three seasons in L.A., which included an All-Star selection, was quite the turnaround for the player who had been marked as the one whose three errors in one inning of the 1966 World Series helped in the Dodgers’ undoing against the Baltimore Orioles. He finished his career with the Angels in 1979 wearing No. 24.
Steve Sax, Los Angeles Dodgers second baseman (1981 to 1988):
The story goes that when Sax left the Dodgers after eight seasons, following the team’s 1988 World Series triumph, he asked his new team, the New York Yankees, if he could keep his No. 3. Well, no, they said. A guy named Babe Ruth had it, and we’ve retired it. He took No. 6 instead. It has since been retired for former manager Joe Torre. The NL Rookie of the Year in 1982 had three NL All Star seasons with the Dodgers, stealing as many as 56 bases in 1983. That was the same season he piled up 30 errors, also a career high, third most in the league and tops among second baseman. He also led NL second baseman in errors with 22 in ’85, and was second with 19 in ’82, and third with 14 in ’87 and 21 in ’84. Nothing really about the glove. Just the arm. And somehow, he wrote a book! Check for errors!
Anthony Davis, Los Angeles Lakers center (2019-20 to present):
Davis was not supposed to have worn No. 3 in his inaugural season with the Lakers having come over in a trade with New Orleans. That decision was already made –LeBron James would bequeathed his own No. 23 as a way to lure The Brow to L.A. after his first seven seasons hidden away as a Hornet/Pelican. Davis had worn No. 23 through college and in the NBA — not to honor Michael Jordan, but because of his admiration for James. But then the league intervened. Davis became No. 3 and, quickly by default, the most productive player to don the number in Lakers history. In his first season in L.A., Davis was an All-Star, a leading candidate for Defensive Player of the Year and, at 26.7 points per game, the leading scorer on a LeBron-led Lakers team with the best record in the Western Conference prior to the season’s suspension. When he’s healthy, Davis can be an historic force. In May 2023, during the Lakers’ Game 1 Western Conference semifinal series against Golden State, Davis had 30 points, 23 rebounds and four blocks, joining Elgin Baylor, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Shaquille O’Neal as the only other Lakers to reach those statistical marks in a playoff game. In the Lakers’ inaugural In-Season Tournament title win in Las Vegas, Davis had 41 points, 20 rebounds, five assists and four blocks — the only Lakers with a 40/20/5 game in franchise history were Baylor and Chamberlain. In a Lakers’ win in March 2024, Davis, despite dealing with a shoulder bruise, became the first NBA player to have at least 27 points, 25 rebounds, seven steals, five assists and three blocks in a game. When he’s not healthy …
Illustration from a 2019 interview with The Ringer.
Candace Parker, Los Angeles Sparks forward (2008 to 2020): Drafted No. 1 overall by the Sparks out of Tennessee, the 6-foot-4 Chicago native was the WNBA’s MVP and Rookie of the Year right away as she averaged 18.5 points, 9.5 rebounds and 3.4 assists. She won another MVP Award in 2013 (17.9 points, 8.7 rebounds, 3.8 assists) and was the 2016 WNBA Finals MVP. In league history, there have been 10 seasons during Parker’s career when she has averaged at least 15 points and seven rebounds per game. The only one ahead of her: Lisa Leslie, who did it 11 times.
Paul Krumpe, UCLA soccer defenseman (1982 to 1985): A four-year starter, the standout from West Torrance High was co-captain of the 1985 NCAA championship team and held the school record for single-season assists by a defender with 10 in ’85, including the game-winner in the title game. Krumpe spent three seasons as an assistant at UCLA as the team went 56-9-1 and won the ’97 national title. He was the head coach at Loyola Marymount from 1998 to 2021.
Have you heard this story:
Chris Paul, Los Angeles Clippers guard (2011-12 to 2016-17):
Hornets working to finalize details on 3-team deal to send Chris Paul to Lakers, Gasol to Rockets and Odom, KMart, Scola to NO, sources say.
Less than four hours after Yahoo! Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski broke the news that, coming out of the NBA player lockout that had already delayed the season, the New Orleans Hornets were about to ship Chris Paul to the Lakers as part of a three-team trade that also included the Rockets, he reported that the deal was off. Lakers governor Jeanie Buss would later reveal the trade collapsed due to miscommunication between Stern and Dell Demps, New Orleans’ general manager at the time. Had things broken the Lakers’ way, Paul would have been in the backcourt with Kobe Bryant.
The trade was voided by NBA commissioner David Stern. The collective of NBA owners — who, at the time, bought the team as caretakers of the Hornets because of ownership troubles of their own — complained the Lakers were pillaging a franchise for talent and the balance of power had to be watched. There was also the idea that the NBA owners realized how much cap space the Lakers had at the time and argued they would unfairly dominate in the league if the NBA allowed the trade to take place — especially knowing that Dwight Howard would soon end up with the Lakers in a deal with the Magic. So instead, they allowed Paul to go to the Clippers with two second-round picks in exchange for Chris Kaman, Al-Farouq Aminu, Eric Gordon, and a 2012 first-round pick (which turned out to be Austin Rivers). As a Clipper, Paul became a five-time All Star, twice leading the NBA in assists and three times in steals. And it’s not all that complicated why Paul has insisted in wearing No. 3 since his days at Wake Forest. His father and brother also have the initials C.P., so he is the third.
Odell Beckham Jr.,Los Angeles Rams receiver (2021): The Rams were off to a 7-3 start to the season when they took a flyer on the mercurial three-time All-Pro released by the Cleveland Brown — it cost them a reported $4.25 million, and Beckham said he was getting paid in cryptocurrency. The Rams worked him into the system for eight games and saw him make 27 catches for 305 yards and five TDs. The payoff seemed to be coming during the Rams’ eventual 23-20 Super Bowl LVI win Cincinnati. Beckham caught a 17-yard touchdown pass from Matthew Stafford for a 7-0 lead, and pulled in a 35-yard pass from Stafford early in the second quarter. But a knee injury later in the quarter sidelined him the rest of the game.
Kelly Claes Chen, USC women’s beach volleyball (2014 to 2017): A two-time All-American and three-time national champion in the sport, the redhead from Fullerton partnered with Sara Hughes to form one of the most dominant teams in college sports. The pair expect to compete in the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
We also have:
Aaron Miller, Los Angeles Kings defenseman (2000-01 to 2006-07) Jack Johnson, Los Angeles Kings defenseman (2006-07 to 2011-12) Freddie Mitchell, UCLA football receiver (1998 to 2000) James Washington, UCLA football running back (1984 to 1987) Trevor Ariza, Los Angeles Lakers forward (2007-08 to 2008-09; 2021-22). Also wore No. 4 for UCLA in 2003-04. Elmore Smith, Los Angeles Lakers center (1973-74 to 1974-75) Sedale Threatt, Los Angeles Lakers guard (1991-92 to 1995-96) Devean George, Los Anglees Lakers forward (1999-2000 to 2005-06) Gene Mauch, California Angels manager (1982): Also had No. 44 in 1981 and No. 4 in 1985 to 1987. Cesar Izturis, Los Angeles Dodgers shortstop (2002 to 2006) Chris Taylor, Los Angeles Dodgers infielder (2016 to present) Gary Gaetti, California Angels third baseman (1991 to 1993) Taylor Ward, Los Angeles Angels outfielder (2018 to present)
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