Buckner, with his cockeyed over-the-head shooting style, scored again from the high post, 148–130.
The Axe sensed the Dipper’s growing impatience. With time slipping, the Dipper became more restless and aggressive. He leaned back into Imhoff, taking the offensive, making him recoil. Rodgers, the Dipper’s supply line, got the ball to him down low. Imhoff, arms raised, held his ground, but it didn’t matter. Chamberlain scored, reaching eighty-six, and Willie Smith’s whistle signaled Imhoff ’s fifth foul. Another Chamberlain free throw gave him eighty-seven points, still with five and a half minutes to play.
Imhoff missed another jumper down court, and the Warriors thoroughbreds were loosed: a three-on-one fast break, Chamberlain with Attles and Rodgers. Rodgers pulled up and passed to Attles, who sent a lob pass to Chamberlain. Leaping with arms fully extended, at a height of nearly twelve feet, the Dipper caught the pass, turned toward the basket with a fury and stuffed it, the crowd erupting: eighty-nine points.
Trailing by twenty-three points, the Knicks ran a backcourt weave now, Guerin and Butcher dribbling and passing, moving the ball slowly in a Z-pattern, to drain a few more seconds from the clock. Loud, cascading boos, kids calling Eddie Donovan’s team chicken. The Knicks aimed to use as much of the twenty-four second clock as possible on each possession, leaving less time for Chamberlain to reach a hundred. Finally, Naulls missed a jumper. Conlin rebounded and threw a long outlet pass to Attles, the Dipper’s closest friend on the team. “Guess how many people live in Toledo?” No such silly games now. Attles passed to Chamberlain. But Wilt fumbled the ball, off his fingertips, losing it out of bounds.
The Dipper’s nerves again.
McGuire tugged at his cufflinks and called a timeout.
Guard Sam Stith hadn’t taken off his Knicks warm-up jacket all night. He stood now and joined Donovan’s courtside huddle. What Stith saw and heard, he had seen and heard many times before—Richie Guerin screaming in a semper fi frenzy. “Will somebody hit him! Hit him in the nuts! Do something!” Stith heard Guerin say. Spit flew from Guerin’s mouth: “Don’t just let him go in!” Guerin looked—glared, really—at Imhoff. Stith looked at Imhoff, too, and heard Imhoff reply, “But I’ve got five fouls…” Now Stith looked at Richie Guerin. Incredulous over what he’d just heard Imhoff say, Guerin dropped his hands in disgust and turned away.
The Knicks returned to the court, moving the ball deliberately, Buckner to Guerin to Butcher to Naulls. The fans and the Warriors looked nervously to the boxy metallic scoreboard clock, ticking, ticking. As the twenty-four second clock at courtside neared expiration, Naulls misfired again and Chamberlain rebounded. For Meschery, the game now seemed nearly an out-of-body experience. The Warriors simply passed the ball to Chamberlain and watched him work, one against five. Nothing strategic, no screens, just get the ball to Wilt. No other Warrior had scored a basket in nearly four minutes. Now Chamberlain, with the ball, hemmed in on all sides, flipped it back to Attles, who passed to Meschery. The Mad Russian drilled a jumper, 155–130 with four minutes, fifteen seconds to play.
Two Hershey constables, in their chocolate brown uniforms, ambled in on their usual patrol of the arena. Gabe Basti and Bud Miller had performed the constables’ nightly check out at the farms where the orphan boys of the Hershey Industrial School lived. Basti and Miller had made certain the doors there were properly locked. They had searched for signs of vandalism, finding none. The constables’ primary role was to keep peace between the orphan schoolboys and the public school kids of the township; that wasn’t always easy. The public school kids at Hershey High often taunted the industrial school students, calling them “cows” because, as part of their daily farm chores, they milked them. There had been more than a few Friday night fights over the years between boys at the two schools, usually over girls. Miller once found a runaway Hershey Industrial School boy, bound for New York, frightened and hiding in the bushes near the chocolate factory; he talked calmly to him, then returned him to the farm. Basti and Miller had been assigned guns, as all constables were, but had never had cause to use them. The only incidents at the Hershey arena stemmed from kids sneaking into games without paying—the usual suspects. Basti and Miller knew them all, and their families.
Such an odd game now: the Warriors hardly playing defense, the Knicks hardly playing offense. Reluctantly, Buckner shot and made a one-hander from the free-throw line, Mississippi lightning striking again, a personal high, thirty-three points. As soon as Rodgers dribbled into the forecourt, Guerin fouled him, serenaded by boos. Among those booing loudly was Kerry Ryman, sitting with his rascal friends, several rows from the court. Moments later, Rodgers fouled Guerin. A chess match played by the pawns.
Down low, the vise tightened around the Dipper.
Jumpin’ Johnny Green used his wiry frame against the Dipper, banging against him, hardly his style. Johnny Green felt, mostly, embarrassment. Covering Chamberlain, he was reduced to supplication and silently he beseeched the Dipper: Don’t put up any more crazy numbers out here, big man. Enough!
On consecutive possessions, the Warriors committed turnovers, making wild passes to Chamberlain, the first too long, the second too high. “If,” Bill Campbell told his listeners, “you can picture a pass being too high for Wilt.” The Warriors determined to foul the Knicks as quickly as possible, merely reciprocating the strategy, as they saw it. Conlin fouled Butcher, stopping the clock, and then Rodgers fouled Butcher, stopping the clock again. Among those looking up at the scoreboard clock now was referee Pete D’Ambrosio. This is going to take forever, he thought.
From the bench, Arizin was thinking, If someone walked into the arena right now, they’d be confused. They’d wonder, “Why are the Knicks freezing the ball? They’re behind.”
Three minutes, twenty-three seconds to go, Wilt Chamberlain stuck for six possessions at eighty-nine points. Eddie Donovan thought the scoreboard clock was stuck, too. Donnie Butcher saw his coach pound a fist on the scorer’s table and complain that the game clock wasn’t starting, per regulation. It was as if the official timer was attempting to give the Dipper extra time to reach one hundred, or so Donovan thought.
The Axe shadowed the Dipper.
“Boy, they are belting Wilt around!” Campbell said.
Breaking out of his game, searching for an open space, searching for points, Chamberlain moved to the outside and shot a long one-hander, missing. The Knicks rebounded and moved … so slowly. Johnny Green passed behind his back to Naulls. He passed to Imhoff, still in the backcourt. More loud booing. Meschery intentionally fouled Naulls with two minutes, fifty-one seconds left. At courtside, Pollack typed another quick paragraph and then, with the ball back in play, focused on game statistics. Each time the Warriors took possession, the arena crowd percolated, a murmur becoming a rumble. Anticipation. Expectation.
Attles lobbed a pass into Chamberlain. Playing from behind, the Axe could only hack. The sound of Willie Smith’s whistle: Imhoff was done, fouled out.
In twenty minutes Imhoff had committed six fouls. Buckner, given a brief rest, came back into the game. Frank McGuire, meanwhile, turned to the eighth, ninth, and tenth players on his eleven-man roster. He tapped York Larese, Ted Luckenbill, and Joe Ruklick on their shoulders to replace Meschery, Conlin, and Attles. The Dipper made one free throw and missed another. He had ninety.
Earlier in the game, Larese had made four of five shots. A pure shooter, he now had the shooter’s can’t-miss feeling. But there was no chance he would take another shot this night. Neither would the lefty Luckenbill nor Ruklick. They knew their roles. McGuire hadn’t told them to quickly foul the Knicks. Didn’t have to.
Guerin rebounded the Dipper’s missed free throw and passed to Naulls. Ruklick fouled him instantly and not delicately. For a moment it seemed Naulls and Ruklick might come to blows, but the moment passed, Bill Campbell leaning into the microphone and saying, “Of course you can understand the Knickerbockers, trailing, and they don’t want to have it rubbed in a littl
e bit like this with a guy on a scoring rampage.” With Naulls at the free-throw line, the mathematical possibilities could be explored: less than three minutes to play, Chamberlain at ninety, a finite number of Philadelphia possessions remaining, perhaps a half dozen or so in the flow of a normal game. But this game was not, in any way, normal. It had its own stilted flow, moving from free throw to free throw. Here was the Knicks lineup: Buckner, Naulls, Green, Guerin, and Butcher, measuring six-eight, six-six, six-five, six-four, six-three. The Dipper had the height advantage, but he was surrounded on all sides. Facing ridicule and basketball infamy, the Knicks positioned defenders without any pretense of covering the other four Warriors. Only the Dipper mattered. Could the Warriors even get the ball to him?
That, of course, was Guy Rodgers’s great skill. Already on this night Rodgers had eighteen assists, nearly all to Chamberlain. Now seeing the Dipper flashing free in the lane like the sun emerging momentarily from behind clouds, Rodgers whipped the ball inside.
Donnie Butcher sensed impending doom.
As Chamberlain rose to shoot, Butcher grabbed him around his waist, so the Dipper couldn’t dunk it … that is, unless he dunked the ball and Butcher together. Butcher gladly absorbed the foul as Chamberlain went to the free-throw line once more, energized by the pursuit, if physically exhausted.
Bending low, knees flared out wide, Chamberlain made the first under-handed free throw, then missed the second. With the Knicks over the limit of six teams fouls, the Dipper received a penalty free throw and made it. Remarkably, he had made twenty-eight of thirty-two foul shots, unprecedented.
With two minutes, twenty-eight seconds to play the Dipper had ninety-two points.
Some Hershey adults did now what they never had done before: They pressed closer to the floor, same as the kids. To reach a hundred, the Dipper needed eight points in one hundred forty-eight seconds—roughly the rate of one hundred fifty-two points for a game.
“Anything is possible,” Campbell said.
Larese fouled Guerin almost at once. Guerin made both free throws, 159–140.
Chamberlain stationed himself at his preferred spot, surrounded by Knicks. Rodgers fed him the ball anyway. With his five-inch height advantage, the Dipper set up for his fade-away. The best shot in the league! He stepped from the basket, turned, and shot over his right shoulder. The ball banked off the glass and into the basket, 161–140, the most points the Warriors had ever scored, a dozen shy of the NBA mark of 173 by Boston. The Dipper had ninety-four, his fierce focus melting now into a smile as he ran down court. Bill Campbell said, “Wilt laughs as if to say, ‘What am I doing out here?’” Campbell answered the question for him and for his listeners. “He knows what he’s doing out here—he’s going for one-zero-zero.”
Beneath the Warriors basket, the off-duty Associated Press photographer, suddenly on duty, snapped a few action photos. He had twenty photos to a roll. He thought about the postgame. He needed to save a few photos for that, just in case. Paul Vathis locked his camera sights on Wilt Chamberlain, waiting to capture that one moment.
The Warriors’ twenty-two-year-old equipment manager tried to think ahead, too. Larry Jacobs always wore a coat and tie, to let people know he took his job seriously. Now, in the heat and the excitement over the Dipper, Jacobs, perspiring, removed his jacket. When Chamberlain hit ninety-four, off came Jacobs’s vest. As a nine-year-old ball boy for Gotty in 1949, Jacobs had watched Joe Fulks set an NBA record with a then-astonishing sixty-three points against the Indianapolis Jets. The Dipper’s performance now made Fulks’s sixty-three seem like mere pennies. Jacobs repositioned his ball boys at the corners of the court. He wanted two ball boys close by, nearer the Warriors bench, to protect the team’s equipment, namely the basketballs, in case the Dipper hit a hundred and all hell broke loose.
From the bench, an unusual place for him, Arizin took in the fourth quarter much as a fan would. The Knicks were giving Chamberlain nothing. They battled him at every step. Wilt hasn’t gotten one cheap basket tonight, Arizin thought. Every last one he’s earned.
Two more quick fouls: the Warriors sent Donnie Butcher to the line. Butcher immediately returned the favor, fouling Rodgers. Two minutes to play. The Dipper needed six more points.
A familiar voice rang out: “When are you going to stop him, Richie?” Richie Guerin looked to the voice. It came from the Warriors bench—Paul Arizin. Arizin was riding his old friend, teasing him about the Dipper, a very un-Arizin-like bit of heckling. Guerin sneered, then smiled in a failed attempt to rise above it. Guerin called out to Frank McGuire, apparently in jest, though still with a sneer. McGuire leaped from his chair, as if offended. He shouted back at Guerin. Paul Arizin had been a Marine once, too. He was at Quantico, Virginia, a few years before Guerin arrived there. Now he called out again: “Hey, Richie, when are you going to stop him?” Guerin shook his head and then laughed.
From the Knicks bench, Imhoff watched the exchange. He shared Guerin’s view. Why would the Warriors be a part of this? Imhoff knew that Eddie Donovan, a gentleman, never would embarrass a team, not like Frank McGuire was now. Donovan would’ve pulled Chamberlain once he’d hit seventy-five or eighty points. Imhoff could tell that Donovan was incredulous. So was Guerin. The only difference was that Guerin gave voice to the emotion.
A minute fifty to play, the scoreboard clock up in Peanut Heaven ticking, the Knicks running a weave, Naulls and Butcher stalling. The ball moved to Guerin in the right corner. He passed back out to Johnny Green.
Guy Rodgers stole the ball.
Rodgers pressed up court, quickly, to avoid getting fouled again. He flipped a pass to Chamberlain underneath, before the defense could set up. The Dipper laid it in; Rodgers had his twentieth assist, the Dipper ninety-six points.
At the other end, the ball came to Naulls. He had an open layup but didn’t take it. Instead he let a few more grains of sand fall through the hourglass. Luckenbill fouled him.
There came more jeers for Richie Guerin—this time not from Paul Arizin but from the two Harrisburg weightlifters: “YOU’RE A BUM, GUERIN!!!!!” Richie Guerin was fed up with it, all of it—Chamberlain, the chase for a hundred, Arizin, and now this. Sitting in the front row thanks to a small fib, Jim Hayney, a junior college student masquerading as a salesman in his fine suit and signing autographs for kids before the game as if he were the Dipper himself, saw Guerin move up court, then divert toward the hecklers. Other fans saw it, too. The Leatherneck looked ready to wage war. He glared at the two hecklers and said, biting off each syllable, “What … did … you … say?” Hayney looked at the weightlifters sitting a few rows back. Their moxie and their biceps shrunk. They cowered, not to utter another heckling word, as Guerin returned to the action.
Among the league’s finest free-throw shooters, Naulls made two, 165–145.
And so with a minute twenty-five to play in the chocolate town with the flimsy rims, here came Larese, the tinsmith’s son, leading the Warriors fast break. With teammates angling toward the basket from his right and left, Larese thought only of the Dipper. He didn’t see him, but he felt his presence, in the thrum of the crowd and the vibration of the floor. He knew the Dipper was closing ground from behind. Driving into a wall of sound he heard the chorus, “Give it to Wilt!” Nearing the Knicks basket now, Larese maneuvered to his right and lifted a lob pass that the trailing Dipper caught and, in one fluid motion, dunked with a vengeance rare to his game. So close to achieving his goal now, Chamberlain was beyond finesse, beyond the usual Dipper Dunk, a considerably less emphatic basket stuff, like a rock that barely ripples the pond. The Zink playing to the crowd, cut loose: “That’s nine-tee-eigghhhttt!”
The Dipper took several steps, then turned around. Tricking the unsuspecting Knicks, he intercepted the inbounds pass and put up a shot from near the free-throw line. The ball went into the cylinder, rolled around one of the friendliest rims in Pennsylvania, and spun out: a miss. The crowd became a perfectly synchronized chorus: “Ohhhhhhhh!”
“They are not taking the shot,” Campbell said. “They are eating up time.”
Luckenbill fouled Guerin. One minute one second to play, Chamberlain at ninety-eight. With twenty-nine points in the fourth quarter, the Dipper already had shattered the NBA record for points in a twelve-minute quarter, breaking by one a record he had established (against Buckner and the Knicks) five days before and then tied a half hour earlier, in the third quarter.
A conversation broke out in the lane now between the referee Smith, Ruklick, and Guerin. Campbell attempted to describe it for his listeners: “Guerin, who is really jabbering, I don’t know what he is arguing about.” Guerin would not go down without a fight or at least an argument, not now, not ever. He missed his first free throw and the crowd cheered.
At courtside a dam was about to burst, a wall of humanity, mostly kids, surging, awaiting the moment.
From his table near the court, Campbell mused, “He has ninety-eight points … in professional basketball!” Then he said, “I’ll tell you, that’s a lot of points if you are playing grammar school kids, isn’t it?”
Guerin missed his second free throw, too. More cheers. Since the Warriors had exceeded the limit of six team fouls per quarter, Guerin was awarded a penalty third free throw and made it, 167–146.
Campbell: “Now let’s see if they foul somebody quick.”
Guy Rodgers didn’t give the Knicks that chance. He threw a length-of-the-court pass. The Dipper rose to the heavens to grab it. Surrounded by Knicks, too short, but still scrapping and battling, Chamberlain shot and missed. With all attention on the Dipper, Luckenbill, the earnest rookie, snuck in for the rebound. He caught a glimpse of the Dipper, pointing toward the basket, as if to say, “Let’s get this over with.”
Wilt, 1962 Page 21
