Wes Unseld doesn’t come around much anymore, and it has nothing to do with the lockout. We’re talking the house that Abe built, the Verizon Center.

Sure, he’s part of the franchise’s alumni group and has a seat “for life,” once blogged Ted Leonsis. This was in response to a oddity spewed by New York’s own Peter Vecsey in January 2011, saying Unseld’s season tickets had been “stripped” from him. Dan Steinberg aptly described the curious case on the DC Sports Bog, as both Leonsis and Unseld denied such; and as Mike Wise said, “Let’s put it this way, Tony Kornheiser’s not an evil human being. He has an evil side to him, but he’s not an evil human being. But Peter Vecsey is Satan incarnate.” Always nice to have Kornheiser involved.

Still, season tickets or no season tickets (after all, someone, somewhere had to be miffed enough to drop of a nugget for Vecsey to run with, unconfirmed), Unseld was no where near as present at games last season as he used to be, when Pollin was owner. And that’s okay. He was Abe’s guy. Constancy is neither sacred, nor a vice. Plus, sometimes in life there are other things to do.

New can always be found without the old, but often can’t be appreciated without what’s already been done. And that’s why on this Wednesday, we appreciate Wes, just as the Washington franchise and fans of the franchise always will.

Wes and Connie Unseld.

Read more »

Ted Leonsis has been extra attentive toward celebrating the history of his new pro basketball franchise. There was the establishment of an official team alumni association back in early October 2010, headed by Bob Dandridge, among several other events featuring franchise greats — such as alumni appearances at the team’s training camp fan fest, having Earl Monroe speak to the team at training camp, co-hosting viewing parties with alumni association members at Kevin Grevey’s restaurant in Falls Church, VA, recognizing various association members (Dandridge, Grevey, Jack Marin, Kevin Porter and Michael Adams) at a home game in December and having Elvin Hayes visit with the team on a recent two-game road trip in Texas. The older fans I’ve spoken with absolutely love this stuff.

Now, the team has announced that they will unveil a new trophy case near section 100 before Friday’s game versus the New Jersey Nets. The case, according to the team press release, will feature new graphics and a refurbished Tiffany & Co. trophy celebrating the 1978 championship. A picture of the case, courtesy of the Wizards’ official FaceBook page, can be seen above. Another can be found on the Wizards.com website.

Leonsis is going above and beyond the call of duty, which makes a recent visit from Peter Vecsey’s slinging fecal matter regarding an inaccurate report of his that Unseld was “stripped” of his season tickets by Leonsis all the more curious … or not, because it’s Peter F-ing Vecsey. Dan Steinberg covered this incident extensively on the DC Sports Bog and Leonsis posted a response on his blog as well. Essentially, through this incident, Vescey further exposed himself for the ugly wart that he is … which we pretty much already knew. So, who cares? Vescey just needs to go away.

Moving on past that noise, in my research of the forgotten 1976-77 NBA dunk contest, I came across a YouTube user, WiltatKansas, who had posted a couple videos of Wes Unseld in high school. The first video below is of the 1963 Kentucky state championship between Seneca (Unseld’s high school) and Dunbar. The second is of the 1964 Kentucky state championship featuring Seneca versus Breckenridge County. Seneca won both games.

The footage is pretty grainy (the first video is in black and white), and there is no sound, but it’s not hard to spot big Wes wearing No. 31 in home white in both videos. (BTW, Free Darko/Bethlehem Shoals came across this last December and I’m only now remembering.)

Read more »

{via Sports Illustrated Vault}

An unfortunate part about being a Wizards/Bullets blogger and only 29 years old (and only having moved to DC in 1990), is that timing has deprived my memory and knowledgeable grasp of franchise history. But we all depend on people before us to tell the stories we don’t know. The more accounts there are, the better depiction we get of what actually transpired. This is what’s so great about team blogs, or “sites” maintained by sources which not apart of main stream media. They provide a more in depth view from wider angles, making the lore that much better for the future.

For my last birthday, a friend gave me ‘The Great Book of Washington, D.C. Sports Lists‘, written by Andy Pollin and Leonard Shapiro and published in 2008. These two guys have an insanely close relationship with sports in the city I love, and they turned to even more brilliant minds for assistance when composing their lists. While the book doesn’t exactly satisfy my desire for Bullets history tid-bits (to be expected in a Redskins town), it comes highly recommended for its Washington sporting facts, which are considered mostly minutia by ‘official’ historical accounts, but extremely savory to serious fans.

In reading, which I still continue to do, some lists twice, I came across some eyebrow raising commentary regarding the relationship between Wes Unseld and Elvin Hayes. I’m almost ashamed to admit that I previously had little knowledge of Hayes outside of him being a great player, and a member of the ’78-79 championship team. I simply haven’t taken the time to dive into research about him as I’ve done for more contemporary figures during my fandom period (such as Kevin Duckworth, Robert Pack, Larry Stewart, Scott Skiles, and Haywoode Workman).

Hayes and Unseld appear on three lists together: Read more »

Upon discovering that he played against Yao Ming’s father during his visit to China 30 years ago, Wes Unseld pleaded with the Chinese to get busy in the bedroom and start making more Yao Mings to send to the NBA, preferably in the Wizards’ direction.

Chinese officials promptly snickered and told big Wes not to worry. They then pointed to a “friendly” mascot being held by Caron Butler, which is really a non-lethal DNA collection robot that will be sent back to the U.S. to gather samples from various Wizards (sorry DeShawn, you aren’t needed for this) so they can be combined with that of Ming to create a monster the league has never seen. His name will be Car’Twan-yao Gilwood Ming-Arenas.

via CRIEnglish.com

The robot then expanded after drinking some Tuff Juice and challenged Caron to a game of 1-on-1. The bot, named Haibao, was winning 8-6 until Butler gave it the ‘Crocodile Dundee Gender Test’, confusing Butler and embarrassing the robot. The cruelty of being non-gendered, and having short arms, was too much for Haibao to overcome. It lost 11-9.

via sports.qq.com

Ok, none of this really happened … but Unseld did say: Read more »