The Human Bird

I caught the midnight bus out of Harvard Square to my Watertown apartment Tuesday night. The fumes and lighting of the shop room at work were getting to me, and I just wanted to get home and relax.

It was Harmon Killebrew Night on the David Letterman show. I got home about 15 minutes before it started, so I began racing through the 50-odd channels on my cable service. I caught the fourth quarter of the Celtics-Kings game in Sacramento and sat back on the sofa to watch the men in green go to work.

The Celtics were down by 21 after three quarters and playing miserably. It looked like their 13-game winning streak was over.

Slowly--but ever so surely--the Kings started making mistakes. Their lead was cut to 16 with about five minutes to play, then six with two minutes left. Finally the Celtics had it down to three with just 31 seconds remaining. Larry Bird stood at the line to shoot two.

He missed them both.

Everyone kept watching as if they cared about the last few seconds--as if just anyone had missed a pair from the line.

But something strange had just happened. Larry Bird had missed those shots. Bird--the National Basketball Association's three-point shooting champion, the NBA All-Star, and arguably the league's best clutch player--blew it.

When the buzzer sounded, the home crowd went wild. Their team had beaten the NBA's best. I had never really liked the Celtics, I had never really followed the team. But this time they were underdogs down the stretch, and I wanted them to win. I knew that if it came down to Bird in the final minutes, the Celtics would win.

When Bird missed the shots, I was stunned at first, then relieved. I couldn't really explain how I felt.

Maybe I was affected because Bird proved he was human, that he was one of us. Maybe now we could identify with his greatness just a little bit better.

Maybe it was that he showed us how vulnerable he and all of us are to failure. When Bird--one of the league's best foul shooters--missed those two from the line, he paradoxically showed us how much he had achieved.

Whatever it was, I knew I had just witnessed one of those moments in sports which we're taught about when we're younger: a moment in which we somehow learn about perseverance, determination and courage.

But then again, maybe I was just grateful that the game didn't go into overtime. Now I could settle back and watch a man who pays someone to stop and smell the roses for him.

David Letterman.