As El Death is apparently ravaging the Pacers lineup, Granger, Murphy, and Daniels all missed last night's game with the flu and will miss tonight's matchup against the Sixers, I figured I would take some time to stroll down memory lane. To a simpler time, when a red, white, and blue basketball was all you needed.


While perusing through the internet in search of interesting sports websites, I came across Remember the ABA. As being someone from one of the four cities which has a surviving ABA franchise, the ABA has always interested me. There's a lot of great information about all the teams, complete with detailed histories and memories from fans. This story I found on the Pacers page and it made me laugh when I read it:

"One of my fondest ABA memories involves a game that was played at the Coliseum in Indianapolis. I believe it was in 1968 or 1969. We went to the game early to watch the Pacers warm up. We had seats directly behind the Pacer bench. A certain gentleman was already sitting a few seats away from us when we arrived. He had already consumed a few beers, as evidenced by the stack of empty cups under his seat. I was only 9 or 10 years of age. When my parents saw the stack of cups, they made me sit in the seat that was farthest from this gentleman. Anyway, when the game started the gentleman began yelling for Slick Leonard "to put [George] Peeples in." He continued to yell this advice the entire first half, but to no avail. Peeples sat the whole half. At the beginning of the second half, the yelling intensified, but Peeples continued to sit. By this time, the screaming had caught the attention of the Pacers bench, and several players were starting to laugh. In the fourth quarter the Pacers were losing badly. With less than two minutes remaining, and the Pacers down by at least 20, Leonard finally called for Peeples to go into the game. Everybody in the stands was waiting for the drunk to voice his approval (and for a few minutes of silence from this loudmouth). To everyone's amazement the next words out of this guy's mouth were: "Hell Leonard, even Peeples isn't that good. Even he can't bring us back from 20 down." I will never forget the reaction of Leonard and the whole Pacers bench. Pure pandemonium from the players, the fans, and Slick. Leonard just shook his head in bewilderment."

So if you have some time to kill on this Saturday, or you enjoy ABA/Sports history please check out Remember the ABA.