Episode 7: National Bad-looks Association

We start the episode by going back in time to 1961 to uncover what happened to Connie Hawkins during that hellish two-week NYPD investigation. We then jump forward to 1968: Journalist Dave Wolf exposes the NBA's hypocrisy, and a brilliant legal team — David and Roslyn Litman — files a massive antitrust lawsuit to clear Connie's name. But just as justice seems within reach, something happens to Connie that makes him wonder if the lawsuit will even matter.

CREDITS

Created by: Bo Belanger

Written and Produced by: Bo Belanger

Theme Song: "Blame" by Gabriels

Music: Bo Belanger and Udio

VO: Shawn Hawkins, Bo Belanger and ElevenLabs

Sound Design and Mix: Dave Wagg and Collin Thomas

Art: Lincoln Lopes

Special Thanks: Shawn Hawkins, Dave Wolf, Charley Rosen and Kristen Farnam Belanger

Transcript

SPEAKER_07 0:25

Welcome back to Connie and Jack, a rigged game. This is episode seven, National Bad Looks Association. In the sixth episode, Connie joined the Globetrotters, playing with them for three and a half years. Then he joined another upstart league, the ABA. Just like he had with the ABL, he dominated, winning MVP and a title. And his dominant performance mattered. David and Raj Littman were using it as evidence in their lawsuit against the NBA to prove that Connie had the talent to play in the league. This was obvious to anyone who'd seen him play, but they needed a rock solid case going against a behemoth like the NBA. To start the episode, we're going back to the spring of 1961 to learn what happened to Connie during that two-week investigation in New York. We'll then pick back up in our present day, 1968, to meet writer Dave Wolf and follow the investigation that the Littmans undertook on Connie's behalf.

SPEAKER_11 1:37

Connie was scared traveling back to New York City with Detective Bernhardt in April of 1961. He recalled as a kid that the only people he feared more than gangs were the cops. The court he'd played at growing up was next to a police station, the 88th Precinct, and he'd seen cops beating people up behind the station. Connie knew these people, and he knew they hadn't done anything wrong. Dave Wolfe tells the story of Connie traveling with Detective Bernhard back to New York in foul.

SPEAKER_16 2:06

When they arrived in New York, Hawkins thought the detective was going to take him home, Bernhardt said casually.

SPEAKER_02 2:12

No, we keep all the players at hotels. It's safer for them. I'd like to go home, Connie replied. Like I said, we keep all the players at hotels. As they walked from the terminal, Connie paused. Bernhard shook his head once more. You better wait till after you're questioned. We prefer you don't make calls.

SPEAKER_11 2:33

They put him up at the Tudor Hotel, and he roomed with Art Hicks and Hank Gunter, two Seton Hall players who tried recruiting Connie to play there and who also had already admitted to taking bribes. Their fourth roommate was a cop who slept there every night, apparently afraid these kids were a flight risk. They never informed Connie of his rights or offered him legal counsel. Connie didn't even have a change of clothes. He'd wear the same pants, shirt, and underwear for the next two weeks. Interrogations began the next day at the DA's office. Connie told the truth. Yes, he'd taken$200 from Jack Bellinus, but it was a loan that had been repaid by his brother Fred. Yes, he met Joe Hacken and he agreed to introduce him to other players, but Connie thought Hacken, like so many others, was trying to recruit young talent for their summer teams or college rosters. It was never introduction for the sake of fixing games. Most important, he never actually introduced Hakken to anyone. He tried calling Vinnie Brewster once for Hacken, but no one picked up. When Connie first admitted that he didn't even know what a point spread was, Bernhardt thought he was putting him on. But soon the detective realized Connie didn't actually know what one was. The screws continued to tighten on Connie as the days rolled by, as David Hankley wrote in the New York Daily News, Bernhard and other detectives interrogated him some twenty times over six days.

SPEAKER_10 3:58

We're not after you, they told him. All we want is the truth. Tell us, you walk. Hold out, and that's perjury. Which by the way means one to five.

SPEAKER_11 4:08

Connie told the truth for six days, even as the interrogators threatened jail time, but Connie's mental state declined. No change of clothes, constantly being yelled at and intimidated by detectives twice his age, and never leaving his hotel. Connie told the Baltimore son, I was frightened.

SPEAKER_05 4:33

I decided I'd never get out if I kept telling the truth.

SPEAKER_11 4:43

Bernhard knew Connie was scared.

SPEAKER_10 4:46

David Hankley wrote, Years later, Bernhard said he felt sorry for Hawkins, but that you don't fight evil on this level. Gamblers preying on kids by acting like a bleeding heart social worker. In these kind of situations, said Bernhard, you have to keep your eye on the prize.

SPEAKER_02 5:03

The interrogators began leading Connie with questions like, Didn't you get$500 for introductions? Don't give us that crap. That was no loan. Who did you introduce to get that$200?

SPEAKER_11 5:16

With each passing interrogation, the detectives seemed to get more upset and skeptical. Connie was scared. After a week, beginning on May 3rd, Connie started to tell them what it seemed like they wanted to hear. Except these new false statements were nonsense. One contradicted the next. It was a flurry of false confessions. But the interrogators didn't care. In fact, in some instances, they knew Connie was lying. For instance, he admitted to introducing Colorado star Wilkie Gilmore to Jack and Rothwell Center. Except that both Wilkie and the actual guy who introduced Wilkie to Jack both told the interrogators the truth. A truth which had nothing to do with Connie. Not only could the detectives not substantiate anything Connie was saying, but there wasn't one player who told them that Connie introduced them to Hackener Jack.

SPEAKER_10 6:08

David Hinckley summarized the injustice, writing, The cops just wanted someone to tell a grand jury simple stories about good kids and bad men.

SPEAKER_11 6:17

But not all the players got damaged in the investigation. Some were sophisticated enough to know better than to lie and make false confessions that incriminated themselves. They had a sense of their rights and ultimately walked away without a scratch. Others also walked away without a scratch, but for other reasons.

SPEAKER_12 6:48

He told us he fixed games, and he was a big star, man. Real big. But the detectives didn't want to hear about it. Every time his name came up, it was like they stopped listening. His name never came out in public.

SPEAKER_11 7:02

So by mid-May, the New York detectives in DA's office had Connie in front of a grand jury making false statements. The kid just wanted to go back to Iowa and play ball. He wanted out of his hellish two weeks. Christ, he wanted a change of clothes. When the cops told him he'd have immunity if he talked, no one actually explained to Connie what that meant. Connie thought what he told the detectives would be kept a secret. He thought he was headed back to Iowa and that everything was gonna be fine. How did the NYPD view these interrogations? A success. Bernhard told the Baltimore Sun.

SPEAKER_02 7:39

We were fighting an evil, organized fixing of college games. We did our job. We got the big people like Molinas. We stopped the crooked games. The men I worked with are honorable. If our methods got a kid to make a false confession, I'm sorry. But we had a job to do. And remember, everything we did was legal at the time.

SPEAKER_07 8:02

Now that we understand what happened to Connie during that college fixing scandal investigation in New York, we're jumping back to the present day in our story.

SPEAKER_11 8:17

In the summer of 1968, fresh off his ABA championship, Connie went back to Brooklyn. But it was a shorter trip than usual. He had a lot going on in Pittsburgh. He had his family and extended family there. Plus, he was running the Connie Hawkins basketball summer leaf for kids, giving them the same encouragement that Gene Smith and the YMCA gave him 15 years before. But he still made time for the Rucker when they called for him.

SPEAKER_13 8:44

Bob McCullough, the tournament director, told Pete Axtom in the city game, If you're going to have an All-Star game in Harlem, you vote for Connie or you don't vote.

SPEAKER_11 8:54

Connie played in the Rucker All-Star Game and won the MVP award. He went against fourth year and All-Star Willis Reed of the Knicks in that game, who said afterward, Connie Hawkins would be a superstar in the NBA. This was another great quote for the Littnens lawsuit. But it wasn't all funny games for Connie back in New York. He was sickened by how much heroin had wrecked his neighborhood. It used to just be in Harlem, but now it was everywhere, and it broke Connie's heart to see a lot of guys he used to know, strong guys who could really play, whose bodies were now wrecked from the drug. It seemed they'd given up in life. One case really broke Connie's heart. His dear friend Eddie Simmons was hooked on heroin. Dave Wolf wrote about their encounter that summer in Foul.

SPEAKER_16 9:42

Hawkins says incredulously.

SPEAKER_05 9:44

He'd quit on himself. Ed, the czar. The guy who showed me everything, who got me into boys high. He'd even lost interest in basketball. I was away. Jackie Jackson was gone with the Trotters. I guess Ed felt alone. He wanted to play pro, but the Wrens fucked him. And he never got another chance.

SPEAKER_16 10:05

They made plans to meet up. Connie entered the bar to find Simmons talking with three men, who were obviously high on drugs.

SPEAKER_05 10:12

Ed had scratches on his hands and wrists like a junkie. He wasn't hired up yet, but I could tell he was on something.

SPEAKER_16 10:21

Simmons bought Connie a drink. Hawk looked into his eyes. They were glazed. Ed began talking of their days in the schoolyard, of the great games against Sanders, Ramsey, and Cunningham. For a moment. He seemed once more like the czar. The kid with a million angles and a beautiful set shot. But the men around Simmons had begun to nod and scratch. Hawk was uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_05 10:46

He finally said, Ed, I can't be seen with dudes like this, man. You understand? Yeah, Hawk. I'll get rid of them.

SPEAKER_16 10:54

We'll go someplace. Connie shook his head. The words did not come easily.

SPEAKER_05 10:59

Man, I can't go with you either. We're still friends, Ed. We'll always be tight. But with you being around these dudes, I can't be with you.

SPEAKER_16 11:10

Ed said nothing. He stared at Hawk, a tiny smile on his lips. Then he turned toward the three junkies. Connie pushed hurriedly through the crowd and left the bar. On the street, he thought he was going to cry, but no tears came.

SPEAKER_05 11:25

There's no way I can explain how bad I felt. Ed had done so much for me, but what could I do? After that, he'd call my wife or write me asking for money. For a while, I sent what he asked for. Then I stopped. I knew he'd only be using it to buy drugs. It was three years before I saw him again.

SPEAKER_11 11:55

Connie returned to Pittsburgh and prepared for another ABA season. A young writer for Life magazine named Dave Wolf was sent to write an article about him.

SPEAKER_04 12:04

Wolf wrote about his assignment saying, We had grown up in New York at the same time. I had watched him often at the garden. After the scandal, I developed an almost morbid fascination with his career. I intended to write a short article on the feelings of a great athlete doomed to exile. It had never occurred to me that he might be innocent of the DA's charges.

SPEAKER_11 12:27

Wolf wasn't alone. The way the press wrote about Connie's story, no one thought he was innocent, and Connie rarely spoke about it, as he told Wolf.

SPEAKER_05 12:37

I never talked to anybody about the scandal. It's been eight years since I really talked about it to anyone but my lawyers and my wife. And I don't like to do it with them.

SPEAKER_11 12:47

Wolf spent four months with Connie to write the article. Like everyone, he was drawn to him. He described Connie as a warm, gentle man with simple tastes who lived in the Pittsburgh ghetto because that is where he feels most comfortable. At a time when many black Americans were becoming militant within the civil rights movement, Wolf found that Connie wasn't. He was afraid his wife Nancy's wig was too, quote, black power-ish. Once, Wolf sat with Connie at a restaurant where the waiter kept calling Connie boy, Wolf wrote. Wolf traveled with Connie that Susan, spending a lot of time together, and a genuine friendship formed. Connie's walls went down, just as they had with the Littons. After a game where he dropped 47 on the Pacers, Connie poured himself a rum and coke, checked in on his sleeping kids, then sprawled across a double bed and opened up to Wolf.

SPEAKER_16 13:51

How do I feel? Connie asked. There was a longer silence, until suddenly he sat erect, and the words came rushing out.

SPEAKER_05 13:59

How do you think I feel? I know how good I am, but ain't no way I can get a chance. It's like having the water running and your hands tied so you can't turn it off. I know what you think. You think I was mixed up in it. But I wasn't, man.

SPEAKER_11 14:15

I swear I wasn't. Connie told Wolf of his innocence, and that's what he wrote about in his article. It was the facts we're all familiar with by now. The otherworldly basketball talent, the unsophisticated youth who didn't know what a point spread was, who couldn't tell the difference between Jack Molinas and all the other recruiters and alumni giving him money and doing him favors. Honest Connie sticking to his truth for the first week of the interrogation, frightened Connie, flipping his story and incriminating himself, depressed Connie getting booted back to bed style, MVP Connie in the ABL, clown Connie with the Trotters, Championship Connie in the ABA, but all along, innocent Connie. These were revelations for the public to read in Wolf's Life magazine article. Equally important, Wolf questioned the NBA. Why didn't Commissioner Kennedy want Connie in the league in 1964 when his class graduated? The league was still in his adolescence, after all, with only nine teams. They were trying to expand, but new franchises struggled to draw fans. Connie had the talent to make a franchise overnight, and there were only a handful of guys who could do that. So why didn't the NBA make that smart business decision? The NBA said they were steering clear of any and all players associated with the investigation, fearful that a scandal would wreck their young league. Except the first player listed in Joe Hackins' indictment was Fred Crawford, who currently played for the Lakers. It wasn't a great look for the NBA. When Connie was officially banned from the league in May of 1966, what research had the NBA done into his case?

SPEAKER_16 15:55

Wolfe wrote, Up to this point, the NBA had made scant effort to determine the validity of the charges against Hawkins. The NBA did not ask the DA's office which players Connie was supposed to have approached, and did not question any of the detectives on the case until after Hawkins had filed suit. The league has still not questioned Haken or Molinas.

SPEAKER_11 16:14

And by this point, both Hakken and Molinas had been telling anyone willing to listen that Connie was innocent. But the NBA wasn't asking the question, let alone listening. Instead of a presumption of innocence, this was a presumption of guilt. Wool finished his article writing about Connie's headspace, saying, His post-basketball earning potential is minimal.

SPEAKER_16 16:35

The prime of his career is approaching. Somehow Hawkins has resisted bitterness.

SPEAKER_05 16:40

Connie says, There is a lot of disappointment, a lot of years wasted. Now, I just want to prove what kind of player I am in the NBA and clear my name. That's more important than the money in the suit. I want people to know I'm an honest player.

SPEAKER_11 17:06

Wolf's article in Life magazine bended public opinion toward the truth. Connie was innocent, and the people now supported him, not the NBA. If the press piled on and helped to ruin Connie's life years ago, Dave Wolf reversed it all with one article. It was a masterclass in journalism.

SPEAKER_09 17:33

As the Ogdensburg Advance News reported, the story by Wolf brought Hawkins considerable support. Senator Edward Kennedy, no relation to the commissioner, invited him to Washington for an athlete's memorial dedication of Robert F. Kennedy Stadium. Many NBA players telephoned to volunteer their help.

SPEAKER_11 17:55

But beyond people wanting to help Connie, people were now upset at the NBA. There was outrage at the injustice.

SPEAKER_15 18:03

Sandy Podway of the Philadelphia Inquirer Public Ledger wrote, It took David Wolfe's brilliant journalistic investigation for Life magazine to obtain justice for Connie Hawkins. The fact that a journalist achieved what the NBA should have is simply another reason to question the way the league conducts its operations.

SPEAKER_11 18:23

If they were trying to keep up a good image by keeping fixers out, the callous way they went about it was backfiring. Wolfe's article alone was damaging for the league. But coupled with the Litman's ongoing lawsuit, well, Commissioner Kennedy was now sweating double OT type bullets. By this point, the lawsuit had been in progress for a couple of years.

SPEAKER_10 18:44

The San Bernardino son reported the lawsuit's origins, writing, In November of 1966, Commissioner Walter Kennedy was in Pittsburgh on a franchise expansion trip. The league had added the Bulls that year and were looking to add two more to the 10-team league by 68 to 69. Pittsburgh and Cleveland were frontrunners. When he landed in Pittsburgh, a U.S. Marshal served him the suit papers. The suit charges the NBA with conspiracy to blackball Connie from playing pro ball. At the time, Kennedy refused to comment on the suit until, quote, I have had a chance to study the papers.

SPEAKER_11 19:19

It would take Kennedy two and a half years to study the papers. David and Ross Littman filed a$6 million treble damage suit against the NBA. In this case, seeking treble damages meant requesting three times Connie's actual compensation. Most people thought the lawsuit was a long shot. Wolf wrote in foul.

SPEAKER_16 19:40

When the Littmans had filed suit, their friends in the legal community chuckled. No athlete had ever recovered extensive damages by suing a professional sport for excluding him. Baseball wasn't even covered by antitrust legislation. Basketball, it was thought at the time, might also be exempt.

SPEAKER_11 19:56

And a husband-wife team out of Pittsburgh to boot? Come on. But the NBA learned over the next few years that this unassuming leal team were absolute pit bulls.

SPEAKER_08 20:07

Bill Hughfelder of the Pittsburgh Press described David, writing, He's a slender, almost frail 45-year-old attorney with thick lens glasses, sandy hair mingled with gray. Littman speaks dramatically, like an actor rehearsing for a play, and he flits about his small, unadorned office as if it were a stage.

SPEAKER_11 20:29

Roz Littman was a trailblazer. She and David started their law firm because no other firm would accept a woman into their company when she graduated law school in 1952, despite the fact that she ranked first in her class and scored the highest on the state bar exam. Roz put up with condescending comments and groping men throughout her career. She worked with the ACLU for over 50 years.

SPEAKER_03 20:53

Anthony Romero, the organization's executive director, spoke to the New York Times about her, saying, She had a very deep understanding of prejudice and discrimination as a Jewish American woman growing up in Brooklyn.

SPEAKER_11 21:41

The Littmans would prove to be as devastating in court as Connie was on it. Their opponent was Commissioner J. Walter Kennedy. When Howard Cosell eulogized Kennedy years later, he called him a man for all people and said his eyes and ears were always open to those who needed him. Connie's decade in exile proved that assessment incorrect. The Littmans, along with fellow attorney Howard Spector, spent$35,000 of their own money on the case, plus 10,000 hours. Asked why, the trio told Ebony magazine simply, We believed Connie was innocent.

SPEAKER_00 22:26

Everyone else thought he was guilty.

SPEAKER_11 22:28

David elaborated to the Pittsburgh Press.

SPEAKER_10 22:32

If it weren't for my own personal feelings for Connie, I don't think we ever would have become so involved.

SPEAKER_11 22:41

Commissioner Kennedy claimed that Connie wasn't initially blackballed and said teams simply weren't interested in drafting him.

SPEAKER_13 22:48

Of course, this was laughable, but as Jim Murray wrote in the LA Times, the Lippmans discovered that In 1965, the Lakers, Knicks, and Hawks all requested permission from the league office to negotiate with him. They were told he was undesirable.

SPEAKER_11 23:04

Ouch! Strike one for the NBA and sit tight. This is going to be a longer-than-usual at-bat. How did Kennedy respond to that allegation? More lunacy.

SPEAKER_04 23:15

He said, There was some question in my mind about his desirability to play in the National Basketball Association.

SPEAKER_11 23:23

That Kennedy thought the public would believe such nonsense is bewildering. He then told the Post Herald and Register.

SPEAKER_04 23:30

Shortly after I became commissioner, I attempted to look into the serious charges against Hawkins that had appeared in the press in 1961 in connection with a college basketball scandal. Because I had no way of compelling answers to questions from those who might know the facts, I was unable to complete that investigation.

SPEAKER_11 23:49

Except Kennedy never contacted the DA's office in New York. If he had, he would have been told the same thing that Lenny Littman was told back in 1962 when he cleared Connie for the ABL. Connie was innocent. It was another lie from Kennedy and another bad look for the NBA. Strike 2. These facts were a good starting point for the Littman's inspector, but they needed more. As Ra's inspector worked on depositions and the court work, David Littman and Dave Wolf, the two Davids, handled the investigation. Back in 1966, David Littman had secured two key affidavits. Wolf wrote about these in foul.

SPEAKER_16 24:28

David visited Haken in Walkill Prison and secured a signed affidavit stating that Connie was completely innocent. Haken told him immediately, The kid got a raw deal.

SPEAKER_15 24:38

I never mentioned fixed games to him. He never introduced me to anybody.

SPEAKER_16 24:42

The same week in 1966, Littman went into the tombs, the Manhattan prison, and met with Molinas. Again, he was told that Connie was innocent. And again, after some haggling, he secured an affidavit.

SPEAKER_11 24:56

Fast forward three years to 1969 when the two Davids continued building on those affidavits by talking to a couple of the players that Connie had supposedly introduced to Jack, Wilkie Gilmore and Vinnie Brewer. Wilkie was a 6'5 forward that played at Colorado. Wolf tracked him down in Stanford, Connecticut, and Wilkie confirmed that Connie had not introduced him to Jack or Hakken.

SPEAKER_06 25:20

Then he said, Funny thing, a lawyer from the NBA was here. He had all the facts mixed up. He thought Connie introduced me to Molinas at the holiday festival. First he said they wanted me to be a witness. But when I told him what really happened, he said it wouldn't be necessary.

SPEAKER_11 25:38

Strike 3, and yet another bad look for the NBA. Vinny Brewer was a 6'3 guard who played at Iowa State.

SPEAKER_16 25:46

Wolf found him in Harlem and wrote, He laughed when I told him the DA claimed he'd told Connie that he fixed games.

SPEAKER_12 25:52

Brewer asked, If that was true, why didn't the DA bring me in? I was never contacted. Nobody questioned me, and Connie never even spoke to me about Molinas. He didn't have to. I knew Jack from the schoolyards.

SPEAKER_11 26:07

Wolf then called the DA's office to see if Brewer had been questioned or testified before the grand jury. He hadn't. It was a glaring oversight. The DA's office, nor the NBA in subsequent years, ever talked to the guy that Connie had supposedly introduced to Jack and Hacken to see if it was true. Strike 4 and another bad look for the NBA. Connie's case grew stronger with each person that David spoke to, including their next conversation when they tracked down Detective Anthony Bernhardt. Bernhardt had since retired, which perhaps allowed him to be more frank, and maybe he'd had some time to reflect on the case. Bernhard confirmed Connie didn't understand what the scandal was, and also that Connie had maintained his innocence for a week.

SPEAKER_16 26:51

And then, well, as Wolf wrote, He defended his former colleagues but gave vivid descriptions of the pressure put on the players, the chaos in the DA's office, and Connie's broken, terrified condition when he confessed. Bernhard also reluctantly admitted that while in the DA's custody, Hawkins had never been informed of his legal rights.

SPEAKER_11 27:12

More strikes and bad looks. And sure enough, Bernhard's testimony checked out when the Davis combed through the DA's office's notes. They reached out to the other detectives to verify Bernhard's story. She'd left the force on bad terms, so they wanted to make sure that this wasn't influencing his testimony. Wolf wrote about their discussions with the other detectives.

SPEAKER_16 27:33

Most were still on the force. They were tough, dedicated men, with enormous pride in their work. Many refused to believe that Hawkins had been badgered into false confessions. They didn't trust Bernhardt. But, in the process of attempting to refute him, they actually supported most of what he said.

SPEAKER_01 27:56

But nobody used rough stuff. Of course, we had to frighten them with talk of jail and perjury. But how else were we gonna get to Molinas?

SPEAKER_11 28:13

Meanwhile, Ra's inspector took the depositions of Kennedy and many NBA executives. These were the most startling events of all. They found that the decision to blackball Connie was based on no evidence. Again, Wolf from Fowl.

SPEAKER_16 28:28

No thought had been given to due process of law or the presumption of innocence. Everyone in the NBA assumed they had the right to keep out Hawkins simply because they didn't want him. It never occurred to these respected administrators and businessmen that before they barred Connie Hawkins for life from doing the only thing he knew, they had a legal, not to mention moral, responsibility to confirm the accusations made against him. When Kennedy decided to stop the Knicks, Hawks, and Lakers from negotiating with Connie in 1965, and when the NBA Board of Governors voted to bar him in 1966, they didn't even know about the confessions that he was supposed to have made in the DA's office. It was only after the Littmans filed suit, and the league had to justify its decision publicly, that the NBA lawyers scurried to meet the detectives.

SPEAKER_00 29:15

Raz said, We suddenly realized that they'd excluded Connie for nothing. In 1967, when NBA lawyer George Galantz met with the detectives, he was scratching around for evidence to support something the NBA had done years before. They hadn't drafted Connie because his name appeared in a newspaper article about the scandal. It was astonishing.

SPEAKER_11 29:36

As Commissioner Kennedy sat for his deposition, the NBA lawyers hadn't informed him about the recent facts they learned from Gilmore, who told them that Connie hadn't introduced him to Jack. So Kennedy gave contradictory statements to the facts his legal team had recently discovered. It was embarrassing. Yet another strike and bad look for the National Bad Looks Association. The Lippmann, Spectre, and Wolf put together a strong case for Connie, but it wasn't over. It all rested on Connie's deposition. If he came off confused or contradicted anything, it could fall apart. A fourth quarter meltdown, if you will. During all of this, Connie was still playing hoops, and something happened to him on the court that season that threatened to render all of this legal work meaningless. In their second season, the Pittsburgh franchise moved to Minneapolis. Pittsburgh owner Gabe Rubin took a bath in season one, losing$300,000. He sold the team to a lawyer named Bill Erickson in Minneapolis. How would they draw in snowy Minneapolis where hockey was church? Not well. They had data to back it up. The ABA had a team there the year before, but they couldn't draw fans, so they pulled up stakes and moved to Florida. Why try again? Commissioner Miken didn't want to move and needed a team in Minneapolis to justify keeping the league office there. Predictably they didn't draw. They got so desperate for fans they ran a promotion with local supermarkets. Two tickets for 29 cents. That didn't work. Perhaps if they paid fans to attend games, they might have come. It was a shame because Connie was playing tremendous basketball. It was like this Picasso of the hardwood creating masterpieces that no one would ever see. But by this point, Connie was used to it. He started the year how he finished the last, dominating. Less remorse than the Undertaker. He was just collecting bodies in 68-69. It was grim for his opponents as he reaped what he sowed from all those endless schoolyard days back in Brooklyn. They should have called him Cincinnati for how often he was north of 25 to start that second year. By December 11th, Connie was averaging 35 points a game with outbursts of 57, 53, and 47. And they did not keep track of rebounds in all the games. But in the games they did, he averaged 16, 35 and 16 a game. Those are like peak playoff shack numbers. The Pipers were 16 and 6 in early December, second only to the Oakland Oaks. Pop-up trivia. This one a bit easier for men of a certain age. Which star led the Oakland Oaks? Need a clue? He was the first big NBA star to jump to the ABA. Alright, two points if you had it before the clue, one point for after. Correct answer is Rick Barry, aka the Miami Greyhound. Barry was tearing it up out west just as Connie was in the east. The Hawkins Berry matchup had the ABA licking their chops. This would get the attention of its big brother, the NBA. They were still after that merger, after all. The two Megastars were set to go head to head on Friday, December 13th. The date should have tipped them off. Connie ruptured blood vessels above his right tricep in the previous game when a player's knee hit him hard, diving for a loose ball. Connie traveled to Oakland for the game despite severe pain. Newspapers ran articles next to each other with contradictory headlines. Injuries sidelines Connie Hawkins ran next to Hawkins set to play tonight. The ABA had a product to sell, and Connie's coach, now Coach Harding, pestered him the whole day to play, even though Connie was badly hurt. The Oakland doctor told him not to play, Harding wouldn't hear it. Connie hid in his hotel room to avoid his coach's insistence that they get a friendly or second opinion. He ultimately sat out. Connie returned to play later in December. Different games, same domination. At a practice on January 15th, Connie stayed afterward to work on his game, something he always did. As he made a move to the hoop, he suffered a non-contact injury and pain shot through his leg. It locked at a 45-degree angle and turned out to be torn cartilage. As luck would have it, the Pipers' next game was a rematch against Barry's Oaks. This time at home in snowy Minneapolis, where they were desperate to sell tickets. Ownership felt this was their big chance, their big event to draw fans. Despite the fact that doctors told Connie that if his knee locked again he would need surgery, the pressure put on him to play was immense. From management to the coach, and even the trainer who was a friend of Connie's but didn't have the job security and felt the pressure to influence Connie. They convinced him to dress that night, despite the fact that he couldn't extend his knee. They wrapped it tightly, despite the fact that he wasn't gonna play. But they played into his competitive side, and despite himself, when Coach Harding called for him, he went in. He couldn't run, he was hobbling. In the third quarter, he went out for a rebond and his knee locked. That was it. He was done. He now needed surgery. A knee operation in the late 1960s was a much different proposition than it is today. Connie was understandably scared of going under the knife. Would he ever be the same? But that's where he was headed, and the thought racing through his mind was: what would it matter if he won his lawsuit against the NBA and finally got his shot at playing against the best if he was playing on one leg?

SPEAKER_07 35:28

In the next episode, we'll split time between Connie and Jack. Connie is put to the test in his deposition as his lawsuit reaches its climax. Then we're back with Jack. Following District Attorney Frank Hogan's investigation into his fixing operation, he ends up in prison. But it's Jack. So even that comes with some good stories.