This Day in History September 16, 1934

By Thadius856 (SVG conversion) & Parutakupiu (original image) (Own work) [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

For all you basketball fans out there, this piece of history should interest you.  On this date in 1934, Elgin Baylor was born (and he is still alive) in Washington D.C.  He was named for his father's favorite watch--hence his somewhat unusual name.  His scholastic record was sketchy at best, and he played basketball off and on at various places.

In 1958, he was the number one overall pick for the Minneapolis Lakers, and he was convinced to give up his final year in college to play for them.  They were in real trouble as a franchise, and they agreed to pay him $20,000 a year.  He was their last shot to save their team.  He played so well that he was Rookie of the Year.

The Lakers moved to L.A. for the 1960-1961 year, and on November 15, 1960, he scored a record 71 points in a single game.   During his basketball playing career that ended in 1972, he never won a championship game with the Lakers.  Following his retirement, they scored their first championship.

He went on to be a coach with the New Orleans Jazz, and in 1986, he served as the Los Angeles Clippers' vice president.  He was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1977.  It is clear that had he been around the game 25 years later, he would have had an incredible amount of commercial success and possible as well-known as Michael Jordan.  But this was before sports commercialism.

For more information:
http://www.famousbirthdays.com/people/elgin-baylor.html
http://hoopedia.nba.com/index.php?title=Elgin_Baylor
http://www.nba.com/history/players/baylor_summary.html

This Day in History November 4, 1995

This was kind of a fun one for me today.  It was on this day in 1995 that Key Arena opened for its first sporting event (wasn't I just there last weekend??).  I hadn't realized it had been so recent.  Speaking from my experience, I have been there twice.  One for a Bon Jovi concert earlier this year and just this past weekend for the Women of Faith Conference.

Key Arena is located in downtown Seattle in an area called the Seattle Center.  This is an area that is very historic since it was the site of the 1961 World Exposition.

Look Familiar?

Most of the time, you will Seattle University's Men's Basketball team or the Seattle Storm of the WNBA.  It used to be the home of the NBA Seattle Supersonics.  In fact, their first regular game that season was the opening game of this arena.  They played against the L.A. Lakers, and the Sonics won 103-89.

Isn't it just like professional sports to "demand" a new arena and then leave?  And basically, that is what happened with the Supersonics.  Oh, and the reason it it called Key Arena is that KeyCorp game 15.1 million for the naming rights of the arena.

For more information, check out these sites:
http://www.brainyhistory.com/days/november_4.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KeyArena
(I don't usually use Wikipedia, but this one cited a lot of sources and used footnotes.  So I chose to go with it!)