Johnny Most would be 100 today
- Thread starter bosockboy
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He fiddles, he diddles. Now he's daddling and doodling. Kid's got great handles, he's blowing out the candles.
Beautiful. Who was the other beefcake that paired w Ruland that Most dubbed, "McFilthy and McNasty?" Was it Mahorn?
My mom was a visiting nurse and took care of his mom or dad (can't remember which) and said Johnny was a big softie.
Lit his pants on fire during a game
View: https://youtu.be/gUYyS-RVV8Y
you have to listen to Ordway, though
View: https://youtu.be/gUYyS-RVV8Y
you have to listen to Ordway, though
I remember the first time I saw Most at the Garden in the 60s. He looked 100 then.
He has been high above courtside for decades.
RIP and Happy 160th Johnny
He has been high above courtside for decades.
RIP and Happy 160th Johnny
Yes--before Mahorn went to Detroit, he and Ruland were part of the Washington Bullets front court. IIRC, he once referred to Bobby and Caldwell Jones as "the Hatchet Brothers." I also remember Johnny calling out Bill Cartwright for taking too much time at the foul line back when he played for the Knicks by saying, "All right... Cartwright has his cup of coffee and shoots," which just cracked me up for some reason. He was the greatest.
Wow, how could I have not realized that he didn't live to see 70? (He actually died not at 70, but at 6 months short of his 70th birthday.)
. 
This guy is not 70+? Jeesh!
Kids, don't smoke!
. This guy is not 70+? Jeesh!
Kids, don't smoke!
Thanks for sharing this. My only critique would be that they chopped up this quote for the video, and it deserves to be heard in its entirety: "There is a violent, violent knockdown by Laimbeer and Bird just smacked him! Oh my! Oh, the yellow, gutless way they do things here! They have been called a dirty ballclub and I can see why! This is a typical, disgusting display by Rodman, Laimbeer and Isiah Thomas! And they told me I shouldn't say bad things about Isiah and I say, 'Why not!'"
I didn’t hear this firsthand, but a friend was talking about his favorite Johnny Most story. Celts were at the Omni in Atlanta, and the game is almost set to tip. No Johnny. Okay. His play-by-play guy is reading the lineups. Game starts. Still no Johnny. Like five minutes of game time go by. Just the play-by-play guy. There’s a commercial, and when they come back his radio partner tries to underplay it. Just directs a couple comments to let you know Johnny must be there now. Then asks him some generic question about the Celtics’ recent win streak. Johnny doesn’t answer. Like 10 seconds later, he finally speaks and says something like, “I’ve just gotta say that you know something has gone seriously wrong with the world when a grown man can’t even enjoy a cigarette without being held against his will by Omni security tough guys. It’s a disgrace. And they should be ashamed of themselves.”
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He was an absolute gem and a legend.
There are a handful of items that I miss from my 'sports youth'...
Johnny is easily top 10.
There are a handful of items that I miss from my 'sports youth'...
Johnny is easily top 10.
My favorite story about Johnny Most is that before hoops, he had a short stint announcing hockey… where he had a really hard time not cursing, given the pace of play. There was a clip of Most shouting, “He shoots, the puck hits the f****** post!”
He was a great listen when driving home from work (for me, that was the Bird era).
I have no back up on this other than a friend telling me this many years ago. Most was asked to fill in on a Bruin's game. I can't recall the names involved but it ended with a hard check behind the goal and Most crying out "He $%&$ing killed him!"
I have no back up on this other than a friend telling me this many years ago. Most was asked to fill in on a Bruin's game. I can't recall the names involved but it ended with a hard check behind the goal and Most crying out "He $%&$ing killed him!"
Interesting. I am old. Memory flawed.
I remain fond of “fiddles and diddles, stops and pops,” however.
I remember reading this story (maybe a Bob Ryan retrospective):
Johnny was having hearing issues in one ear so he went to the doc. Doc fishes out one of those spongy earpiece covers that had lodged way deep. It bore the logo of a network he hadn't worked at for about a dozen years!
Johnny was having hearing issues in one ear so he went to the doc. Doc fishes out one of those spongy earpiece covers that had lodged way deep. It bore the logo of a network he hadn't worked at for about a dozen years!
Not sure if your memory is flawed. You posted your story while I was literally typing mine up and they are very similar. If anything, my story could be off since it's second-had.
What a golden age of broadcasting there was in Boston sports back in the 70s and 80s:
Celtics: Johnny Most, Tommy Heinsohn, Mike Gorman, Bob Cousy, Gil Santos
Bruins: Fred Cusick, Johnny Peirson, Derek Sanderson, Bob Wilson, Johnny Bucyk
Red Sox: Dick Stockton, Ned Martin, Jerry Remy, Hawk Harrelson, Bob Montgomery (Hey, I liked him!), Ken Coleman, Joe Castiglione
Patriots: Gil and Gino (Though they weren't so active in the 80s)
These days, with a few exceptions (including a couple from the list above), not so great . . .
I never liked Dick Stockton, but you omitted Jim Woods, who was paired with Ned Martin and was a great color guy on the radio.
I hear you. I could be wrong for the same reason. Wouldn't surprise me either way.
My Johnny story was from high school. Lost my voice altogether from laryngitis for 2 days. When it came back on day 3, I was stuck with Johnny's voice all day. One of my teachers insisted that I do a whole routine for like 5 minutes.
DJ with the ball. He fiddles and diddles, over the top to Bird. He drives, and he's absolutely clobbered by Bill Laimbeer. And why the referees let this criminal roam free in the paint is beyond me.
Dude was awesome.
You missed out. Listening to Martin and Woods on my porch was a pure joy. Keep in mind that radio was the only way to follow a team on a night by night basis back then. Back then, at least in WMass, the only games on TV were Saturday, Sunday, and the occasional weekday feed. Other than that, it was the Red Sox Radio network.
I didn't get into the Celtics until the 80's. Was that the way it was with them as well?
Boston comedian in the 80s used to do a bunch of sports material. His Johnny was something like "and Laimbeer pulls out a knife and HE STABBED MCHALE RIGHT IN THE ASS!! MCHALE IS BLEEDING OUT THERE AND GUTLESS JOE O'DONNELL WON'T CALL THE FOUL!!!"
It wasn't my fault!
I didn't start following the Cs until 1980, so I'm not sure about their TV schedule prior to that. It's crazy to think that there was a time when not all Sox games were televised, but I seem to recall that was the case in 1978 (when I started following the Sox), too, but maybe I'm misremembering.
It might be a market thing. WMass piggy-backed on WSBK's feed. I think the only way that we could watch Bruin's games was on tape delay Saturday night and if NBC (Peter Puck!!!!) had the Bruins games on. Once NESN got the Sox games, it was only for half. If your cable company didn't have WSBK, you were out of luck. After we first got cable, I could actually watch more Cubs, Mets, and Braves games than the Sox.
It's part of what makes that era's radio broadcasters so legendary.
I lived in Portland, ME in the 70s (and 80s) and I think we had a similar dynamic. I vaguely recall hoping/praying that the Sox would be Saturday's NBC "Game of the Week" in the late 70s. I think that was because I wouldn't get to see the game otherwise -- I can't imagine it was because I wanted to hear an alternative set of announcers or anything like that.
If you heard Stockton you probably heard Woods. They overlapped for about 4 years in the 70s. Both were gone by '79.
Well, I heard Stockton in the 80s and after, and therefore not as a Sox broadcaster (other than the Fisk HR call and maybe a few other clips from the '75 Series). I'm assume that he was good in the 70s, but maybe he wasn't so good back then and just improved with age.
Aging so quick happens when you religiously fiddle and diddle with cigarettes. I remember the end of his run, he would just do a recorded segment during the pregame. He was forced to give up smoking due to his health. In a matter of weeks, his voice was unrecognizable. You could hear he was still weak, but most of the rasp was gone. We were robbed of years of him continuing to call games because of his habit. RIP Johnny. Forever the best.
On game nights before going to bed, I would take the ShowerTunes radio out of the bathroom and tune in to Johnny Most as I fell asleep. That voice will remain an iconic part of my childhood.
I remember a time that I was listening to Celtics game on the radio and my brother came by and asked what the score was. I said "they're losing by six but the refereeing has been terrible, just incredibly awful" and he was like "um how can you tell/ You're not watching."
Oh, I knew.
Also the time Most declared that Parish missed a free throw in the 1981 Finals because "Robert is in shock that they actually called a foul on Moses Malone" was pretty epic.
Oh, I knew.
Also the time Most declared that Parish missed a free throw in the 1981 Finals because "Robert is in shock that they actually called a foul on Moses Malone" was pretty epic.
Same. I have a memory of listening to the Bird steals the ball call in bed, but wonder if that was actually a day game?
My father and I met Johnny at Logan airport when the Celtics were leaving for a road trip. He may have been wearing an oxygen mask. I’m not sure. I do remember thinking that I might never see someone is tall is Robert Parish again as he ducked into the gate. Pretty damn exciting for a 12 or 13 year old kid.