MOMENTS, MEMORIES and MADNESS with STEVE CAMERON: The day my hip check could have ended a Hall of Famer's career

Once in a while, I get some version of the same email.

A reader will ask: “Have you ever gotten seriously hurt during some sports event?”

The quick answer is yes, I tore the ligaments in my right ankle during a city league basketball game.

It was one of those fluke things, a bit like the ankle sprain suffered by Gonzaga’s Jalen Suggs, except…

Mine was worse.

If Jalen had done his ankle exactly like mine, he wouldn’t be preparing to make millions in the NBA.

After all, the injury kept ME from playing pro basketball.

(Yep, that and a staggering lack of size or talent…)

OK, I concede that I’m spoofing about my budding NBA career, but even though the shredded ligaments happened more than four decades ago, I still struggle with that right ankle.

Seriously.

Some of my skier friends joke that they can spot me on a mountain from half a mile away, because my turns to the left and are long and loopy, while coming back to my right (more pressure on the good ankle), the turns are nice and tight.

SO WHY would that injury be similar to Suggs’ scary looking twist against West Virginia — in the Zags’ third game of the year?

Simple.

The sprains were both total flukes.

I jumped for a rebound and came down on the outside of a guy’s foot.

Most athletes can identify with this, but after a couple of minutes limping around, I played the rest of the game that night.

Naturally, I thought the injury wasn’t all that bad.

But then, I went to get out of bed the next morning and crashed straight to the floor.

Now, then…

I’m pretty sure you’re not exactly breathless over the details of an ankle sprain that happened ages ago.

However, the question about whether I’d ever been hurt while playing some sport reminded me of a much more interesting story.

SEE, I did once injure somebody else.

And thank goodness he recovered, or I might have been tarred and feathered by angry mobs.

Thousands of Kansas City Royals fans no doubt would have called for some hideous form of punishment.

I think of that near-miss at the beginning of each National Hockey League season — and with the screwed-up schedules forced on skaters by COVID-19 protocols, that happened to occur this past week.

(Here’s another item that likely can bore you silly, but my San Jose Sharks opened the year with a 4-3 shootout victory over Arizona, so we’re off and running!)

Right, let’s get back to business, and return to the 1975-76 season.

I’d fallen in love with hockey, having covered the Kansas City Scouts’ first year in the NHL as an expansion team the previous season.

I was just a kid journalist, and I’d grown up in California — which, at the time, wasn’t exactly a hotbed of hockey.

But I got totally hooked.

YOU CAN imagine, I think, my reaction when the Scouts organization offered me the role of running their public relations and communications gigs.

I had my own office in Kemper Arena, and a dual responsibility — since I also handled the analysis on the telecasts of our road games.

Honesty is required here, so I have to concede that the team was bad, and a lot of the front office was worse.

There were times when the whole place seemed like a madhouse, but our little staff worked like crazy to handle the PR side of things as professionally as possible.

Meanwhile, there was some after-duty fun.

Whenever the team practiced (usually late mornings) at Kemper, the ice was free for hours afterward.

One of my assistants, Chuckie O’Brien, had played hockey at Hillsdale College in Michigan, and he kept insisting I should learn to skate — which I’d never done, ever.

Finally, he got me out on the ice, and even shooting pucks at the empty nets.

It was a thrill.

Eventually, we were joined by several members of the Kansas City-area media, all of whom had some hockey history — people like Royals broadcaster Denny Matthews, wire service reporter Rick (Goose) Gosselin, and radio/TV newsman Don Fortune.

Word was getting around.

IT WAS a hoot, and even some of the Scouts would hang around to watch for a while.

In fact, forward Robin Burns gave me my first tip on playing competitive hockey.

I was having trouble stopping quickly (remember that bad ankle), so I asked Robin for some advice.

“Just skate like hell,” he said, “and when you get to the boards, you’ll stop.”

Hockey 101.

The next thing was Denny telling the Royals players — who were off for the winter — that we were playing informal hockey after the Scouts practices.

At first, just a couple of players turned up, but eventually there might be a dozen.

The funny part was that with some of the Royals turning up, I was no longer the only “skater” without prior experience.

Of course, being pro athletes, the baseball contingent went after hockey like it was going to be a second paycheck.

THE ROYALS took no precautions for their own safety (except elbow pads, because at the Scouts’ request, I wouldn’t allow anyone on the ice without them).

You can imagine what some of our “competitive” games were like.

One thing I learned was that in a hockey environment, getting crunched into the boards didn’t hurt like I’d expected it would.

Taking a whack was kind of fun, believe it or not.

Those were fantastic outings, and I even scored a legitimate goal, firing a one-timer through goalie Fortune’s legs.

Five-hole, as we say in hockey.

I said legit.

Well, it was legit in the sense that Denny had practically laid a pass right on the blade of my stick, and all I had to do was shoot it.

Ah, but we haven’t talked about the injury.

The one that has stuck with me for years and years.

SEE, YOU can get carried away in any sport, and most of us were going after the controlled chaos of hockey more enthusiastically than common sense suggested.

That’s how I managed to throw a hip check at George Brett, who never saw me coming.

George flipped over, completely out of control, and landed on the back of his neck.

I remember hearing the crack of his head on the ice.

And thinking that both of our careers could be over — George to serious injury, and me for being both idiotic and irresponsible.

As it happened, though, George must have a head like cement.

He was dizzy for a bit, but made a full recovery.

Also finished in the Hall of Fame.

I wound up back in journalism when the Scouts moved to Denver at the end of the season, and eventually…

Hey, here I am.

Even now, however, I remember George flying over backwards, then smashing onto the ice.

I wonder…

Who knows what his career batting average would have been if he’d actually been able to see the ball?

Email: [email protected]

Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns appear in The Press on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. “Moments, Memories and Madness,” his reminiscences from several decades as a sports journalist, runs each Sunday.

Steve also writes Zags Tracker, a commentary on Gonzaga basketball which is published each Tuesday.