The Magic of Magic and Bird | Far Flungers

This is not unnecessary unpleasantness. It is simply an honest description of what it means to make your living by being one of the most competitive men in the world.

But, just as a connection like that between Bird and Johnson can initially breed a unique kind of contempt, it can eventually breed a unique kind of affection. John McEnroe spent his early tennis career wishing his only equal, Bjorn Borg, would just disappear. But when Borg did disappear, when he retired abruptly at 26, McEnroe was disconsolate. At times, he wanted to retire too: he saw little point in playing if Borg was not around to play against. So it was with Bird and Johnson.

After the press conference at which Johnson announced his retirement because he had contracted HIV, Magic was happy and hopeful. But Bird was engulfed by depression. He felt as bad, he says, as he did when his father died. He played on for another season, "but it wasn't the same." He stopped checking the newspapers for stats. He stopped trying as hard. There was no need to better himself, now that there was no need to better Magic Johnson.

When people think you're about to get AIDS and die, says Johnson, your friends thin out pretty quickly. It is only then, he has learned, that you truly see who cares for you. When Johnson caught HIV, Bird called him to tell him that he cared, and that he cared very much. Johnson weeps as he tells this story. That phone call was, he says, just "the greatest moment."

"Magic & Bird" is a straightforward, 90-minute HBO TV movie. As an evocation of a culturally significant sporting clash, it cannot match up to "When We Were Kings" and, as a basketball documentary, it is hardly "Hoop Dreams." But, in those moments when it reveals how a great rivalry can enrich a man as much as a great romance, it becomes a wonderful film.

There is, however, another reason it is so affecting: it satisfies an urge felt by all of us who are ordinary.

Throughout Ron Shelton's "Cobb," Al Stump, the sportswriter played by Robert Wuhl, is abused by Ty Cobb, the greatest of great baseball players, played by Tommy Lee Jones. In one scene, Stump is asked why he spends so much time with Cobb, who is an appalling person, a vicious, violent, drunken criminal. Stump looks as if the answer should be obvious--and then, when he realises it isn't, he says simply, "He knows what it is to be great."

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