They Might Be Giants

“And you scramble down
And you look below
And the world you know
Begins to grow
The roof, the house and your
Mother at the door
The roof, the house and the world you never thought to explore
And you think of all the things you’ve seen
And you wish that you could live in between
And you’re back again
Only different than before
After the sky”

– Giants in the Sky, Stephen Sondheim

Nearly 36 years ago, a giant visited the Boston Garden. In April of 1986, a kid who was already building a legend put up a playoff-record 63 points against one of the greatest frontcourts in the history of the league. On national TV. At the Garden. Michael Jordan had missed 64 games that season with a broken foot. No one remembers that now, only that he nearly singlehandedly took a game from the eventual champs. The legend of Air Jordan only grew from there, but that was the day MJ became so much larger than life.

In May of 1998, Kerry Wood took the mound for the Chicago Cubs against the Houston Astros. No hitters in baseball are rare, with only a few hundred having been thrown in the history of the league. Perfect games are even rarer, with less than 30 ever having been notched. 20-strikeout games happen every now and again as well. Wood came dangerously close to notching all three. He fanned 20 Astros over the course of the game with a fastball the was routinely breaking triple digits, and a curveball that kept ending up in another ZIP Code. Only two Astros reached base that day, with one being hit by a pitch, and another getting over on the weakest of grounders that was mishandled by the Cubs third baseman. Had the scorers not inexplicably called it a hit, Woods might have had a no-no in one of the most masterful performances baseball has ever seen. The mound is already 10 inches above the plate, but Kerry didn’t need the boost, he declared himself a giant in his sport that day.

Tigers can be giants too. In April of 1997, a young Tiger Woods burst onto the pro golf scene with a 12 stroke victory over some of the best golfers in the world. In his big debut, Tiger put up a three-day total that beat the all-time tournament record originally set by another giant named Jack Nicklaus. Woods would go on to even more dominating performances over his career, but showed himself to be a giant in his space that day.

It’s hard to argue that a man who’s already won a league MVP can later show himself a giant in his sport. Nikola Jokic had made quite a name for himself dozens of times over in his six-plus seasons in the NBA. He’s notched the fastest triple-double, carried Denver to one of their three Western Conference Finals appearances, lifted his team upon his shoulders repeatedly, and oh yeah, won last season’s Most Valuable Player award. But in keeping his hyper-depleted squad above .500 this season with a league-leading 10 triple doubles, etching his name into both Nuggets and league history with his performances, outplaying last season’s impossibly high standard, notching the highest PER in league history thus far, and picking up that 10th triple-double with a 49-point, 14-rebound, 10-assist performance that might have been one of his finest, the Joker is repeatedly showing himself to be a GIANT in the league.

So if you weren’t in Boston in 1986, Augusta in 1997, or Chicago in 1998, you might want to get yourself to the Pepsi Center sometime in the near future. But be warned. If you end up sitting in the lower bowl, you might want to look up a little for the best part of the action.

There might be giants.