Sports Stud Satur…okay, Sunday.

Meine Damen und Herren, I present to you George Mikan, the Michael Jordan/Shaquille O’Neal/dominant superstar of his day:

I know!  He looks like a professor.  “Hey kids, let’s shoot some hoops after class, chuckle, chuckle…”  [students roll eyes]

I heard a story on the radio (yeah, I’m seventy-five years old.. it was just after one of FDR’s fireside chats) talking about what an unstoppable force he was in basketball, how they had to change all these rules because he was so dominant, how he invented the shot block, how he was this giant mass of a man (by the standards of his day — he played from ’46-56 and was 6’10”).  Then I Google him and find out that he wears GLASSES!  I love it.

Mmm..he’s a little Ted Williams, a little Peter Fonda, don’t you think?  Oh, and I guess it’s worth mentioning that he was the first inductee into the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Mr. Mikan played for the Minneapolis Lakers (this was long ago, before Los Angeles was invented, you see).  A badass to the end, here he is mixing it up with Kareem and Shaq:

George Mikan, we (ok, I) salute you and your awesome nerdishness.  R.I.P.