Jeffrey Epstein Sports Reporter
Jeffrey Epstein has been covering sports for most of his life. During high school he was passionate about the game of basketball, but he is not tall enough. In spite of his abilities in handling the ball, his height of 5’10″ forced him to consider other types of sports. When he ran Cross Country, it was only by default. Up to this point, Jeffrey Epstein still holds the course history but it is not because he is fast but it is because the committee altered the course after he won the race.
The first professional sports activity he viewed as a kid in Hawaii was the minor league baseball. While he was visiting in the mainland he was able to watch Don Drysdale vs. Juan Marichal twice and he also watched Warran Spahn and Hammering Hank Aaron at Candlestick Park.
His first taste of professional basketball was a pre-season game between the Lakers and the Blazers showcasing Bill Walton against Kareem. A few minutes in the first quarter Kareem was ejected for cold-cocking Walton. The game got dull after that.
One of his earliest reminiscences was seeing Peter Snell run in person. After his back to back achievement at the 1964 Olympics, Mr. Snell was wishing to run the first sub 4 minute mile in Hawaiian history. Regrettably, it never happened but I was in awe Peter’s leg size. You can see levels and layers of muscles. It is something I haven’t observed before.
Jeffrey Epstein is nothing if not contrarian. At various times he has shown up at the Boston Garden, donning his New York Knicks colors and rooting for Clyde, Earl the Pearl, Dave D., Bill Bradley and Willis Reed versus Celtics and also at the Staple Center in his Celtic gear as they pasted the Lakers in the playoffs. Remarkably, he lived through his attendance at both venues.
A few years back, he was able to access several Laker season tickets at the Forum and he enhanced his income by selling some of his tickets before he came into the arena. What he found amazing was that by this measurement Charles Barkley was the biggest draw. Jeffrey got $20 over face value for each ticket for Barkley’s game and not quite face value when Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls were around.
While residing in Boston for eight years, outside of two Knick–Celtic games, Jeffery Epstein can correctly state that not once did he attend a game at Fenway Park, nor did he waste time on a Patriots game in person – hey, it’s cold in Massachusetts in the winter time. It is probably true that absence makes the heart grow fonder simply because ever since he moved to LA Mr. Epstein is now attached to the Celtics and the Patriots.
A true blue sports romantic, that is Jeffrey Epstein. He despises the new venue parks. The Staple Center may be convenient because the lines at the refreshment counters are fairly short, but as a sporting location it is an epic fail. If you sit thirteen rows above or beyond the court side, you can barely hear a thing. The style is impressive because instead of hearing whistles, shouts, and sneakers squeaking, you hardly hear anything.
Jeffrey Epstein does not appreciate the new regulations that aim to tame sports. The can’t touch the quarterback in football, the death of bump and run coverage of receivers, the absence of hand checking in basketball and the assessment of flagrant fouls have made the games virtually unwatchable. In lots of ways, television has wrecked sports: first because it has jacked players’ salaries to the point where the league had to invent rules to protect the owners’ investments and second because of the additional TV timeouts making the games unwatchable personally. As well as ticket prices that are simply ridiculous. It is depressing to conclude that viewing sporting events on TV is way better than viewing it in person.
