The Story of The Television Deal That Made the NBA a Global Entertainment Powerhouse

On this episode of Our American Stories, for the longest time, the NBA was a financially unstable, mostly regional, and hard-to-sell property—at one point, they were nearly forced off of CBS. But thanks to business-savvy individuals like David Stern, the NBA became a money-making machine. The question was: would CBS re-up with them or cut them loose? David Stern decided to draw a hard line. Pete Croatto, author of From Hang Time to Prime Time, tells the story.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we returned to our American stories and the story
of the colorful Civil War General Dan Sickles. When we
last left off, Sickles had shot and killed his wife's
quarter Philip Barton Key, Yes, the son of Francis Scott Key,
and he was about to be placed on trial. Here
again is Gettysburg National military venger Matt Atkinson. Let's return

(00:32):
to the story.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Sickles will be placed in the DC jail. He will
never stay in a sale. He will actually stay in
the jailor's quarters. It will be arguably, i mean, at
least for this region of the country, the most sensational
trial of the century. During the midst of this trial

(00:54):
by jury, none other than President Buchanan is going to
come in and shake Sickles's hand in front of the jury.
What does that tell the jury means he supports him.
Sickles will have the dream team defense lawyers, and for
the first time they will argue to the jury that

(01:17):
Sickles suffered from temporary insanity. And for the first time
an American jurisprudence history, Sickles will successfully use the defense
of temporary insanity. In other words, Sickles walks right out
of there got away with murder. Of course, society did

(01:41):
what they condoned what Sickles had done. That's justifiable homicide.
Key should not have been doing that. They condemned Sickles
when he took his wife back. That's when Sickles gets
booted from Congress. Probably Dan, as I said earlier, probably
did really love her. And what did he have to
say say about fidelity. Sickles's political career is basically over,

(02:07):
although he still has Tammany Hall behind him. But Sickles
once again right place, right time the war breaks out.
Dan Sickles comes from which party? Democrat? What party does
Abraham Lincoln come from? Republican? Every president of every war

(02:27):
of any era is going to want by partisan support.
Because of that, Sickles is going to be one of
the first Democrats to come out in favor of a
Republican war. And you know what else Dan does. He
backs up his patriotism with his own money and he

(02:51):
raises not a regiment of troops, but a whole brigade.
And Lincoln embraces both things, support for the war and
him being a Democrat. And more importantly, Dan Sickles when
he gets his brigadier general commission. He becomes a general
very early in the war, and that's going to go

(03:12):
into his rise September third, eighteen sixty one, after he
raises what will become known as the New York Excelsior Brigade.
Now he was promoted to fast forward a little bit
here he was promoted to major general to rank from
November twenty ninth, eighteen sixty two. Sickles was assigned to
Core command that winner sixty two sixty three. What you

(03:36):
need to know as far as us going into Gettysburg,
probably one of the more famous stories from the Battle
of Gettysburgh is actually the wounding of Dan Sickles. Dan
Sickles is going to be back at the Trossal farm
and he's going to be sitting astride as horse. It's
got to be a one in a million shot. And
you know when you're sitting in the saddle that when

(03:59):
you lean down and you're sitting in the saddle, you
know your knees go out one in a million shot.
Sickles is gonna feel something warm. He's gonna take his hand,
He's gonna reach down to his leg and he is
gonna pull back something warm. What is that warm? Blood.
A Confederate solid shot has come in and smashed or

(04:22):
piece of shrapnel has come in and smashed his leg.
You know the horse was unscathed. This is what Sickles wrote.
I never knew I was hit. I was riding the
lines that was tremendously interested in the terrific fighting. I
bet he was. Suddenly I was conscious of dampness along
the lower part of my right leg, and I ran
my hand down the leg of my high top boots

(04:44):
and pulling it out. I was surprised to see it
dripping with blood. Soon I noticed the leg would not
perform its usual functions. Interesting, I lifted it carefully over
my horse's neck and slid to the ground. They found
that the knee had been smashed, probably by a piece
of shell, and that the leg had been broken above

(05:05):
and also below the knee. But while all this damage
had been done, I had not been unhorsed. End of quote.
At first, Age wrapped a handkerchief around Sickle's leg. Then
a saddle strap was brought and used as a tourniquet,
and Sickles is carried off on a stretcher, and at
some point, as all Americans generals do, when the word

(05:30):
went around that he was dead. Sickles had himself propped
up on his shoulders and that lit cigar stuck into
his mouth, and that's the way he left the battlefield
smoking a cigar. Later that evening, his leg is amputated
on a farm located near the present day shopping outlets

(05:51):
on Baltimore Pike. Sickles will have the leg preserved in
a cask of alcohol and brought with him. Being a
politician and knowing the power and symbolism of a lost limb,
he donated the leg to the Army Medical Museum, and yes, you,

(06:13):
my fellow American taxpayers, still own it. It is true
that Sickles did visit the leg on probably his first
visit to the Army Medical Museum. The curator was leading
Sickles on a tour when the General uttered, oh, yes, yes,
but let us come to my leg. When the curator

(06:35):
led Sickles to the exhibit, the general retorted, where's my foot?
What have you done with my foot? They should have
been shown too. When the curator tried to explain that
the foot was not really necessary for the exhibit, Sickles
quote became very angry and anathematized the museum very freely.

(06:57):
In October of sixty three, Sickles is feeling much better,
and he met with his boss Mead at Fairfax Station,
Virginia to ask for his old command back. Mead refused.
Now after the war, Gettisburg continued to be a passionate
thing in Sickle's life. He made an impassion plea that

(07:17):
the sacred battlefield be preserved, and he vowed, in true
Sickles fashion, to do something about it. In eighteen ninety three,
he won reelection to Congress at the age of seventy
four for one term two years. While there, he pushed
through with irresistible energy, a bill to preserve the land

(07:40):
that made him famous or infamous, as the case may be. Today,
Sickles Avenue is actually the longest avenue within the military park.
I don't know if that was intentional, but I'm sure
Sickles would have agreed with it. On May third, nineteen fourteen,
Sickles is going to pass way in New York City.

(08:01):
He was ninety four years old. One thing was certain.
The Gettysburg event was the defining moment in Dan Sickles's life,
and alas Dan Sickles, the general out of seven Union
Corps commanders, one of only two that does not have
a monument here. Reportedly, and this is up for debate. Reportedly,

(08:25):
when Dan Sickles was asked why he didn't have a
statue on the battlefield, he retorted, that is because the
whole damn battlefield is my monument.

Speaker 1 (08:39):
And great job is always Tamanty for finding the story
and his special thanks to Gettysburg National Park Service for
allowing us to use this audio. And what a storyteller
Matt Atkinson is. And by the way, that's the story
you will not hear in your history class. He was
a scoundrel, but in the end, look what he did.
He raised them money for a brigade. Scoundrels and naives

(09:03):
patriots and heroes. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference,
and in this case, a scoundrel does, in some very
strange way become a hero. The story of Dan Sickles
here on our American Stories