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Jack McCaffery is the lead sports columnist for the Daily Times and delcotimes.com. He has spent several decades covering everything from the Phillies, Eagles, Flyers and Sixers, to college hoops, to high school sports in Delco.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

COUNT THE BUCKET, AND A FOUL

The book "Gaming the Game" by Sean Patrick Griffin is about the 2007 NBA betting scandal that landed Delco native and former Tim Donaghy in jail.

It's an important read almost exclusively from the angle of alleged gambler Jimmy Battista, a Clifton Heights native.

Some parts, though, seemed exaggerated. Battista claimed his CYO basketball team was better than O'Hara's. Not buying it. But would buy the book.

For a complete review, check out my column in the Daily Times Monday and on delcotimes.com

1 Comments:

Blogger CliftonZoo said...

Jack, I posted this comment to your news story, but here it is again...

You CANNOT come into the Zoo and question the '82 Holy Cross team, they are legends, like 300, or the guys from Glory. Some guy up at the bowling alley told me that Mark Wahlberg was going to make a movie about them.

Do a little research my friend. HC '82 went undefeated, won the city and state CYO titles and one of the players, John Fox, tore it up at Millersville and was drafted by the Bulls. Fox was like George Gervin in Maroon and Gold back in those days Unstoppable. If Fox played in the Catholic League in '82 he would have put Dallas Comegys on his ass.

I remember as a youngster in the Zoo, watching them play a group of guys who came up from Chester (Downtown Express), and beat them. And yes, no lie, they played Bonner... and won. Aah, the glory days back in the Zoo.

Why were they dominant? Because Buddy Gardler had a system where his guys, the guys who came up through his camps, who knew him through summer ball, and who played his ass-kissing game got the playing time. That is why the Delco CYO teams were so good, and usually had better talent that what Buddy put on the floor.

Buddy never won a Catholic League title because he never got the best talent from the feeder schools. You should write a story about that.

ZOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!

February 28, 2011 at 8:57 AM 

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