Suns to play among birds and breeze

When the Suns and the Denver Nuggets announce their plans today to play an exhibition game at a tennis stadium in Indian Wells, Calif., next October, it will mark the first NBA outdoor game of the league’s modern era.

The stadium is enclosed, and features rows of swanky suites and many other creature comforts of an NBA arena.

But the weather — wind and maybe rain — will be a factor for the first time.

Well, not the first time.

The only other NBA games held outdoors were 36 years ago, and the Suns were involved in both of them.

On Sept. 24-25, 1972, the Suns and Milwaukee Bucks went to Puerto Rico to play two outdoor exhibition games in the cities of San Juan and Ponce — one on a dusty baseball field inhabited by insects, the other in what might best be described as a bull ring with a suspended roof.

The Suns won both games, which didn’t count. But the memories for those brave souls who made the trip do — and most of them have nothing to do with the games on the court.

“I remember lots of bugs in San Juan and lots of birds (in Ponce),” said Neal Walk, the Suns center in those games who remains with the team as a photo archivist. “They were the most unusual games I ever played without a doubt. Too bad there aren’t any films or pictures because I’d love to see them.”

Longtime Phoenix Gazette sports writer and columnist Joe Gilmartin wasn’t even supposed to be on the trip — the Gazette refused to pay his expenses — but he didn’t listen and got on the plane with the team anyway.

His stories were printed, but with a byline “Special to the Gazette,” to signify that he was only a stringer in their eyes.

“The Suns weren’t nearly as popular then, nor was the NBA for that matter,” Gilmartin said. “It was almost a cult sport. But this was a chance to cover a unique game, so I was going. It’s just one of the many things we did back then that wouldn’t fly now. I’d be selling apples on the street corner within a month.”

The trip got off to a dubious start — and went downhill from there.

The plane arrived in San Juan from New York five hours late — and without the team’s luggage.

“I was the closest on the flight time, so I won a bottle of champagne,” Gilmartin said.

The lack of luggage became an immediate problem when the team headed for San Juan’s many casinos only to find out a jacket or sport coat was required.

Gilmartin said the Suns’ head coach, the late Butch van Breda Kolff, who lasted only seven games before being fired, was so upset the Suns had to do some fast talking to keep him from being taken away by the local authorities.

The players used more inventive ways to skirt the casino rules, deploying a first-year broadcaster named Al McCoy.

“I had a sport coat on, so Hawk (Suns Hall of Famer Connie Hawkins) and the other guys sent me in with money to bet for them,” McCoy said.

The true “outdoor” game was played at San Juan’s Hiram Bithorn Stadium — a baseball park named after the first Puerto Rican-born player to reach the major leagues (he won 18 games for the Chicago Cubs in 1943).

The stadium has been renovated twice since and was used for Montreal Expos regular-season games in 2003 and 2004, but in 1972 it was little more than a dusty park with chain-link fences (more like chicken wire) separating the often unruly fans from the field.

The court was laid out in the middle of the infield. From a preparations standpoint, that was about it.

At halftime, the players received instructions in the dugouts, offering little refuge from the heat and humidity.

“My recollection of that night is: Not much decent basketball, but a tremendous amount of bugs,” Gilmartin said. “And I also remember that (Bucks Hall of Famers) Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Robertson weren’t too pleased with the whole set-up.”

Walk, the player the Suns selected No. 2 after they lost a coin flip for the right to draft Abdul-Jabbar in the 1969 NBA draft, opposed Kareem that night and agreed with the Big Fella.

“By then I was 23 or 24. I’d stopped playing outdoor basketball when I was 14 so it was a wild experience,” Walk said. “You’re used to a stationary background, no breeze and all of a sudden everything changes. The bucket looked like one of the palm trees swaying in the background. It was windy, and every shot you let go would drift ever so slightly.

“The floor was pretty slippery, too. Everyone was being pretty careful.”

McCoy was only doing phone updates from press row but was told there would be a Spanish broadcast of the game.

The first quarter came and went and he was still sitting by himself.

“Just before the second quarter started, a fellow comes up with a suitcase and starts unloading his radio equipment and he tells me he’s the broadcaster,” McCoy said. “I said ‘You realize the first quarter is over, right?’ And he just smiled and said ‘No problemo.’ ”

But finding a Western Union office to file a story at midnight in San Juan? Big problem.

Then-general manager Jerry Colangelo had the only car so he and McCoy drove around for hours looking for a place that was equipped — and open.

From there, the Suns headed to the other side of the island and the remote city of Ponce. The roads were too narrow and hazardous for a bus ride, so the Suns decided to rent a plane for the trip. No one on the plane will ever forget it.

“The plane had an open cockpit,” McCoy said. “The pilot walks in and he’s wearing a leather helmet and goggles, and the guys were saying ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’

“Once we got going, I swear to you we were just making it over the tops of trees.”

Gilmartin said he’s never been a nervous flyer — except for that day.

“You’d see a mountain in front of you and you’re saying ‘We’re never gonna get over that thing.’ It was that close, but somehow we did,” he said.

McCoy said the pilot didn’t appreciate the snide comments about his plane or flying ability. “When we landed, he said ‘Welcome to Havana.’ ”

The stadium in Ponce did have a roof. But the sides of the stadium were open, which meant the teams were at the mercy of both a stiff breeze and a flock of birds who were attracted to the court.

While the players were playing on one end, the birds waddled around the other. When play headed downcourt, the birds scattered for cover.

“I think some of the locals were tossing seeds down there or something,” Walk said. “The wind was blowing sideways … the whole thing was just comical.”

Things have changed.

The Suns-Nuggets game in Indian Wells will be nationally televised by TNT. The basketball floor fits neatly into the dimensions of the tennis layout and the plane ride to Palm Springs? Chartered.

The only thing to worry about now are the birds and the breeze.

Phoenix Suns outdoor game

Who: Suns vs. Denver Nuggets

When: Oct. 11, 2008 (preseason)

Where: Indian Wells Tennis Garden, Indian Wells, Calif.

TV: TNT

Tickets: Go on sale next Saturday (Feb. 23) at all Ticketmaster outlets and the Indian Wells ticket office, (760) 200-8000.