John Stoll of the Wall Street Journal got nostalgic about the way sports used to be. I'm not a huge fan of these "it was better back then" type of articles, but I'll give him a pass for including this anecdote from when he was nine years old:

"Vinnie!" I yelled from behind the bench. "Hey Vinnie!"

He stopped shooting. And walked over. With a swift jerk of his head, he motioned behind the basket where his teammate, Isiah Thomas, was surrounded by fans clamoring for an autograph.

"Don't you want his autograph instead?" he asked.

I said no and stuck out the pad and pen. Mr. Johnson grabbed them and began scribbling as sweat trickled off his nose and chin and soaked the pages. The pen didn't work, so he suggested I find another one. It took a while to climb back up to our seats to ask my father for another pen. But I did -- and while I did, Mr. Johnson stood on the sidelines and waited.

Kudos to Empty the Bench for spotting that one -- there's no chance I would have seen it.