An excerpt from Bob Ryan’s new book Scribe: My Life in Sports on how Larry Bird used Bobby Orr for inspiration before games:
“He was always full of surprises. For years we all noted that he stared at the Garden ceiling during the national anthem. He never said why, and no one asked. Then, during his speech at the dinner to celebrate a statue to him that would be placed in the Sports Museum, he explained that he was looking at Bruines great Bobby Orr’s retired number 4 jersey as a source of nightly inspiration.
“I want people in Boston to think of me when I retire the same way they do Bobby Orr,” he said. At a nearby table, a man gasped in a loud whisper, “My God.”
The man was Bobby Orr.