The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - PTFO - Wilt Chamberlain and the Conspiracy Factory: We Unearthed the True Story of the 100-Point Game

Episode Date: February 28, 2025

It is the greatest individual performance in basketball history: Sixty-three years ago this weekend, a larger-than-life superhero conjured the supernatural. Why do so many people — including a player on the court — now think it was fake news? Our quest for irrefutable proof (and poetry) unpacks boxes that you won't find in the Hall of Fame: The recordings from author Gary Pomerantz, who spoke to 56 people in attendance and on the court. The tapes, which we unearthed from a rare-book library, a basement closet and a vault in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Plus: the last Warrior left standing to check the facts — and shake a fist at the naysayers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre. Today's episode is brought to you by DraftKings. DraftKings, the crown is yours. And today we're going to find out what this sound is. I used to hate the fact that there was no video of it, but as time goes on, I think it kind of adds to the mystique of the game. Right after this ad. You're listening to Daffe King's Network. Oh, wow! Imagine how it looks. Is there more? Yeah, big time.

Nova K. Pullman Theaters March 14th. When you heard from us, Gary Pomerantz, that we wanted to do this topic because of what people had been saying on the internet, were you excited? My intuitive reaction was, here we go again. My second reaction was something approximating an eye roll. You know, it's a conspiratorial time. Here is a bulletin from CBS News.

In Dallas, Texas, three shots were fired at President Kennedy's motorcade in downtown Dallas. You go back to the 1960s and there were still a lot of questions about the Kennedy assassination. That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. Did Neil Armstrong really touch the moon or was he in a studio somewhere in the United States? So it was that kind of a time and now, you know, we're unfortunately a bit of a historically illiterate country. If there's no video, then it didn't happen.

Well, we know the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, but there's no video of that. We know about Lincoln at Gettysburg, there's no video of that. Do we though, are we sure? We're pretty sure. Are we sure about that? We're pretty sure Lincoln was at Gettysburg, yeah. And so, you know, for sports fans, you gotta lock in on how different the NBA was then,

and how different sports media was then. When Kobe scores 81, 15 minutes later online, you can buy a DVD of his performance. So that's what we're used to. That's the immediacy of today with technology. It wasn't so then. Do you remember the first time you heard somebody casting aspersions on the subject that you have literally written the book about?

Yeah. I mean, there was always questions of how could he have done this? How could anybody score a hundred points? Kobe's 81 is second best, and that's not even close. There's something too about the number 100, the symbolism of 100. It's a century, it's a perfect score on a test. If Wilt had scored 102 or 97, we wouldn't embrace it or question it even as we do. And so I decided all these decades later, I got to find out what happened here. This is one of the most famous and famously unknown stories

in sports history. The deeper I went, it became like Alice in Wonderland, Curiouser and Curiouser. Who is scoring big in the NBA this season? Well, I have good news. You are. With all the new ways to get in on the action at DraftKings Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NBA. From enormous monster slams to dishing the rock to cleaning the glass, get

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Call 1-800-GAMBLER. In New York, call 877-8HOPENY or text HOPENY467369. In Connecticut, help is available for problem gambling. Call 888-789-7777 7 or visit ccpg.org. Please play responsibly. On behalf of Boothill Casino and Resorting Kansas, 21 and over, age and eligibility varies by jurisdiction. Voighton, Ontario. Bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see dkng.co.au. So the anniversary of one of the most iconic performances in the history of sports is approaching

on Sunday. But what most distinguishes Wilt Chamberlain's single game scoring record is that right now, for each of his points on March 2nd, 1962, there appears to be just as many questions. 60 plus years later. If I'm understanding correctly, on the Pat McAfee show, we are now questioning the veracity of Wilt Chamberlain's 100 point game. We're questioning whether this is, whether or not this actually happened. No, we're not. Pac-Man is not, but I did not know that there was no documented footage of this until just now. So as soon as that happens, boom, my brain goes, whoa!

Are you sure? The people always say they don't know if it's true or if it's false. Did Wilt actually score 100 points? Like even the scores table people like, did they all die? Yeah, like that's why I'm curious who's on the Knicks. Is anyone still? You just, that was the only thing that could like sell me on it.

Like there was people like, yeah, I was actually at that game. People know what happened 10 billion years ago. They know how the earth was created. They know what the Egyptians were talking about, what they were saying, even though that is like- They've seen aliens. Even though that is six languages removed from what we're talking about right now. And nobody knows outside of a sheet of paper with crayon

on it that says I'm hungry. And on and on it goes across Reddit and TikTok and YouTube to the point where we here at Pablo Torre Finds Out got a voicemail about this topic at our Detective Agency hotline 513-85-Pablo. Hey Pablo, long time first time. There's been a lot of stuff around the internet lately about whether or not we'll score 100 points because there's a lot of old footage from the 50s and 60s of the NBA, but nothing really about that opposed 100-point games. And then we got another one. Hi Pablo, my name is Matthew. I have a

question and it's actually kind of a conspiracy theory that perhaps only I believe in, but maybe others do, we shall find out. It revolves around Wilt Chamberlain's 100 point game. We have no video evidence of this happening, as far as I know, and the only photographic evidence of this is a locker room photo and a piece of paper that says 100 on it. I'm not sure that I truly believe and trust that Lil Chamberlain actually scored 100 points in a game. I know that sounds crazy, but I need your help. Now, those callers sounded reasonable enough to us that we finally decided it was time to get to the bottom

of what seems to be a global mystery. And the first person we called was Stanford professor Gary Pomerantz, the aforementioned author of the book Wilt 1962. And Gary immediately established something. He established that one tricky thing about fact-checking Wilt Chamberlain is that Wilt Chamberlain's whole brand was to be larger than life. Wilt was a luminous star at that time. He's just 25 years old. He's got a nightclub in Harlem called Big Wilt Smalls Paradise.

Smalls Paradise dates the Halcyon days of the Harlem Renaissance. And Wilt walked through that place like he owned all of Harlem, like he owned all of New York. Red Fox, Etta James, Cannonball Adderley. Wilt's the greeter, the tallest greeter in NBA history. Wilt had a Goliath syndrome. He was 7'1", 260 pounds. Dolph Shays of the Syracuse National said

his body was the most perfect instrument made by God to play basketball. You know, another writer likened Wilt's body to the first sight of the New York skyline. I mean, think about this, 7'1", 260 pounds, his back triangulates down to a 31-inch dancer's waist. The guy was cut. The guy could run the floor like a train. Everything about him was magnificent I

Had to do a lot of just Reacquainting myself with history as well for this Wilt was singing his own tune Literally on American bandstand, right by the river, down by the river. You know, he wasn't Frankie Valli. He wasn't very good, but they did cut a record of it. You know, he had a racehorse named Spooky Cadet and never won. He had an Asian motif apartment off Central Park West in New York. And then of course, it was Will telling stories about his womanizing. That's the number that people are most, you know,

had been most obsessed with, that statistic, 20,000. If I had to count my sexual encounters, I'd be closing in on 20,000 women. That equals to having sex with 1.2 women a day, every day since I was 15 years old. What kind of reaction did you receive after that? Do you still receive? I still receive. What's the fact-checking on that like?

Well, the fact-checking is difficult to do as a matter of fact. But I interviewed one of the 20,000, a woman named Linda Huey, who became a great friend of Wilt's at the end of his life. She said, Wilt, why did you say 20,000? And Wilt's response was to wink and say, what's an extra zero between friends?

But you know, I thought maybe one of the reasons you invited me on the show was to give me an award from the Board of Education. Because whenever people see me now, they go, 20,000. And let's see, he must have started with like 15, and he's now maybe 55. So let's see, 20,000, 365, 20,000, and you know, and then,

See, you're getting people thinking. Not only that, I'm teaching them mathematics, which is really the whole story here, you understand? I don't think that's gonna be a word problem for kids. If Will Chamberlain is with 10 women on a train headed east. That's right. That's really good. That's right.

I got this sense as I was working on this book, you know, excavating this 100 point game. There's a comic book superhero quality to Wilt, his life, his numbers. I interviewed ultimately 56 people who were there. 15 of them players, the broadcaster, the statistician, the shot clock operator, a number of fans. Look, Pablo, when you go back into this time,

you're going back into a time when the NBA was a lounge act. It was a league in search of itself. The crowds weren't very big. The joke used to be that the PA announcer would introduce the players in the starting lineup and then would introduce each fan. It was nine teams in the league, only one team west of St. Louis. That would be the Lakers who'd moved out a year before to the west. And the league was trying to grow new fans. And that's why they played in outlying areas that had insizable arenas. The Lakers

played a game in Portland. they played a game in Seattle, the Celtics played in Providence, and the Philadelphia Warriors played three games that year in Hershey. This was the third of those games. You should know that Hershey, Pennsylvania, population in 1962, about 7,000, sits in the shadow of Amish country. That's where the chocolate capital of America is located. Which doesn't entirely explain why there is no full recording of the Philadelphia Warriors game against the visiting New York Knicks on March 2nd, 1962.

But electricity, in general, was scarce. The game wasn't televised, the NBA, as Gary said, was basically a lounge act, but the sport was big enough for an AM radio station, WCAU Philadelphia. Except it soon became clear, particularly to legendary play-by-play man Bill Campbell, who was frantically calling technicians back at the station in Philly, that nobody involved with this broadcast had actually kept a tape of the game, which then created a puzzle of its own. Well, you have to realize, back then, TV stations didn't save tapes. They were saving money, and they were re-taping over these tapes.

That's why they disappear with television. That's why they disappear, some with radio. It was a game 75 in an 80-game season. But very recently, about 60-plus years later, something kind of crazy happened. Because we here at Pablo Torre Finds Out found a Philly basketball fan by the name of Sammy Marcus. And Sammy Marcus had never given an interview about this before, but in 1962, Sammy used to listen to every Warriors radio broadcast. On March 2nd, however, that Friday,

he decided to do something different. He went to go see the Elizabeth Taylor film, Butterfield 8. And then, I came home from that, turned on the radio, just in time to hear Bill Campbell say, World Chamberlain just scored 100 points. 100 points fans. Oh my god, what a game to miss. So I didn't give up. I thought, where else can I get this recorded?

Called up a friend the next day and he said that he had recorded it but only the fourth quarter and only when the Warriors had the ball. This is where I have the tape somewhere. And so Sammy ran over to his friend's house with his own recorder and microphone and he bootlegged that puzzle piece right off the speakers. And it's a tape he still has today. One of these is the tape. Just don't know which one. Oh, that's a Floyd Patterson Sonny Liston fight. Ah, this is the one.

All of which is how the NBA got a copy of a grainy secondhand recording of history, or at least a fraction of that history. But as for the rest of Wilt's pivotal fourth quarter, including the Knicks possessions, the way we wound up finding that involved a different box entirely. Hi, my name is Tessa Burns and I'm archivist here at Hershey Community Archives. We are inside of our collection storage facility here at the Hershey Story Museum and Hershey

PA. We heard from the producers at Pablo Torre Finds Out asking us about one particular event in Hershey Sports History, which was Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game at the Hershey Arena. And this puzzle piece, it turns out, was the full fourth quarter. But it wasn't taped in Hershey at all, actually. It was taped at UMass Amherst by an aspiring student

broadcaster named Jim, who listened by rigging his transistor radio to the five-story heating pipe in his dormitory. And that night, in that dorm, Jim broke out a reel-to-reel tape recorder, apparently, the one his girlfriend had been using for elocution lessons. And many years later, those reels would finally find their way back home. So I did some searching in our collections and I was very excited to find this box right here. So this is from our Hershey Entertainment and Resorts Company collection. And when we look inside, you can see we have some audio visual material, some CDs, set tape, and then the most exciting item here is this 5 3⁄4 inch reel to reel tape.

So this is an audio recording format. It's magnetic media. If we look inside, you can see that we do have, in fact, the original tape. Not even the Basketball Hall of Fame has the tape of Will Chamberlain's 100-point game, by the way, as their historian explained to us. They've never even had an official exhibit devoted to Wilt. But this show now has two independently sourced recordings

of the pivotal fourth quarter, plus a third entirely different box of tapes that I need to tell you about. Because this is a box of tapes that contains Gary's interviews, which we're going to curate for you as part of this exhibit here today. Well, that's the joy of it to me. You know, that's what the attorneys call discovery. Well, that's the joy of it to me. You know, that's what the attorneys call discovery. You know, you go and immerse yourself, full immersion. And I would travel far and wide to find these people.

And it becomes an obsession. You know, what about that? I called Bill Campbell so many times. I called him, the last time I called him, I said, Bill, it's Gary Pomerantz. And he said, not again. And that's just, Bill, one more thing, one more question. Two more questions.

We can relate, we can relate here. You know, Gary, one of our joys was that we actually did unearth your 22 year old interview tapes because at Emory University, at the rare book Library Manuscript Collection number 890 we found your archive and just tell me how you feel as we go back to March 1962. WCAU WCAU FM in Philadelphia the time is 3 34 and we're ready to go and here's Bill Campbell there's the big fourth quarter and everybody's's thinking how many he's got to get.

He's got 69 going in. Here's the pass to him. Well, Wilt's got 69 points going into the fourth quarter, right? And so he still needs 31 points. You know, that's a lot of points. Rogers takes the jump shot. It's no good. Chamberlain with a rebound. points. And he just scored 28 points in the third quarter. And the Knicks are just going Now, the NBA didn't find out about this tape until 1990. And it's like, wait, what? that's just the way things were then

just conjecture here how many can he make he's got nine minutes and 24 seconds left and the guesses are running as high as a hundred this is bill Campbell that you're hearing this is the play-by-play announcer in Philly WCA you the radio broadcast. But it's one of your interviewees, a primary source here who is in the game somewhere on the court. Joe Rucklick that I wanted to ask you about, because Joe Rucklick sounds like he might be a guest on the McAfee show at times. Revisiting some of these tapes, hearing you in oh three. Talk to Joe Rucklick is a time machine

inside of a time machine. Well, Joe was the Kennedy liberal from Northwestern. When I got there as their first draft choice that season, the Northwestern behind Wilk, Wilk was technically first. He was Wilk's backup. Now think about it. When you're the backup to a player who never comes out of the game, you don't play very much. But he observed a lot and he was a very keen observer. Joe also was into conspiracy theories. And Joe said, wait a minute, why did this tape just appear 28 years later? And Joe said, he questioned whether Bill Campbell had recreated it.

I don't think Campbell was there, but you know what? So what are you saying? If I get a tape, what are you saying about the tape? I think you get the last few minutes. I think it's only the last quarter. Yeah, less than that. I've got it. You do? I think it's fake. Really? Yeah. Real stuff? Why I've got it. You do?

I think it's fake. Really? Yeah. Real stuff? Why do you think it's fake? Well, his allegation seems to be even a little more pointed than that. It was that Bill Campbell wasn't even there, actually. He wasn't really the announcer.

If it's a fake, it illustrates the nonsense that the NBA perpetrates about those days. It was a Bush League. I mean, it was really Bush. Bill Campbell was there. Bill Campbell and I spoke, and he talked about dreading going to Hershey for game 75 of an 80-game season. It was annoying because instead of doing a home game at home, we had to go to Hershey. Players weren't happy either. So it's a long drive and it sure would be nice to be playing at home in Philadelphia. Wilt, in order to come to that game, took a train.

I remember him being there early. But he remembered vividly the game and the details. Everything was so constant and easy. It was effortless. They broke the ball up, and he'd go out and get it and dunk it. They knew something unnatural was going to happen here. As for just how Bush League Game 75 really was, I should acknowledge that Joe Rucklick

dead wrong about the tape of the fourth quarter being this false flag operation. Also, relatedly, it's funny that none of the online conspiracists that we mentioned before did enough research to be able to cite Joe Rucklick's theory in the first place. But it is pretty easy to imagine why the whole event did feel a bit confused. This is played in an arena that's built for a hockey. The hockey team, the Hershey Bears. There's not during this game a big screen where it says number 13, big fella. How many shots attempted, made, free throws attempted, made, assists, etc.

There's just a cold, metallic, boxy scoreboard up in the Netherlands of this place that says, you know, Philadelphia, New York. Even the people who are watching the game don't have context. But Wilt Chamberlain, as he later explained in an interview with Bob Costas, was keeping score. The game starts, I'm fairly warm. I'm really warm from the foul. I'm not missing anything from the foul. That actually gave me some kind of hint that, you know.

You made 28 of 32 from the foul line that night, which is good for anybody and staggering for you. I appreciate that. Right, staggering, staggering for me, you understand? But I was even better than that the first day. I was missing nothing. I was 100%. 100% remember. So I said,

hey, things are going pretty good. And I had, I think, like 40, 40, well, points at halftime. And I was shooting well. And one big reason Wilt was playing so well is that the Knicks starting center was out sick. And and apparently kind of hung over. And so yes, Wilt would go on to average 50 points a game that season, but the man primarily

tasked with stopping the single most unstoppable offensive performance in basketball history, arguably all of sports history, was not supposed to be starting that night. And instead, what he became was the answer to a trivia question forever. This is an interview with Darryl Imhoff, I-M-H-O-F-F, in Eugene, Oregon, on July 8th, 2003. By the way, I double taped in case one tape failed. Okay. in Eugene, Oregon on July 8th, 2003. By the way, I double tape in case one tape fails. Okay.

Isn't that interesting? Yeah, so. Gosh. Darrell was a second year player, 6'10", left-handed, and he was primarily a defender. At times, a rough defender, he would become known as the Ax for axing you know shooters arms. You know, Wilt was an attraction and I was going to have to spend the next

that night in his armpit so I wasn't looking forward to that. And one of the things that was so interesting he was then working in Eugene, Oregon at the U.S. Basketball Academy, a training ground. And we walked by an open court and I said, Darrell, could you come here for a second? I stood in the middle of the lane. I said, show me how you defended Wilt that night. Wilt, Imoff said, with arches back and it was like a tree and Darrell's behind him down

low. He said it was like a tree was going to fall down on me. I said, so what would you do? And he said, I did this. And he took the point of his elbow and put it in my rhomboids right between the shoulder blades and Darrell could still inflict some pain all these years later. But he said he would position himself behind Wilk when Wilk's down on the offensive left side, down by where we would now see the block. The block didn't exist then. And he would put his knee into Wilt's,

the back of his thigh to collapse his leg. He would put his foot inside of Wilt's left foot to keep him from turning in. Darrell played only 20 minutes and fouled out. He was in and out of the game, so he played some in the second half, six fouls covering Wilt. The tallest next, next tallest player the Knicks had was six foot eight rookie Cleveland Buckner six eight.

They said 210 pounds. He's probably one 85, one 90. He was his stick. He scored 33 points that night too, I might add. It was a career night for him. What a night to have a career night. Well, seven and a half minutes are left when Wilt, he scores and Harvey Pollock, statistician, he passes over a sheet of paper to the PA

announcer, the great Dave Zinkoff. Zinkoff then announces Wilt Chamberlain has just set a new record for most points in a game. He has 79 points. Breaking his 78 points scored in a three overtime game earlier that season. And while he's announcing that Wilt makes shooting underhanded two more free throws to go to 80 and 81. Granny style. Granny style. He looked ridiculous doing it because he's so big.

He would squat down low, his knees would flare out. He looked like an adult trying to sit in a kindergarten nurse chair. What did Darrell say to you particularly, Garry, if you recall, in your interview with him, about the refs? He just thought they loved Wilt. And you know, that at one point they called a foul against him off that him off did not think was a foul.

And he started backing in and I held my position and Willie Smith to call me for a foul. And I said, really? You know, I got it. I'm allowed a position. And I said, why don't you know, why don't you give the other points? We'll go home. You did say that. You said, why don't you give him a hundred? We'll all go home. I mean, you did say that you said, why don't you give him 100 points? We'll go home. And he did. For the layup up with a shot. No judge.

Chamberlain repounds. Chamberlain rebounds and scores and he's fouled. 145 to 126. Darrell Emmer found him. He has 83. And the game took on, you know,ryl would call it a farce or my word of course it was a part of the game it was not i don't think it was a little bit

uh... type of thing where it goes out of the course of the very we have guys for sixty points well elgin better score sixty point to get to the front in the car i mean that was was a legitimate great performance. Jerry West had 60 against us in the sports arena against... Same year? In that year.

It was one of those things where guys had individual performances that were great, but it wasn't done the way that one was done. And that's what makes that a force. I just don't see it as one of the great games ever, and I think the 100-point game is totally out of context with what we consider the great games that were played in the NBA by great players. So this is where I need to observe that everybody who's been trying to undermine Wilt's record by asking if it really happened has been asking the wrong question.

Because what Darryl Imhoff is arguing here as one of the principles is not that the 100-point game never took place. What Darryl is arguing is that compared to other great performances, Wilt's 100 was abnormal and ultimately illegitimate to the point of being, quote, a farce. With seven and a half minutes to play and everybody realizing now what the stakes were, the Knicks started not quite stalling but sort of a couple extra passes then they start running a weave down court taking the ball in 94 feet from the basket.

The Warriors start committing fouls of the Knicks to get the ball back quicker, to get the ball to Wilt. And cross court to Butchers, they eat up as much time as they can. Butcher to the circle and foul by Rodgers. Warriors figure the only way to combat the New York Storm is to come out and foul the back court men themselves. If somebody walked into the arena or the only way to combat the new york store or the color of our problem if somebody walked into the arena and they see the warriors falling and the next stolen

they're going to think the next or ahead by twenty not the warriors that's where it breaks down all of them or or or I almost came to close. New York, of course, you can understand the Knickerbockers feeling. They're a little upset. I would have rubbed in a little bit like this with a guy on a scoring ramp, but... Whether or not it would became a farce is a serious question.

You know, when the structure of the game breaks down and the team that's 20 points behind is stalling, something's weird, something's strange. Yeah, you've got a situation where you're beating somebody intentionally to make something happen, but that's what, something strange. get him the ball and left him in the game when the game was already over. And he obviously wrapped through something and so they did. There's a moment, you know, just in terms of recreating, when people began to realize we're witnessing something that we'll be talking about forever. There's the moment where Bill Campbell, the play by play guy on the radio broadcast says.

Well, I know you've worked this night down. Chamberlain on the line, fouloul shot up in the air. He has 84. 146 to 126. If you know anybody not listening, call them up. Little history you're sitting in on tonight. This brings us as we get deeper into the fourth quarter, Gary, to the 98 point mark. So the psychology of the 98 point moment here, who gets the ball to wilt? How does this play unfold here? Well, there's a garden named York, Larisi, and he's leading the fast break. And so he doesn't see wilt behind him, but he hears the big fella, the mighty huff and puff.

He feels the vibration of the floor when Chamberlain's moving. And so he just, as he's going straight at the basket, he doesn't distribute left or right. He just sort of throws the ball up and continues on underneath the basket, past the baseline and out of play. At which point he looks back and sees Wilt, the mighty Dipper, grabbing the ball, fully extended, my arms

leaving the screen, and then slams it in one movement. What was the call? What was the sequence of events to get to the number? Well Wilt would have three attempts at the 100 point basket. And in fact one of them came after he scored on that slam dunk to hit 98. He started to run down court and quickly turned around and stole the ball. And missed it from around the free throw line. Then he'd get two more attempts and there's 50 seconds left and now the Warriors have the ball and Guy Rogers who would have 20 assists on this night, a wonderful passer,

he throws the ball down court, length of the court, to Wilt, who jumps, catches it because the next tallest Nick is five inches short. Rogers throws one to Chamberlain. He's got it. He's trying to get up. He shoots. No good. The rebound Luckenville. And Ted Luckenville, a rookie, comes in, gets the rebound, gets it to Wilt again. Back to Chamberlain. He shoots. No good. Wilt out. He misses Luckenville again. Rebound Luckenville. Back to Lutwick. In the Chamberlain. He made it. He made it. He made it. I took myself. he made it! The fans are all over the floor.

They've stopped the game. People are running out on the court. One hundred tourists. The whole table is stopped. The game. People are clapping, pounding him, banging him. The warrior players are all over him. Fans are coming out of his stands.

46 second breath. The most amazing scoring performance of all time. 100 points for the Big Zippers. In a generalized moment for the fans and for Wilt, until he gets to the locker room and sees the statue, he's sitting next to Al Adels. And he's shaking his head and Adels says, what's the matter, big fella? He said, I can't believe I took 63 shots, 21 of them in the fourth quarter. And Adels said, that's okay, you made 36 of them, that's all right. The criticism against Will is not his athleticism. It's always that he cared more about himself and his own statistics rather than the greater good of the team.

And this night, he thought for many years reflected that criticism in a big way. And yeah, I understand why. I mean, it's worth remembering here that the most enduring image of Will In a big way. And yeah, I understand why. I mean, it's worth remembering here that the most enduring image of that night, the thing that everybody remembers still today, was the Big Dipper holding a piece of paper with the number of points he scored written on it. But the person responsible for that meme, it turns out, was not Wilt Chamberlain. It was the same Warriors statistician that Gary mentioned earlier.

A man named Harvey Pollock. Harvey Pollock was a legend in Philadelphia basketball. He was an employee of the Philadelphia Warriors, then the Philadelphia 76ers for six decades. And at the time this game is being played, he's known as the octopus because he would send out a Christmas card every year with the octopus, each arm representing another thing he did. On this night, when Wilt scores 100, Harvey is't care enough about it to send anybody. He's writing for AP and he's writing for United Press. That's a lot of work. And in fact, when he finished the scorekeeping and added stuff up, he thought, oh my, what

if Will ends up with 98 points? Well, you know, he's got to be a great writer. He's got to be a great writer. And in fact, when he finished the scorekeeping and added stuff up, he thought, oh my, what if Will ends up with 98 points? Well, you know, one of the things you hear on the radio is I think three times the final score is 169 to 150. Put your brakes down for an easy layup, but he's got it. There he goes, 169 to 150.

169 to 150. Yeah, I was gonna to mention this. Yeah. And the Knicks, now we look back at it and see the Knicks had 147 and no one could reconcile that for me. I think it was just sort of this slapdash nature of the whole night. And this was one more aspect of it. Oh yeah, the Knicks. Well, it doesn't matter what the Knicks got.

You know, all that matters is what Will got Right. There is the disc. Well, that's it. Right. The discrepancy between what the radio announcer was saying versus the official score. There's all this confusion. You hear it on the tape a couple of times. But what the the octopus, he makes sure to establish that there is no ambiguity around how many points will Chamberlain score because he does the thing that results in the one piece of evidence that I think every basketball fan has seen. Pollock looks around and says, hef to Jim Heffernan, the sportswriter, the Philadelphia bulletin.

Let me borrow a sheet of paper. And he takes out what was a magic marker. I don't think they had Sharpies in 1962. I may be wrong on that. And he writes 100. And it's the backstory to this classic photo. And that might be the best picture in basketball history because of what it represents and who it represents. It's the dipper on his night. Remember, this is a time when the NBA, even its statistics in the way stats were kept, they didn't count block shots. Somebody said, how many shots did Will block? I don't know. I don't know. We just have the

numbers that they kept. Did the Knicks score 147 or 150? I don't know. I don't know. But to me it was about getting to the essence of this story. There are some questions. Whether or not it happened is not a question. So, this is where I should point out what might now feel obvious, which is that every person that Gary Pomerantz has mentioned to this point, every voice you've heard on this episode has passed away. This will forever be a story about hidden boxes and lost recordings and secondary sources and truly tricky ambiguities, which is something that Wilt Chamberlain himself, who died in 1999, eventually learned to accept. I used to hate the fact that there was no video of it, but as time goes on, I think

it kind of adds to the mystique of the game. Or in the words of Gary Pomerantz, And you know, the baseball great Ted Williams used to say his dream was that when he walked down the street, people would point at him and say, there goes the greatest hitter in baseball history. Wilt came to realize that people would point at him as he walked down the street and say, there goes the guy who scored 100 points in a game. And he came to like it. But in our research near the end here, we were able to find one last primary source for the online exhibit we've

been building. A person who at 86 years young still has a unique and even poetic perspective on what really happened in Hershey, Pennsylvania on March 2nd, 1962. Tom, give me the pronunciation of your name. I just want to make sure I'm getting it right. Machere. Machere. Okay, good. Good, good, good. Didn't know where the accent or the stress was going to be, but Machere makes sense.

My third grade teacher called me Machere. Machere Amor. Yes, a different nickname for a bruiser power forward. The one that pretty much stuck was the mad Manchuria. That had to do with my birthplace. I was born in Manchuria, which is in China now, white Russian parents. And I was a immigrant kid. I came to the United States after the second world war.

My parents, my mother and I, and my sister were interned in a Japanese concentration camp in Japan during the war and then we came to the United States via the Red Cross to San Francisco where my father was waiting for us and that's kind of where I learned San Francisco is where I learned how to play basketball. And Tom Asheri really was good at basketball. The Warriors, who eventually relocated from Philly to the Bay area, retired his number, and Tom was in the starting lineup playing 40 minutes right alongside his teammate, Will Chamberlain, in Hershey, Pennsylvania on the day in question. And while Tom would go on

to spend 24 years as a high school English teacher and also write five books of poetry and six novels and two memoirs. Why on my mother's side I'm related to the old story. He still thinks about Hershey all the time in part because it was his very first season in the NBA. Talk about looking out, huh? I got off the plane. I was pretty naive. Did when I just walked into this fantastic moment. I'm getting the sense that as much as you were a guy who was not there to shoot that night, you enjoyed spectating yourself.

Oh, well, I was mesmerized. I mean, the one thing, I was a rookie. Imagine being a rookie from the West Coast, coming to the East Coast, being part of the NBA. I mean, this was like a dream for me. I well deserved not to be questioned. My daughter called me up. She's an eighth grade middle school teacher.

And she provided me with the news that there, some of her kids, you know, think that the 100 point game was fake news just because there was no video of it. Yeah, look, the question of why people question it. For me, that's a very simple answer. I think we have a whole society that has anybody can say anything they want. No, and there's no fact checks and nobody believes in fact checks. Nobody believes in honesty. I mean,

it's now we're in a really troubled times. They'll believe all sorts of conspiracy stuff. Well, one of the things I wanted to fact check with you was a theory of a different kind. Because one of the people that was interviewed by Gary Pomerantz in his book is a gentleman by the name of Darryl Imhoff. You remember Darryl in some? Sure.

Sure I remember Darryl. I chased him in the stands and almost beat him to death. Why, why did you do that, Tom? Because I hated Darryl. I'm getting the sense that the mad Manchurian may have also earned that nickname because you also tried to hit Darryl with a chair. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that chair. Yeah, it just sort of appeared in my head. But I bring up Darrell Imhoff now, not simply because you have this personal backstory with him,

but because I need you to help fact check something that he told Gary Pomeranz that we discovered in the course of fact checking the story of that night. Because the allegation that Darrell makes, of course course is not that the 100 points did not happen. He was there. He in fact personally was responsible for quite a number of those points trying to guard Wilt. The allegation that Darryl Imhoff made on tape was this quote, the 100 point game was a farce. Well, when I say sour grapes, kid, you know, you got smoked and, you know, fouled out and somebody else filled in for you and you couldn't stop Wilt.

Nobody could stop Wilt that night. So it's just sour grapes. I could just say your defense was a forest. That's why Will scored. If you want to be a forest, you know, maybe I should have punched out and off a little more. I don't think anybody could have guarded Will that night. I don't think Shaq at his very best guarded Will that night. Will was indom nominal that I, everything he threw up on him. It was a miracle day. And if Darrell thinks it was manufactured, it was manufactured by the Lord God himself. I've never heard that Darrell said that That makes me angry. That makes me really angry.

He accused you guys of pouring it on. As in? Of course we poured, absolutely reported on. We poured it on because we were going to help our teammates score 100 points. There's nothing wrong with that. What I saw was a destruction. Unless my eyes were failing me, I a destruction. That's, you know, unless my eyes were failing me, I saw destruction.

So this is where I do need to jump in here and let cooler heads prevail for a second for the sake of posterity, if nothing else. Because yes, I have apparently go to the bad Manchurian at age 86 back into bloodlust. But also because the thing that courses inside of Tom, the thing in his blood, as mentioned before, is really poetry. I grew up listening to poetry from my mother and my father, and so you may not be surprised to find out at this point that the Big Dipper was not just a teammate

and a friend to Tom. But also amuse. I wrote a poem last night. I don't know. I think because I was going to be on your zoom and I was thinking about it. Would you would you mind reading some of the poem that you just wrote last night for me?

Would you is that is that I thought you'd never ask? mind reading some of the poem that you just wrote last night for me? Is that... Oh, I thought you'd never ask. I was wondering when the mad Manchurian might read from his latest work. Okay, let me give it a try. Okay? Please. Let me give it a try, okay? Please. Wilt's Ghost, March 2nd, 2025. Can you imagine on this day when Wilt scored

a hundred points in a single game in Chocolate Town, his ghost striding onto the court of Chase Arena six decades later, followed by his teammates in that game, all gone. Harrison, Gola, Rogers, Adels, and the rest, except for me, waiting my turn to be a ghost, cheering like crazy for the Dipper, because he always belonged in the sky. Tom, the mad Manchurian, the poet laureate of the NBA. You contain multitudes and you observed multitudes. And I very, very sincerely thank you for joining us. You're very welcome.

This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a MetalArk Media Production. And I'll talk to you next time.