I was perusing the local rags this morning when I was struck by something odd at PortlandTribune.com: The homepage header contains a photo of Charles Barkley in his old Phoenix Suns uniform.
This is the main homepage and news header, not the sports section header. Clicking on his image does nothing. (In fact the header is not linked to anything; it should at least take you back to the homepage). A quick glance at news headlines reveals no clues as to why he would be there. (I thought maybe Phil had written something curmudgeonly about Barkley. Nope.)
Nothing obvious turned up in the sports section either. At least not in the headlines.
I searched the site for “Charles”. Barkley’s name doesn’t appear in any headlines on the site.
Ah, but what’s this? Kerry Egger’s column from Friday is titled Never too old to chase dream. Bingo! Egger dreamed about playing pickup basketball on a team with Charles Barkley, Hakeem Olajuwon, and Dwight Jaynes (?!?!?). Kerry Eggers really misses playing pickup basketball. I guess. This column is another mystery altogether. But at least we’ve probably discovered this particular connection between The Portland Tribune and the image of Charles Barkley.
Kevin Allman and Matt Davis might be onto something . . . or maybe the mysterious Charles Barkley image was placed there purposely to drag obsessives like me through the site to drum up more page views. It’s a mystery.
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I gotta admit, I’m pretty intrigued by this mystery as well. Perhaps it really has to do with Eggers’ all-star pick-up game desires. But you know, I’m not convinced. He’s just a sports columnist. He would need quite a bit of pull in order to get the image of a non-blazer like Chuck superimposed on the Tribune’s front page heading. Why not Clyde Drexler or Porter or Jerome Kersey or Jake Evans? It’s so random. My guess is it was totally accidental.