"But officer, I am the real Bobby Hansen"
The time a real Bull talked his way into Grant Park
Bobby Hansen waited his entire NBA career for a championship and that was just long enough, thank you.
And so the last member of the ‘92 Bulls with a ring was the first man at Grant Park. His 11 teammates who won the year before, they came to the rally by bus. But Hansen was eager to arrive and came by himself over an hour before the start of the rally.
Leading to this: security at Grant Park did not believe Bobby Hansen’s claim that he was Bobby Hansen.
“I was almost arrested,” Hansen said after the rally. “They didn’t believe me.”
I read the sports every morning growing up, starting with the Tribune and then adding the Sun-Times when my brother became interested in joining me with the paper at breakfast, and there are certain stories that only existed because a newspaper reporter decided to document them. I don’t mean player profiles and features that are a staple of newspaper reporting. I mean present day anecdotes that might never otherwise have been told.
Certainly one of my favorites was Don Pierson’s story on Jay Hilgenberg skunking Mike Tomczak in ping-pong while having a heart attack.
And of course, there was “But officer, I am the real Bobby Hansen,” from the Tribune’s Paul Sullivan on June 17, 1992, as part of the Trib’s coverage of the 1992 Grant Park rally.
In a section where the guaranteed coverage would be player speeches and tons of photos, Sullivan telling Hansen’s unusual run-in with the Chicago Police Department was a welcome surprise to 10-year-old Jack.
Sullivan’s story began:
Heaven knows how many Bobby Hansen impersonators are running around town soaking up the glory of the Bulls’ second NBA championship.
But Chicago police thought they had a Hansen wanna-be in their grasp more than an hour before the start of Tuesday’s rally at Grant Park.
Seems that some guy claiming to be Hansen was trying to weasel his way backstage at the Petrillo Music Shell. Trouble was, it turned out to be the real Bobby Hansen and not one of those cheap imitations.
As Sullivan reported, Hansen eventually got in when a fan recognized him — though as Sullivan tweeted in 2012, Sullivan himself got Hansen through security. Interesting!
Bobby Hansen was the perfect Bull to go through this. He was probably the only Bull who could go through this. After playing his first seven seasons with the Jazz, Hansen landed in Sacramento for 1991 but played only 36 games due to injury. At the start of 1992, Kings No. 1 draft pick Billy Owens was holding out, leaving the Kings looking for more scoring punch at the guard position. They traded the rights to Owens to Golden State for Mitch Richmond — scoring solved! — but wanted depth. The Bulls were looking for another defensive guard.
A trade made sense: the 12th man on the 1991 Bulls was Dennis Hopson, the 3rd pick in the 1987 draft who averaged 13 points a game in three years on the Nets, came to the Bulls as MJ’s backup and never took off.
Jerry Krause scouted Hansen at the Kings-Warriors game on November 2, and pulled the trigger November 4 on a deal, sending Hopson to the Kings in exchange for Hansen and a 1992 second-round pick. Krause called Hansen a “tough, no-nonsense competitor with eight NBA seasons behind him” and “an excellent performer while at Utah.”
With his career scoring average of 7.5 points entering 1992, Hansen would not care about nor require shots.
“He’s a proven defender and has shown range as a shooter,” Phil Jackson said of Hansen, who competed in the Long-Range Shootout at the 1990 All-Star weekend. “We feel he will fit well.”
Hansen played 66 games with the Bulls, all off the bench, and just nine playoff games, scoring in double figures only twice, both in the regular season, and both before the calendar even struck 1992. At 6’6, he was by no means short for an NBA player, and notably taller than Pax, Hodges and B.J. But he wasn’t anywhere close to those guys in terms of playing time, fan notoriety or certainly tenure.
He played just 29 minutes total in the East playoffs, in just four games, and sat for an entire month including the whole Knicks series, waiting from Game 3 of our first-round series with Miami to Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals against Cleveland.1
But Hansen’s playing time picked up in the Finals. He logged 14 minutes in the Game 1 blowout, six in the overtime loss in Game 2, 10 in Game 3, sat for Game 4 and then played five minutes in Game 5.
Then came the magic of Game 6 and one of the greatest comebacks in NBA history.
The Bulls entered the fourth quarter down 15, and Phil started with Scottie Pippen and four backups: B.J., Hansen2, Stacey King and Scott Williams3. Between field goals and free throws, regular season and playoffs, Bobby Hansen took 4,686 combined NBA shots in his career, but he is remembered for his final one: the three-pointer in the corner to start the Bulls’ rally in Game 6.
“But what three points,” Pippen said later. “It really picked us up.”
With the Bulls cutting the lead all the way to three points and Chicago Stadium absolutely on fire, the Blazers called timeout with 8:36 remaining and Phil made his first substitution of the quarter, bringing in MJ for Hansen.
“Take over, Michael,” Hansen whispered to him. “Take us home.”
“We’re going to get you a ring,” Jordan replied.
You know the rest.
“I didn’t feel a part of the team, but I do now — definitely, yes,” Hansen said after the game. “I’m going to wear the ring with pride. I now feel a part of the team.”
That’s what made Bobby Hansen the perfect Bull to get stopped by security two days later at Grant Park. If he never had his moment, Bulls fans would have thought, “Well of course they didn’t recognize him.” And we can still understand completely why someone wouldn’t recognize a tall yet otherwise nondescript 31-year-old man in a Bulls championship t-shirt trying to get back stage. “Yeah sure, pal,” you can imagine an officer saying to him, considering that the officer almost certainly knew that the Bulls were arriving by bus.
But because Hansen had his one shining moment, and because it was fresh in everyone’s minds, learning that story made Bulls fans retroactively shout, “No no! It’s BOBBY HANSEN! Game 6 HERO!”
The NBA Finals begin tonight, and only three players on the Celtics and Mavericks combined have won a championship4. They’ll all be playing for their Bobby Hansen moment. And with that, because I still love the story, I’ll let Paul Sullivan take it from here. Thanks Paul!
As is often the case, this story would not be possible without the invaluable newspapers.com.
Did you attend a Grant Park Bulls championship rally? Did you ever meet Bobby Hansen? Did you ever meet any of the players or coaches during the 1990s?
Email me! — 6ringsbook@gmail.com.
And if you have photos or videos from Chicago Stadium, contact Matt Flesch at @LastComiskey on Twitter or on his contact page here. Thanks all!
Even then, Hansen only entered the game because we were getting the breaks beaten off us. Bernie Lincicome reported that the two biggest cheers from the home fans were one moment in the third quarter when the Bulls cut the Cavs lead to under 20 points, and when Hansen got off the bench and checked in.
Then a student at Iowa, Bulls superfan Mark Carman was in the house, vacillating between nervousness that MJ was out and the thrill of a lifetime at the Bulls comeback being triggered by the all-Hawkeyes backcourt of Armstrong and Hansen.
Scott Williams initially thought that Phil was giving up on the game. As Scott told me: “It was almost one of those things like, ‘Oh, you don’t believe in us, huh? We’ll show you.’ … I knew (he was giving up and playing for Game 7). I could see in his eyes the way he was talking in the huddle. He had taken a different tone.”
Dallas’s Kyrie Irving with the 2016 Cavs and Markieff Morris with the 2020 Lakers, and Boston’s Jrue Holiday with the 2021 Bucks.
Great story!