Hail To The Chief!

It's been a while since we heard from Boston Celtics legend Robert Parish, and it's not entirely positive:

Decades later, Robert Parish reveals in Celtics doc why he chose to sit out Larry Bird’s legendary fight with Dr. J

There’s new information on a very old Boston sports moment.

Celtics Hall of Fame center Robert Parish is acknowledging he harbored bad feelings toward legendary teammate Larry Bird, and demonstrated his disappointment by letting Bird take a beating in a landmark brawl with Julius Erving and the Philadelphia 76ers during a regular-season game at the Old Garden way back in November 1984.

“This is the first time anybody’s hearing this,” Parish says in a new HBO documentary on the Celtics (first episode airs next Monday). “This was the only time that I didn’t feel a closeness to Larry . . . [because] after I was beefing about contracts with the Celtics [in 1983], to be honest, Larry didn’t support me.”

Who cares? Why give fresh air to this old topic now?

Because this is Boston and this is Larry Bird and everything from back then still matters now. The Chief’s somewhat distant relationship with his starry teammates has always been mysterious. Parish snubbed the team-sponsored reunion of the 1985-86 Celtics in 2016 and has been scarce around TD Garden since retiring.

Well, now it's out in the open, for better or worse...