This lot is closed. Bidding ended on 9/7/2012.
While playing for UCLA on January 12, 1968, Kareem (then Lew Alcindor) suffered a scratched left cornea at the Cal game when he was struck by Tom Henderson of Cal in a rebound battle. While remaining relatively injury-free throughout his NBA career, Abdul-Jabbar twice broke his hand. The first time was during a pre-season game in 1974, when he was bumped hard and got his eye scratched, which angered him enough to punch the basket support stanchion. When he returned, after missing the first 16 games of the season, he started to wear protective goggles. Kareem won six NBA championships, a record six regular season MVP Awards and is the NBA all-time leading scorer with 38,387 career points. In 1996, he was named to the NBA 50 Greatest Players of all-time and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1995. “American Optical Company” manufactured goggles, black rubber surrounding the lenses which show scratching. Rubber elastic band intact to hold goggles in place. The goggles were presented to us as game-used and in our opinion, show good use.