Oh, Jazz, please pick Oster... err, Aldrich

SALT LAKE CITY — I must be getting sentimental, or at least reflective, as time passes. Lately I find myself liking music my parents did. I'm also starting to keep movie and concert tickets I used to discard once the event was over.

Stranger still is that I've been missing Greg Ostertag. That's because the Jazz are considering drafting Cole Aldrich, a guy who evokes memories of the Big Oh-No. Consequently, I'm willing to throw away any pretense of objectivity and cheer if it will bring him to Utah.

Why do I care? Because Ostertag made my job easy for 10 seasons with the Jazz.

Maybe Aldrich can do the same.

"I think the Utah Jazz would be a really good fit for me," he said when he worked out for the Jazz earlier this month.

I wholeheartedly agree.

Let me back up by admitting I was never a big Ostertag fan, or even a modest one.

Like Ostertag — whom the Jazz drafted in 1995 — Aldrich is a former Kansas center. I'm not saying 'Tag never had good days. For a 28th pick, he wasn't terrible. Oh, all right, yes he was.

But the thing about 'Tag is I never ran out of material when he was around. I had stuff for notebook columns, game columns, mood columns, criticisms and commentaries, too. Whether he was showing up with a Fred Flintstone tattoo, dancing in a Speedo for a pre-game promotion (when he played in Sacramento), removing his false front teeth, bickering with Jerry Sloan or selflessly donating a kidney to his sister, 'Tag brought it every night.

I don't mean his game, I mean his personality.

A guy who mouths off enough to get slapped to the ground by Shaquille O'Neal is pretty interesting to anyone.

I'll take him over a businesslike Jarron Collins or Kosta Koufos any day.

This doesn't mean I'm getting so reflective I wish 'Tag would return. He tried an NBA comeback last season that failed. Teams apparently decided he couldn't play, which I concluded in 1996. The man who referred to himself as "a goofy guy" could make pulling off his sweats look hard.

I'm convinced if Mark Eaton had been the Jazz center, rather than 'Tag during their 1990s playoff runs, they would have won one title, minimum.