Bad Blood

The Monday/Wednesday pick-up game I regularly play in hit a new low last night, and I'm embarassed to say I played a part in it. There's a fellow I call "Curly" who also plays in that game, and between the two us there is little love lost. I find him annoying because he has a big mouth and an exagerated sense of his own skills, is a bit of a ball hog, has shitty fundamentals, doesn't play good defense, doesn't understand the game, and doesn't really know the rules either. But mostly I dislike him because he's a cry-baby with sharp elbows, who routinely clears out defenders with his off-hand in order to make space for himself, but hollers "foul" if a defender breathes on him too hard. I'm not really sure why Curly doesn't like me, but I have two theories. The first is that he knows I'm a better player than him, and resents it. The second is that he knows I don't think he's as good a player as he thinks he is, and resents THAT. And of course, it probably doesn't help that I tend to guard him pretty aggresively whenever I get the chance, and he finds playing against someone who actually plays good defense more than a little frustrating.

But mostly when we're on the floor together I just try to stay clear of him. After all, it's just a pick-up game, and who needs the aggrevation? But last night I ended up rotating to him on an open Jump shot from the corner: he took the shot, and well after the ball was on its way to the basket followed through and hit a (now set and stationary) me in the shoulder and the side of the head with his shooting hand...and cried foul. I said somthing about the call that he didn't care to hear, then walked away figuring that it was best just to let it go. But like I said, Curly has a big mouth, and kept up a pretty much constant trash-talking mutter for the next two or three minutes...until a few plays later when he came driving down the lane and threw up a wild, off-balance shot, and I held my ground and one of us (not me) ended up on the floor -- a not-quite-so-irresistible-force-as-he-thought meeting a truly immovable object, and coming off the worse for it.

Turned my back and walked away from that one too, knowing full well that I'd made my statement, and that anything I had to say about it would only make things worse. I'd had my Danny Ainge moment, and was actually a little ashamed of it. This isn't some playground pick-up game; we're all middle-aged guys who ought to know better. But I'm not about to pull a rule book out of my back pocket and argue the finer points of "established position" and "act of shooting." And I'm certainly not too inclined to sit back and listen to someone I don't respect too much as it is disrespect me.

Of course, Curly did get to make the final statement of the evening -- knocking down a game-winning three from the top of the key when I got stuck down below the foul line and couldn't get back through the high screen. It was a nice, clean look taken under pressure and drained "nothing but net." So good for you Curly. Maybe I'll see you again Wednesday night.

Violence Punctuated by Committee Meetings

You may recognize this title phrase as George Will's famous characterization of American football, which he suggested combines these two worst elements of American culture. I'm not a big football fan myself, despite having played three years in High School. I do have a few fond memories of the game, but mostly I remember tedious practices, overbearing coaches, a lot of yelling (both by me and at me), and lopsided games played on cold rainy days on foul-smelling muddy fields, when even the coaches couldn't wait to get back on the bus.

My fondest memories? Two terrific hits I made on (different) quarterbacks in their own backfields, stunting from my strong safety position -- one of which buried my opponent face-first in the mud (with the ball embedded in the ground beneath him), and another down on the goal line which left him so stunned and disoriented that he accidentally wandered into our huddle, and needed to leave the game before the next play. Or picking a pass on an underthrown ball where I had perfect coverage, and actually had to reach back with my trailing right arm and pull the ball in from behind me, trapping it against my shoulder pad and leaving both my teammates and my opponents so astonished that I had actually CAUGHT the ball that I was able to sprint another five yards up-field before anyone actually reacted.

And then there was the time I was pressed into service as a quarterback myself, during a JV game when our regular QB twisted his knee, and lead my team down to field in a sustained drive which ended with me scoring a touchdown on a quarterback sneak.

My worst memory? Chasing down our All-League tailback from the far side of the field and catching him on the goal line during our annual end-of-two-a-days intrasquad scrimmage, and then hearing this from Coach during the film session afterwards: "Who was that? Who was that? Jensen? Jensen! Bartol, how could you let JENSEN catch you?"

I could go on and on, of course. In my opinion, professional football is no longer a game, but a nearly-religious over-coached, over-officiated celebration of corporate competition itself, not to mention a mindless televised public spectacle promoted principally by liquor companies, automobile manufacturers and the military, as well as an opportunity (and an excuse) for widespread illegal gambling, and a shameful abuse of the sabbath.

Professional football today is mostly about scouting, drafting, and breaking down film; building bigger and better "weapons" through intensive training (and chemistry), teaching "technique," creating game plans, treating injuries, managing personnel rosters, and communicating the desires of the coaches from "on high" in the pressbox down to the replaceable players on the field. The major College and even many High School programs are getting almost just as bad, and God only knows where it will end. Pee-Wee football. Arena football. The European American Football league.

And then, of course, there is the obscene amount of money. As someone who also spends his life preparing to "work" for an hour on Sunday, it's hard for me not to resent the dramatic differences in compensation, resources, and media exposure. Of course, there is very little violence in my line of work. But LOTS of committee meetings....

Anyway, once a year, for about a week here in autumn around Thanksgiving, I try to put all these feelings aside and simply enjoy the so-called "Rivalry" games. This year I followed four, beginning of course with "the Game" between Harvard and Yale (which I'm sorry to say the Crimson lost quite badly this year). But at least the Washington Huskies were able to defeat the much better Washington State Cougars in the Apple Cup last weekend, and then on Thanksgiving Day our local High School team beat its traditional rival as well, with the son of my neighbors scoring our first TD.

But the best game of the weekend was the Oregon Civil War, where the Ducks and the Beavers squared off in Corvallis in a closely-contested struggle that was competitive right up to the end, and (depending on who you were rooting for) was either won or lost on a made or missed field goal. Having attended and earned degrees from both schools I give myself permission to root both ways, and was perfectly content to see the home team win, as it has now for almost a decade. And, of course, I have plenty of Nike sportswear in both Green and Gold AND Orange and Black.

I'm not sure what the future should be for American football. There are times when I can still appreciate the grace, speed and athleticism of the modern game, almost in spite of what the game has done to itself since it was first played by Ivy League college students wearing leather helmets more than a century ago. The violence can be pornographically attractive, I'm ashamed to say...a feature emphasized in popular computer and video game adaptations. It's bread and circuses, (or perhaps more accurately, beer and stadiums) -- but it is also mostly about television, with corporate big-wigs looking down (like coaches) from perches high above the field in their own private sky boxes, and the fans in the stands basically little more than anonymous extras to provide visual background for the much larger broadcast audience at home.

Of course, a good tailgate party will always have its own intrinsic attractions. My favorites are at Husky stadium in Seattle, where folks like to tailgate on their boats anchored out in Portage Bay. Preferably on a crisp, autumn day, with a light wind, and not a cloud to be seen anywhere in the sky....

Don't try this at home

Out in the open court last night, trying to push the ball in transition, I went to cross-over a defender I'd caught back on his heels, and rediscovered once again first hand the first principle of Newton's laws of motion: that you can't tack a forty-foot ketch in the same space that you can an eight-foot dinghy. The ball crossed-over perfectly, while my defender's life passed before his eyes as we collided with a force that might easily have been fatal had I not been so well padded. Fortunately, I caught him before he hit the floor, humiliated that my sports car brain had even attempted such a feat with my Mack truck body. So no harm, and no foul either...since I'd already turned the ball over out-of-bounds.

Another tough night shooting from beyond the arc (one for ballgame I believe...but it came at a very good time), and a couple of shorter "J's" along with a handful of sweet assists. Spend a lot of time defending and rebounding, which was fine. Arrived late to the gym so I didn't really get much of a chance to warm-up either...tried to stretch as best I could, and then kept it slow and easy until I had broken a comfortable sweat. And my shooting problems are no mystery. Sore knees and a few extra LBs have cut about an inch and a half out of my vertical, which means that everything I'm putting up is landing flat and off the front rim. The shorter shots are falling because I'm shooting them all with a soft touch with my wrist, but the Trey's really rely on a good shooter's rhythm and it's just not happening.

Of course, some of that falls on my teammates too. Even though I was playing with a group of guys I like a lot, we weren't getting that good of perimeter ball movement. Instead, the tendency was to put the ball on the floor and take it right back into the heart of the defense, which had collapsed down around the basket. Folks turned a lot of open shots into turnovers because they wanted to put the ball on the floor first, which really doesn't make much sense.

Here are the rules for good shot selection:

1) Can you score the ball easily from right where you're standing?

2) Can you pass the ball quickly to someone who can?

3) Can you fake, put the ball on the floor, drive an OPEN lane and score with one or (at most) two dribbles?

4) Can you fake, put the ball on the floor, and draw a defender to you, creating a wide open shot for a teammate?

The problem is, most guys want to jump straight to what is, at best, the fifth or sixth best option (since you can also always just pass and cut or screen away), which is to try to create a shot for themselves by beating their defender off the dribble. And depending on how unsuccessful they are, they generally end up in lots of traffic throwing bricks at the basket, while their wide-open teammates stand drop-jawed in astonishment.

There are, of course, times when it is appropriate to try to create a shot for yourself by breaking down your defender off the dribble. But if you do it every time you touch the ball, the whole team suffers as a result. And it generally leads to a lot of lost games as well. So my advice is do the charitable thing, and share the ball. And then maybe people will share the ball with you as well....

Ball Hogs

Stuck my hand in somewhere it didn't belong last night, which has me worried that I'll be down to typing with one finger if I don't keep the ice on it. Can't even remember the details of how it happened, but I sure knew that I'd done SOMETHING at the time...and even though I made the deflection, I think they recovered the ball for an easy score anyway...stupid, stupid....

Was playing in a new game yesterday too, although there were more familiar faces than not: a few guys I play with pretty regularly during the week, and some others I haven't played with for years. The first few times playing in a new pick-up game are always both a challenge and an opportunity: no one really knows how much game you have, but you don't really know what you're up against either...so there's the opportunity to surprise some people along with the challenge of figuring out what both your teammates and your opponents can and cannot do themselves. I'm lucky, since most folks tend to underestimate me when they first set eyes on me. Then they tend to OVER-estimate me, which has advantages as well.

The rules and customs of a new game are always a little different too. These guys like to play to seven by ones...no three point line, winners keep the ball and the court. Of course, with only eleven players (one of whom left after the first half-hour), figuring out who had "next" wasn't really much of an issue. Teams weren't very evenly matched either, but still the games were pretty competitive...in part I think because of my presence as the "X factor." Without the three point line in play, I decided to step a little closer to the basket, and it's surprising how much easier it is to drain a "J" from fifteen feet rather than twenty. Knocked down two of those early, then made a driving lay-up, then another, a little curl at the elbow, and finally a wide-open jumper from the right corner (after a loose ball rolled my way out of the scrum under the basket). Legs started to go after that, and my shots started to go up flat and fall a little short...rimming out rather than going down gracefully they way the did in the beginning. Not that it really mattered, since I didn't get that many looks to begin with, and there were plenty of guys on my team perfectly willing to create shots for themselves off the dribble, and not at all shy about taking them.

My biggest contributions had to do with creating better ball movement: running the give-and-go with a fellow I play with all the time, and distributing the pumpkin to my teammates in places where they could actually do something with it. Did some pretty strong rebounding early on too (again before my legs started to fade). My best personal accomplishment though was staying calm about all the wild, leaning, off-balance off-the-dribble shots in traffic a couple of my teammates seemed to live for, almost to the exclusion of everything else (like passing, rebounding, and defense for example).

Here's the math. There are five players on a team, which means (all things being equal) that each player should touch the ball 20% of the time, take 20% of the shots and score 20% of the points. Of course, things never are truly equal -- we all have different skills and levels of talent, and truly good teams learn how to maximize those opportunities for everyone as well. But some guys just don't seem to get it, and their...well, self-absorbed, self-important, self-obsessed, selfishness makes everyone around them less effective too.

Last night I shot six times in perhaps the first sixty minutes (clock time not game time), made everything I took, and probably had close to twice as many assists. I did eventually start to miss, but I still continued to take the open looks when they came my way, since not shooting good shots when they present themselves is almost as big a sin as forcing up bad ones.

One of my teammates, on the other hand, probably threw up at least half a dozen wild shots a game, giving up the ball only when he absolutely HAD to, and was doing really well if two of those shots went in. The difference is mostly just a matter of judgement and attitude: I know what a good shot looks like for me, I know what one looks like for each of my teammates, and I'm always looking to help create the best shot possible for SOMEONE out of the natural flow and rhythm of the offense. Move the ball and move your feet: Balance the floor, Attack the basket, Fill back to the ball, Fake out your opponent, Look for the open man, Execute the extra pass to earn an easy basket. BAFFLE. It's really just that simple.

Yet some folks apparently find this concept a little confusing. Call loudly for the ball, put your head down, dribble hard to your right (unless, of course, you're left-handed), draw as many defenders to you as you can, jump in the air, twist, turn, close your eyes, throw the ball in the direction of the basket, and celebrate wildly when it actually goes it. I'm not sure there's even a name for that. Or at least not one I would repeat anywhere my mother might read it.

Even at my age, I can probably create a better shot than that for myself off the dribble any time I want it. But I don't, because that's not the point. If I want to pretend I'm Michael Jordon, I can go out in the driveway and shoot those leaning off-balance circus-shots to my heart's content, all the while providing my own Marv Albert play-by-play commentary for every little juke and pump-fake. But I'm not going to waste the time (and earn the resentment) of nine other grown-ups by bringing that shit to a pick-up game. I just wish there were a few more folks out there who feel the way that I do.

Tricks and Treats

Well, much to my disappointment and chagrin, while I was out PLAYING basketball on Monday night, our local town meeting was busy voting DOWN the RecCom's recommendation to build new outdoor basketball courts at the elementary school across the street from my house. And not by much either, which makes me feel all the more stupid for not having attended the meeting myself. There were plenty of other things in the RecCom proposal: new tennis courts, new baseball diamonds, a multi-use athletic field with artificial turf, an outdoor pavilion (for Seniors) and new hiking trails. But it's the outdoor courts that I'm going to miss most. I was really looking forward to hearing that magnificent sound of a ball hitting chain nets. Not that my little suburban New England town would have probably gone for the chain nets either. But there's really nothing else like it. Except maybe the crack of a well-hit baseball on a wooden bat....

So that was the trick. The treat, I guess, was another satisfying run last night. Very different from Monday though -- more players (despite it being the Celtics home opener) and a lot rougher play -- sometimes as many as eight players packed down into the paint hammering on each other. Tempers get short when nobody really gets enough PT to wear themselves out. And I was probably no exception. Don't think I made a single basket all night (didn't take that many shots either), but I did feel pretty good when my teammates tried to set me up for a good look at what would have been a game-winning three off a high screen. Missed it though (although not by much). And I could tell by the look in my defender's eyes that he knew that he'd dodged a dagger.

Have to confess also that I really was one of the more aggressive defenders. Got an early steal and a couple of clean help-side blocks and suddenly I was feeling like the Enforcer. Not a role I generally play these days. Certainly nothing I'd be type-cast for. And now this morning my knees are really paying the price of my indiscretion. But at least now I have a few days off to recover. And maybe to work on that jump shot...but not at the court across the street....