The Miami Heat won the NBA title last night, led by young superstar Dwyane Wade, and obtained championship rings for a bunch of guys who have been around for years without winning, like Gary Payton and Alonzo Mourning. It’s alo another title for Shaquille O’Neal, which probably gives him a conclusive victory over Kobe Bryant in their post-Laker competition.
I’m fairly happy to see them win– I hated Mourning as a college player, but he’s had a hard life since, and I like Shaq. I didn’t care enough to watch the second half, though– the game was on way too late, and it’s methadone basketball anyway. Besides, I was too tired from my own lunchtime basketball exploits.
A tip for aging hoopsters out there: If you’re playing guys fifteen years younger than you in a non-air-conditioned field house on a humid day, and you get to the point where there’s no longer a dry spot on your shirt to wipe your hands off, that’s a good time to stop. I did manage to score the last four baskets of our 15-13 victory, though (the fall-away jump hook is unstoppable…), so I’ll be re-negotiating my contract next week…
(It wasn’t quite as bad as the time a few years ago when I started to get tunnel vision near the end of a game (“Hey, guys? How about we play this one to eleven?”), but I didn’t exactly feel like dancing a jig in the afternoon. You might say that this indicates that I’m taking the lunchtime pick-up game a little too seriously, and you might be right…)
My moment of clarity came while playing shortstop at a New England College Chemistry Softball tournament game at MIT some years ago. Playing six games on a day when it was 98° was bad enough, but things came to a head when we played our first game on the lone skinned infield being used. (The rest of the games were played on grass.) Sand and baked clay reflect a whole lot more sunlight than grass does, and by the second or third inning, I was baked and dizzy. I went off and sat in the shade for the rest of the game. Our second baseman joined me an inning later. Fortunately the shade and copious amounts of water were enough for us to recover, but it was scary for awhile.
As a Dallas resident, I can tell you that there’s a lot of dissapointment around these parts today. We’re a city of fairweather fans, but when a team is hot it really works the general populace up into a frenzy.
Personally, I feel more sorry for Mark Cuban than anything else. I don’t know that I approve of his behavior as a team owner, mostly I just don’t care, but I respect and admire him for a variety of other reasons, and I would have liked to see him succeed at something so obviously hugely important to him.