Basketball Jones

Tonight, I exercised more than I have in probably the last two years (due to my self-inflicted redshirt football season). I played basketball.

At one point in my life, I was a pretty good player (as good as someone under 6 feet with small fingers can be). I also know I started the baggy shorts trend. I just can't really prove it. It all began when I was on a local Boy's and Girl's Club team. We got the standard tee shirt jersey and white shorts for a uniform. Since I was what doctors refer to as "flabby," the one-size-fits-all shorts didn't really leave anything to the imagination on my 10 year old frame. I was already wearing baggy shorts at that age due to the weight problem as well as the skater trend. So I improvised and wore my white Jimmy Z shorts instead of the league-issued nut huggers. They fit much better and went down to my knees rather than riding up to my danger area. I remember the guy who ran the league acutally yelled at me one time for having "shorts down to [my] ankles." So, since I was 10 in 1987, that leaves a good 10 years until the Fab Five debuted their baggy shorts at Michigan. Therefore, I started the trend.

That brings us to tonight. I joined a team called LB 33. This refers to Larry Legend and since the majority of our team is white, we adopted the Celtics Kelly green as our jersey color. Since I joined the team mid-season, there were no leftover jerseys for me, so I had to bring my own green shirt. I probably have at least 50 tee shirts that I have collected over the years, the oldest of which are a Nike Challenge Court shirt from the first big Andre Agassi ad campaign, one of the first Simpsons shirts, a "Two Snaps Up" shirt with a picture of the Men on Film from In Living Color, and a souveneir shirt from the 1990 "Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'em" world tour. Absolutely none of the shirts in my collection are even close to green.

So I went to Sports Authority before the game tonight to try and find a green shirt. Seems easy enough, right? Nope. Sports Authority had exactly 2 different green shirts: a Nike "swoosh" shirt and a Head Under Armour-type shirt. Each was $14.99, more than I really wanted to spend, but I ponied up for the breatheable fabric. Great move. By the end of the game (and 2 myocardial infarctions later) the shirt was as dry as a bone.

During the first half of the game, our team couldn't make a shot. To give you an idea of how inept we were, after a 20 minute running clock half, we had scored a grand total of 15 points. Unfortunately, our defense wasn't any good either because we had let up about 35 points. Terrible. Luckily, we started hitting shots in the second half, but never got any closer than about 15 down. Final score: about 75 to 52. I had 5. I hit what I thought were 2 three pointers, but supposedly one of them was a 2.

The best part of the game was that there was a girl on the other team. Now girls who play basketball are not known to be lookers (check out the WNBA if you don't believe me). Most look about as attractive as Roseanne Barr taking a crap after a long night at a Chinese buffet. This girl was no different. Being the most out of shape on our team, I got to cover both her and a Mexican guy who might work as a maintenence man in my building. Luckily for me, I didn't allow her to score. And I think I might have felt her up by accident once (although it could have been a fat roll).

So what did I learn tonight? 1) I can exercise for about 10 straight minutes at a time without keeling over, 2) Under Armour-type shirts rule, and 3) I can absolutely shut down Mexicans and girls in basketball. Next time, maybe I can work my way up to a goofy white guy.