I'm sticking my neck out -- it's a GREAT game

Anniversary of first publicly played basketball game, in 1892.

"Nothing here but basketball, a game which won't be fit for people until they set the basket umbilicus-high and return the giraffes to the zoo." -- Ogden Nash.

He loved the game. Never before or since had he had a passion like this. Basketball had bewitched him. He did not care for anything else. His yearning was like a flower that lives for the sun. A seed had been planted, had taken hold and grown.


He loved the feel of the ball, the boom of it bouncing, its seams spinning in flight just so, then the sound—shink!—when a shot went through cleanly, the net flying up and clinging to the rim. He loved to dribble, an act of faith, the ball going down and coming up again, the simplest of things but reassuring.

He loved the games, every game a fresh start, a new quest, you pitting yourself against perfection. You could never attain it. The game was a coy mistress, with many suitors.

He loved the wooing and the courting, but above all the solitary days and nights, alone with a ball and a hoop and his thoughts. Nothing in life would ever be so pure.  --  Chapter 20, The Misforgotten.

Lebronded

Lebron "Chicken" James has flown the coop.  A Lebronian ode:

Lebron James was king

Tho’ he ne’er wore crown;
In quest of a ring,
He’s left his home town.

His subjects are sad,
Many, heartbroken;
For Lebron the Bad
Left them no token –

Not even a call,
No curtsey or bow –
No, nothing at all
But mem’ries of how

One joyful spirit
Presided o’er games.
Sad triumvirate
Of Bosh, Wade and James!

Unholy power!
Shadowed by a curse:
Losing will be sour,
Winning will be worse.

Having spent the day at the gym Sully was able to be one of the first in line to play. The first five players to show up were a team, and the next five were the next team, and it was always the luck of the draw as to who you ended up playing with, unless you stacked your team. If you lost you might end up waiting forty-five minutes to play again, so you always wanted to have at least a chance to win. Even though most of the lesser players were gracious or at least realistic enough to go and play on the other end, some insisted on playing in these games that were out of their league, to the exasperation of just about everyone concerned, especially Sully. If you came in and joined the end of the line and saw that you’d be teamed up with one or more of these recalcitrants, you sometimes might let the next person or persons to come in get in front of you, even though you’d have to wait an extra game before playing. You had to weigh the extra minutes of waiting against the increased possibility of losing and having to wait even longer to play again. And sometimes players would come in together, in twos and threes and sometimes even five at a time, making sure they had the team they wanted. Stacking the deck.  --  Chapter 8, The Misforgotten.