Basketball vs. Soccer: Microcosmically

In the winter I play pick-up basketball and indoor soccer in the same spot-- an elementary school gym-- which is conveniently located two blocks from my house; there are only two people who play in both games, myself and a guy named Bruce . . . so we'd be in the middle sliver of the Venn diagram, but the rest of the folks don't occupy the same world; here are the differences between the two games  . . . draw what inferences you like:

1) for soccer, you need to bring a white and a dark shirt-- so that you can wear the same color as your team-- but for basketball, you have to memorize who is on your team-- this is fairly typical and I suppose it is because in soccer you are looking down more and have to make longer passes and might not be able to recognize someone's face from that far away, but my eyes aren't great and I wouldn't mind if the basketball game adopted the soccer policy;

2) in the soccer game, if you have to sit out a game because there are too many players, you are guaranteed to play in the next game-- even if someone from the winning team needs to be relieved-- but in the basketball game, if there are more than five players, and you miss your foul shot, you will NOT play in the next game . . . as the winning five always get to stay on;

3) because of this rule, more fouls are called in the basketball game and the score is more important;

4) the soccer crew has an email group but the basketball group does not;

5) if the weather is decent, the soccer group will play outside, while this has never happened with the basketball group . . . even when it was 95 degrees in the gym in the summer;

6) more advice and strategy is dispensed by the experienced basketball players, and it is more often accepted, or at least entertained and discussed . . . while during soccer if anyone mistakenly attempts to give someone else advice, it usually results in a vehement argument (which may happen in a language other than English)

7) sometimes at soccer, while we are warming up, we talk world politics . . . this never happens at basketball;

8) there are a couple of women that occasionally play in the soccer game-- and they can hold their own-- but I have never seen any women at the basketball game;

9) you can bring your kid to the soccer game, and if you get there early then he might get to play some-- my seven-year-old son once played for a while before everyone got there . . . but I've never seen any kids at the basketball game;

10) the soccer game has people with names such as Mario, Gio, Jose, Guillermo, Felipe, Mohammed,  Javier, Yorim, Ahmed, Yusuf, Ari, Josi, Bruce and Mike . . . the basketball game has people with names such as Al, Keith, Ben, Tom, Chris, Anthony, Richard (Cob), Eugene, Bruce, Isaac and-- of course-- Mike.

It Might Be The Shoes

Big day for our family: after attending a funeral in South Jersey, we stopped at the Jackson Outlets to buy athletic shoes for the kids and me . . . and this was the first time we ever went athletic shoe shopping with the kids . . . in the past, we've been quite frugal, and the boys wore hand-me-downs, or shoes that Cat found on sale and brought home, or-- my specialty-- used sneakers and cleats bought off Ebay and Craigslist, so this was a real test for our family and we passed-- barely . . . Cat had one rough patch, because Ian tried on seventeen pairs of basketball shoes in three stores and couldn't find a pair that didn't squeeze his toes, and I had to explain to her how important good shoes are for tennis and basketball (and I think she was annoyed at the prices, because though she has countless pairs of shoes, a disgusting amount, she's always getting them on sale, for sixteen dollars, but we pointed out to her that 120 pairs of shoes at sixteen dollars a pop is still a lot more money than three pairs at forty or fifty a pop) and everything turned out wonderful in the end, Ian found a pair of Nike Airs on the clearance rack that fit his weird feet and Alex was overjoyed with his shoes and I got a beautiful pair of green tennis shoes and some basketball shoes with arch support, which made me realize I've been playing basketball in three year old sneakers that are totally compressed and have no cushion . . . and there's no question that I deserve some nice basketball shoes, because last night we went to a party in the suburbs and they had a kidney shaped pool with a diving board and on the other end of the pool from the board was a basketball hoop and so we took turns shooting the ball while in mid-air after jumping off the diving board and I was the only one who made the shot . . . it was a weird experience because you didn't get to see the end result of your shot, you'd be underwater by the time the ball got to the hoop, so you had to rely on the other people in the pool to tell you if you were short or long with your shot (and I was surprised they didn't lie to me and tell me I missed when I made the shot, knowing how annoying I am about such mundane triumphs).

Kids and Sports . . . Highs, Lows and Digressive In-Betweens

This was supposed to be yesterday's sentence but after coaching soccer in extreme heat and humidity last night, my brain melted out of my head . . . so here it is, better late than never: my younger son Ian and I have been playing a lot of tennis lately-- all spring and summer-- and to make sure I taught him everything correctly, we watched a lot of YouTube videos on proper technique; this helped both of our games, and we've been improving in lockstep, hitting and serving better and better-- and my older son Alex comes out and plays occasionally, and he's quite good but just didn't practice enough to keep up with Ian (who was has been near obsessed with it) and both boys and their friend have been attending tennis camp this week, it's run by Ed Ransom, a trainer of some repute around here, and he took one look at Ian and moved him into the highest group and when my wife picked up the kids he asked her who Ian's private instructor was and said he was really talented and my wife told him that Ian's private instructor was his dad (Dad of the Year! this is a high point in the story . . . I was so proud that I had taught Ian to play tennis correctly) and for the next few days, Ian was the talk of the camp-- I was getting texts from other parents about how Ed had talked to them about this young phenom and it turned out to be Ian-- when I took my turn picking up the kids on Wednesday, Ed told me that Ian really had a talent and it needed to be "cultivated" and I told him we played all the time-- I was cultivating the hell out of it-- but he was also a soccer star and a pretty good basketball player and Ed frowned and said that Ian was going to have to choose and that he couldn't play everything or his talent would be "diluted" and I scoffed at this because I'm a big proponent of playing different sports in different seasons-- you make new friends, develop new skills, and don't burn out-- and so we went home and the kids rested, it was insanely hot, and then we headed to the high school gym (no A/C) for our summer basketball league, I help coach with my friend John-- a great basketball player-- and both boys play; tonight was supposed to be just seventh and eighth graders playing, but the other team had two ninth graders, so we matched them with two of ours, which made for a wide variety of body types on the court . . . Ian is heading into seventh grade and weighs 80 pounds and he stepped in front of a pass and grabbed it from a two hundred pound ninth grader-- a giant flabby kid who could play hoops but hadn't grown into his body yet-- and the kid toppled over on Ian, landing on Ian's ankle and knee and Ian's leg bent backwards and I thought something was broken (this happened to another one of our players in the winter and he was in a cast for a couple of months) and Ian was crying and clutching his leg and I had to carry him off the court to the bench and while nothing was broken, he had hyperextended his knee and couldn't walk and I had to carry him to the car after the game and now I had a stomachache and Ed Ransom's words were ringing in my ears-- this was crazy to try to play every sport . . . maybe Ian needed to focus, though he just turned twelve and hadn't hit puberty yet-- and maybe coaching soccer and basketball, and also trying to train tennis was making me crazy as well . . . but the boys finished watching Unbreakable and then went to bed and some of David Dunn must have rubbed off on Ian, because he woke up the next morning and though his knee was a little sore, he was fine, a rubber band, and he went off to tennis camp with barely a limp, which got me a little choked up, because sports stories where the scrappy little underdog prevails always do (I was crying like a baby the other day at the end of the Netflix series GLOW, if you haven't seen it, it's a wonderful show . . . empowering and athletic and funny and moving-- the total opposite of The Handmaid's Tale, which is just brutal) and I'm not sure what the future will bring, maybe some private lessons for Ian-- but he definitely wants to pursue some serious tennis instruction . . . or maybe I'll just keep watching videos and cultivate him . . . and we also have my brother as a resource-- he played tennis in college and he's still quite good . . . he hit with Ian last Sunday and he was really impressed, and though he only mentioned it once, I think he was impressed with the improvement in my game as well . . . so this is a double underdog story, because while I was a serviceable tennis player, I'm not an expert, but I think I can figure it out . . . anyway, I'm hoping to get Alex out with Ian a lot more, we've got courts right by our house and if the two of them start really playing together, they could end up like Serena and Venus, and I'm also still hoping that they can prove Ed Ransom wrong, and excel at several sports because while tennis is awesome, it's a lonely game, and doesn't compare to the fun and drama of soccer, basketball, and professional wrestling.

End of the School Year Sporting Potpourri

I finished off a full week of athletics with a stellar performance-- if I don't say so myself-- at 6:30 AM basketball this morning . . . sometimes it pays off to be a minute late, as I ended up on a dream team with all the elements-- youth, athleticism, basketball savvy, and the ability to shoot from outside-- and when you're on a good team, you often get good passes and open shots, which I converted like crazy today-- unusual when I play early in the morning-- it's too bad this is not the end of the line, there's another game Monday morning, where I'm sure I'll return to my usual shooting form (chucking that shit up from anywhere, waiting to get hot, cursing the russet clad early morn) but I can't complain-- starting from last Friday, it was cornhole, pickleball, singles tennis, basketball with college kids, badminton, lifting,  bike ride to Castleton and pickleball last night, and then hoops this morning-- and I'm still upright and walking, an impressive week of screwing around in various arenas- and there's still a cornhole tournament tomorrow and father's day pickleball on Sunday and one last day of early morning basketball on Juneteenth.

Epic Adventures in Parenting

A banner week: two epic journeys, one for each child;

1) after a packed Sunday of sporting events-- I played indoor soccer and coached my younger son's basketball team, and my older son attended basketball practice (where they installed a new offense) and then played in a basketball game, where he took several hard charges and an elbow to the windpipe, and then he went directly from the basketball game to a futsal game at Piscataway High School, and we arrived as the game started, and in he went . . . so by the end of the game, he was exhausted, and I was wiped too-- indoor soccer kills my knees-- and just after we left the building, we realized that he forgot his water bottle, so we went back in, looked for it, and couldn't find it, then we exited the building a different way, realized we didn't know where we were, and couldn't get back in, so we circumnavigated the building, in the dark and the wind, both of us barely able to walk and close to tears, with no clue as to where the car was (and Piscataway High School is huge) and when we finally found the car, there was a water bottle in the front seat, and I checked the backpack and the other water bottle was inside-- so he must have given it to me right after the game and I forgot, so the mishap was entirely my fault;

2) I got home after a faculty meeting and my younger son should have been home already, but he wasn't, so I went to Ben's house, but he wasn't there (and Ben didn't know where he was) and I went to Micah's house and he wasn't there (and Micah hadn't seen him) and while the logical part of my brain knew he was fine, the creative section was designing open wells for him to fall in and white vans to abduct him-- and by this time he was "missing" for a good forty-five minutes, so I walked over to the school to see if they had any information, and the secretary in the main office said I should check the library, because they were having a "Game Day" and I remembered that he had a form about this, but that kids got selected by a lottery system, and I never heard anything about it, but when I went to the library, Ian was there, playing checkers with his buddy and I was very relieved, and on the way out I told the secretary I found him, and I must have looked pretty distraught because she asked me if I wanted to sit down for a moment and have a piece of candy (which was very sweet of her, but I had to refuse because the dog was tied up just outside the door . . . he accompanied me on this absurd journey) .

Thoughts on My Son's Eighteenth Birthday

It is my son Ian's eighteenth birthday today-- yikes-- and it's been quite a senior year, but hopefully, he will get his shit together before he has to send his fourth-quarter transcript to Muhlenberg-- my wife said she'd like to "shake him" and I said, "go right ahead, he's not a baby anymore"-- in other news, I was eating a couple of my wife's vegetable and ham egg muffins-- she was trying to use up our egg surplus and so she baked eggs and other good stuff in a muffin tin and made a bunch of them-- and while I kind of like the egg muffins, I don't love their consistency-- they are too foamy-- and I don't like foam . . . I don't like foam on my beer and I certainly don't like cold foam on my coffee-- who the fuck is paying extra for cold foam? would you pay extra for cold foam on a beer?-- and, on a positive note in the age department, yesterday at the Y, my older son (he's 19) and I beat two giant Asian dudes in two-on-two basketball-- they were seniors in college, they were very athletic and could jump and shoot, but they had no clue how to deal with a pick-and-roll and didn't figure out Alex was left-handed until I told them . . . I'm not sure how long I can keep this father/son basketball thing going, but it will be fun while it lasts (and we can't wait until Ian can play with us too-- he's gotten really tall and long, but he keeps busting up his fingers playing volleyball . . . and though my kids are coming back to basketball rather late in life, they're a hell of a lot better than I was when I was nineteen-- when I was nineteen, I played basketball like a rugby player).

The Arbitrary Nature of Basketball Design

99% Invisible is a fairly nerdy podcast which focuses on design, but "The Yin and Yang of Basketball" is a refreshing change from the norm; it features a short history of basketball, and how James Naismith's arbitrary decision to place the basket ten feet off the ground privileged tall folks, which inevitably led the game down a ploddingly boring path, where big men banged around near the paint in order to get as close to the rim as possible, but as interest waned (in the 1970s) the ABA introduced the three-point shot, which spread the game out and led to the current state of affairs: Stephen Curry has broken his own three-point record with twenty-percent of the season left to play, if he continues on this pace he'll outstrip his old total by an incredible amount . . . most sporting records are never broken by more than ten percent (and usually much less) but this indicates a sea change in professional basketball-- for more on this, check out "Stephen Curry is the Revolution" at FiveThirtyEight.

THAT Was Fun

It's weird when your kid comes home from college for Winter Break-- there is certainly an adjustment period: they are used to a totally different schedule, they are used to interacting mainly with college-aged people, and they are not used to whatever family dynamics have developed since they have been living away from home-- and perhaps that is why Alex and Ian nearly got into a battle royale the first time we tried to play some pick-up basketball at the Piscataway Y . . . Alex is used to playing a certain style of pick-up with kids at the gym over at Rutgers, Ian is a bit too competitive when he's covering his brother, and the two of them have grown quite a bit and Ian, although he's very athletic, does not have complete control over his long arms and bony elbows when he's playing basketball; anyway, they talked it out and we went back and played again today and we played four-on-four with some decent players and Alex, Ian, and I were on the same team and this made a world of difference-- we killed the other team; Alex and Ian both rebounded, Alex drove with confidence and made a lot of touch shots around the basket; Ian blocked some shots with his long arms and took advantage of a mismatch inside; I shot a bit from outside; and the fourth guy on our team was an excellent player who know how to move the ball . . . it was very fun and everyone got along smashingly and then we met Catherine for lunch at Mr. Pi's and ate some sushi-- and they are both certainly better at pick-up basketball than I was at their age (when I played basketball in the same fashion as I played rugby).

Teach Your Children (Fairly) Well

I think I'm as good as any parent about feigning excitement about a perfect score on a social studies quiz (nice job with the triangular trade route!) or a school project (nice diorama!) but now that my boys have seen some actual excitement over a school accomplishment, they may realize what's what; to explain, Ian's PE teacher (who I know from coaching soccer) texted me on Tuesday, in the middle of the day, to tell me that my son Ian (a fifth grader) had toppled the school record for the PACER (Progressive Aerobic Cardiovascular Endurance Run) and that the record he beat had stood for four years, so he wanted to commend Ian on an impressive effort . . . and I was even more impressed than the PE teacher by his accomplishment because Ian had really exhausted himself the night before-- we had an away Rec basketball game in South River (away rec basketball games?) and a lot of kids on my team bailed (because it's rec basketball) so we only had five people (three of which I drove to the game) and the other team was full of sixth graders and our team is all fourth and fifth graders and most of the kids on the team can't handle the ball, so Ian had to play every minute at point guard, and though he's small, he had to go down to the low post because he's willing to foul kids . . . anyway, I was very proud of him and told him so, and now I'm going to have to step up my acting when he gets a good grade in math or draws something nice . . . why is it so much easier to get excited about athletic achievement?

You Can Pick You Nose But You Can't Pick Your Kids

While my son Alex still habitually picks his nose and eats it-- which disgusts me to no end-- I am also proud to say that he can now execute another, more elegant pick-- the pick-and-roll, which he performed perfectly with his buddy Luke in a basketball scrimmage the other day . . . this was one of my proudest moments as a dad (it competes with watching him proficiently snowboard) because, let's face it, as your kids get older, you're not going to have much influence over their behavior, morals, and/or attitude-- you might get them to say "please" and "thank you" but the rest is a combination of genes and peer influence (read the groundbreaking book by Judith Harris on this topic: The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do) . . and so if all the kids are getting cell-phones implanted in their buttocks, then you're probably not going to convince your kid to do otherwise-- and if you join the party, then you'll just be a weird old wannabe hipster with a cell-phone implanted in your buttocks, so there's just no way to keep up with them . . . really the only way you can have some sort of permanent influence on your children is if you teach them a specific skill, especially if that skill will have a influence on their life in the future . . . I didn't learn to snowboard until I was twenty-two and I didn't learn the pick-and-roll until after that (I was developmentally challenged as a basketball player) and, despite learning them late, both these skills have had a great influence on my life: snowboarding became one of my favorite sports and encouraged me to travel to a lot of places I never would have gone, and I still play pick-up basketball to keep in shape, so seeing my son learn these things at age ten makes me very happy.

Cold > Heat

We're having a heatwave here in Jersey, and while my wife had to work a full day in an elementary school with no A/C and no fans, I was able to teach virtually in the comfort of my home-- a pretty sweet decision by our admin-- but my son Alex was home and his class got canceled so we went out and played some basketball-- and it was very hot-- and then my son Ian-- who actually attends school-- came home and we went to the park and played some more basketball (and some seniors showed up and we played with them as well) and now I've ruined all my time spent in the A/C-- I'm overheated and miss the winter (and we are all VERY rusty at basketball, as we haven't played since last summer).

A Basketball Pickle

I raced around like a lunatic, badly stubbing my toe in the process, trying to get to 6:30 AM basketball on time this morning . . . and then we couldn't get the hoops to descend-- the internet was out and apparently the internet is required to send the signal to the motor which lowers the baskets (although we learned-- far too late-- that there is a back-up switch in the equipment closet) but the morning wasn't a total loss-- Jeff and I impressed two willing basketball players into a pickleball match and we got some exercise in that manner and now I'm stuck in class forever-- it's a half-day so there's no lunch and I teach the first three periods, which amounts to being in a room with teenagers from 7:50 AM until 11:32 AM so I'm hangry and tired and hating whoever designed this stupid block schedule . . . and I have to be back at school at 5 PM for three hours of parent/teacher conferences-- which should be abolished at the high school level-- so I can't wait until I retire, because I will still show up for AM sports, and then head home to drink coffee on the porch.

The Beach: Last Person Standing Wins

Yesterday, after fighting through some serious Parkway traffic, we got down to Sea Isle, ate lunch at Mike's Dock, unpacked, and headed to the courts the play basketball . . . and despite the height advantage, the old folks (me, my brother, and Nick) beat Alex, Ian, and James . . . then the old folks beat some randoms, then we played fours, then Ian almost puked his hot dog and headed home with James and on the way he crashed on his bike, spraining his ankle and gouging his leg with the big gear ring, so Ian was laid up, meanwhile, I hurt my shoulder in the last game of basketball and I've rubbed the skin raw on the inside of my pinky toe and have to keep an earplug between my toes to prevent bleeding, and Alex has a terrible ingrown nail on his big toe and Marc's knees were too sore from basketball to play pickleball this morning (but I went, despite my shoulder) and Cat managed a four mile beach run despite the neuroma on her foot . . . and that was just day one!

Like Spider Like Son

Although I am a competent basketball player now, this wasn't the case in college-- in fact, the only basketball skill I possessed back then was the ability to do "the spider"-- a silly drill in which you bounce the ball between your legs with two dribbles in front and then two dribbles behind your back-- and if you can get it going fast it looks pretty neat (and serves absolutely no strategic purpose, though that didn't stop me from doing it at half-court during our intramural games, after which I would chuck up a forty foot hook shot) and now I'm coaching 4th-5th grade basketball and I gave my players some "homework" ball handling drills -- including the spider-- and my own two children are obsessed with it and can actually do it pretty well, though it's probably the last thing they need to master (they'd be better served if they could make a lay-up or dribble with their heads up) but they've obviously got quite a bit of their dad in them (the other morning my wife said: "they can't be all you! they've got to have some of me in them!")

Serendipity, Baby

Though I didn't plan it, I ended up simultaneously reading Futebol: The Brazilian Way of Life, by Alex Bellos, and Play Their Hearts Out: A Coach, His Star Recruit, and the Youth Basketball Machine by George Dohrmann . . . and while there is no question that Brazil is crazy about soccer and America is crazy about basketball, the craziness exhibits itself in very different ways: Brazilians are superstitious, zealous, and obsessively festive about their national pastime (soccer fan clubs also participate in wildly gala and choreographed carnival events, where tattooed soccer hooligans organize thousands of costumed participants in synchronized marching and dancing) and creative to a fault with their gameplay, as illustrated by their incorporation of religion into the sport, their use of bizarre nicknames and their attempt at an "autoball" league in the 1970's . . . meanwhile, the story George Dohrmann tells of elite youth basketball players and their sleazy, despicable, but wildly successful coach Joe Keller paints a portrait of greed, consumption, high hopes, wild aspirations, hard work, hype, enormous success, great pressure, and epic failure . . . all in the milieu of middle school . . . the story is by turns compelling and infuriating, but the book is a must read, especially if you coach kids, and once you're finished, you can check Dohrmann's blog to see where the players from the book are now.

What Balls May Come?

Some miracles bite you in the ass-- such as Moses parting the Red Sea or the Bills starting the season at 4 and 2 -- but others require a moment of reflection in order to appreciate their glory . . . and the  miracle I am about to describe falls into the latter category (although some people, even upon reflection, did not appreciate the miraculous nature of the following events, leading them-- for my benefit-- to post a definition of the word "miracle" on the office cork-board); Sunday, at my weekly pick-up soccer game, my friend Mario returned a soccer ball that I had left behind several weeks ago-- a ball that I figured was as good as gone (I'm not very vigilant about keeping tabs on soccer balls, as I have so many floating around in my car) and then on Wednesday of the very same week-- at my weekly pick-up basketball game-- my friend Gene (who I hadn't seen since the summer) said, "Hey, I have the basketball you forgot in trunk of my car, the one you left in the summer" and I was pleased and surprised, pleased because I refused to buy a new basketball-- which makes no sense, since I didn't think I'd ever see the one I lost again . . . it was more as a punishment for being so stupid that I felt I should go without a ball-- and surprised that he'd kept the ball that long, and that he remembered to put it in his trunk for the game, just in case he saw me . . . and then it took me a day to realize the miraculous magnitude of the conjunction of these two events: that two balls-- both of which I had given up for lost-- were returned to me in the span of four days . . . certainly a minor miracle if there ever was one-- and now I am excited to see what other balls will be returned to me in the near future . . . because things like this usually happen in threes (although with balls, it might be more appropriate if they happened in twos).

You Think Wordle is Hard?

My friend and I have all been enjoying Wordle-- give it a try, it's all the rage-- but the boys and I stumbled on an even more difficult game: find the good basketball . . . and though all three of us looked in the sporting equipment spot, none of us were able to find the ball-- so we took the lousy ball to the YMCA and shot around (wearing masks!) and then came home and accused my wife of hiding the ball somewhere obscure . . . whereupon she quickly solved the puzzle and found the basketball and called us all idiots-- can YOU find the basketball in this picture?

The Most Racist Show On Earth?

I attended the Ringling Brothers and Barnum Bailey Circus again last week (the last time I went was almost exactly three years ago) and while I am not a huge fan (I sort of agree with the PETA folks who handed my son Alex a pamphlet about elephant cruelty, and the music is downright awful, and very loud . . . and though I looked over my sentence from three years ago, I still forgot to bring earplugs) but one thing particularly intrigued me about the show this time: when all the performers came out for the opening number, I noticed that the ten unicyclists were all African-American, and this struck me as odd, because the rest of the cast was quite diverse -- and also because I imagine unicycling as a nerdy and very Caucasian past-time, but twenty minutes later I realized why they were all black . . . they were a basketball squad . . . and this offended me a little, as a case of reverse discrimination -- it seemed as if Barnum and Bailey was insinuating that only black people play basketball (or perhaps, more logically, the act auditioned as a troupe, and they happened to all be African-American) but either way, I would love to be the token white guy on that unicycle basketball team . . . on another, less racist note, the best part of the night was the meal we had in downtown Trenton, near the Sun National Bank Center, at a Guatemalan dive called Taqueria el Mariachi . . . if you are in Trenton and you love tacos, you've got to try this place: best salsa ever and delicious al pastor and verde sauce.

Yesterday vs Today . . . Teenwolf vs Pfizer

Yesterday began with such promise: I defeated my nemeses in the NYT Mini Crossword (Stacey, Whitney, and Zman) which is a rarity and cause for celebration; then Catherine and I drove the Meadowlands and we each got our second Pfizer vaccine shot and we flew right on through without much waiting; a guy in line informed me that Houston's best player was sitting out with a hip pointer, giving Rutgers a fighting chance; and then I settled in the watch basketball-- my brackets were thriving, as was the pool where select eight teams and get points for their seed number (so you've got to select upsets) and in between basketball I played ping-pong with my sons, and despite my sore arm, I defeated them handily (which did not happen the day before) and then things started going downhill: Illinois lost, Syracuse won, Texas Tech lost and nail-biter, and then Rutgers squandered away a ten-point lead in the final minutes-- they stalled the ball too much, missed a couple gimmes, and Geo Baker slipped . . . it was awful and Alex and I were very sad . . . I was also sad because, over the course of the day, I was getting more and more sore and fatigued and by the end of the Rutgers game my throat hurt and I had a headache . . . it was the same for Cat and she even had a low-grade fever-- our immune systems were responding to the vaccine and it wasn't fun . . . we had chills all night and couldn't sleep and I was having weird racing thoughts, such as who scored the most points in a basketball game IN A MOVIE . . . Teenwolf? . . . which led me to this amazing video . . . the internet isn't for politics, it's for THAT VIDEO . . . anyway, I know there are silver linings to all this: getting a vaccine is better than getting COVID, a robust immune system response means that your immune system is generating antibodies (old people have little response to the vaccine) and Rutgers had to break the ice with the new program and they've done it (and VCU didn't get to play at all!) and-- despite the side effects-- I've heard that the Pfizer vaccine is far superior to all other vaccines . . . 75% of people who receive it improve their NTY mini score, 67% select better brackets, and 11% develop ESP.

A Humble Suggestion for the Harlem Globetrotters: Lead Basketball!

We saw the Harlem Globetrotters last night at the RAC, and they performed as-billed, putting on a spectacular circus-like performance in the guise of a basketball game, but my favorite portion of the show was more annoying than athletic-- at one point the game transmogrified from hoops to football, a passing play into the end zone (over the baseline) and the Globetrotters questioned the referee's call: "Incomplete!" and so they literally rewound the play and performed it in slow-motion, so that the ref could better see the catch-- the rewind was wonderfully annoying, every action, motion, and piece of dialogue that occurred during the play was run backwards and the slow-mo was endless, with all kinds of extra details that were obviously too fast for the naked eye (including a box of donuts that made its way through the entire play) and at times it seemed as if the Globetrotters were having more fun than the audience during this endless bit, and this reminded me of when my buddy Whitney and I would play the "lead game" in college-- once we hit a certain stage of inebriation, we found it extraordinarily funny to pretend that everything in the room was made of the densest, heaviest lead and so doing simple tasks-- escaping from under a lead blanket or taking a sip of a lead cup or getting pinned to the floor of The Weeping Radish Brewery by a lead condiment-cup full of lead horseradish-- would take an inordinate amount of time and effort-- usually so much time and effort that all our friends would abandon us-- and we'd be left alone, unable to understand why our audience didn't appreciate the brilliant slow-motion slapstick of the lead-game . . . anyway, the Globetrotters should definitely take a page from our playbook and add a lead-basketball to their routine (a perfect complement to the helium filled ball that floats to the ceiling when the rival team takes a free throw).