I'll Have What She's Having

Last spring I felt aghast as I read a whole literature of punditry expressing derision for any basketball fan who dares to follow the NBA regular season. The winter months are so long and tedious, goes the argument, that paying attention before the playoffs is hardly worth the notion. I congratulated myself for being a "real" fan and wondered who would have the temerity to switch on a May or June game after not paying any fealty to the league during the fall and winter.

Yet last night I stood transfixed in front of the tube, watching my beloved Yankees** defeat the Angels and advance to the World Series. As a child, I adored baseball, attended many Tigers games downtown in the D, studied every box score in the newspaper, and feverishly constructed score cards by hand while listening to Al Kaline narrate games on the black-and-white television in my room (if my parents allowed me to stay up past 10). Somehow I grew out of it with time (I suppose I have only time enough to follow one sport closely). If I'm asked now if I'm a baseball fan, I shrug and say "Pshaw, it's boring", or more wistfully, "Not anymore." Yet when October strolls in, I watch the games. I love the games! Every moment is so heavy – a strikeout could be triumphal, a triple disastrous.

I suppose many basketball fans treat the playoffs this way. The NBA season, for them, is a blur of injuries, trade demands, a slam dunk contest, and various acts of thuggery. Ball doesn't get good until the crap teams are out and the superstars remain. "The Highest Level Of Hoop", Ralph Wiley used to call it. The NBA playoffs are an especially happy time because they herald spring -- a flourishing, a re-naissance. And sure, I get that. I guess I like the NBA season because (unlike football) 82 games provide enough sample size to determine which teams are actually the best, and (unlike baseball) they don't play every damn day. And when it's cold, nothing tickles me more than a hot cup of cocoa and some TNT Thursday night. When I was young, I had a shower radio on which I listened to George Blaha announce Pistons games while I soaped myself clean each night, preparing for another day of fourth grade. Basketball still throws me back to those innocent days.

**My affinity for the Yanks stems from the year when I worked in the Bronx and was frequently mistaken (yes, really!) for Jorge Posada. Like a good Method actor, I began to identify myself with his troubles and travails.