Month: January 2018

When I started this blog September, 2017, I said I’d write about a variety of topics all the while counting down my 678 vinyl record albums. It would give me something to distract me from my disease, I thought. It’s been much more than that; it’s been therapeutic as well.

My main topic, of course, is raising awareness to Lewy Body dementia. And raising money. A fundraiser this past  summer consisted of a 3X3 basketball tournament called Mike’s Madness, raising more than $13,000 for the Lewy Body Dementia Association.

That was about LBD awareness but also about basketball, one of my passions and one of the subjects I want to write about more in this blog. (You can read my other basketball-oriented posts by clicking on the basketball category on the right side of your screen.)

So here we go. I want to discuss playground or street basketball: the unspoken rules, the etiquette or lack thereof, the cautions and how to keep yourself from getting punked. A street word, punked or punk. You hear it a lot on the court. It basically means you get embarrassed by your opponent.

I currently play weekly with a great group of about 15 men from various walks of life. We’ve had loud arguments, we have had hard fouls, we have had some questionable calls. But we’re not really playing street ball here. A Baptist church gym in Irondale is a long way from the famed  Ruckers Park in New York City.

These rules  can apply to all of this range but probably applies to street games moreso than church games. (Though the church games may surprise you).

These rules come from my observations, not just ringside but in the games. I have played with  NBA players (just a few times), college players, YMCA stars and  playground legends. And just plain folk trying to get their hoop on.

In my younger days, I used to go to pick-up games just about anywhere I could find them. I’d take my ball and shoes on vacation. When we lived in Orlando I don’t know how many times I played on the St. Petersburg beachside court while we were on vacation. (Catherine is a saint).

I’ve played in pick-up games in my 20s, 30s, 40s, and still going a little bit in my 50s. I’ve played on the roof of the Orlando Sentinel newspaper production center, which I’ll write more about in a later post. According to the previous Commissioner Gene Kruckemyer, I was (at least at one time) the all time leading scorer in that twice – a –week game. I played about 10 years there. I’m pretty sure there is no  actual written documentation of  Kruck’s assessment. And mind you, he’s not talking about the best all time player up there, he’s talking about a survivor who developed lizard skin to play in such conditions. (Get on a roof in the middle of an Orlando August and just sit there. You’ll have a puddle working in about five minutes. We had big athletic long distance runners come and fold in the heat b/c they ran outside before dawn or trained inside during summer months. They didn’t have that heat stamina like a few of us regulars had developed, a stamina fueled by lots of hydration mind you.

After all these years, I’ve only been to the emergency room three times from playing hoops.  Once in Orlando, at a park playground, for scratching my retina after getting poked in the eyeball.  I had to wear a patch over my eye. Once at Drake HS in Marin for scratching/gouging  my head on a chain link fence above my eye: 33 stitches for that. And once in Leesburg, Fla., for breaking my leg so badly the bone came out of my skin (compound fracture).

The dozens of knee and ankle sprains have left me with tendons that are sort of like busted guitar strings. They  are so loose they don’t really sprain any more.

Here’s the rules, which like legs, are meant to be broken.

And then argued about.

1. Don’t Say Sorry

Remember what Ali McGraw said to Ryan O’Neal: “Love is never having to say you’re sorry.” For the love of basketball never say you are sorry. Never say you are sorry about a bump or a foul or an accidental trip. I know this goes against a lot of people’s natural inclination to be, well, nice. But don’t do it. Unless the dude is leaving the court in an ambulance, do not say that word. Your guys will think you are weak and quit throwing it to you. Their team will get an extra  boost by sensing weakness. I  don’t know the physiology or psychology behind it, just don’t do it.  Many pick-up games include a guy who goes around apologizing for a foul, his missed lay-up or bad defensive play. Sorry means you’re sorry. If you must say something, pat your chest and say ‘My bad,’ (it kind of sounds like ‘I’m bad.’)

2) Don’t Trash Talk (Unless You are good at it)

In the San Geronimo Valley west of Fairfax, Calif., I played for years.  New faces weren’t uncommon in this part of the Bay Area , and one guy I remember on my team thought he was all that. He was rather large and a fair ball player, but nothing more than some of the talent I played with in that area. He turns to me and says, ‘I thought you Valley boys were supposed to be so good.’ He spat out a profanity. And he was on my team! Trash talking his own teammate. Later in the game I put up a shot deep in the corner that rimmed out and he yells out, ‘Come on man take good shots. Jeeezus.’ Walking back on defense I got close to him and said, ‘ Look, man you don’t know me.’ In that short phrase, i’m sending a message that he’s never seen me before. How do you know that shot is out of range?  It wasn’t.

And the other players on the court knew. Because they knew me.

We locked eyes and I knew the words I used had an effect. I was using words often heard in other street games. I continued to shoot because the other teammates — kept finding me with a pass. Made a few in a row and he got quiet.

3) Don’t Fight  (but give every indication you will)

I’ve played in 100s of pick-up games and have seen maybe 3 or 4 real fights. Most of it is a ‘hold me  back’ sort of fight where two guys start pushing and shoving and teammates hold them off before it escalates. I lost my temper once — this was in Oakland –when somebody fouled me hard in the back of my head with their elbow as I was going for a  layup. I turned around. He was walking away and I bounced the ball off the back of his head. Little bounce. He turned around. “Did you throw the ball at me? His voice was escalating as he started quickly to charge me. I squared myself and he bumped chests with me and continued his lack of respect for my personal space by touching noses with me. I don’t really want to word-for-word the exchange but it had to do with him saying he was going to mess me up, or words to that effect. I responded with equal force by saying, then let’s go you big bad doo doo head or something perhaps a little more ‘street.’ He looked hard at me and I looked hard back, and it ended as most of these do with nothing. But I did see in a run-down recreation center in Apopka, Fla.  an interesting nose to nose confrontation gone bad. Two guys were in each other’s face. One guy grabs the other by the neck and squeezes, which is no fun for the victim. But the squeez-ee knew something about defensive fighting: He snapped his head forward, head-butted him, splattering the squeezer’s nose like an overripe cherry tomato. Fight over.

4) Don’t Bring a Ball  (but keep one in your trunk for emergencies.)

In Eustis, Fla. I played in a game with strangers. We had some good games. They nicknamed me Pistol Pete after I did a double clutch layup ending with a finger-roll bucket. I played and I left.Then I remembered. I forgot my basketball. I went back, about 30 minutes later some were still playing a few were missing. Where’s my ball? I asked. What ball?  That was just one time. It took at least three or four sacrificial 25-dollar balls before I created the rule.

5) Don’t call wimpy fouls (or other non  street-ball violations.)

A real foul must alter a shot that potentially would have gone in. A real foul moves bodies; the slapping in a real foul echoes through the gymnasium. Blood is evidence that a real foul has occurred. A corollary to this rule is to refrain from calling violations that frankly are written in invisible ink on the street/pick-up ball circuit. For example never call  3 seconds in the lane. If I or anyone else wants to get in the lane, spread out a blanket, bring a sandwich and Grapico, let them do it and suffer the consequences. Also, never call an illegal or moving pick. I know I know, some will disagree with this but 50 percent of game time would be wasted due to arguing if illegal picks are called.  By the same token, rarely call traveling, double dribble, or palming. And please if you touched it last before going out, own up to it. We don’t have replay camera. Flip a coin but do it fast, the game is waiting.

6) Cease, stop, desist: Don’t say ‘And one’ as soon as the ball leaves your hands. And-one means you made the bucket and were fouled which in some leagues means that you get a free throw shot. ‘And-one’ means bucket (two points) and another shot at one  point from the foul line. Let me in on a little secret you ‘And One dolts. There is no free throw shooting in a pick-up game. Duh! There is no AND ONE. It’s just another way to say FOUL. In street ball if you make the bucket and are fouled that’s it. You get the bucket. If you miss, your team gets the ball back again because of that foul. AND-ONE lunkheads just heave it up say the magic words and hope it goes in. Like a broken clock, its right at least twice a day. When it finally does go in, they run around the court pumping their fists. Remember they are celebrating nothing. They may as well say And-Nothing. DISCLAIMER: I am in no way dissing And 1 street ball organizers (that sounds funny) that brought us  Skip 2 My Lou, the Professor and Hotsauce. Different topic altogether. Iove those guys.

7) Have fun. Seriously. Do I have to write this? Yes because the above rules I just wrote make it sound like it would be better to go ahead and get that root canal without anesthetic than show up at the park. But we ballers are driven by this. I used to stand in rain with several others waiting for enough for a game. I once went to a game in unfamiliar territory where a guy who had a 40-ounce malt liquor in his hand at 9 a.m. reminded everyone that he had a gun in his car.

I watched him closely for several games to be prepared to run if he went to the car.   The guy actually was assigned to cover me. He had a scowl on his face. I never made eye contact and passed a lot so I could live to play another day.

POSTSCRIPT FOR TV B-ball announcers. Don’t say”Score the ball.”

As in this kid can really score the ball baby.

What else is there to score with? A Frisbee’?

Redundancy much Vitale and your minions.

Isn’t it enough to say this kid can score.  No, apparently, this kid is exceptional at scoring the ball.  Overheard, one player complaining to his coach: Gosh coach, I didn’t know we’re supposed to score the ball. Another player: do you mean I need to cut it like when scoring steaks  and vegetables. Maybe we are supposed to take it and carve it like a pumpkin?