Go Mavs!
I haven’t written anything in awhile, so I decided to bombard the old blog with three consecutive updates. Read them all at once, or spread them out over the next few days. It’s really up to you. I only had two blogs written for today, but then something happened last week, the Dallas Mavericks won the Western Conference Finals, securing their position to play today in game 1 of the NBA finals against the Miami Heat.
And let me note that I’m writing a lot of these factoids from simple memory, so it’s probably highly inaccurate.
I was talking to my good friend Married Guy about the Mavericks being in the NBA finals the other day. He’s the quintessential Mavericks fan as far as I’m concerned. He has been a season ticket holder for several seasons now (the only person who is my peer who has decided to spend so much money on sports), he buys Mavericks clothing apparel for his kids (who are young enough to not have a say in what they wear on a daily basis). One of the first things he taught his daughter to say was, “Go Mavs!” So, I’m not sure what the exact definition of “Superfan” is, but he might be closing in on it.
We were talking on the phone the other day. He was pretty excited about the prospects of winning the finals. I told him I was having a hard time wrapping my head around the whole thing. I wasn’t a huge sports fan growing up, I wasn’t one of those ten-year-old boys who collected baseball cards, or who could rattle off the NFC quarterback rankings. If anything I found time to watch some of the NBA games. I can remember liking Magic Johnson’s L.A. Lakers (I think because my dad liked Larry Bird’s Boston Celtics), and hating, absolutely hating the “Bad Boy” Detroit Pistons, simply because they stood in Michael Jordan’s way, and did a really good job of beating up the Chicago Bulls for three years. I never really paid much attention to the home team, cause they were so bad, but used to be good (which was before my sports consciousness), and came close to being great. I knew that Roy Tarpley was bad news. I knew that Rolando Blackman was a good player, and a good man. I know Brad Davis is white. I can remember getting excited at the prospect of the 3 Js, Jason Kidd, Jamal Mashburn, and Jim Jackson, until (I believe it was) Terri Braxton came in between them. I can remember being really, really excited when Michael Finley and Cedric Ceballos teamed up and beat the Chicago Bulls in overtime (I think that was one of only 10 losses in the 72 game-winning season for Chicago… I might be off by a year). In fact, I have that game on tape somewhere. Back in college, Married Guy and I would watch Maverick games together, taking over the TV room in our dorm. We’d make fun of Chris Gattling, saying he looked like Frankenstein (He had a huge scar that went across his head. I think he had some kind of brain surgery as a kid). We would yell “NAJARA LIVES!” everytime Eduardo Najara came out onto the court, which was in reference to the time when (I think it was) Mateen Cleeves crashed into, and bashed his head against Eddie Najara’s head back during their college playing days. Eddie Najara was laid out on the floor for a good bit, but eventually got up and continued playing. We thought Del Harris looked sort of like Phil Donahue, and would say, “Caller are you there?” every time Del was shown on television. We would make Popeye laughing noises whenever Popeye Jones came onto the floor. Those were the good old days of my sports awareness. I knew about everything then. Football, baseball, basketball, boxing… you name it, I was a quasi-expert, those were my “trading card” years. But I eventually left college, and went out into the real world, where I couldn’t afford cable television, cause I had to pay rent and student loans, thus I lost all my sports knowledge. I still kept an eye on the Mavericks. Don Nelson traded for the rights for Dirk Nowitzki, saying he’d be rookie of the year. He also drafted Chris Anstey saying something along the lines of Anstey being the best big man in the NBA in a few years (He’s out of the league now). Dirk didn’t win rookie of the year either. He is, however, arguably, a top five player in the NBA, and is playing for his first championship, with game one being tonight, here in Dallas, TX.
So I went to bed last night, happy that I didn’t have to work today, thinking about how I might need to start looking for a new job, and about how I need to find my gym card, and how I need to do laundry… really mundane things, then sleep came. I had the craziest dream in that sleep… and I won’t go into details, except that one of the main themes was tonight’s game (according to my dream, the Mavericks will win… but it’ll be close, sickeningly close- as most of their games have been this post season). The dream ended, and something weird happened. I woke up.
I’ve been working nights lately, meaning my daily awake hours have shifted from the normal 7am-ish-midnight-ish, to 10 am-ish- 2 am-ish. And I have to admit to being terribly lazy as of late. If I have a day off, who knows when I’ll get up and start my day? But this morning I had this surge of excitement in my belly. It was 7:45 in the morning, and I had to turn on the radio to hear what my beloved sports talk radio (The Ticket 1310 on the AM dial) hosts were saying about tonight’s game. I felt like a kid on Christmas morning. I couldn’t wait, and can’t wait for tip off time tonight (7:55 pm). And here I am, sitting at my computer, at my desk, thinking about where I’m going to watch the game tonight (am I going to go out? Am I going to try and find some friends to watch it with? Am I going to go over to their place? Should I invite some people over? I should probably vacuum if I do) and I just want to say to all my friends, Married Guy, and his brother, and Rock-N-Roll John, and Jeremy the Computer Programmer, and Theater Guy, and Over-Opinionated Girl, and Kelpy, and Painter Marjorie, and Cute Liz, and my dad, and brother and my cousins, all of whom have been with me at some point and time on my basketball fandom journey, Go Mavs!
And let me note that I’m writing a lot of these factoids from simple memory, so it’s probably highly inaccurate.
I was talking to my good friend Married Guy about the Mavericks being in the NBA finals the other day. He’s the quintessential Mavericks fan as far as I’m concerned. He has been a season ticket holder for several seasons now (the only person who is my peer who has decided to spend so much money on sports), he buys Mavericks clothing apparel for his kids (who are young enough to not have a say in what they wear on a daily basis). One of the first things he taught his daughter to say was, “Go Mavs!” So, I’m not sure what the exact definition of “Superfan” is, but he might be closing in on it.
We were talking on the phone the other day. He was pretty excited about the prospects of winning the finals. I told him I was having a hard time wrapping my head around the whole thing. I wasn’t a huge sports fan growing up, I wasn’t one of those ten-year-old boys who collected baseball cards, or who could rattle off the NFC quarterback rankings. If anything I found time to watch some of the NBA games. I can remember liking Magic Johnson’s L.A. Lakers (I think because my dad liked Larry Bird’s Boston Celtics), and hating, absolutely hating the “Bad Boy” Detroit Pistons, simply because they stood in Michael Jordan’s way, and did a really good job of beating up the Chicago Bulls for three years. I never really paid much attention to the home team, cause they were so bad, but used to be good (which was before my sports consciousness), and came close to being great. I knew that Roy Tarpley was bad news. I knew that Rolando Blackman was a good player, and a good man. I know Brad Davis is white. I can remember getting excited at the prospect of the 3 Js, Jason Kidd, Jamal Mashburn, and Jim Jackson, until (I believe it was) Terri Braxton came in between them. I can remember being really, really excited when Michael Finley and Cedric Ceballos teamed up and beat the Chicago Bulls in overtime (I think that was one of only 10 losses in the 72 game-winning season for Chicago… I might be off by a year). In fact, I have that game on tape somewhere. Back in college, Married Guy and I would watch Maverick games together, taking over the TV room in our dorm. We’d make fun of Chris Gattling, saying he looked like Frankenstein (He had a huge scar that went across his head. I think he had some kind of brain surgery as a kid). We would yell “NAJARA LIVES!” everytime Eduardo Najara came out onto the court, which was in reference to the time when (I think it was) Mateen Cleeves crashed into, and bashed his head against Eddie Najara’s head back during their college playing days. Eddie Najara was laid out on the floor for a good bit, but eventually got up and continued playing. We thought Del Harris looked sort of like Phil Donahue, and would say, “Caller are you there?” every time Del was shown on television. We would make Popeye laughing noises whenever Popeye Jones came onto the floor. Those were the good old days of my sports awareness. I knew about everything then. Football, baseball, basketball, boxing… you name it, I was a quasi-expert, those were my “trading card” years. But I eventually left college, and went out into the real world, where I couldn’t afford cable television, cause I had to pay rent and student loans, thus I lost all my sports knowledge. I still kept an eye on the Mavericks. Don Nelson traded for the rights for Dirk Nowitzki, saying he’d be rookie of the year. He also drafted Chris Anstey saying something along the lines of Anstey being the best big man in the NBA in a few years (He’s out of the league now). Dirk didn’t win rookie of the year either. He is, however, arguably, a top five player in the NBA, and is playing for his first championship, with game one being tonight, here in Dallas, TX.
So I went to bed last night, happy that I didn’t have to work today, thinking about how I might need to start looking for a new job, and about how I need to find my gym card, and how I need to do laundry… really mundane things, then sleep came. I had the craziest dream in that sleep… and I won’t go into details, except that one of the main themes was tonight’s game (according to my dream, the Mavericks will win… but it’ll be close, sickeningly close- as most of their games have been this post season). The dream ended, and something weird happened. I woke up.
I’ve been working nights lately, meaning my daily awake hours have shifted from the normal 7am-ish-midnight-ish, to 10 am-ish- 2 am-ish. And I have to admit to being terribly lazy as of late. If I have a day off, who knows when I’ll get up and start my day? But this morning I had this surge of excitement in my belly. It was 7:45 in the morning, and I had to turn on the radio to hear what my beloved sports talk radio (The Ticket 1310 on the AM dial) hosts were saying about tonight’s game. I felt like a kid on Christmas morning. I couldn’t wait, and can’t wait for tip off time tonight (7:55 pm). And here I am, sitting at my computer, at my desk, thinking about where I’m going to watch the game tonight (am I going to go out? Am I going to try and find some friends to watch it with? Am I going to go over to their place? Should I invite some people over? I should probably vacuum if I do) and I just want to say to all my friends, Married Guy, and his brother, and Rock-N-Roll John, and Jeremy the Computer Programmer, and Theater Guy, and Over-Opinionated Girl, and Kelpy, and Painter Marjorie, and Cute Liz, and my dad, and brother and my cousins, all of whom have been with me at some point and time on my basketball fandom journey, Go Mavs!