Our Field Trip To Madison Square Garden [Field Trips]
Continue Reading January 23rd, 2008
For the third consecutive year, in the tradition of
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batting against John Rocker and
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playing touch football with Andre Rison and Kordell Stewart, we
accepted an invitation from the fine folks at “Pros Vs. Joes” to –
get ready — play two-on-two hoops against Charles Oakley and
Charles Smith. At Madison Square Garden. We were wearing a
specialty-made Jeffrey Jordan “jersey” our father got us for
Christmas; Daulerio, a brave man,
"http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=1292">donned a Tyrone
Hill jersey. How’d we do? Come, join us after the jump. And by
“jump,” since we’re talking about us, we mean “rising three inches
off the floor.”
Daulerio came all the way up from Philadelphia to play this
morning; we took the court at 7 a.m. We really can’t believe he had
the cojones to wear the jersey of a man Oakley was slapped
for owing him money. Though sometimes we wonder if there’s anyone
on earth Oakley didn’t slap for owing him money.
We don’t mean to sound all Fawny Lupica here, but there really
is nothing like stepping onto the floor of Madison Square Garden
and shooting warmups. To think: Isiah Thomas lords over this court
every night. Sadly, he was not there to scout, though, to be fair,
not even he would have signed us.
It is worth noting that Charles Oakley didn’t appear
particularly amused by Daulerio’s jersey choice. All told, Oakley
wasn’t amused by anything; he either didn’t want to be there at
all, generally looks like he wants to kill everybody in the
room … or both. Probably both. As we warmed up, he just glared
off into space, wondering what Michael’s up to, realizing that had
he not gotten a little too cocky in that poker game the
other night, he might never have been forced to sign up for this
ridiculousness.
Or maybe he was deliriously happy and just looks like that all
the time. It’s Oak. You never know.
Worth noting: Our warmup session did not exactly inspire fear in
the hearts of our opponents. (We think we airballed a dribble.
We’re not even sure how that’s done, and we did it.) This kid,
however, was unconscious; we didn’t get to stay for his game, but
the guy was draining NBA threes from everywhere. He can also grow
facial hair better than we can.
Finally, warmup was over, and we sat to the side while a
bleary-eyed announcer introduced the Knicks City Dancers. This was
surely the earliest any of these women had ever been up in the
morning; they dance for about 25 seconds. And it was still enough
time for Patrick Ewing to have sex with half of them!
We were slated for the second game. In the first game, two of
the “Joes” from the show took advantage of a clearly bored — and
cold — Oak/Smith combo and, somehow, won. (Everybody played for
seven minutes.) This was clearly the worst possible scenario for
us. Not only was the veneer of invincibility gone, Oakley and Smith
would be more warmed up now … and pissed off.
So, after the loss, they had a pow-wow. This made Daulerio and
us extremely nervous.
But, we had the ball first, because they were being sporting. We
hadn’t really designed any plays; in fact, we hadn’t played
basketball at all in about six months. Against two angry,
competitive, cranky men ready to take our their frustrations. What
could possibly go wrong?
OK, so Oakley didn’t actually elbow us to the floor. (Though
Daulerio claims he did get a shoulder when he tried to talk trash,
whatever that means.) But we thought it was a cheap and funny
visual joke after the setup. Forgive us.
So how did it go? Well, we’ll put it this way: We figured any
hope we had of winning would have to revolve around a perimeter
game. And Charles Oakley was draining more shots than we were. It
was gonna get ugly fast. We couldn’t figure out what we were doing
wrong.
It’s possible they might have had a bit of a size advantage.
Oakley and Smith jumped out to a spirited — as spirited as Oakley
can be about anything — 7-0 lead … and we were the ones
winded. Fortunately, the “fans” were far away from the proceedings
and might have missed it.
Oops. We suppose not. The worst part about this was not that we
were losing; we expected that. The worst is that we were terrible.
Neither we nor Daulerio have ever considered ourselves world class
athletes — really! — but we were exhausted, pathetic and beaten
… just two minutes in! Our friend Aileen, who took these
pictures, called us “old and unskilled.” That was nice of her,
particularly because she was exactly right. Five years ago we would
have joked, “we’re not teenagers anymore.” Now, nearing our
mid-30s, we started to realize that we didn’t have youth anymore to
sustain us or overcome our lack of natural ability. We were just
old. We were the sad people in the fantasy camp we used to make fun
of. Except we had hair. For now.
You see, now this is a shot that just doesn’t have much hope of
going in.
Like Rock’n'Jocks on MTV back in the day, the Pros Vs. Joes
producers had given us a Break In Case Of Blowout button; any shot
from halfcourt was five points. We would have needed to hit about
three. At least the one we tried hit the rim. The best we could do
was pull off one nifty backdoor play. The reaction of the crowd was
not excitement; it was surprise.
After we missed this halfcourt shot, the ball bounced back to
us. Charles Smith, who had been “guarding” us, backed off. “Go
ahead, man, chuck it again.” He was really nice about it, actually.
We had never felt so much like a kid from the Make A Wish
foundation. We obliged by trying to drive past him. He obliged by
blocking our shot. We deserved that.
As the game mercifully wound down, we made one last dive for a
last ball. We lost it, and we heard, from the sidelines, “good
hustle, man, good hustle.” We looked up, and standing over us was
… John Starks! He was “coaching” Oakley and Smith. But mostly: He
was just smiling and having a good time. He was an awfully nice
guy.
Like most of you, we remember Starks for his horrific Game 7
performance in the 1994 NBA Finals, when he went 2-for-18 and
essentially cost the Knicks the title. As we looked up at him,
applauding us, cheering us on … well, John Starks was 2-for-18
once in his life, causing people like us to mock him for it. And
this is how he returns the favor. We felt kind of 2-for-18 for life
right there.
So we benched ourselves, and, around noon, we were finally able
to breathe correctly again.
Photos by Aileen Gallagher. You can find the full set of
photos
"http://flickr.com/photos/deadspinleitch/sets/72157603785760195/">right
here.
(UPDATE: The Pros Vs. Joes people just sent us two shots
from their cameraman — Al Bello/Getty Images for Spike TV — that
sum up the experience right well. They are below. We lost 14-3, by
the way.)
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width="683" height="1024">
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width="683" height="1024">
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