Today I completed my basketball dream............I balled with Jesus. Another sunny Saturday came around and that meant one thing, time to play basketball. I took about a three week hiatus from the street ball court after I absent mindedly forgot to take my b-ball shoes home with me and left them up for grabs for people passing by near the railroad tracks. I realized that in Argentina it is not very likely that when you leave something behind you'll be able to come back to retrieve it. In any case, no shoes, no problem. It gave me a chance to showcase my casual addidas on the hard courts of STREETBALL CABALLITO (translation streetball little horse).
I rolled on up to the court around 4 p.m. with a bike that I found in my house. It took me a bit of time because the bike had pedal brakes. I found that when I wanted to cross the street before ongoing traffic I tried to wheel the pedal around back for optimum foot acceleration power, but instead of blazing across "sin problema" I spun the pedal which braked the movement and made me stop right in the middle of the street like a deer in the headlights for oncoming traffic. I survived but it was an interesting return to 1st grade and pedal brakes.
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| From basquet |
When I arrived on the scene, I was immediately recruited to play with one of the teams. I was surprised considering I hadn't even locked up my bike, but there weren't too many people and I guess they thought "yeah, this guy plays bueno, he shoots less bricks than everyone else."
In any case, I accepted the invitation. However, the hot day with the burning sun, and little warm up time made the game with the other team look like a less publicized version of the NCAA championship game. My team was decent, but we couldn't match up with the "Gringo" (a pale white Argentine dude), the "Cordobés" (a guy who was from the Argentine province of Cordoba) and Jesus (a hippie, skinny Argentinian with long black hair and beard, or in other words he had a direct resemblance to Jesus). The other team had no problem yelling out Gringo, or Jesus in English when calling the attention of their teammates, and in the end the few shots I put in the hoop couldn't match the spiritual court calm of Jesus and Co.
After the game ended, I headed to the drinking fountain to get some water and I saw my good buddy Edgar. He was back for some more street ball. I asked him if he wanted to join together but he had already formed a team with a couple of other players. As we briefly sat and chatted in between games, the Haitian Jo-Jo arrived with his buddy Jay. Jay had on his b-basketball shoes and apparel, but Jo-Jo was dressed in his gansta gear equipped with sunglasses, chain necklace, and a blingin' belt buckle with a Marijuana leaf which you could spin.
Surprised by his outfit I asked him if he was playing, but he seemed to have other plans in mind. Meanwhile, Edgar got together with his team of decent players including the Ecuadorian with whom I had played in the last episode, and their 4 foot 8 inch secret weapon "Max Steel."
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| From basquet |
Max wasn't his real name but it was the unfortunate nickname Claudio the pizza man gave him while they were playing. I had played with Max before and I knew he could ball fairly well despite his height disadvantage. The only problem was that he could be double teamed easily which in many cases caused forced turnovers. Surprised by the small baller, Edgar asked me if he was any good and I ignorantly said "no," I would soon regret such statements.
I patiently waited court side as Edgar, the Ecuadorian Johnny, and Max took on the Gringo, the Cordobés, and last but not least Jesus. It sounded like some pay-per-view WWF battle royal match made in heaven. All eyes were on the court. Edgar surprised me with a couple of great baskets, but the most surprising player of all was Mighty Max Steel. He dribbled this way, and that way, split the double team of the Gringo and Jesus and then nailed a couple of gravity defying bank would be three pointers if there was a three point line.
Everyone watched in awe as the heavenly dynasty was vanquished by the unlikely cast of characters. I joined together with my previous team and we took to the court to see what this wonder team was all about. I was laid back as we jokingly took some warm up shots, but the atmosphere would change once the game began.
We played the typical zone defense because a lot of the time everyone got too tired playing man to man. I was playing up top, squaring off in most cases with Señor Max Steel. As soon as he dribbled the ball up, I could see the sheer determination in his eyes. As the smallest one on the court he played with a chip on his shoulder, and a quickness unmatched by anyone else. Trying to the steal the ball was impossible, as he weaved in and out bouncing the ball between everyone on our defense. Also, dribbling was difficult as he remained eye level with ball.
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| From basquet |
The game was close, when suddenly Max brought up the ball, I could see an intense fire in his eyes, as he ran past me. I recovered well, and as he jumped up,somewhat fading away, I reached out with my left hand to try and swipe away the long distance jumper. However the ball quickly left his hand, flew over mine, floated in the air for several seconds and everyone watched in silent court disbelief as the ball banked hard off the backboard and straight in the basket. Cheers erupted, and even I couldn´t help but acknowledge the incredible and lucky Michael Jordan fadeaway jumper.
Yet, despite all of Max Steel´s incredible heroics, our team somehow pulled out the victory, and moved on to the next team. As the game began, several players on the bench said "bye" to Jesus as he road his bike out the gates of the plaza and left us alone to decide humanity´s destiny on the basketball court. The so called destiny for my team´s next game happened to be defeat. It was a hard fought struggle but the other team recruited some big guys and we couldn´t maintain the winning streak.
Disappointed I walked off the court to the sounds of Claudio screaming, "Jesus, se resucitó!" or "Jesus has resurrected, Jesus has resurrected!" Approaching on bicycle with a water bottle in hand, Jesus returned to the hard fought courts of Caballito to join his fallen comrades from the previous games. They needed one more player and I was invited by Jesus (I might add) to join together as we aimed to win back the concrete cage.
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