Mike Gallay2013-06-19T02:55:41-04:00Mike Gallayhttp://www.huffingtonpost.ca/author/index.php?author=mike-gallayCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Mike GallayGood old fashioned elbow grease.Even Atheists Get the Blues, er, Blue Sweaterstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.11727272011-12-29T13:05:03-05:002012-02-28T05:12:02-05:00Mike Gallayhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-gallay/
Unfortunately, that is a statement I cannot make honestly. I don't know what happened. My wife and I had just finished dinner -- an inexpensive $18 vegetarian sushi dinner -- when we took stock of our evening. Dog had been walked, fed, wrestled, loved. Projects had been started, neglected, resumed, abandoned. It was too early for the netherworld of my late night writing to commence; it was too late to commit to a movie. Out of character, we did what we are nurtured by our corporate masters to do: we went shopping.
On the surface, our decision can be interpreted as responsible, even frugal. We don't practice any particular winter tradition so we had not spent much during the holiday season, save for Sea Monkeys contributed to a secret Santa game. Neither of us is much of a consumer, so setting out to a mall when the bulk of merchandise is reduced to post-Christmas, recession-busting prices seems like a fantastic opportunity for two economizers to purchase some highly utilitarian items. Gruel and paste and itching powders. Nothing fancy here.
Ennui quickly set in. We had spent nearly 60 minutes in the mall -- Yorkdale, a fire-breathing monster of brand-speak -- and I had reached my limit. We had done well, coupling a 40 per cent-off store-wide discount at American Eagle with some 25 per cent-off cashier coupons, which resulted in me purchasing one $49.50 shirt for $23. I would sleep well tonight.
Unfortunately, a security tag in our one lonely bag kept setting off alarms, so while my wife tried on bargain sale shoes, I departed in search of a retail expert at American Eagle to remove the offending tag.
And here, dear reader, is where the trouble starts.
You see, I like soft things. Pudding, duvets, Muppet hair. And I have one particularly soft and oh so fancy sweater that stands apart in my collection of drab uniforms. It is a sparkling silver silk (it deserves all the alliteration I can bestow) V-neck sweater from Banana Republic (read: Bangladesh). I have had it for at least four years, maybe seven, and I have no idea how I came to have it, but it's mine and you can't have it and I wear it for every special occasion and on Tuesdays.
If you are in possession of a photo containing both you and I, and we are not in my living room, chances are I am wearing the sweater.
Only, I spatter and trip and hug dirty puppies too much. I have pushed my luck through pierogi parties, drunken housewarmings and garage-studio homemade-wine sessions. I need a backup plan.
Maybe this guy can help. What's your name, kind sir?
Harry Rosen, said the mall.
I texted my wife four times before I entered. I was scared and lost and scared three more times. I was in over my head just considering the store. What does it all mean? Why does everyone walking into it seem like the privileged son of an oil baron? Plus, I find the name Harry hilarious. There are people, lots of people, named Harry. I want to meet all those parents who made that decision. They are comic geniuses.
And here's where it all went to Hell, capital Harry. Soft lighting. Mahogany table. A 50 per cent off sign. Soft sweaters. In a circle. Lots of tables. Lots of circles. Security guard. Have to prove I'm a legitimate shopper. Must. Choose sweater. So many colours. Different kinds of necks. Different kinds of soft. I swear I belong here. So many sweaters.
Jimmy, the store clerk, approaches me. Now I should tell you, I assume instinctively that every sales clerk who has ever approached me in a clothing store understands two basic things about me:
1) I do not know how to shop.
2) I do not want to learn how to shop.
But Jimmy, the sweater baron, is as awkward in his poorly-ironed suit and I've-been-working-retail-for-10-straight-hours-and-26-straight-days attitude as I am in my shopping capacity. We do not look like a Harry Rosen commercial. Next thing I know he's carting four sweaters, each worth more than everything I'm currently wearing including my wedding band (don't tell my wife), towards a change room. Oh, things were about to change.
As I walked the long green mile to the room, led by Jimmy, my personal shopper, notes of Bobby De Niro as Sam Rothstein in Casino, summing up the peasant tastes of Lester Diamond, furtively danced in my mind, trying to soothe me. "He doesn't know what the f--- a good watch is." Yeah, I don't even know what a good sweater is! And how much are these anyway? Half off! Maybe even half off half off? What's the worst, 80 bucks? C'mon, that's a lot for a sweater but I'm making the big documentary dollars now. Deep breaths. Self-soothe.
In a moment of genuine weakness, I even justified the sweaters being made in China -- something I try to limit in my wardrobe -- in that silkworms come from China, dummy! Only, it is cashmere and maybe more likely to be from a goat in Mongolia. I don't know. I didn't remember the room spinning this much earlier.
I then made the biggest mistake of my fiscal 2011 period: I tried a sweater on. It was blue and had great pile and gorgeous ribbing and other things people in the sweater industry rave about. I pulled it over my mussed hair, down overtop my $12 hipster T-shirt with the 100 vintage cameras drawn on it, down overtop the body that didn't want to be in a Harry Rosen change room and I slowly looked up at the mirror.
Damn. That is one good looking sweater hanging off the ripped torso of one good looking man. I can't believe Father hasn't called me about whether I can use the yacht this weeke---oh no, what was happening?
My wife arrived, marvelled at the pile and the ribbing, but was surprised to find I might buy something so expensive. To her credit, she remained encouraging (perhaps her own version of Jimmy, a.k.a. Donna, the Aldo Shoes boot pusher, had something to do with that). No, this was happening. This blue cashmere sweater was going to be mine because both it and I look and feel fantastic and I would like this feeling to last. I feel warmer in this sweater. If it's possible, I think I lost a pound in my midsection since I pulled this sweater over my head. I am absolutely positive people will like me more in this sweater. This sweater is a fine purchase, maybe even something that can help the world. This sweater is a job creator.
Jimmy, the messenger of Death, now walks me to the cash, and in a Verbal Kint-revealing-he's-Keyser Soze-esque blow to my ego, he confides in me, and this is ver-freaking-batim, "Must be nice to be able to shop at Harry Rosen. I can't afford anything in here. Did you notice any good sales anywhere else in the mall? I need to buy a few things."
And that was Jimmy, the guy I spent the next three minutes trying to convince I am poorer than him.
So now I'm home. The sweater is sitting in the other room inside the handsome bag that Jimmy, the professional liar, did a bang-up job putting together. I can't even bring myself to look at it. Somehow, in the barrier reef of my wife's Yorkdale bags, it seems a world apart, maybe nonexistent. Sigh. Somewhere a Mastercard executive is saying, "See I told you he wasn't a communist!"
But I can't spread blame. After two months of the mass-media proselytizing the merits of having stuff, I am just another little list-making child, responding to the stings from Santa's arrows and buying blue sweaters in search of fulfilment.
Thankfully, where once I was blind, now I see. And if I ever again bump into Jimmy, the guy I plan to bump into tomorrow, I might say something that goes like this: "What's your return policy?"
I do not buy $225 sweaters.]]>Letter to a Toronto Blue Jays Fan: Resurrect the Original Logotag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9183112011-08-04T20:18:44-04:002011-10-04T05:12:02-04:00Mike Gallayhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-gallay/
As a teenager, even more misguided than I am today, I crafted a lengthy document entitled "The Hartford Proposal". It was an attempt to convey to then-management of the NHL's Hartford Whalers -- who were teetering on the edge of losing their team -- all the various tactics and strategies they could implement to broaden and enthuse their fan base. It was earnest and bold and progressive and never got sent.
A few years later they were the Carolina Hurricanes. "Never again," I vowed to myself, between games of RBI Baseball.
Today I am writing to you of a similarly urgent matter. At times I have come to you for guidance, for revelry, for community. We have shared suds in the good times and even more of them in the bad. We have a common bond, you and I. Our Mastercards are emblazoned with Blue Jays and we each know what WAMCO stands for, now and forever. We bleed baby blue.
This is an exciting time for us. As we surmised recently, with the acquisition of Colby Rasmus, the minor league trajectory of Brett Lawrie, and the indefatigable climb of Jose Bautista, the Jays are on the rise. Baseball commissioner Bud Selig wants to expand the current playoff setup to include at least one additional wild card team, freeing us from the spectre of the Red Sox and Yankees buying first and second place in the division and inhibiting our chances at the post-season.
Our minor league system is replete with talent at every level. Our current roster is loaded with promising developments. Some games the crowds even thicken to the level where we can get The Wave off the ground. The resurgence is real. The revolution both televised and webcast.
But something is amiss. Not long ago, you and I took part in the Roberto Alomar ceremony, sharing joy and spreading reminiscence as his number 12 was retired. Taunting us in 20-foot-high detail, there it was, on the video board, the missing link from the past and what we so desperately need moving forward.
In 1997, with the team floundering -- as was much of baseball in the wake of the 1994 strike -- a desperate Blue Jays team, one that had grown accustomed to setting attendance records, gave up on itself. Twenty years of proud Toronto fans would be forced to acclimate to a new logo, then another cartoonish version in 2000, a total redesign in 2002, and again in 2004 and 2007, each one growing more faceless, more bereft of the championship quality of the original.
To be sure, the Blue Jays aren't the only championship team to tread in these murky waters. In 1995, coming off consecutive championships and boasting a reinvigorated fanbase, the NBA's Houston Rockets decided to pull the plug on their logo of 23 seasons, one that suddenly had victory in its stitching. The internet is awash with Houstonians pleading for the return of their former symbol. At least the Jays waited four years.
Would the Yankees dismiss their pinstripes? Never. When they struggled in the 1980s did they remove the stylized, overlapping "NY" on their caps? Fuhgeddaboudit. Time in between championships is just time in between championships.
(Sidebar: The altering of a uniform or logo almost always emerges as an act of desperation. I am an unabashed Atlanta Hawks fan, circa 1984-1994. They went through exactly what the Jays are going through. They had an easily identifiable logo, one that had been made famous (in their case) by the best player in the franchise's history -- Dominique Wilkins -- and it was bold and simple and classic. In 1995 both Dominique and the logo were gone, replaced by a host of imposters and eight logo variations in the past 13 seasons. The fanbase never recovered its pride. There is a lesson here. The Blue Jays, like the city itself, needs to have more self-respect.)
When the Jays first won in 1992 and again the next year, the logo and uniform were minted. Done. Forever a classic. Somewhere an 18-year-old Alvin "Xzibit" Joiner was thinking, "You just been pimped." Years of record-setting crowds, tiny bat giveaways and BJ Birdie-led "OK Blue Jays" chants had brought us to the promised land. We could wear our baby blues with the pride of victors.
When Alomar's number 12 was emblazoned on the field last weekend, as it was hung on an outfield banner, and as it was retired in a video tribute, the logo was ubiquitous alongside the line-within-a-line lettering that defines the Blue Jays style. It felt like old times but it also presented the glaringly awkward aspect of the moment: seeing the Jays of lore in the original uniforms and the smart variations of the late '80s and '90s, juxtaposed against the team's current threads, you and I couldn't help feel a shooting pang of disconnect through the entire event. Those damned faceless, italicized New Coke uniforms. I seethed. You seethed.
Now let me take us to the bridge. My purpose is less to gripe and more to force action. I am taking time out of my busy day of trivial contemplation and idle puzzling to write you. Time away from deliberately confusing my dog. Time away from checking and re-checking who of my friends posted drunken pictures from the long weekend. Quality time I'm taking.
We can make this happen. Bring back the old logo, not as a third jersey, sometimes-on-a-Friday type deal. We have to send a message. With a change to the post-season structure, a deep pool of emerging talent and a general manager in Alex Anthopoulos who is as impressive and trusted as his last name is tough to spell, we have our opening. We need the logo back for next year. Spring training. Pride back.
If you're with me, please treat the comment section below like a petition. Sign it and demand we bring the original Toronto Blue Jays logo back. The logo of Doug Ault's 1977 opening day two homers. The logo of 1978 Rookie of the Year Alfredo Griffin. The logo of Bobby Cox. The logo of the greatest outfield of the '80s, George Bell, The Shaker and Jesse Barfield. The logo of the Terminator, Tom Henke. The logo of the upstart 1985 division winners. The logo of WAMCO. The logo of the only team other than New York to win back-to-back championships in the past 35 years. The logo that brought out the colour in Roy Halladay's eyes. The logo that adorns the bronzed cap of Roberto Alomar Velazquez in Cooperstown. The logo that needs to be the logo of Joey Bats. The logo of Toronto.
Please sign and distribute. Let us bring the pride back without the cloying tactics of the Maple Leafs' "Spirit Is Everything" or "The Passion That Unites Us All" campaigns. Not necessary. All we need is a link to our championship past. One that we will be able to connect with our championship future.
And seriously, I can't look at that hideous italicized "T" for another season.
Much love and respect,
Mulliniks Gallay]]>O Canada: Anthem Overloadtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8735642011-07-01T18:06:55-04:002011-08-31T05:12:01-04:00Mike Gallayhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-gallay/
I had just settled into my seat, a deep purple lumpy thing that soon would have my sciatic nerve twitching. A tub of popcorn braced in my left hand, tilted slightly to the west, that my wife might graze as well. My right arm, graciously inside the armrest (I am nothing without manners), strained to keep still the weight of my giant cola beverage, its icy refrigeration cubes numbing my fingertips and palm.
My feet, stationary for several minutes now, had ceased to aimlessly manoeuvre to a fresh spot; I had grown accustomed to the sticky relationship I had made with the floor. We would be one for the next two hours, an affair of convenience and -- cleanliness be damned! -- I was okay with it.
And then came the bugles. Wretched brassy plague of the beast! How dare you disturb my fragile peace, interrupting the righteous flow of 14 commercials into nine trailers into several warnings regarding smartphone etiquette into the nearly three-dimensional feature film I had paid $37 for us to moderately enjoy!
"All rise, and please remove your caps."
No! Infernal meddler! Why must I rise for the anthem prior to my local cinematic experience?! Why? O Canada why? Keepful God? Commanding sons? Why?? The year was 1958.
Ahem.
I consider myself a good Canadian. When I'm abroad I am polite and people think, "Oh he's so nice and make him say aboot again." I am socially liberal and fiscally responsible. I am deeply passionate about ridiculous things and tend to declare those passions while speaking into my chest. I know curse words in a dozen languages. I like beer. I am stereotypically amusing and harmless. I am Canadian. I get it.
When someone raises a flag on Canada Day, sure, terrific, I'm with you. Bob and Doug forever. When it's time to honour our brave war veterans, no doubt, they're the champs. Pass me another Tim Horton's maple glaze. But when I attend a game to cheer on the local collection of rink-circlers or orb-dribblers or base-yankers, I don't feel it's a relevant or appropriate place for the anthem. Surely not any more than it would be prior to a picture show at the local cinematheque.
I would like to see us free ourselves from the guilt that not being a rah-rah patriot makes you somehow less than Canadian. Our understated nature is a significant part of what makes Canada so fantastic and so livable and so special. When asked, I am from Toronto first, Canada second. This isn't because I don't value my citizenship; it's because I put my community first. What matters most to me are the places I feel and touch, the people I feel and touch, the drunk tanks I feel and touch.
I know Taos, Los Angeles and Buffalo far better than I do Victoria, Thunder Bay or Yellowknife. And -- gasp! -- I may have more in common with the residents of the former cities than the latter. Doesn't make me a bad Canadian.
I am proud of my country -- assuming I don't stare directly at 24 Sussex Drive -- but I might feel more in common with someone in urban Helsinki than someone in northern Ontario. I might feel more kinship with an English speaker in Kolkata than a French speaker in Laval. Doesn't make me a bad Canadian.
It is a fast-changing world. Communication technologies are altering our social associations, ever-reshaping our identity. Religiosity and patriotism change slowly. This past month provided galvanizing moments to which I questioned what identities I was committed.
June began with the commemoration of D-Day, the infamous 67-year-old battle fought on the shores of Normandy, France, where hundreds of thousands of troops -- American, Canadian, British and international -- made a heroic assault on five beaches held by Nazi troops. Like many around the world, I salute their efforts and their courage.
That said, I am not a patriot. I'm all for nationalism when it arrives in the form of the elderly staging battle reenactments in local dog parks, or as an essential element in the back-story of a 1980s-era wrestling villain. On a personal level, I tend to place nationalism in the same bag I do religiosity: if you believe in it, fine, but don't tread on me.
As an insatiable sports fan, one of my guilty pleasures is the consumption of sports call-in radio. It's mostly banal fare, but occasionally it strikes a nerve. On Monday, June 6, Andrew Krystal, host of the aptly-named The Andrew Krystal Show on Sportsnet Radio The Fan 590, dedicated much of his program to cynically suggest we should eliminate anthems prior to sporting events. His genuine motivation was to scold non-chest-thumping patriots, those he feels forget to celebrate the liberties provided to us by the spoils of bygone wars. He asserted that "sports and war go together" and that we Canadians are "lazy and sick" due to our lack of patriotism.
"They say Vancouver is Canada's team but there is only one Canada's team and that's the Canadian military." - Andrew Krystal (June 6, 2011)
Radio shock-jockery is low-hanging fruit for inflammatory rhetoric, I know, but this attitude grew exponentially as the Stanley Cup Finals developed over the middle of June, with most media outlets insisting fans across Canada should rightfully root for the Vancouver Canucks because it was the patriotic thing to do. (Never mind that Boston had seven more Canadians on their active roster.)
Maybe this form of blind patriotism appeals to some, but I don't see the positivity to it. What metrics are being used to determine correct levels of patriotic fervour? Should I root a little less for Dominican Jose Bautista's moonshots than Toronto-native Joey Votto's dingers? It's all so confusing. Maybe, to measure all this, we need some sort of government-mandated Patriot Act. (Perhaps a poor choice of titles.)
Now, as June has passed into July, and another Canada Day celebration comes and goes, I'm content to honk a horn or be awed at a fireworks display in honour of Canada. But I don't want to doff my cap before attending a show at the Horseshoe. I don't feel the need to clear my throat and belt a few prior to my salad bowl at Fresh. And I do not want to stand and salute and feign solemnity before the opening pitch.
Andrew Krystal's brand of nationalism has always represented -- for me -- exclusion as much as inclusion. I don't want to stand for an anthem if it means hailing invented gods and armed men and specifically men. That is not the spirit in which I watch and support a local sports team whose players may have derived from any and all points on the planet. It is not in the spirit to which I am proudly Canadian.
I like being from a place that's ethnically who-the-hell-cares. Order your double double and move to the end of the counter. I like being from a place that doesn't need to puff out its chest. I like being part of the less than one per cent of the planet in on our little secret.
So happy birthday Canada, happy birthday to a series of lines on a map and guard booths on a road, but really happy birthday to tolerance wherever it resides. I don't need an anthem before a local event to remind me to be a good citizen. The magic of living in Canada is the opportunity to be a "good Canadian" in a whole lotta different ways.
O Canada
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
- Justice Robert Stanley Weir, 1908
]]>The Day I Won The NBA Finalstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8762512011-06-14T11:47:58-04:002011-08-14T05:12:02-04:00Mike Gallayhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-gallay/
You probably missed the part where Mark Cuban chose me to accept the championship trophy as it was handed over from commissioner David Stern, or when I dribbled out the dying seconds of the fourth quarter clock, or any of the in-rhythm three-pointers I made down the stretch, but make no mistake -- I won these Finals.
My preparations started on July 8, 2010. Up to that point my relationship with professional basketball was unremarkable. I played four hours a day as a kid, years on end, praying for a freak pituitary condition to strike me (it didn't).
I grew up idolizing Dominique Wilkins, Spud Webb and the Atlanta Hawks, wore number 25 in EVERY sport as a combination of their numbers (21 and four respectively), and made my bedroom walls a shrine to my NBA heroes (and Stephanie Seymour).
On Feb. 24, 1994 -- The Day My Face Melted -- I suffered through the horrendous, lopsided trade that sent my beloved Dominique to the Clippers for Danny Manning. I spent the next few years wandering the basketball wilderness, occasionally inebriated, searching for a place to rest.
In the late 1990s, while I was working as a writer in Los Angeles, Kobe Bryant emerged as my Nique 2.0. I relished those first three Kobe/Shaq Laker titles with a passion reborn, and my enthusiasm for the NBA was back, so much so that I took up work producing for the Toronto Raptors, a job I remained at for nearly five seasons.
Ultimately those seasons tested my resolve as the vigour of youth drained from me -- also known as MLSEFS or Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment Fatigue Syndrome -- but while my love for this or that player or team lessened, my love for the NBA remained. I found myself without a basketball purpose, trudging through the NBA diaspora, pumped-up sneakers in tow. Still I hustled my aching knees up and down the court twice a week for years, just to keep loose in case I got the call from the A-league.
On July 8, 2010, I got the call. I refer to it as The Second Day My Face Melted. You may know it as The Decision. On that fateful day, Lebron James, native son of Ohio, seven-year veteran of the Cleveland Cavaliers, and arguably the most talented basketball player of the new century, now-infamously declared in an overwrought ESPN special that he would take his talents to South Beach and play basketball for the Miami Heat. This bothered me on 1,016 levels, but here are the six pertinent to this discussion:
1. You dance with the one that brung you. I'm a basketball purist. If you want to go down as a legend in this league, or any league, win with who drafted you. Jordan. Magic. Bird. Russell. Kobe. Duncan. Hell, lose with who drafted you. Stockton. Malone. Ewing. Elgin. Reggie. And up until this week, Dirk.
2. The arrogance of it all. After months of Sarah Palin-esque self-concocted media hype, Lebron held a one-hour live special on ESPN to announce his future plans to ditch the city that cherished him, that spoiled and fawned all over him, and didn't consider there might be negative fallout. It was the most brazen, thoughtless "screw you" any athlete has ever given to his adoring fans. That he referenced himself in the third person five times in under an hour did not help.
3. Not knowing what it means to be a fan. As ESPN aired a live shot of Cavs fans burning his jersey, James continued to utter that "the real fans will love me for who I am." No Lebron. In sports, your real fans love you for the game you play in the region they support. That's why Cleveland fans loved Craig Ehlo in 1989 even as Michael Jordan hit 'The Shot' over him. You root for your guy in your town. Want to know what it means to be a fan? Sapphire in Almost Famous knows.
4. He went to Miami. He didn't move to New York to be the biggest star on the biggest stage. He didn't go to Chicago, to put himself in the best possible position to win for years to come. He went to Miami, the worst sports town in North America. Look up Florida Marlins or Panthers attendance records. Want to attend a barren, lifeless, arrive-30-minutes-late-leave-15-minutes-early game? Go to Miami. Worst. Fans. North America.
6. Next up, Kevin Durant. It was the moment I realized Lebron, who I had theretofore respected and even admired, was never going to amount to basketball greatness. Forget him. Forget Bosh's insipid preening or Wade foolishly claiming the new Big Three now formed "arguably the best trio to ever play the game of basketball." Somebody has to teach these chumps a lesson. Kobe? KG? Durant? Dirk?
The rest of July was a blur. I hadn't been this riled up about sports since 1994 (which coincided with Dominique at his peak and his nadir, the Doug Gilmour Maple Leafs renaissance years, and the end of the Blue Jays decade of dominance). I couldn't shake The Decision. It seeped into my every conversation. I implored others to listen to my rants (now longer and more vitriolic than usual). I needed to vent.
I needed to go to Cleveland.
Dec. 2, 2010. People actually said I was crazy. Not just a line you write in a column. My wife agreed. I set out on a solo mission to Cleveland to be present for the return of Lebron James to Quicken Loans Arena. I wasn't writing a column or shooting a documentary. I didn't have good seats. I was Ohio, angry, bitter and anxious. I drove through five hours of North Tonawanda snowstorms to arrive at the most anticipated NBA regular season game... ever.
Based on expectations, Miami had started the season slowly. They were an unimposing 11-8 before tip-off, putting fear in few, unable to beat anyone on the road or any team with a quality record. On the other side, Cleveland, predicted to be terrible, found themselves in the final playoff spot, an Eastern Conference-respectable 7-10. Hanging around. This was gonna be epic. The building was electric. The chants were hilarious. The hatred was palpable, bonding and exhilarating. The game?
Miami 118. Cleveland 90.
The drive back to Toronto that night was long and cold and lonely. Wistful Wilco songs on the satellite radio did not help. Cleveland would lose 34 of their next 35 games. Miami would win 18 of their next 19. Trajectories divided. Lebron ascending.
I spent the entire season cheering for whoever played the Heat. The Charlotte Bobcats are playing 'em? I frickin' love the Carolinas. Gimme another Pepsi Cola. They're in Boston? Who cares that Dominique's most famous moment was losing to Larry Legend in Celtic Green. Go Celts. Lebron was playing H.O.R.S.E. against the guy who killed Inigo Montoya's father? Go six-fingered man, go.
By the time playoffs commenced in April, I had chosen my team: whoever was playing the Miami Heat. I was no band-wagoner either; I had been a fan of that team from the day we were awarded the franchise*. (*July 8, 2010) For brevity sake, this was my playoffs up until the Finals, as told in haiku:
Philadelphia
Expected a sweep, no shame
At least you won one
The Celtics, my hope
My Laker pride put aside
Turns out they were old
Meanwhile back out West
Kobe Bryant vanquished. Hard.
Please Dirk be for real
Thunder still growing
The Bulls, not a full bouquet
'06 the sequel
And then there were two. Miami and Dallas (read: Lebron and me). Okay, I can make a home in my heart for Dallas. They are my kinda team. Mid-30s, awkward-looking and devoted. I've unabashedly admired Coach Carlisle since he transformed the Raptors' 'Scoreless' Williamson (2001) into the Detroit Pistons' Corliss Williamson, Sixth Man of the Year (2002).
Yeah, I can do this. I can get behind Jason Kidd. He's slowed to the point where I feel I could hit a few shots over him. I like that in an NBA player. Speaking of shadowy versions of myself, J.J. Barea, my height, my weight, roughly 40,000 times my basketball superior. Actually, I think I'm taller than him. 41,000.
Dirk Nowitzki is the bonus. He is the waking up on Monday morning, feeling lousy, unprepared for the workday, then realizing it's a long weekend. Dirk is the potential for relief. He is everything I wish to be when I wish to be a seven-foot European sharpshooter. He doesn't celebrate clutch shots. He doesn't go on tirades or slip into moody funks. He just takes care of business. He vanquishes teams and hits the showers. He makes impossible last-second shots. Repeatedly. He is Ivan Drago and Rocky Balboa combined. He is a player to be celebrated. A Jew hasn't idolized a German this much since Oskar Schindler.
I don't have to describe the brilliance of these Finals games or the manner in which Dallas triumphed because you can watch them on classic sports replays for decades to come. The Star Wars-esque simplicity of this series -- the basic George W. Bush good versus evil to it -- made them so easy to access. Either you're with us or you're with the egoists. This is the old, bent-but-not-broken warrior taking one last stab, one last effort to overcome the sinister, youthful creation of the times... and the old dude wins. Cleveland wins. I win.
In those last few moments, as I dribbled out the clock in the hush of the South Florida night, amidst a blur of tweets, hope, texts and excitement, a promise of something wonderful emerged: I was going to win the NBA Finals and I was going to win it the right way. I had put in the time and the effort. Three weeks ago I wasn't even a Mavs fan and now here I was, shock of shocks, top of mountains, nearly 12 months of anguish and pleading later, about to win the NBA Finals.
The cameras and microphones pointed at me. The battle had been won. Comment? Still breathless:
"We worked so hard and so long for it. I really still can't believe it." - Dirk "Mike Gallay" Nowitzki
*Sidenote 1: Lenny Wilkens, former coach of the Toronto Raptors, was the coach helming the Hawks during the infamous trade. His name is like Voldemort to me. I shake when I see him. He thought Manning would be an upgrade. Over DOMINIQUE WILKINS. They were in first place at the time. In the league. Jordan was retired. Years later, in 2002, I was working camera at the Air Canada Centre during a Raptors practice. I was instructed to film a Lenny Wilkens interview. That interview never made it to air. I shook the whole time, massive, swelling shakes of pure rage. I think I blacked out for a good three days afterward. It's possible I killed him and quickly resuscitated him. I can't be sure; the footage is unusable.
**Sidenote 2: In early 2004, I was assigned my first-ever player interview. It was with then-Atlanta Hawks shooting guard, Jason Terry. I had little prepared for the interview and fumbled through every question. Somehow reverting to my 9-year-old self, I asked Terry if he, as an Atlanta Hawk, was also a Dominique Wilkins fan, just like me. He looked past me (I assume looking for the parents of this stray child) and hit the locker room. I'm still glad I asked it.]]>