Last Thursday night I went to the Knicks versus Heat game in Madison Square Garden.
I had this game circled on my calendar since the moment I knew I was coming to work (by work I mean internship for college credit) at the New York Daily news. To see LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Amar’e Stoudemire all on the same floor in the venue that is referred to as “The Mecca of Basketball,” was something I dreamed could happen, but really couldn’t see how it would.
Going into the week I was in charge of organizing the top fifteen baseball players at each position and writing down their at bats, batting averages, home runs, rbi, runs scored, stolen bases, on-base-percentages, slugging percentages, and the mysterious stat called “OPS,” which, after a ten minute Google search, I still really have no idea what the hell it means. Oh, and I had to do that for each player for their past three seasons.
Now the problem with baseball is, well it’s baseball. I went to a baseball writer’s dinner the week before and in attendance was the National League and American League MVP’s, both Cy Youngs, Rookie of the Years, and a few other players. Honestly, the only person I recognized was Roy Halladay. There is no way at a basketball dinner I would look across the room and then ask the people around me, “Wait, is that 6’8 black guy over there LeBron James?”
Organizing baseball stats is terrifying, because baseball fans know statistics better than any other sports fan, mathematician, or combination of the two in the world. If I write down Joey Votto’s mysterious OPS from 2008 as 0.871 instead of 0.874 I can almost guarantee the New York Daily News phone lines will explode with angry Fantasy Baseball owners who chose not to pick Votto with their first round pick due to the .003 underselling from their magazine.
In basketball I don’t need to tell people that Kobe averages 25.5 ppg this season to prove he is the best player in basketball (if you prefer LeBron just insert “one of the bests” in the previous sentence), fans of basketball already know. Baseball is almost entirely driven by stats.
The problem with this is Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds blew up those numbers so high in their era that when I hear people rave about Albert Pujols hitting 42 home runs last year or Jose Bautista hitting 54 all I can think is, “Well yeah, but didn’t Bonds hit like 110?”
So while I am organizing the statistics and feeling somewhere in between an accountant and Link from the Matrix, I was asked to run off 100 copies of this type of obscurely sized layout sheet. This was my nightmare.
The copy machine is one of two ultimate sizzle scenarios in the office that I assumed would both fall under my jurisdiction. The problem with running off copies is it’s a job that is assumed you will do right and there is absolutely no room for error. If you’re assigned to write a story and you make a typo or grammatical error (which I’m sure my Facebook notes are full of) the editors catch it, correct it, and things continue on smoothly. You screw up running off copies and don’t center the original document causing everything to come out just a little bit off to one direction, you might as well turn in your badge and call it a career.
The other sizzle scenario located within feet of the copy machine is a task I pray to God I will never have to be in charge of. The task: Refilling the water cooler.
This horrifying water cooler task is on par with the difficulty of brain surgery, but receives about the same glory as successfully shredding a document. I don’t know where I would even begin in trying to pull this event off even remotely successfully. Somehow in the refill of the water cooler process you are flipping over a 10 gallon tank, lid off, onto the white stand trying not to dump the whole thing on the inconveniently located copy machine, fax machine, and accompanying printers. The water cooler will never be located in a corner with water-safe equipment or towels nearby, it always has to have that element of danger to scare away interns like myself. At least two times this week I went to the water cooler, saw the tank running dangerously low, saw the "if-you-finish-it-you-refill-it" looks on the co-workers faces, before I slowly slipped away back to my desk.
Copy machine and water cooler fears aside, I have really loved my first couple weeks at work. I’ve been amazed that I haven’t been the guy who gets coffee for the guy who brings coffee to the editors, but at the same time I know my place and that things like the Knicks versus Heat game are by no means events I should expect to go to.
As for buying the tickets on my own, cheapest seats on Stubhub were for 100 dollars and I figured I couldn’t rationalize Ashley’s Valentines Day/upcoming birthday/Christmas 2011 gift as nose-bleed seats to the Knicks game with me. So I simply continued my work on the baseball player’s stats and finally worked up the courage to ask if they needed any help on a potential side-bar or graphic relating toward Amar’e Stoudemire being an All-Star. A few minutes later I was asked if I wanted to go to the game.
Professionally, I probably shouldn’t have let my eyes get as big as they did or reply instantly with an, “Oh absolutely,” but I couldn’t help it. Going to this game would make a semester’s worth of water cooler sizzles worth it, and I refused to give him anytime to change his mind. At 4:30 on Thursday, January 27th I was on my way over to Madison Square Garden.
Now to clear things up, this wasn’t me heading over to the game to write a recap story or a profile on Amar’e, this was me heading over to the game to see how the whole process works and be of any help to the three real writers there. I could not have been any happier.
I arrived and received my press-pass lanyard. I went up to the sixth floor and followed the writer I was with to the pressroom. Inside this room were about a hundred writers from everywhere from the Daily News, NBA.com, to the Wall Street Journal. I attempted to look like I knew what I was doing and looked around for the intern cubicle that I knew didn’t exist. Eventually I settled in at the, “Who is that guy?” table and then made my way down to the locker room hallway.
This is when things started to become surreal. The first people I saw to my right were LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Craig Sager. The hallway to my left was Kenny “The Jet” Smith, who laughs just as much in real life as he does on TNT, and walking toward me were Reggie Miller and Steve Kerr. When Steve Kerr approached me I let out a, “Hey Steve,” tried not to cringe at how stupid I sounded, and received his, “Hey, how you doing?” in stride. Realizing I should start at least looking the part, I pulled out my Steno notepad and followed the reporters to circle around Miami Heat coach Eric Spolstra.
“I hear Dwyane Wade is not allowed to wear the goggles he was practicing with, is this true?” asks Random Reporter A
“They were tinted too much,” Spolstra replied. “Now there’s ‘Goggle-gate.’”
Somewhere along the lines after Watergate, there’s been this consensus in the sports world that putting the word “gate” at the end of any controversy will always be funny. Bellicheck’s “Spygate” got more references on ESPN then anything I can remember. Sure enough, everyone laughed at Spolstra’s “Goggle-gate” and I’m sure half of the crowd immediately tweeted about it.
“It gave Dwyane an unfair advantage since opponents were not able to see his eyes,” Spolstra continued.
I can relate to this rule since my rec-specs goggles received a similar ruling in that opposing players couldn’t stop laughing at me when I had them on. Maybe adding tint to mine would’ve made me look cool like Wade did in his, but instead I suffered from the little known rule in basketball that if there’s a foul and the refs don’t know who it’s on, it will always be awarded to the ugliest white guy near the play. When you’re playing with rec-specs, you’re almost always guaranteed to get this call.
After Spolstra finished I followed the herd of reporters to another room for D’Antoni’s pre-game conference. I passed by Marv Albert and Charles Barkley on the way. After this I entered into the Heat locker room. The crowd of reporters circled around Lebron James like a school of sharks, and I immediately gained more respect for the man.
First off, the reporters walked by Joel Anthony, Jamaal Magloire, and Eric Dampier as if they were ball-boys. These three at one point in their life were the best players at their high school, their entire state, their college, and even starters in the NBA. But with LeBron James in the same locker room, it was like they didn’t even exist. That is how good LeBron is, he makes world class, 7 foot athletes, seem invisible.
When Mike Miller walked out of the back room and looked at the media frenzy surrounding the King, he laughed and made an announcement to anyone who would listen.
“Don’t worry, I’ll make time for you guys too,” Miller joked, motioning for people to come to his locker. “It was like this all the time in Minnesota.”
What impressed me about LeBron is here he was an hour before game-time, a time he should be allowed to mentally prepare, but is forced to answer questions about Carmelo Anthony and other non-game related topics with a light shining right in his face, a camera a few feet away, and fifty reporters circled around.
“What do you think Carmelo Anthony should do?” asks Reporter B.
“He has to do what’s best for him and his family,” Lebron calmly replied.
“But what would you do in his position?” asks Reporter B hoping this rewording will get Lebron to say, “I would join the Knicks!”
“Carmelo’s his own man,” Lebron replied continuing to stay calm.
“Lebron, at Carmelo’s wedding you were the one that suggested he needed to form his own big three to challenge your Heat team, do you—“
“So you blamin’ me?” Lebron said cutting off the reporter, holding a straight face for a second then laughing. The reporter commented, “I might be thanking you!” Lebron chuckled then gave what would be his final answer on the topic.
“I would like to see Carmelo happy,” Lebron said sincerely. “If that’s in Denver or New York or New Jersey, wherever, I just want him happy.”
I stood there scribbling down the quote amazed that he continued to put up with these questions. Finally someone asked him a basketball related question and I watched LeBron’s face light up and a big smile come across.
“Lebron, with Chris Bosh out tonight how do you like the four (four as in power forward position)?” asks Random reporter C.
“I like the floor,” Lebron said his laugh becoming contagious with the reporters. “Anywhere works for me.”
The way Lebron’s face lit up when he was finally asked about basketball made me realize that what these guys are getting paid to do, playing the game of basketball for a living, a dream that billions of kids at one point have, is only 20% of their job. For the forty minutes Lebron plays on the floor he has forty minutes or more of answering questions or trying to shower and change into his clothes while reporters stare at him tweeting his every action.
After the locker room, I went down to the actual court. Now Madison Square Garden is like Saginaw Heritage gym’s massive older brother. The place is one big circle (cylinder?) and when it fills up with the incredibly loud and active fans it rivals any place I’ve ever watched a game (Allen Fieldhouse still being number one for me, but that is probably biased).
As the pre-game clock counted down further and further I began to wonder when someone was going to tell me I couldn’t stand right by the court anymore. I made sure to keep my lanyard visible, but with only seven minutes till game-time the only person seeming to even notice I was there was a 6’2 lady whose face looked like that one girl from Destiny’s Child (not Beyonce but the one who sang that song with Nelly) on Serena Williams’s body.
Wilson Chandler walked by and we exchanged an awkward I went in for the high five he went fist pound, then I switched to pound, and he audibled to high five. I tried to salvage the exchange with a, “Good luck tonight,” but the damage was done.
A violinist came on to do the national anthem, and with my hand on my rapidly beating chest I began to wonder, “Am I going to be able to stand here the whole game?!” She finished the anthem, the crowd cheered, and the Serena Destiny’s Child lady stared me down and said, “Yeah, you’re not supposed to be down here.” I nodded and flew up the flight of stairs before she finished the sentence.
For the first three quarters I watched the game on the television in the press room (I did not have a seat out in the gym). In the fourth quarter I was lucky enough to have the writer I came with let me sit in his seat while he finalized some articles. With the Knicks down entering the third, I figured the Heat were going to pull away, but then Fields, Gallinari, and Amar’e went off and engineered a great comeback. The place was as loud as I’ve ever heard a gym get, Spike Lee was running around courtside, and chants of “Go New York, Go New York Go!” filled the arena.The buzzer sounded and twenty thousand Knicks fans celebrated.
Quick side note, sitting floor side a few seats down from Spike Lee was Magic Johnson. At one point in the fourth the jumbo tron showed his face with the song, “Oh, oh, it’s magic” playing and a minute long standing ovation erupted. Next to Magic was Tracy Morgan. Before the game Tracy Morgan had said on the TNT live pregame show that Sarah Palin was, “Good masturbation material.” I found out later on my e-mail that my editor wanted to know if I could go interview Morgan about his comment. I can’t even imagine how I would’ve approached that, especially with Howard Stern sitting next to Morgan ready to throw in his two-cents that I’m sure would go far beyond Tracy’s comments.
In the post-game I went back to the locker room area and this time exchanged a successful hand-shake/slide away/pound with Amar’e and finished the exchange with Diddy’s rule (as much as I disagree with it) to not explode the fist after the pound. I congratulated him on the All-Star game and received a, “Thanks man.” I looked to my left and there was Kanye West lecturing what appeared to be an 8-year old fan on the importance of listening to all types of hip-hop.
In the Heat locker room, Lebron was surrounded once again. The players in the locker room are forced to change clothes middle school locker room style with the towel still on and sliding their underwear on underneath the towel since no one will simply turn around for a few seconds. Standing next to Lebron James putting on his dress shirt and shoes in peace was Mario Chalmers.
For those of you who don’t know who Mario Chalmers is, he is the former Kansas Jayhawk who hit the miraculous shot against Memphis in the waning seconds of the national championship game. Because of this shot, Mario Chalmers is one of three men on this planet that my girlfriend could cheat on me with and I would in no way be upset (the other two are former Jayhawk Sherron Collins and the funniest man alive, Adam Sandler). Seeing there was no line of reporters around him, I figured this was my chance to congratulate him/thank him/tell him my firstborn son would be named Mario Chalmers O’Brien. I didn’t know what I would say, but I knew I had to say something.
I waited for him to finally be heading out of the room and I pretended I was doing the same. When I “coincidentally” ran into him at the door, I told him how I was a big Jayhawk fan and his three point shot led to one of the best nights of me and my brother’s lives. While I tried to make the compliment sound as natural as possible, I’m pretty sure I ended up sounding like Chris Farley in the SNL skit where he interviewed Paul McCartney:
“Hey Mario, remember when you hit that shot? That was awesome.”
But it didn’t matter, I had just talked with the man who brought a championship to KU, seen the Knicks versus the Heat, in person, and was now heading back home ready to do as many baseball stats sheets, copy machine print-outs, or even water cooler sizzle fests as needed to be done.
Well, maybe not the water cooler.
