Thursday, April 21, 2011

"Bad Guys Wear Green"

Thoughts on Games 1 and 2 coming later on Thursday, when I need a break from my Securities Regulation casebook.

Living in Los Angeles, as I do, I get my fair share of negative comments when I wear any Celtics gear around town. I have not, as of yet, been spat at, as my friend Phil was during last year's playoffs when he wore an Antoine Walker jersey to the mid-city bar we were watching a game at. (Who would expectorate on Employee Number Eight?!?) But I get plenty of dirty looks, plenty of "Go Lakers!" and plenty of "Celtics fucking suck!"

It's become common enough that I don't really think twice when it happens. Wednesday, though, was a story I thought worth sharing.

I was lounging on a couch in the law school lobby, waiting for class to start in a well-worn green t-shirt with the number 9 on the front and the word "Rondo" on the back. A middle-aged black man, unknown to me but apparently a professor at the school, exited his office and began to walk directly toward where I was sitting. He walks in a slow, painful shuffle, and he was able to catch my eye and deliver the following words, or something to their effect, on his way across the room:

"Twenty-five years ago," he said, "my son was two years old. We were walking through a department store and saw a bunch of green jerseys for sale. I pointed to them and said 'Son, bad guys wear green.'"

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Viewing Alert

Hey gang --

I know it's been a couple of weeks since I last posted. Once the regular season ends, I'll have a post explaining why.

In the meantime, you can catch the Celtics on Sunday at 3:30 p.m. Eastern on ABC. The game is in Miami against the Heat, and could be the difference between a second-round playoff series in Boston and a second-round playoff series on the road in South Beach. By virtue of its three wins over Miami earlier in the season, Boston has the tiebreaker between the two teams. Both sit at 55-24. A win for the Cs would put their magic number at one -- meaning that either a Boston win or a Miami loss in the season's final two games would give Boston the second seed in the East and home-court advantage over the Heat if the teams were to meet in the Eastern semis. A Heat victory means that they control their own destiny, in terms of playoff seeding, with a magic number of two.